The silver city of angels. Unlike how it’s seen in the times of the current epoch, in this realm-wound the silver city was fully intact. It was fully functioning as if it was an actual world, people walked the streets and angels flew about holding weapons or just conversing with others. Looking from person to person I eventually landed my eyes on a wooden framed window of a shop. Looking into the shop I saw a familiar face reflected in the glass.
It was my face however there were no marks of black drawn down from my eyes neither was there that dead feeling in my eyes. My black to faded golden hair was replaced with the vibrant red that I wore with braids and a ponytail along with shaved sides inspired by the classical tramonic war maidens. My once-dead eyes were lively, the gold returned to life full of glinting white. Even my mechanical hand was gone replaced with a real one that I sorely missed from time to time.
My attention was drawn away however from a ghostly figure that appeared pointing towards the large cathedral that towered over the entire silver city. Pressing on I walked through the streets, the world around me slowly shifted in aspects I should’ve thought of coming into a place like this. Realm wounds were created from the mind of the creator and brought to life, this means their hopes and dreams can become reality. It also meant that their nightmares and things would come to life as well, this was the same for all even myself however my realm wound is very different from anyone else’s would be.
This girl’s Realm wound was created from her hope of the silver city never falling apart from the war but also her fear of it becoming a wasteland showed in parts like the ghost and beings who were ignored by the living. Mine however was something different, I hoped my kingdom would continue yet I didn’t fear its downfall as the natural part of ruling. One day in the future no matter how much you try to prevent either you or your kingdom will fall. My fears weren’t like my hopes, the only fear I had was id become a monster with no sanity.
That didn’t matter at the moment, what mattered was getting to the source of all this and stopping them from destroying their mind not to mention everything around them in the physical realm. Realm wounds can also be safety features that protect not only the mind of their creators but also those in the realms outside, this was solely because realm wounds were spiritual veins of unprecedented power. As some would say ‘the imagination is the strongest thing that can't be destroyed no matter how broken something may be, powered by the fear of the unknown’.
Seeing what Realm wounds firsthand doesn’t make you fear them or allow you to praise that power, it terrifies you. There is no single primordial concept of imagination for that very reason there are many of them. The concept of things can be destroyed and technically killed but they can never truly die as without said concept the very fabric even nature is worthless. For example, without the concept of death, life doesn’t exist and vice versa this goes the same way with time and fate or nature and no nature, existence and non-existence.
Imagination cannot be one concept because it's so unique, the uniqueness is different for every person so to truly destroy this ‘concept’ you have to destroy everything and I mean everything, it’d also have to be done in one fell swoop so no one would notice. Pulling myself away from the tangent of thought I found myself walking through the melting streets towards the giant cathedral. This cathedral before the ruin of the silver once held court to the highest ranking of angels such as Micheal, lucifer all the seraphim and arch angels like Azrael the angel of death.
I doubt I'd be seeing them hearing as each seraphim and archangel was killed towards the end of the war in heaven either by me or Orin respectfully. I have killed more of them than Orin but we didn’t care to count, unlike Orin I hadn’t turned one into a weapon he is now fond of. The weapon in question was the bone scythe he named the Shinigami’s guillotine, made from Michael's spine and head. Thankfully he didn’t keep Michael’s soul around to make it a sentient weapon.
Well now thinking about it I could say I didn’t turn an archangel into a weapon as I have already kind of. Uriel willingly allowed me to turn her into a sword she named herself, Heaven’s Reach. Of course, I couldn’t wield this sword only carry it around as if I was just a sword bearer in search of the blade's true master. which is why I didn’t find it odd that now in this dream it was strung onto my back, Uriel also spoke that one day she would appear in the form of a sword to someone she wishes to be wielded by.
After proceeding up several flights of stairs, coming to the entrance of the cathedral just taking in the sight of this Realm-wound was a sight to behold, looking like a surreal painting full of life yet feeling similar to a fleeting memory meant to be forgotten. This was a place I once stood in before the war when it was full of the life of those departed souls, that was a different feeling from when I sat moments from death being held by Orin, after just being stabbed by Six who smiled. I can remember that smile like a nightmare never fading.
The last I could remember however was feeling Orin’s tears fall onto my face like an afterburn of being slapped by a cane on my knuckles. Until later in my life as Artura did, I found out what transpired after my death then, not like I knew I was Sif back then. Orin never killed six because he knew I’d never want her dead that way, but he brought her close many times making sure she’d feel every type of pain she dealt on to others.
