"Don't mention it," Azrael said through clenched teeth, his gaze uncomfortable due to his recent actions.
Gabriel looked at him with a hint of pride, wanting to congratulate him.
"Seriously, don't mention it..." Azrael muttered again.
"I'm so proud of you," Gabriel said, placing her hand on her chest as a big smile appeared on her face. It almost seemed as if she could light up the whole place with her big smile. "You don't know how proud I am to see you apologize, even though you shouldn't have yelled at him. Luckily, since golems have loud voices, he wasn't offended by your sudden shout."
Azrael's gaze was somber as he climbed the tree, moving his hands and scaling the trunk, reaching higher and higher. He ignored Gabriel's comments; after all, he didn't want to remember.
"What a horrible feeling." Azrael wouldn't have minded apologizing if it weren't for the fight they had. That fight made him feel so useless. Without power in the universe, one cannot survive, and right now he is in a position where he cannot even be considered an ant. Now he is a speck of dust that can be eliminated if any other being wishes to eliminate him.
Azrael is aware that even those in the individual rank can kill a human being without mana or energy without effort. It must be remembered that bones are one of the strongest things in the human body, and Azrael could break those same bones with ease, not to mention that he had no attack skills.
Azrael looked at the Angel next to him who was talking nonstop. He could only blame her and her associates. If it weren't for the feather he touched out of curiosity, he wouldn't be so weak. He might even have defeated that golem.
Unfortunately for Azrael, even if he had the ability, he would not have been able to defeat the golem, a body so hard that it could accumulate lightning without worry. Perhaps Azrael did not realize that even if a lightning bolt of the same power that struck the golem struck him, he might not have had time to use his ability because his brain would die immediately, leaving him unable to use his ability.
Then Gabriel looked into Azrael's eyes, which were looking at her sideways, and couldn't help but give him a small smile. But Azrael could see that smile twist a little because of a slight annoyance Gabriel had toward him.
He couldn't help but feel a chill run through his body.
"This angel is very strange. It's as if he knows what I'm thinking."
"Yes, you're right, I can tell what you're thinking."
"..." Azrael stopped climbing for a moment as his gaze suddenly turned to Gabriel, who was looking at him with a calmer look than before, a look that Azrael had not seen until now.
"Angels have an ability called 'sympathy.' Depending on our rank, this ability has different levels of power. At my level, I can sympathize with someone so much that I can know not only what they are feeling but also what they are thinking with precision."
Azrael opened his mouth in amazement. He couldn't help but admire this ability, which seemed very crazy to him. Being able to empathize with someone was rare. Azrael could only imagine that he could feel what the other person was feeling, but he didn't expect this ability to be so powerful that he could even read another person's thoughts.
Azrael then fell silent, looking away from Gabriel as he continued climbing.
"Did the cat get your tongue or what?" Gabriel couldn't help but smile slightly as he flapped his wings and continued flying toward the chasm alongside Azrael.
After a few minutes, they both reached the top.
Azrael looked at the spatial crack, which was much larger than the one he had passed through to get here.
The spatial crack was red and so strong and unstable that being near it made the place shake. But even when Azrael was about 20 meters away, he didn't feel any kind of tremor, but now that he was so close to the spatial crack, it was shaking the space itself, and not only that, but large and furious winds were coming out of it.
"Let's go," said Gabriel as she stood in front of the spatial rift and looked at Azrael with a smile as she offered him her hand. "Let me take you, sinner, to the land where you will learn about good and evil."
Azrael looked at her unconsciously and took her hand, even though he didn't trust her, even though he didn't know that he would not be redeemed, even though he already had defined concepts of good and evil. He took her hand, not because he hoped for change, but because of something inside him. The child, the teenager, and the man who expected nothing from anyone wanted to witness this proposal.
Gabriel took her hand tightly as he flapped his wings once and crossed the spatial rift.
x-x-x
Azrael felt dust on his face as he got up and spat a couple of times.
"Damn it, I expected you to carry me well, but instead you dropped me. You're an unreliable angel," said Azrael as he spat the dust and dirt onto the ground, then looked around without being able to find the stupid angel.
