Chapter 105 – Expanding Forces

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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What life fears the most is death.

And what life is most curious about is the question of whether there is an afterlife.

That was the case until the gods of heaven, the stars fixed in the sky, brought an answer.

The answer was much simpler and clearer than expected.

The gods promised a paradise after death to those who offered their faith.

People who feared death offered their faith in return for an assured fate after death.

From then on, people and gods were reborn in a relationship of giving and receiving.

A god gathers the soul of the dead into their own flesh and becomes stronger in return.

The paradise after death promised by the god, Elysium, was the flesh of the god and the source of that marvelous power.

Here lay the problem.

Did those who arrived in paradise necessarily desire a new life?

Especially if a fight against the Absolute who turned his back on the world and starving demons was predestined, who would want to leave paradise?

Rare is the person who abandons a comfortable life and voluntarily takes upon themselves a difficult and painful path.

Even more so if they had already suffered enough pain.

This was the reason they couldn’t forcefully compel participation in the war until now.

The Godfather of Stars, Star Creation, took pity on those who had lived their lives fleeing in fear.

Star Creation placed the paradise far away from the fights so they could turn their eyes away from the increasingly fierce mortal realm.

If he were a normal deity, especially if he belonged to a martial church that valued fighting, it was something he wouldn’t do.

Because they would have revived and revived them countless times to use them as pawns in an eternal war.

He is not called the Young Father for nothing.

The god born in the end of days felt deeply affectionate toward people, and this attitude was both an advantage and a disadvantage as a god.

Even Anniel, who was merely an angel, felt this fact.

[Anniel, my angel with cool-headed insight.]

A paradise where birds that had long disappeared in the mortal realm chirped.

In that place, Anniel struggled to raise her eyelids.

[I will not accept volunteers. The living have suffered enough pain… I will not take away the humanity they protected until the very end.]

Muscles stiffened from tension melted away on the soft grass.

Hands and feet that had been stained with blood and flesh were flawlessly clean.

The fatigue that had steadily pressed down on her shoulders was also gone.

Welcoming the cozy and warm breeze, Anniel smelled a faint scent of flowers.

It was a paradise where hunger and pain, fatigue and sorrow did not exist.

However, even in paradise, the worry-laced sighs could not disappear.

After taking a few deep breaths, Anniel laid her body down on the grass just like that.

“To be so resolute in such matters.”

He is a newborn god, but a god who knows so much.

Realizing the reason why Star Creation did not want to create angels, Anniel could only sigh deeply.

Angels are created by refining the purest souls.

Among the souls refined into angels, stillbirths who couldn’t be born were representative.

Anniel herself was a soul gathered into the god’s embrace before being born into the world.

However, stillbirths alone could not form an army with the numbers and elite nature demanded by heaven.

So the gods also gathered great heroes, believers who proved their faith while alive, and even warriors who resolved to serve heaven instead of going to Elysium.

Of course, before being reborn as angels, the dust gathered on their souls had to be brushed off first.

A pure soul is born like that. By wiping away the memories built up as a human and that life.

Star Creation, knowing these underlying circumstances, was clearly very reluctant to make angels.

Anniel rolled around on the grass and lamented.

“Even if I end up persuading them, maybe five or six.”

It was not a very good situation.

Because she didn’t even know how many angels remained in the Celestial Church.

But even a rough estimate would easily put it at well over hundreds.

Anniel buried her face in the soft grass and stomped her feet.

“I don’t wanna goooo-.”

The fact that she had to leave the cozy paradise behind and go out was agonizing.

Anniel only stood up after whining for a long time.

The first thing she did was tidy up.

Anniel casually dusted off the blades of grass and dirt stuck to her wings with her hand.

Thinking of her fellow angels who would be resting comfortably here, excitement surged.

Grind, griiind.

“Right. I have to take them. Lady Ceciel needs to see your faces too.”

Her glaring gaze headed toward the other side of the forest that filled the paradise.

The angels would be where the sound of laughter was coming from.

Having composed herself, Anniel flapped her wings without hesitation and SOARED up.

Like a goshawk about to snatch its prey.

***

Angels each have their assigned roles.

Just as not an entire army wields spears and swords, angels naturally have more specialized fields as well.

In the case of Maniel, an angel boasting white hair trailing down to her waist, it was divination.

It was the task of carefully observing the mystical gods who swayed fate, predicting what would happen in the future, and informing the mortal realm.

This came about because gods with strong precognition often twisted their words.

Since there were many arguments over how to interpret the prophecies thrown by the gods, Maniel was an angel created specifically for this.

Of course, now that the vast majority of gods had gone into hiding, divination was nothing more or less than killing time.

“Maniel, are you done yet~?”

“Wait. I’m going to tell your fortune. I’m just a little confused, that’s all.”

Cheniel, the angel tending the garden, tilted her head while dipping her feet in the river water.

It was a rare break after creating countless seeds.

How to spend this precious rest was quickly decided.

Just as Cheniel was about to chat with her colleagues after a long time, she bumped into Maniel by the riverside.

“Manieeel~.”

“Just wait… a little bit…”

However, Maniel was spreading out tarot cards on a tree stump where only the base remained lonely.

No matter what Cheniel said, she merely stared intently at the cards with a groaning expression.

Even though a bored Cheniel was intentionally splashing water.

