On the Abyss’s Third Level, hearing the noisy racket outside, Baal, irritated, lifted the curtain and came out from inside. A high-rank demon was kneeling in front of him in terror, nearly making him think the world was about to end.
Seeing the demon about to fall, Baal, with no regard for his own identity and position, steadied him firmly, scolding: “What are you flustered about? If you’ve got something to say, say it properly.”
The high-rank demon caught his breath, then said: “Heaven… Heaven is attacking!”
Baal: “What did you say?”
Wait, it wasn’t April Fools’ Day today either, so why were things lately more outrageous one after another? How long had it been since they attacked Heaven? How come, after only a few days, the god above had them counterattack? True, they had been decoys, feigning an attack on Heaven just to make it convenient for their present Abyss Demon King to handle some things, and hadn’t caused much damage, but, that didn’t mean Heaven didn’t need time to recover, did it?
“Who are the leaders of the first wave of angels?”
The high-rank demon swallowed: “The Archangel Lucifer, and Gabriel.”
Baal was dumbstruck.
If he remembered right, Lucifer had almost fallen not long ago, hadn’t he? If Michael hadn’t taken action to scoop him out, what the Abyss’s layout would be right now was still unknown. Even so, Lucifer actually dared to charge into the Abyss?
He could no longer calm down properly, and the words burst out of Baal: “Wait, what on earth are they after?”
As for living conditions, with God presiding in Heaven, it was surely better than the Abyss; what exactly did those fellows from Heaven want this time?
“It’s for Michael, isn’t it?”
Behind Baal, Belial stood with a cold face: “When Lucifer fell back then, That One had no intention of stopping him at all. An angel who defies His orders deserves to be abandoned.”
Hearing this, Baal opened his mouth but couldn’t say a single word of refutation.
There was no need to put it that way, but in fact that was how it was.
In that scene, with God and with the Messiah, the other angels had no room to resist and could only accept their fate. And Lucifer, then still Lucifel, had dared to defy God’s order, even giving the other no way to save face, refusing the order to kneel on the spot and leaving the scene.
He understood the reasoning, but really didn’t want to accept it.
Only then did Belial go on slowly: “Michael isn’t exactly obedient either, but he’s a seraph and of the light attribute after all. The key is that he likes to say the opposite but wouldn’t openly defy God’s orders, which is much better than Lucifer.”
Baal looked unconvinced: “Even if Michael unexpectedly fell, Heaven has no reason to insist on bringing him back, does it? In terms of God’s favor, he is far below Lucifer.”
Belial chuckled: “Is that really so?”
Baal: “?”
Even though he had guesses about Heaven’s purpose, this wasn’t a time to need to know the reasons. After chatting a few words with Belial, he calmed down.
“Immediately arrange manpower to the Abyss’s First Level, and be sure to block the angel armies.”
Just as his order was issued and the high-rank demon was preparing to leave, a voice came from the void: “There’s no need for that, Baal.”
Baal: “What do you mean?”
On the Abyss’s Eighth Level, Michael was still sitting, with no intention of moving at all.
The teacup in his hand was still giving off heat, a stark contrast to Mammon sitting opposite him, anxious.
Michael lowered his eyes.
“Since they’ve come to the Abyss, then as the host here, I can’t possibly neglect etiquette.”
Saying this, he opened his palm, and a spherical ball of light floated above it.
Mammon looked at this ball of light, not yet understanding what it was, when an image appeared on it.
“This is—”
He suddenly lost his words, an incredulous look on his face.
Michael looked at the demon in front of him, one hand against his chin, and said with a smile: “As my level lord, shouldn’t you do a little service?”
Before he could understand what this meant, the ground beneath Mammon’s feet vanished, and he was teleported away directly.
Putting away the smile floating on his face, a trace of mockery in his red eyes, Michael murmured to himself: “Since you want to storm the Abyss, I’ll give you a chance.”
Among the angel armies there was no shortage of barrier experts. Under Raziel’s guidance, they rewrote the places where barriers had originally been set, trying to find the one loophole to break through.
Lucifer and Gabriel, who didn’t know much about barriers, could only stay to one side and do nothing, though they felt no dissatisfaction about not being good at barriers. Even angels created by God could not know everything or be good at everything.
In this respect, Michael was a real oddity.
In Lucifer’s view, the strangest thing about his former adopted son was not that he was proficient in everything, but that although he could do everything and was basically weak at nothing, he could still have such a terrible reputation among the angels.
He sighed to Gabriel: “Michael really was a failure in Heaven.”
