The door that separated me from Angelica was a simple one. A thing made of stone that opened with but a touch. It didn't bother resisting me, even though I detected a faint remnant of magic coming from it. I grinned at the door and had the following thought run through my mind: Good. If it had tried to resist me opening it I would have had to use force.
I shrunk my size down several meters, so as to fit inside the tiny chamber, and then stepped beyond where the door had just been. After doing so, I laid my eyes on Angelica, able to see her for the first time.
She was only the fourth angel I had ever seen in my life to date, after Samyaza, the odd, darkly angelic being who had been with Paimon when "I" in the grand, triune, sense had been forcibly teleported to Infernius, and my newest creation; the Arboreal Angel, Menanam.
The creature in the cell, Angelica, resembled a young woman whose golden skin faintly radiated a gentle, golden glow. She wore a thin, red breastplate made of some sort of celestial metal that protected the parts of her form where vital organs would have been located if she was a mortal creature.
Her legs were protected by greaves which matched her breastplate. She had voluminous red hair that framed her oval-shaped face, and which went down to the tips of her shoulders.
After studying her for a few moments I took the initiative and began to speak, approaching her as I did so.
"Hello. It's nice to meet you." I said, grinning at her. She had spent the past few moments carefully looking me over and then grinned after she heard me speak for the second time.
"It's nice to meet you too, oh honorable one." She said, reverentially. She curtsied in front of me, cautious and respectful. She twitched a bit, her muscles straining and beginning to threaten to spasm for some reason I wasn't able to discern at a glance.
I heard a familiar noise, as the sound of the system providing me with another alert occurred. Its mechanical voice filled my mind and I grinned as I read the notification I had just been provided with: the entry on Emissary Angels.
[New Species Knowledge Gained: Emissary Angels.
Emissary Angels are potent diplomats and skilled evangelists. Their purpose is to serve godly masters in a range of ways, be it in the form of acting as the faces of their master's organizations, or as politicians who make up the elected officials in godly governments. They are given missions by their lords and masters and move to fulfill them with a fanatic zeal.
Emissary Angels are one of the less martially oriented kinds of angels, but in exchange for their lack of physical prowess, they are exceedingly charismatic. They are skilled charmers and communicators who possess highly developed mental and linguistic abilities, which allow them to be the frontmen, frontwomen, and frontpeople, of a range of organizations.
Since the end of the mythic age, Emissary Angels as a species have been one of the groups of angels who have formed a relatively new order for angelkind everywhere. An order which has devoted itself to the creation of a new path forward for angels everywhere, but hasn't yet caught on with either weaker angels or the most powerful of their kind, both of whom are waiting to see what the order's tenet are.
Emissary Angels that evolve generally do so at the whims of their divine masters and become other types of skilled angelic servants of the gods. Without a god to guide their evolution, angelic evolutions have been becoming rarer and rarer, but unlike with devils angelic evolutions still occur.]
After reading through the entry myself, I willed it away and reflected on its revelations.
So angels are forming their own order? How interesting... It might be worth attempting to learn more about this order at some point. After this trial. I told myself, curious to learn more but balancing that curiosity with a desire to move forward in completing the trial ahead. In front of me, the angel's muscles, her wings in particular, continued to twitch erratically.
She was trying her best to be respectful, but the low height of the chamber obviously bothered her and after examining her wings I could tell why. They were too long and too tall for her to be able to stand without at least mild discomfort.
I could tell that she was eager to get out of here, and so I rose a single hand in her direction and considered what to say next. Where should we go? I could take her to the Dark Cathedral, or I could take her to my realm... I asked myself, debating it for just a moment.
This is the perfect chance to show a naturally born creature my realm and see how they react. I might as well take her there rather than take her to the Dark Cathedral. Plus this way she doesn't have to deal with devils, who she might have a distaste for at the moment. I reasoned, before beginning to speak to her again.
"I can tell that this place is uncomfortable for you. If we leave this chamber but stay in this building then you'll see something... you'll see the fate of your warden. I'd rather that not happen. So instead, do you feel comfortable with me teleporting us to my realm?" I asked her, curious as to how she'd respond.
Her eyes grew wide with excitement at what I suggested, and she opened her mouth to speak, but then almost immediately closed it. She took a second to calm herself, and then actually began to speak. "I would be very comfortable with that." She said, breathlessly. I chuckled and activated my teleportation ability, selecting both of us, and then we departed from Infernius.
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My power effortlessly grabbed both of us and our surroundings shifted.
No longer were we trapped in the tiny cell, instead, an instant after my power surrounded us we were teleported to the interior of the eerie recreation of the city of Undermoon that lurked underneath the surface of my realm. And more than that, we were inside of one of the living buildings that could be found throughout the city.
Before Angelica could react to her new surrounds, I heard a welcome voice begin to speak directly into my mind: that of the system. I was about to receive a new notification!