Turning away from the surreal sight I looked towards the cathedral that matched how the once great castle of Camelot looked like, the large iron doors closed to form a picture of sorts of two singular figures. Two angels stood side by side holding up small tablets of stone that had words carved into them, they read the same ‘Those who do not trust their faith cannot see the potential that resides in their hearts’. I didn’t believe in the words of the clergy however there was merit in those words no matter what god you believed in.
Not wanting to delay any further I moved forward opening the large iron doors. It took some considerable effort despite my appearance changes; my strength had been adjusted also. This version of me seemed to be the version of myself that had gone through experiments before my strength was greatly enhanced through the numerous battles I had. Pushing with all my might thinking I'd break several bones seemed to do the trick in opening the way. What I saw in the cathedral was unexpected, to say the least.
The floor was covered in a thin sheet of jade feathers, all glistening with heaven’s light. The carved limestone pillars that were holding up the cathedral’s centre room were cracking in some places even on the verge of snapping. The stained glass windows had been completely broken outward by an unnatural amount of power, the same effect had even happened to where I could see the flooring, the marble had been cracked and thrown upwards from its place.
In the centre of all this carnage caused by unnatural amounts of power was a silver birdcage. The birdcage swung slowly a few meters only when the person inside ruffled the feathers on their wings or jerked her body. The girl inside the birdcage sat with her arms clasped around her shins with her head buried in her knees, in this ‘nightmare’ realm wound this girl was at its centre. The last remaining angel thought to be lost for all of time, the youngest of them all with the most power to be recorded in the ancient tomes.
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Taking one step aroused the young one from her slumber, just lifting her head to look at me with her own eyes didn’t fill me with joy. That feeling of being angelic wasn’t there like it was in Kaine’s eyes, the girl before me had the emptiness I felt when I fought all those years ago. Once again, the light flapping of her wings rattled the birdcage feeling slightly concussive, taking a few steps forward, I was able to make out certain things in her appearance a lot better than if I was nearer the door. She had that beauty seen in angels, the glint of angelic magic in her eyes and the glistening feathers of light. The skin was clean feeling radiant even if she was bloodied at the wrists and feet.
The jade hue of her wings took on a darker hue from being permanently mixed with the blood that melded itself into each individual feather. Her hair was a lighter tone in hue yet still darker than emerald, the young angel gazed at me looking up and down at my appearance. She recognized me with the look of familial acknowledgement although it wasn’t enough to say she knew me well like many other angles did such as Azreal or Micheal did. Offering no words of hello or praise I took a few steps closer towards the young angel who just watched me.
The birdcage rattled once more in response to the angel moving closer from her cuddled-up position to against the bars. Now she sat closer on her knees with her wings being lowered into what angels called a place of submission or guilt. Now in turn watching her, she worked the muscles in her throat and subsequently also worked the muscles in her jaw to make the motion of speaking easier. Moving slowly into a sitting position she spoke directly addressing me in a manner that I didn’t think she knew.
“The once proud goddess of war turned tyrant turned queen of Numena. I greet thee to the best of my ability… please help me.” There was no mistaking it, she is an angel or was one by how she addressed me. Her voice was quiet unnaturally so, yet I could make out what she was saying even without the heightened hearing that I have through divinity. Shuffling closer to the edge of the birdcage she spoke once again. “I remember in the past of this great old city that we saw ourselves as beings beyond the mortal mind not being able to be seen truly through their eyes. We took on the appearance of humanoids to appease their worries however that became our weakness, the angels always spoke like being a humanoid was a sin. I feel the opposite.” She paused pointing at me no to the door behind me.
“The angels saw me as an abomination because I was born humanoid with no unnatural eldritch-like form. The seraphim despised me even the god-king saw me as nothing more than an ant.” The young angel told me of her story. All angels despised her except two of them, Uriel and Samael who would later become Satanus. Uriel and Samael taught the little angel everything they could, what it meant to be an angel and what it meant to be free. Even what It meant to care.
One day that all stopped when Uriel was branded for becoming a dark one, that would be the last time this young angel would see her motherly figure. Samael then rebelled wanting freedom for him and his fellows believing that they were just shackled to the whims of their god-king. In the end, the young angel was left alone only safe beside the queen of Valkyries whom no angel wished to challenge, or they’d die even the god-king knew this. When I died as the war god, those insufferable angels who remained locked up the young one inside a cage mostly used for the giant doves.
She spoke of the time she spent inside this cage, the only people she saw were the remaining angels not even the Valkyrie angels would come near her not even spare her a glance. In a sense, she resigned herself to fate wanting nothing more than to die. One day that all changed when a single being freed her, offering no name except the king of all demons, he couldn’t stay just giving her some words of advice ‘find the SunKiller and you’ll know the truth of that war’. The description she gave was of a beautiful male with stone horns and black hair this matched with Samael who became the demon Satanus after his fall.
