- 5 HOURS AND 30 MINUTES REMAIN -
The two angels had flown ten thousand feet high. The aura of the team seems calmer than before, for the clown in the group got himself invested in reading the changelog.
"Louie?" Iggy asks but to no avail.
...Err, too invested.
"You think that changelog has something to do with the mystery he's talking about?" Pickle questions Iggy.
"Probably. I mean, he's reading the newer pages quite slowly, it's like he's searching for something..."
Louie carefully identified the lines written on the paper part of the changelog.
His eyes are looking sharply at that one line in the bottom of the page.
"Removed Gaia..."
A glimpse of her unidentified face looks at Louie.
"...Gaia?" Everyone in the group asked.
"She was my previous client, a precious friend of mine." He says, caressing the page on the book.
"Woah, Louie sounds pretty down right now." Pickle remarks.
He browses to the previous pages. His eyes dilate, having seen something that he never knew was a thing...
"Update 168 wasn't before Update 169..."
"Then what?" Iggy asks.
"It's... Update 168.1."
"Huh? That's weird; they never do decimals." Royal says.
"Couldn't that have been an emergency patch?" Lorde thinks to herself.
"I don't know." Louie replies."It's to restrict us dream creatures to the dream world..."
Louie identifies the date gap between the two updates...
"And all of this took place within ten days..."
"That's SMOKINGLY showing signs that it was intentional." Pickle shares his opinion.
"I know, but for what? For those ten days, I was stuck inside my birthplace, waiting for something, anything to happen..." Louie exclaims.
"Then I just find out that Gaia's gone." He added.
"So that's why you're going to the heavens, it's to fill in those lost ten days and finally have peace." Iggy realizes.
"Yeah... That sums it up just right." Louie says in a bittersweet tone.
Just a few yards ahead lies the view of the magnificent recreation of Mount Sinai, whose ground is made up of solid cloud.
"That's Sinai hill over there." Lorde tells Iggy and Louie. "You better update the changelog now or you won't be able to come in."
"Right." Louie says, keeping his composure intact.
He takes the golden quill and blows the cartridge to push the remaining ink inside. Louie takes himself to the golden page in Update 170.
"Here it is..."
He taps the tip of his pen into the page...
And begins writing strokes.
His sunglasses drop slightly as he focuses on the page...
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
A few more seconds of silence and he finishes.
At the bottom of Update 170, it says:
"Dream Creatures and Ancient Beings can now enter heaven."
A golden aura bewilders Louie.
From ten thousand feet away, the same golden aura can be seen bewildering the tridot, too, having risen from the rubble.
The barrier is shining even brighter than before...
And it disappears.
Lorde and Royal make it through the dying barrier easily.
"Nice job, dream guy!" Royal cheerfully says.
"Looks like most of the angels haven't returned yet." Lorde interrupts as she looks at an almost empty Sinai.
Alas, they land on a giant tree stump.
"A thousand feet ahead lies First Gate; The headquarters for anything related to the Sacrament of Life."
"Sacrament of Life?" Iggy asks the angels.
"There are three sacraments: Life, death, and inanimacy. The gates of these three sacraments are heavily cut by distance." Royal says.
"Cider, the consul-general of life itself, handles anything related to life and the process of depriving it." Lorde adds to the conversation.
"And putting this sacrament under hostage means full control over who gets to live, right?" Pickle realizes.
"Massacre..." Iggy blurts out to himself.
"Correct..." Lorde agrees. "So much for being exposition angels, we better get going. There's only a few hours left before these guys fall asleep."
And so, the gang trekked the mountains silently, struggling to converse as they awkwardly passed through the hill. An oxymoron for what they've been through, but all that exposition took all the words out of the angels' mouths.
Combine it with a tired Iggy, an empty stomach, and an overfocusing Louie; the makings of a gang bound to fall apart.
Add the fact that it's only been six and a half hours since they all first got together, yet they're exhausted from everything they've been through.
It has been a ridiculously wild day.
"So uh, guys! You wanna talk or anything?" Pickle tries to lighten up the mood.
"There's no more lore drops to say, Follower." Lorde explains.
"How about you, Louie?"
However, Louie remains silent.
"That has been the longest he's calm so far..." Iggy utters.
The clock keeps ticking...
And ticking...
And ticking...
Until they finally arrived. A few feet ahead is the entrance to First Gate...
But it was devastated, engulfed in darkness.
"There it is, guys..." Royal exclaims. "First Gate."
"That has to be Massacre's doing..." Iggy realizes.
"And that's not the only thing he destroyed..."
The group makes their way to the gate.
Greeted with chaos, Iggy and Louie's vision of heaven has just been tainted with that of hell.
"This isn't like heaven at all..." Iggy says, looking at the surroundings.
Dead angels are all around the corner.
Ashes and soot fly around everywhere.
Louie stops reading to look at the scene in front of him.
"...?" Louie grunts.
"This way." Lorde replies as she goes to the left.
The unsettling silence of the environment, along with the muted mouths of the team...
They're like children in the aftermath of war; the horrors of war in front of them, soulless, their hearts malformed.
The disaster ends; a streak of paradise in front of them appears. Trees, lakes, and animals conceal the humble home of the Consul-General:
A Stonehouse.
"This place sure is pretty humble for heaven...~" Louie replies.
> "How many creatives from The Industry have you found?"
>
> "Five. You?"
>
> "I only found three..."
Their names are Werbo, Zikh, and Tiny.
The three angels are of various sizes; Werbo is tiny, Zikh is medium, and Tiny is gigantic.
The three angels take notice of Lorde and Royal~ and two other outsiders.
"Oh, It's Lorde and Royal!" Tiny says, waving at them. "HELLO!!!"
"You're back already?" Royal asks the three.
"Back already? We're actually running late! The burning of the Industrials is about to start." Zikh replies
"So they call us Industrials..." Iggy asks himself.
"This early? They've found them all this fast?" Lorde asks.
"It's easy to figure out aliens so we took everyone who's not from here, duh." A sassy Werbo replies.
"But the innocent lives!"
Zikh does a rebuttal. "Cider has become desperate to save as many people from Timeline-2. These people are a priority if we want to save our kind while we buy time for The Industry to aid us~"
"Aid is already here!" A serious Iggy speaks up with courage.
"You've been expecting Follower, right? You won't need to drop them into the pit anymore."
Distrust arises from the eyes of the three angels.
"...Have faith in what's sent, you three." Royal says.
The three angels look at each other and nod in agreement.
"Follower of the Industry."
They put their right hand on their chest.
"It's an honor to receive you." Zikh says with pride.
Iggy's slight smile hits their retinas.
"Talk to the stomach." He optimistically rebounds.
MEANWHILE, IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN...
A few angels line up; in front of them are one hundred sleeping creatives in beds with flowers on their chests.
Hints of respect are present in the angels' faces; guilt-ridden all over their heads.
Cider grievingly walks towards the pedestal.
"We gather here, mourning heroes, purposely or not, for their raw dedication and pride in saving the innocent lives of Timeline-2." She announces.
"To keep this fire pit intact, we shall drop one Industrial into the pit daily. We shall start with the woman in red; the mantis over there."
She points at the praying mantis who has been repositioned to lie down... The same exact mantis Iggy had served from Yoshim's cafe.
...It's time to feed her to the eel.
- 4 HOURS AND 47 MINUTES REMAIN -