[Prayer Quest Complete:
With the successful retrieval of Angelica from within the Onyx Obelisk, the prayer quest has been completed.
Rewards acquired:
Angelica the emissary angel is readying herself to become your servant. Completion of this quest has reinforced your honorable liberator title, cementing it and causing those who know you by it to experience increased feelings of awe and reverence towards you.]
That's awesome! The quest is done... Now I can enjoy the rewards, before heading back towards the prison. I thought, excitedly experiencing the rush of a job well done. And then Angelica reacted to her changed surroundings.
Angelica gasped as she assessed her transformed surroundings, no longer eerie interior of the cell she had been trapped in. Instead, she now stood inside a vaguely flesh-colored interior of one of the many buildings that made up my city.
Her wings stretched out, almost reflexively, and she took a moment to relax. I watched her curiously, before taking a step back and leaning against one of the floral walls that defined the length of the house we were in. She herself found a seat and then sat down.
The two of us were inside of a small living-room-like area, complete with stone tables and chairs made of floral material, themselves extensions of the house. The walls that defined this room were a vivid pink color, and after the two of us were still for a moment the walls themselves undulated. I chuckled at that sight, and Angelica had a tense expression on her face for just a second before she began to grin at the wall, taking all of this in stride.
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She turned to look at me and asked me a surprisingly direct question. "What is this?" She wondered, her head tilting as if to physically indicate her curiosity. Her question was vague, but it didn't take a genius to infer what she meant.
"This is a living house. It's a plant." I explained simply, watching her to see her reaction. Her eyebrow rose in interest to my explanation and I audibly chuckled in response to that. I decided that that was enough of a reaction for me and opted to continue my explanation, providing her with a longer one.
"You see, one of the subdomains I have a bit of influence over is the subdomain of plants. And of fungi. I'm actually an incredibly powerful deity of fungi, but I also have influence over plants, animals, nature, and... a handful of other things as well. When I built this realm, I largely let the system do it so that I could watch what happened. I'm quite young, and I wanted to see what the system did if given power. One of the things it created was this city, complete with several of these living houses." I informed her, grinning as I revealed a bit about myself to her.
She looked at me with newfound respect, no doubt increasing whatever respect she may have had for me when I first entered her cell. She began to speak shortly after I finished telling her what I had thought fit to reveal so far.
"So this place was shaped by your power, and brought into being by the system itself? Wow... That's amazing!" She exclaimed. There was genuine amazement in her voice, and it took me a second to catch it. Hearing her react that way improved my impression of her, and I didn't doubt that it made me smile at her.
"It is! This place is also inhabited. Not this specific house, obviously," I said, as I quickly inspected my radar to double-check what I had just said. A quick glimpse at it reassured me that I wasn't wrong. "But this city is inhabited. By a few creatures. Creations of mine, humanoids, other animals, some angels, and even a handful of elemental beings." I said, eagerly bragging about what I could do even this early in my life.
Her eyes went wide at that declaration of mine, and I wondered why they did that. Fortunately, it took her just a second to speak up in response to what I had just said. "Wait, you can create all of those things?" She asked, her expression a mixture of puzzlement and awe. I didn't hesitate with my response to her.
"Yes, I can. And more. I have some influence over an assortment of domains. I have influence over the mind domain and the soul domain, which are... as far as I understand anyway, the main reason why I can create such a variety of lifeforms. It appears that those domains mix incredibly well with other domains when it comes to creating a range of lifeforms." I informed her, happy to have someone to chat with about my divine abilities who knew less about this than I did.
She silently considered this. Her gaze grew distant and unfocused, undoubtedly temporarily lost in consideration of the things I had just told her. Her reaction to what I had revealed to her had been interesting, and it made me want to learn more. So I waited for her to refocus before I asked her something.
"You seem surprised. Does this somehow contradict something you thought you knew about me, or about gods?" I asked, curious to hear her answer. She immediately shook her head as if to assure me that that wasn't the case, even as she mentally prepared an answer to my question.
"No, liberator, it doesn't. I was merely surprised at the diversity of your powers. You see, I was informed by the system itself, that you were astoundingly young and to be able to do so much at such an age is just too much for me to truly comprehend." She stated, refreshingly honestly.
I nodded at her after considering her answer and decided to aid her by showing her something: the vision that I, my mind specifically, had created showcasing the wide range of powers at my disposal. Knowledge of it and the ability to cause creatures to witness it was locked in our shared mind-space, so I looked at Angelica and quietly asked her a simple question. "Would you like to see the vision I've created that showcases my powers?" I asked, smirking at her.
She looked at me with a neutral expression on her face. She was clearly assessing me, but I could tell with a glance that there was a curiosity in her and even perhaps a bit of skepticism that would easily be addressed with a simple viewing of the vision. Before she could reply to my question I decided to try to convince her to view the vision in a way I thought would work with her.