The advice he gave her was important to us both as only me and Orin knew the truth of that war, what we really wanted to do all those years ago. Taking ‘nother step I was a few arms’ reaches away from the birdcage working up the courage to speak I did so.
“All those years ago… myself and Orin had betrayed the eldritch, the god-king because we saw no choice. We wanted to show the higher races that with enough knowledge and power the lesser races could accomplish anything. Me and Orin were different back then especially now, born from very different backgrounds. Orin, born from a great sentinel knight and his mother a Pthulminth doctor whereas I was nothing but an orphan with limitless improvement or so I told myself.” I told of my past growing up as an orphan then becoming an experiment then becoming an eldritch god of war, fear and chaos.
“That an entire war was seen as a playground by both eldritch and angels until it changed forever. Orin became known as the black prince laying waste to entire realms, wiping civilizations off the face of Yggdrasil whereas I used fear to burn the minds of allies and enemies alike becoming the fallen god Ares. It wasn’t just us, but all the surviving members of the experiments did the same, aside from Six.” The war was a stepping stone as we all knew one day the mother of nothingness would return, we had to stop that from happening. The only way we saw as a chance was war.
“That’s not why you're asking for help though is it?” I asked the angel who listened to my every word taking it in without a hint of guilt on her face or shown through her emotions.
“Please help me become a being who can take on the sins of heaven and become the bearer of its light. Its last guardian.” The look in her eyes was strong, determined to commit to this singular goal until she gained it. A look I once saw in the eyes of Six when she became a Valkyrie however this time, being able to see her desperation gave me the feeling that this was the only thing that was keeping her alive. The will to commit to one purpose.
“Alright… well I can’t help you alone as I’m no longer the goddess of war like I’m no longer the Valkyrie queen. All I am now is the queen of Numena. You are the last remaining angel so everything will be a challenge for both of us and whoever helps us. I would like to know how you are in such a bad state outside the realm wound?” The young angel avoided the question offering me a full explanation of what had occurred after Satanus rescued her and found her way to Numena.
“For several years I spent it alone just trying to remember and survive, luckily for me several tomes remained which quickly deteriorated at my touch after I read the contents. For a time, I even tried to do things such as figure out where I was meant to go with my life, but that didn’t work whatsoever. Still not understanding why my saviour, I looked for the ‘SunKiller’. No one knew of you aside from a dead seer who roamed like a traveling merchant.” She paused readjusting the clothes she wore. “After a time, I gave up and just became another passing being, a traveller with nowhere to go. For thousands of years I did this. Walking through the cities of onrath, the capitals of Tramon even the last battlements of Pthulminth.”
“Eventually I became the target of Six and her Valkyries. For years they hunted me and I even killed a couple however that didn’t make them back off. just a few weeks back they attempted to take off my wings just stopping halfway as the innate power inside me came bursting forth. I had no choice but to rip off my own wings.” The way she explained it was worse than a scholar would think, an angel ripping off their wings is a sort of self-sacrifice. Some have done it to save themselves or save those they care about.
As Sif I even attempted to rip off my own wings unlike Ciaran and this angel, I never could rip them off. Ciaran ripped off one of her white wings to show loyalty to me as Marin, showing that she no longer served castil, this was different though. She ripped off her wings to save herself from the pain she was feeling. She explained further that after the events of a few weeks back she had been trying to escape them, only finding safety in Numena somewhere Six won't go unless forced.
“I know what you may be thinking. Six and her Valkyries should be dead, yeah they should but they are in hiding serving a being from afar. Three Valkyries are with her, but I don’t know their names unfortunately.” Six and three others were in hiding whilst serving some being I can only theorize. That being is most likely the supreme being, those other Valkyries I can only assume are people extremely loyal to Six and the supreme being. Not wanting to worry about it now I looked towards the young angel who smiled at me with that same familial feeling.
“A lot is going to change from now on. You know that already I’m guessing?”
“I do yeah… well everything right? It takes some time after all no one changes overnight unless they are a savage.” The young angel laughed. “I'll let you choose my name… I’m not good at thinking of this stuff. Probably never will be if I’m honest.” The young angel eagerly waited for my answer on what I think her name should be from now on, it was something I couldn’t just throw out. I had to think about this, remembering how she was as a small angel long ago. That small ill-tempered girl who would even try to throw hands with me. She had the fiery passion that matched a female fox.
“How about Vixen? Vixen Venrix?”