Chapter 2124: The First of Heaven
Chapter 2124: The First of Heaven
As she stepped into the black water, she felt that it was as viscous as honey and as hot as boiling tar. It hurt a lot, but for some reason, it felt as good as taking a very hot bath. She kept marching until she was waist-deep into the water, and she could already feel it seeping into her flesh and bones, burning away all impurities.
Like most mortals, she was already clean. This river’s main job is to wash away any abominable influence or infection that might’ve tainted the soul, and to her luck, she had never met such a thing.
She kept moving until she sank fully to the bottom, and yet kept walking until she emerged on the other side of the river. She had already crossed to the other side; there was no coming back. In front of her, Death herself stood.
"Who shall speak for you?" Death asked, and the woman knew her answer.
"None, I worshipped no god." She had no god to be judged based on their rules; she had no heaven to go to, and thus could either be erased, melded into the wall of souls to be reborn later, or immediately reincarnated away.
Death approached, looked into her eyes, and then spoke in a cold voice. "Hell doesn’t call for you. I’ll grind you down and meld you into the wall of souls. Life shall pick you when your turn arrives and put you back into the cycle of life."
As Death lifted her hand, the entire place shook, and she frowned. The woman looked around with an emotionless face, and Death lowered her hand. "You can’t just barge in here."
"Why not?" When Arad appeared by their side, the woman’s eyes finally changed, looking both shocked, horrified, and surprised. "What... are you doing here?"
"None speaks for her, and that None is here." He stood between the woman and Death herself. "I’ll be taking her to Isdis’s heaven."
"You can’t do that." Death looked at him. "This woman has no faith in Isdis, and to take her, Isdis must either come herself or send a messenger, usually an angel, to pick the faithful up from here."
"Wait... Are you dead?! How did you come here?" The woman cried, and Arad looked at her with a smile. "Ah, I’m not dead. I just thought that I could pick you up from here and take you to a better place. From what Kali told me, the wall of souls is a pretty painful and exhausting place to exist for thousands of years."
Those who choose to reincarnate don’t lose their memories and personalities by default or because they wish to. The pitiful existence among the wall of souls, the sensory deprivation, and the agony they feel for thousands of years wipes them all clean.
Everyone can eventually reincarnate. Those who go to heaven, hell, or become one with the wall of souls. The difference is that those who go to heaven can pick and choose; they live a blissful and comfortable life as they wait and can choose not to reincarnate at all, and thus live eternally in their god’s heaven, or even become angels.
Those in hell suffer for all eternity, and rarely do some of them get reincarnated, and that usually only happens after the suffering wipes them clean. They have no choice, and many are still in hell. But even when they reincarnate, they never go back to being mortals, and sometimes get reborn as walkers for the devils to feed on, or as demons in the abyss.
"Huh? You can’t just come here! This is the afterlife!" She gasped, and Arad laughed. "Afterlife, in my wife’s basement." He pointed at the ground: "We’re in the depths of the abyss, Kali’s turf."
"Who’s Kali!?" The woman was far too confused, but Death wasn’t going to listen to them any longer.
"Alga Billton, usually, an angel would pick you up and deliver you to the god you worship. With him, I can’t guarantee any fair treatment; you might be happy, and you might suffer worse than the wall of souls at his hands." She then took a step back. "You can take her away; she is yours."
"Wait! I have no say in the matter?" Alga cried, and Death looked at her. "You don’t. If you had a god, they’d fight for you, but since you’re alone. You’re now his." With those words, Death herself disappeared, and Arad picked Alga up.
"Welcome to your new home." Arad spoke, and Alga gasped as she looked up, finding herself looking at a titanic frozen gate that was larger than a mountain, built into the unimaginably massive wall of a castle of blue ice. Everyone was massive, frozen cold, and she could barely believe what her eyes were looking at.
Arad took a step forward, touched the massive gate with his bulky arm, and started pushing. The entire gate groaned like a crashing ship, and Alga could see countless bolts of lightning-like divine magic exploding out of the hinges.
This gate isn’t supposed to open to him. It should only open to Isdis’s divine magic, meaning that only she and her angels could. Even among her angels, ten would be needed to open the gate, or one archon. But Arad was just forcing it open, the same way with everything that was located inside his stomach. This heaven might belong to Isdis, but it has to follow his rules.
As Arad forced the gate open, an angel came twenty angels came flying down at blinding speed and landed like meteors around them. "Who are..." As one of the angels was about to yell, she saw Arad and went silent, quickly jumping to kneel in front of him.
"We apologize. We thought someone was breaking into the heaven uninvited." They all prostrated themselves in front of him, and Arad waved his hand for them to stand. "Like... who would attack it here? This is inside my stomach."
The angels looked at themselves for a long moment, then their leader approached. "We... just arrived here, so honestly, we still aren’t sure about security, and since it hasn’t been long since Cain invaded the peace heaven and caused a disaster, we’re still on edge.
Arad lifted his hand and patted the angel on the head. "Go relax a bit. This place is safe. Eris’s and Kali’s angels are on guard."
Patting an angel’s head, an angel that is supposed to be the messenger of the divine, a being of so much power and pride, it had to be a crime punishable by a thousand deaths, an utter humiliation for a mortal to consult an angel. But for some reason... she felt happy and relaxed and looked up at him with a smile, as if not wanting it to end.
The other angels looked at her with envious eyes, wanting some as well.
As Arad removed his hand, the angel looked quite sad as she held her head. "My Lord..."
Arad looked up, "Where are the rest of the angels? There were a lot of you." He asked, and the angel quickly composed herself. "Yes... They are building the heaven. The palace and this gate were finished first, but the rest would take a while."
They then noticed the naked woman in his arms. "Who is that soul?" The angel asked, and Arad smiled, "Isdis asked me to bring her here, so I did."
The angel looked horribly worried... and she could feel goosebumps on her whole body. "Mind if I check her a bit?" She approached and gave Alga a long stare. Then, she paled, her eyes opened wide, she cried, and then pissed herself. "You stole her from Death!?"
"Stole?" Arad tilted his head, "No way. I just went there, picked her up, and came here." But that was the part that scared them to the point of shitting themselves. This woman has no faith in Isdis, or the former goddess of peace. If anyone went to pick someone from death without being linked to them by faith, Death wouldn’t just kill them; she’d come for the god.
"And she let you? Impossible!" The angel cried, and Arad shrugged, "Even if you say that... She let me take her. So here am I."