"Viewing the vision would address any skepticism you may feel. It would assure you that serving me is the right course of action for you and that I have the sort of power that merits the service of such powerful creatures like you." I said, sincere belief in my voice adding weight to my statement.
She listened to me, and when I was finished speaking only waited a second before responding, but not verbally. She nodded at me to signal her consent. I responded to her nod by tying our minds together and then immediately causing her to witness the vision.
I watched as her eyes clouded over and as the power of the vision my mind-self had created began to fill her mind.
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The next few seconds passed in a blur, both for Angelica and for myself. I got to witness her witnessing the vision, experiencing almost as firsthand as possible the variety of powers at my disposal and reacting to them in real-time.
I felt her heartbeat quicken as she stared blankly, an awestruck expression on her face. I wonder where in the vision is she... I thought, grinning as she occasionally gasped in shock due to whatever wonders she was witnessing at that particular moment.
And watching her awestruck face shift slightly and subtly as she witnessed my mind perform an assortment of divine, magical, and devilish abilities was how I spent the next several minutes.
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It took over ten minutes before she next addressed me. I sat there and watched her the entire time, studying her expressions and the quiet ways she reacted to the vision she was witnessing. Her reactions were typically physical ones, but usually, they were not audible reactions.
Instead, the angel reacted to the vision she was witnessing by weeping blood-red tears, by the quickening of her heartbeat, or the flutter of her wings. It was an interesting thing to witness, and it allowed me to learn more about the physiology of angels.
When the vision faded from her mind, or at least her consciousness, she had the face of someone who had witnessed something that was equal parts spectacular and terrifying. And I could tell that she was unsure of which she ought to focus on. So I decided to help her pick.
"I can tell that you were... touched by what you witnessed." I said a confident smirk etched on my face. She looked at me, her mind still reeling from the dazzling assortment of things she had just seen. And then she looked at me, awe, respect, and fear visible in her gaze.
"Your powers are... truly amazing." She said, struggling for a second to find the right word to express how she felt about what she had witnessed. Her struggle was obvious to me because I could feel it in her mind, and see in her body language. I let her words linger in the air for a minute before I responded to them.
"And they grow in diversity and magnitude nearly every day. Every day I've lived so far, with very few exceptions, I've gained new servants, allies, and worshipers. And so, since gaining new worshipers and new allies is one of the many things that give a god more power, my capabilities have grown." I bragged, my gaze filled with pride, and my voice dripping with power.
At this point, I looked away from her and I feigned staring off in the distance. I kept my gaze firmly locked on her, but in a way that only divine beings could. I stared at her remotely and watched as she turned to look at me.
She seemed to be thinking about something, debating it. But after a moment of silence, she opened her mouth and began to speak.
"Althos, do you know who Paimon is?" She asked me, courageously. There was something frantic in her voice like she urgently needed to say whatever she wanted to say or she was afraid she'd lose her nerves. I chuckled at this display, but only internally. I could tell that it was a struggle for her to say what she had just asked and didn't want her to feel mocked.
"I do. He's the... fraudulent overlord of the city of Bastille. A true-devil playing at being an archdevil." I told her, not revealing anything about myself but that I had a distaste for our mutual enemy. She smiled softly upon hearing me say that.
"I am... most pleased to hear you refer to him in such terms. Would I be correct if I presume that he is an enemy of yours, as he is of me and my family?" She asked, interest beginning to become audible in her voice. I nodded at her once again.
"Yes. He is a corruptive force that erodes and eats away at the might of devils in this layer of Infernius. Devils are some, but not all, of my servants. I would not willingly see them weakened, see them... languishing, under him. And so I oppose him, to restore true order and lawfulness throughout this layer." I said, truthfully but while withholding the full circumstances that led to my opposition to the pseudo-archdevil.
She considered this momentarily and then began to smile at me. "So our goals align. And in fulfilling my oath to serve you, I won't be abandoning my original duty to oppose and defeat Paimon." She said, closing her eyes and releasing a relieved sigh, one she may not have even realized she was holding in until it escaped her lungs.
I looked at her and let the silence go uninterrupted for a moment. And then I broke it.
"I think it's time you tell me about who you are. I have... some questions, but first I'm going to make your first task in my service to be to tell me everything about who you are, who your brother is, and why you seek to oppose a devil content to play at being a bigger deal than he actually is. I'm ready to listen to your story." I commanded, readying myself to learn a lot.
But before I let her speak, I decided to add just a bit to my statement so as to ensure she didn't try to deceive me.
"But, let me make this clear. There's no point in attempting to deceive me. I can read minds and can copy people's memories. If you try to lie to me, I will learn about it. And there will be consequences. Be honest with me." I said, ending my statement with a simple instruction, one I suspected she would obey after witnessing the vision of my powers.