Crossing space and crossing time: Michael was unfamiliar with both of these.
The former was easy to do, while the latter absolutely required an opportunity.
Up to now, he had experienced time travel twice. Once was seeing it in someone else’s memory, and that someone else was his former self; and the other… was traveling for a short time to the past of another world.
This was the third time, and Michael felt that this might also be the only chance to change the past completely.
As someone from the future, while confronting Lucifer, he had quickly gone through in his mind “those things”: events that were the past to him but the future to the people of this time.
Once Michael fell into thought, he tended not to move at all.
That was why Lucifer had thought during that time that something was wrong with him and suspected he had lost consciousness.
No matter how fast he sorted out his thoughts, it still took a little time. After all, the time the brain spent thinking was synchronized with the outside world, and he happened to be in a state of needing to settle things with Lucifer quickly. This made what should have been a brief moment look extremely long.
According to his memories, whether it was Lucifer, the lord of Hell, or Heaven’s God, on the surface the two sides were fighting each other to the death, but in reality neither had suffered any fatal harm.
After forcing Lucifer to fall, God had made no moves at all. Apart from occasionally putting some pressure on Michael to make sure no second Archangel would follow in falling, He had done nothing at all in the way of suppression.
From Michael’s point of view, he couldn’t even say that Lucifer and God were playing house, because the fact that they, as the highest officials of the two realms, did not handle trivial matters did not mean their subordinates would make no moves at all.
The most direct result of this was that although both sides kept a certain degree of balance, the strife between the Demon Realm and Heaven never stopped.
Michael went over it in his head, and found that, those things that would happen but had not yet appeared actually had no very direct connection with whether Lucifer fell.
Whether or not Lucifer fell, the world would collapse; it was only a matter of sooner or later.
From Michael’s standpoint, the most obvious difference in Lucifer’s fall was the change in his own status, and his colleagues’ doubts about him.
Although for him at that time, the bigger blow was probably that his leader had abandoned him and chosen other archangels to fall together with him?
So when Michael learned that he had returned to the past, to the very day of Lucifel’s inevitable fall, and that he himself had a secret to keep and needed to leave Heaven just then—
Wasn’t that perfect?
So he quickly made a decision in his heart: it was best for him to fall himself.
In every sense.
Out of an instinct to escape, Michael did not remember very deeply what had happened when Lucifer fell back then. After all, during that time he had only just learned that his idol Lucifer had chosen to become the Demon King and was unwilling to stay in Heaven, so he had not cared about how Lucifer had become the Demon King.
When Gabriel and the others touched on the subject by chance, he had only vaguely heard the word “long.”
Later, his relationship with Lucifer could not be said to have returned to what it was, but at least they could talk calmly. Even so, he had never asked about the details of the fall.
At that time he wasn’t sure whether the fall was still a knot in Lucifer’s heart, and since so much time had passed, there was no need to ask.
Now, having actually experienced a fall, Michael knew why Lucifer had hated God so much back then, wanting to pay any price just to flatten Heaven.
It hurt, it hurt so much.
All sensation seemed to have been devoured, and Michael could feel nothing but pain.
The power belonging to an angel, and the power of darkness that swept in and wrapped around him… the two powers fought each other inside his body, giving him the illusion at one point that his body would split in two.
Michael had chosen to fall himself and was not forced by anyone, so now his mind was filled with nothing but pain and he didn’t have any other negative or crazy thoughts.
Whereas Lucifer back then, besides the pain, had felt even more hatred. Making him kneel to Adam was simply trampling on his dignity, and he refused!
For pure light power to be completely converted into dark power is an extremely slow and laborious process. This pain that was carved into the marrow made it feel especially long.
Torn apart by the two powers, Michael passed out several times along the way; the exact number could no longer be determined. He only remembered that when the power in his body gradually reached balance, something other than darkness finally appeared in his vision.
He had gotten used to the weight of the wings, and losing them suddenly left him off balance when he landed, and he nearly fell.
His hand braced against the surface of the wall of Hell, and he was stunned.
On the transparent grain of the demon crystal, the young man’s face was reflected.
Golden hair, green eyes, handsome appearance.
Michael: “?”