Gabriel looked puzzled; he felt Michael could not be said to have failed as an angel, only that he was especially perfunctory. As fellow archangels, he had once partnered with Michael, and how to put it… he was very casual in both doing things and reporting, and each time liked to give credit to other angels. This happened so many times that Gabriel once thought this archangel wouldn’t last long, but who knew he was never removed.
Thinking of this, he told Lucifer his view: “I think Michael can’t be called a failure; he just doesn’t care about others’ opinions of him. Whether in handling matters or as an archangel, he’d go through the motions whenever possible, and I rarely saw his serious side.”
Having said this, he stressed one thing in particular: “Oh, that time you attacked Heaven counts as one of the rare times he worked seriously.”
Lucifer was certain that his own standing in Gabriel’s eyes was probably not high anymore either; the other had never dared to talk to him like this before.
The angel armies’ cheers came from ahead, making the commander and deputy commander of the angel armies fall silent at the same time.
Lucifer was the first to walk to the front, asking Raziel: “The barrier is broken?”
Raziel nodded, no joy showing on his face.
Sensing the abnormality, Gabriel frowned: “What’s wrong? Hasn’t a gap been opened? Why is your expression so grave?”
Raziel’s face showed complicated feelings, and he pointed at the sky: “Look at this, and you’ll understand why my mood is so subtle.”
Huge deep-purple letters appeared in the air.
“Thank you for your trouble, angels, traveling a thousand miles to the Abyss just to break the barrier. In that case, I won’t hold back either; let me just let you all play to your hearts’ content.”
Under the purple letters were buildings one after another, and by Lucifer’s knowledge of this place, he was sure that they were the Abyss’s seven levels.
Gabriel was a little confused all at once.
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the meaning of this diagram, but… who turned an attack into something like clearing levels? And the diagram Michael had drawn meant exactly that!
Lucifer said angrily: “Absurd!”
It was true; whoever came to attack the Abyss, no one would think they would run into such a ridiculous thing.
Yet this thing really did happen.
As if in response to the Archangel’s words, the barrier that already had a gap suddenly vanished, replaced by a new set of barriers.
Yes, a whole set of barriers!
Raziel: “…”
He was a barrier angel, true, but he didn’t like undoing barriers for people!
Those entangled barriers formed a sphere, divided the angel armies into several parts, and sent them one by one to different levels.
As guards of each level, the fallen angels were already speechless.
【I may be a level lord, but, my opponent is that Lucifer?】
Right, the angel armies they were going to face included not only Gabriel but also Lucifer.
As for Raziel…
Looking at the space, so out of keeping with the Abyss’s style that it could be called warm, Raziel twitched the corner of his mouth hard.
Michael smiled and raised the cup in his hand to him: “Tea, Raziel?”
Raziel: “Aren’t you afraid I’ll attack you?”
He had really underestimated Michael; sending himself in front of him, did he think he wouldn’t attack?
Michael was calm and composed, swept his eyes over the archangel he had removed from the game of conquest, and said in a tone neither cold nor warm: “Do you think I’d let you in without any preparation?”
Raziel knew that Michael wouldn’t be without defenses; no matter how many outrageous things the other had done as an archangel, and no matter whether he truly wanted to succeed Lucifer as Archangel, his strength was beyond doubt.
Even though he hid his real strength again and again, they, the archangels who had worked with him, would not question his power.
“I just didn’t want the barrier set I finally made to be destroyed, so I pulled you over. As for whether I’m underestimating you… that you’ll have to think about yourself.”
“There’s one more thing, I think I need to remind you.”
Whether it was an illusion or not, Raziel felt that Michael’s body in front of him was somewhat transparent.
Light spilled onto the ground and passed straight through the body of the one in front of him.
Raziel opened his eyes wide: “Michael, you—”
Michael curved his lips, the smile on his face growing more noticeable.
“Raziel, I never said that I was ‘truly’ here.”
Only then did Raziel realize his mistake.
Watching Michael in front of him turn into a phantom and gradually scatter, he sighed.
“Tricked by him again.”
In another space on the Abyss’s Eighth Level, Michael opened his eyes.
Mammon asked him: “How did it go?”
As for Michael scheming against Lucifer, he really wanted to watch the show, but he also understood, as the guard of the Eighth Level, he had to stay in this place.
“Mammon, do your job as level lord well and stay out of the rest.”
Michael was unimpressed by angels, but he did not especially like the fallen and demons either. As he had said, this was merely a transition.
“I only hope our Lord Lucifer will like this clearing-the-levels game I specially prepared for him.”