CH 320

El fell for Gabriel’s taunting. She dashed to snap Gabriel’s neck with everything she had, but several spears that appeared out of nowhere blocked her.

Clunk!

Thankfully, El’s wings protected her, and she remained unharmed. She glared at the angels who had stopped her.

The Seraphim, the Ophanim, and the rest of the archangels stood tall to protect Gabriel, who had betrayed her in the past.

“Step aside.” El stepped back, seemingly unwilling to kill them.

One of the angels, Zaphkiel, replied, “We can’t do that.”

Looking at his face, Gi-Gyu recalled the details about him from El’s data. He was the head of an army, and in terms of strength, he was somewhere between the Ophanim—El used to belong to this group—and the Cherubs.

Originally, the Ophanim had two leaders, but one of them wasn’t present here.

‘Raphael.’ He was the only one who hadn’t betrayed El; he had even sacrificed himself to help El. Gi-Gyu abruptly realized that Raphael had done all that for a girl, El, so his face turned red with jealousy.

‘Why am I remembering this now?’ This wasn’t the time for him to think about silly things like this. Perhaps he had lost his mind. It also could mean that he didn’t feel as threatened as he should be by this situation.

Gi-Gyu looked ahead, relieved that no one seemed to have realized what he was thinking. The situation seemed just as serious as a moment ago.

Zaphkiel stepped forward as if he represented the group and announced, “Gabriel is right.”

His spear still aimed at El, he continued, “Look around. Do you see even a single angel on your side? No, of course not. On the day of the holy sword ceremony, why do you think we sided with Gabriel?”

“Of course, you didn’t.” Zaphkiel’s voice was sharp like a dagger. “You claimed to have done it for our sake, but do you truly believe that?”

“You’re wrong!” El yelled. “We all decided on the holy sword ceremony in the meeting, don’t you remember? I didn’t decide it by myself!”

“We agreed because we had no choice but to obey you.”

“...”

“Your solution was the only real choice we had. After all, we had nothing left. But Gabriel suggested another solution,” Zaphkiel continued, turning El rigid.

He explained, “We couldn’t tell it to you because there was no way you would’ve allowed it. And if you had found out, you would’ve destroyed our alternative solution and ended us all.”

It appeared the other angels agreed with Zaphkiel because they remained quiet. Zaphkiel continued, “What you wanted was to protect the angel’s pride, not our lives.”

“...”

El turned pale. Gi-Gyu had never seen El look this confused.

‘She probably has been wondering about this for a long time.’ It had been a long time since El regained her memories about the holy sword ceremony. She had plenty of time to ponder why she was betrayed. Unlike in hell, where power trumped everything, the angels were more logical creatures. So the fact that El had been betrayed meant that her idea of pride was directly rejected.

It was no wonder El had been wanting to find out the answer, and her doubts were confirmed today. Her pride in her kind had been denied.

It was time for Gi-Gyu to step in. “You’re good at making nonsense sound plausible.”

Turning toward El, he asked, “El, why even bother with listening to their crap?”

“W-what?!” Zaphkiel seemed shocked. He seemingly hadn’t expected Gi-Gyu to chime in.

“Master…”

Zaphkiel yelled at El, “So it’s true! You claim you serve God and forced us to make that decision, but you actually serve another master!”

“Gosh, this is so annoying!” Gi-Gyu muttered in frustration. “Stop this farce! Just why are you saying something like that? Are you trying to justify why you betrayed her? Or is this some new way of asking for forgiveness?”

“W-what?!”

“If that’s not it, why speak so much? The key points are clear: You betrayed and stabbed her in the back. Gabriel’s solution? Who cares! Nothing changes the fact that you chose not to tell El about it. You pretended to follow her decision and betrayed her in the end. That’s the cold, hard truth.”

Gi-Gyu took a step forward, making the space quiver. “How dare you make El cry?”

“Y-you mere mortal…”

“Mere mortal?” Gi-Gyu shot out toward Zaphkiel like a bullet. Before Zaphkiel and the other angels could make a move, Gi-Gyu had Zaphkiel’s neck in his hand.

“Ugh!” Zaphkiel gasped.

Gabriel abruptly brandished his spear and stepped in.

Clang!

“Ugh!” Zaphkiel groaned again when Gi-Gyu let him go as he got pushed far away.

While getting back up, Gi-Gyu wiped the dust off him and muttered, “Let’s get this going already. At first, I wanted to hear your side, but now—”

Gabriel made a move.