But Maniel’s face was actually turning pale blue.

“N-no way.”

“What’s wrong~. Maniel, is something bad going to happen~?”

“….”

Even to Cheniel’s drawn-out tone, there was no answer.

Having only tended the garden, Cheniel did not know the reason why Maniel was astonished.

Maniel hurriedly gathered the tarot cards, sweating profusely.

“Che… Cheniel.”

“Whaaaat~.”

“We might have to descend to the mortal realm soon.”

“…Hic.”

The splashing footsteps stopped.

The light vanished from Cheniel’s bright, clear eyes.

The mortal realm. Calling it the mortal realm sounded nice.

The angels also knew how things were going outside through the souls newly entering Elysium.

‘Th-this place. Oh my god. The Young Father… is this the Young Father’s paradise!’

‘The outside has its sky split in two right now.’

‘I’m telling you, angels with scarlet halos and angels with blue halos are fighting over the people!’

The ones entering Elysium right now were victims of human sacrifices.

Without exception, they were souls rescued by killing Celestial Church angels.

Since their numbers were increasing day by day, there was no way the angels inside Elysium wouldn’t know.

The fact that the fight with the Celestial Church had begun in earnest.

Both Cheniel and Maniel faced each other with pale blue faces, harboring the same thought.

We have to fight.

Because there is a mission given as angels. Duty and responsibility were pangs of conscience repeatedly prickling the angels’ hearts.

However, they realized it through the fierce battles with demons.

The power gap was too severe.

Then do we really have to fight?

We’ll just be like mayflies swept away by a single hand gesture if we go out anyway?

It was the moment Cheniel and Maniel’s opinions aligned.

“M-Maniel. Let’s go somewhere we won’t be seen.”

“…Should we?”

The two angels tried to soothe their creeping fear with awkward smiles.

They deliberately ignored the fact that Star Creation would know wherever they went.

They believed that Star Creation, who was reluctant to force them into fights, would pretend not to know until the end.

Cheniel and Maniel had absolutely no idea that another variable would occur at this late stage.

And they certainly didn’t know it would arrive accompanied by the sound of flapping wings.

“Should we my foot.”

An arrow pierces the wind.

A meteor fell from the sky.

It was an angel possessing a mystical body where stars, instead of blood, flowed drawing tails.

Neither the scarlet halo of the Celestial Church, nor the stark yellow halo of the Cycle Church, nor the platinum halo of the Martial Church.

The angel was dyeing the surroundings blue with a blue fluorescent halo.

With a familiar face known to Cheniel and Maniel.

“Anniel?”

“Y-your halo color!”

The two angels fluttered their hands and made a fuss.

That didn’t mean Anniel looked away.

Instead, she looked between the two with eyes blazing even more fiercely.

“By the looks of it, it seems you’ve noticed.”

“N-noticed what? I don’t, d-don’t know~.”

“Then I will explain. Right now, the Celestial Church is heading to the Orrak Plains.”

“I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you! Cheniel didn’t hear anything!”

Rare is the person who volunteers for pain over paradise.

Angels were no exception.

Cheniel covered her ears, screamed, and started throwing a tantrum.

Usually, Anniel would have let out a deep sigh and backed off.

But Maniel, sensing the unusual atmosphere, kept her mouth shut tight and backed away.

Cheniel kept screaming, oblivious to Anniel striding closer.

“I’m an angel who decorates gardens! Even if I go out- outside, I’ll just be a mayfly…”

“Stop whining. We’re short-handed right now, so I can’t be considerate of your situation.”

“Ack!”

Thwack.

Anniel delivered a knuckle-rap without hesitation.

And Anniel’s knuckle-rap, enhanced with Star Creation’s help, surpassed imagination.

It was enough to make Cheniel, who had been throwing a tantrum just moments ago, crouch down with a short scream.

She didn’t even have time to burst into tears as she writhed in the surging pain.

Just sobbing while stroking the crown of her head that was rapped.

Having instantly silenced Cheniel’s petty resistance, Anniel turned her arrowhead toward Maniel.

All while raising the knuckle that had taken down the spoiled angel in a single hit.

“Maniel, what about you?”

“Of course I have to go! Yeah, I’ll bring Pabiel too!”

Maniel nodded her head desperately.

It was because she knew what the changes that happened to Anniel – for instance, the blue halo or the stars in her flesh – meant.

The angel before her eyes was no longer part of the same church.

Not the Cycle Church that had already lost its gods and fallen, but an angel belonging to the new church serving the last god.

Whether it was strength, authority, or achievements, it couldn’t even dare be compared.

Such an Anniel was glaring fiercely.

“What about Hatiel?”

“I-I’ll bring them along with Pabiel!”

“Maniel, I’m really ashamed of you. You know? Lady Ceciel thinks you guys are still trembling in fear… she doesn’t even dream that you’re splashing around and playing here.”

“Y-yeah.”

“Don’t you even want to see Lady Ceciel?”

True feelings must be kept tightly hidden.

Maniel shrank her shoulders and answered with difficulty in a thin voice.

“Y-yeah. Yeah. Course I do.”

“Angels can’t play in Elysium for thousands of years. Isn’t that right?”

“Hic…”

“Let’s go. Bring them. Before I come looking for them.”

Maniel hung her head low.

The long, long vacation had ultimately come to an end.