Instead, he found a land full of fog that moved constantly in different directions. There was no wind, but the fog moved as if there were. In the midst of that fog, an evil purple light shone from different directions. Sometimes it was as powerful as the sun, and other times it was as dim as the light of a firefly. They were small lines of light that moved constantly with the fog, changing the lighting of the place.
Azrael looked around, not understanding where he was...
At the same time, high above, hidden in the darkness, Gabriel looked in Azrael's direction.
"Learn about good and evil, Azrael. Learn well and do not follow the twisted and selfish path. Although I have hope that you will forge a meaning similar to that of an angel, I know it is impossible, so please forge one that is not selfish, because angels are not selfish. We are the hope and the deepest good of this twisted universe..."
Gabriel then looked at this world and murmured
"100 years ago, this planet wasn't so bad..." A powerful force of faith was created from Gabriel's body, causing the darkness to stop hiding the planet's situation from her. As someone of Solar rank, achieving this was easy, but the power of this darkness was quite strong, so she even had to make a little effort to see the planet's situation.
The planet, once covered with beautiful purple trees and large, beautiful buildings, was similar to the land from which Azrael came. Even here, humans lived, who unfortunately, like the humans on Earth, destroyed their planet in order to go further than they were allowed.
However, unlike Azrael's planet, this one had received the blessing of mana and other energies since its creation and the emergence of civilizations. Here, the human race prospered even though they fought with many races similar to humans, but different due to the change generated by the energies.
One day, not long ago, this land caught the attention of a dangerous race against which they had no strength to defend themselves. Even when all the different races united to fight against them, they were unable to defend themselves from the invasion.
The universal ranks are divided into six, and these six are divided into two groups of three.
The first is called the lower ranks:
Individual.
Multitude.
Regional.
The second group is called the higher ranks:
Planetary.
Solar.
Universal.
This planet only had the strength of Regional Rank beings, although this is a significant and important force on planets, there were very few of these beings. When the Race of Darkness arrived on the planet, the number of Regional Rank beings they brought with them was almost triple the number that existed on the planet.
The war was desperate, and although there were moments of glory and celebration, in the end everything was swallowed up by darkness.
From Gabriel's beautiful eyes, two tears sprang forth. She had just empathized with the entire planet. She could feel the men and women running for their lives, the groups barely able to survive on the few provisions they had, the brave men who had remained strong and continued to fight and give their lives to protect their home. She also sympathized with the planet itself, glimpsing the history of years past.
"I'm sorry I'm late," Gabriel opened her eyes and her golden eyes shone in the darkness. "I apologize on behalf of the angels. Under other circumstances, you would not have fought alone."
Gabriel then began to shine more brightly, and the darkness that tried to touch her began to scream in a painful voice, but one that was impossible to hear by normal means.
"Before me and my precepts, no one on this earth will kneel!" Her voice was so loud that it stirred the winds and was heard throughout the planet.
Under this precept, all men and women felt much stronger. Ordinary men without mana gained a level 5 individual strength, while the benefit was less for beings of multitude rank, with only a 3-level increase, and for those of regional rank, with only a 2-level increase, but it was still a very large increase in strength.
"Before my precept, this planet will not fall!" Using the same precept, she affected the planet, making it more resistant and weakening the darkness that surrounded it. Even so, she felt the darkness becoming agitated and beginning to fight back, and even the beings of darkness began to react and try to strengthen the darkness.
But under Gabriel's precept, they couldn't do anything...
Gabriel smiled, then looked down at Azrael, who was staring at her, covering his eyes to protect them from the strong light emanating from Gabriel. Then Gabriel's gaze turned to a woman holding something in her arms, running from two canine-shaped beings of darkness.
Gabriel pointed at her for a moment, and a small, thin ray of light shot out of his finger, injuring one of the dogs of darkness, thus allowing the woman to run away.
Then she murmured to her and Azrael...
"See you later, good luck." Gabriel flapped his wings and disappeared from the place, causing it to darken again, but the large hole in the darkness created by Gabriel was big enough for those nearby to see something they hadn't seen in a long time.
The crescent moon that illuminated the planet.