Wait, he had already fallen, so why was his appearance still not changed in the slightest? Not changing during the fall he could understand, since the power hadn’t finished converting, but now he had come to Hell, so surely he couldn’t—
For a moment, he even began to doubt whether he had actually arrived in Hell.
Not only his appearance; his power as an archangel was also resting peacefully in his body.
Michael couldn’t understand it.
He just wanted to ask: whose angel loses the wings that are the source of an angel’s power, falls into Hell, and comes out with neither appearance nor power changed?
Really, the power of darkness seemed to have been eaten away, and he couldn’t find a trace of it in his body.
The fall was only an excuse; his goal was to leave Heaven.
So rather than the state of his power, he cared more about his appearance.
Gold was nice to look at, of course, but he still liked his original color better.
Pinching a lock of golden hair hanging down to his shoulder, Michael murmured to himself: “I really wanted black hair.”
Even though his memories of his time as a human in his previous life had faded, he still remembered that as a human he had black hair and black eyes.
Belial and the other demons, having obeyed the new Demon King’s order and withdrawn from Heaven, had gone several months without seeing the new Demon King.
Yes, the new one.
It was funny to say, and could already be called the Hell joke of the year.
At first, the one who should have led them in attacking Heaven was Lucifer, who called himself king, but Belial didn’t know how Michael had managed, in the battle of Heaven, to forcibly keep Lucifer there, stopping him from falling to Hell and becoming the real Demon King. Michael himself had instead taken the other’s place as the ruler of Hell.
If Baal hadn’t held Belial back with all his might, he would certainly have gone to find the person concerned and demand an explanation.
When he sensed the Demon King’s aura again and chased it to the entrance of Hell, what he saw was a sight that made his heart seize.
A golden-haired young man as beautiful and delicate as a doll was raking through his own hair, saying gloomily things like “I want black hair.”
Because Belial was a bit far from Michael, he could only catch the gist of what the other said, but rather than what he heard, it was the face of the person in front of him that he couldn’t understand.
“Why did our appearances all change after we entered Hell, and yet Michael, why are you completely unchanged?”
Michael let go of the hand that was tormenting his hair and looked toward the source of the voice. Seeing that the one who had come was not just anybody but Belial, he breathed a sigh of relief: “Oh, it’s just Belial, I wondered who it was.”
Belial: “Wait, what’s that tone… I’m sorry that it was me who came.”
Having said that, he only then realized and hurriedly said: “No, that’s not what I wanted to say!! Don’t try to change the subject on me! Michael, why do you still look like this?”
The reason Belial reacted so strongly was that they were now on Hell’s territory, and if the new Demon King looked like an angel… they would find it very bewildering, and would also worry whether the races of Hell would acknowledge Michael as the new Demon King.
This concerned whether they would have comfortable days in the future, so even if Baal wanted to stop him, it was impossible.
Baal, the great demon who had arrived late, came just in time to hear his two colleagues’ conversation and felt his head hurt even more.
Michael pursed his lips: “Maybe it’s because I’m not the destined Demon King, so I don’t get a second skin?”
Wait, he had paid real money, so why wasn’t he given a second skin? It wasn’t fair!
Baal was stunned for a moment and asked foolishly: “What second skin? Do you mean the Demon King’s appearance?”
Suppressing the dissatisfaction in his heart at how unreliable the power of darkness was, Michael waved at Baal: “Just in time, I have something to tell you.”
In this world, power is either there or it isn’t, and even Michael couldn’t conjure power out of nothing.
Oh, he could, actually.
Unless he completely broke the seal.
Yes, what annoyed him most was that he had smashed the sword given by God, pierced his body with his own power, and was even eroded by the power of darkness for a while.
Even with his body already affected to this degree, the seal God had placed on him had only cracked open a small gap by now, and had not broken.
He resented this very much.
He was depressed, and so naturally wouldn’t let others be happy; he decided to share the reality that the fallen angels now had to face.
“Simply put, my power and appearance haven’t changed at all.”
Baal felt he might be hard of hearing, because otherwise… how could he be hearing such an absurd thing? An archangel who had already fallen and absorbed so much power of darkness, and yet now he was being told—
“The power is still the type from when I was in Heaven. I can use seraph power, and the wings will probably… grow back again.”
Baal: “?”
He had said it already, hadn’t he? Today isn’t April Fools’ Day!