‘He’s powerful.’ Gi-Gyu realized that Gabriel was stronger than he had thought. He was more powerful than Ha Song-Su.

El’s feather turned into a sword in Gi-Gyu’s hand as he continued, “I think I should subdue you first before hearing the truth.”

“Master!” El had seemingly figured out what Gi-Gyu was trying to do, so she also began moving fast.

Clang!

She took on Zaphkiel and the rest of the angels. Several spears rained down on her as soon as she unsheathed her sword.

“You’re mine,” Gi-Gyu used Super Rush to dash forward. “Gabriel.”

Gabriel, a fallen archangel, had stolen Michael’s body. And while the others had metaphorically stabbed El in the back, he had quite literally thrust a sword into her back.

“I’ll get revenge for El,” Gi-Gyu announced.

***

Kaboom!

The balance inside the castle—a reproduction of Keter [1]—was breaking. The explosions continued nonstop, making the castle shake.

Boom!

Dun dun dun dun!

Ultimately, the castle began crumbling down. Such a massive castle crumbling down was quite a sight. The castle likely collapsed because of the numerous cracks the giant explosion had created. Thick dust filled the air, but the sounds of weapons clashing and explosions continued among the castle's remnants.

Clang!

Clunk!

Kaboom!

The shockwave from a big explosion pushed away the dust slowly floating down.

“Ugh,” one of the angels groaned while grabbing his arm. It was a high-ranking angel; its blood was actually holy. It was red, just like that of a human, but it held the power to give a new life to someone.

“How…” another angel mumbled. There were ten of them, and they had been fighting a single foe together: El.

“...how is she so powerful?!”

The angels were startled. Every single one of them was injured to varying degrees. But unlike them, El glowed beautifully. Her wings were still untainted, and her crown was still shimmering.

Ignoring the angels’ shocked mumble, El shot her feathers at them. And her sword simultaneously stabbed Zaphkiel and Camael.

Clang!

“Ugh!” the two angels groaned. Thankfully, they survived because the other angels helped them before she could stab their hearts. But they were still badly injured. Blood poured down from their chests.

“How,” Zaphkiel screamed in resentment, “could you be so powerful?!”

El was abnormally stronger than the other angels. She had certainly been powerful in the past, but not like this. In her former life, she was called Michael. Though she was strong at the time, the ten archangels together could have defeated her. This was exactly how they had won on the day of the holy sword ceremony.

But now, things were very different.

All the angels were thinking the same thought. ‘We’re in danger.’ 

They had planned to capture El or kill her. However, they hadn’t expected it to be so hard.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

El’s sword moved ceaselessly, and the ten spears were no match for her.

“How…?!” one of the angels whispered. Gabriel had told them that El would be different from before. He had explained that it was because of Kim Gi-Gyu, who was fighting Gabriel. But her improvement was still impossible to understand.

“No!” Zaphkiel screamed when El severed his wing. Bleeding heavily, his face crumpled in agony.

‘We’re missing one fighter now,’ Zaphkiel thought grimly. They had lasted this long only because El had to simultaneously fight off ten spears. Although Zaphkiel wasn’t dead, it would take him time to heal enough to fight again.

‘We’re all going to die.’ All the angels looked at each other. With Zaphkiel severely injured, they could all die within a few minutes.

“I knew it. I knew you would make the wrong choice again,” El said coldly as she took a step back. She had no choice but to stop at that moment because the angels in front of her began screaming and changing.

“Kwerrrrk…!”

Black wings and broken horns began appearing on the angels.

El muttered, “Even your divine forms have gone corrupt.”

Like the Cherubs, Ophanim and Seraphim also had another form. But the shapes they took weren’t the same as before. They didn’t transform into divine creatures but just monsters.

“All the angels have become corrupted, so… I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s no different for you, the archangels,” El whispered.

It appeared that all the angels, including the archangels, had gone corrupt. El was furious because the pride she had worked so hard to protect was no more.

‘I guess we have gone extinct now.’ She realized that the angels, as a species, no longer existed. Fallen angels could not propagate, so it was all over. Their time of glory as God’s apostles was gone now.

Tears rolled down El’s cheeks. Biting her lips, El opened her wings wide. There was no need to be emotional now.

“It’s time for me to clean up the remnants of my kind,” she declared. This was the last thing she could do for the pride of the angels.

This novel is available on bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keter ☜