"You want something from us, and luckily for you we have the power to make it happen." Selzion smiled intently at the comparatively tiny Gale, "But first, we will need your help as well."
"What are you planning?" Prylos sighed at him with a smirk.
"Even your roommate is suspicious of you." Gale joked, "What makes you think I'd go through with it after that?"
"You're in district Z right now." Selzion explained, barely curbing his excitement to get the point across, "Your winged friend's house, and by extension he himself is in district G. I'm sure you know the alphabet well enough to estimate the distance."
"So the districts follow an alphabetical order, huh?" Gale thought to himself.
He had assumed it to be the case given he was in Z headed for Y, but also had trouble understanding how that would work in a three dimensional space. A list of letters would be a linear line, so how do the districts of Heaven 2.0 work exactly? Regardless, if what the Knowledge God said was true, then he was practically on the other side of Heaven when it came to Sab's proximity. It was at this moment that Gale truly understood the difference having wings can make.
"Well, I have his location, but I doubt you'll let me go there on my own." Gale continued, "If you're going so far as to ask something of me, then you're definitely gonna sweeten the deal more."
"Is that how you see it? You dare haggle with a God?" Selzion threatened.
"Ah, was I mistaken?" Gale shrugged, "In that case, I guess I'll just be thankful for the tip you gave me on his location and be on my way."
"Huh?" Prylos looked on, baffled, at the little angel that just turned around and went to leave.
"Oof, but I just realized." Gale turned back with an extremely smug aura to him, "That means I won't be doing anything for you guys. Truly, what a shame that is..."
Was Gale doing this to get his way with the Gods, or to just piss them off for no reason at all? For this question only he knew the answer. Or maybe he didn't, maybe he was just doing whatever came to mind. In any case, whatever it was that he was trying to achieve, he had succeeded. Selzion was fuming, having realized that his threats mean nothing to Gale. With a grudgeful side Eye, he allowed Gale extra care.
"You will be teleported to Sab's location once I snap my fingers." The Knowledge God groaned, "On top of that, I believe you asked how it was that our Abode exists in multiple districts seemingly at the same time, so that will be explained by my colleague as well."
"Wow, aren't you a kind boss!" Gale teased before turning to face Prylos, "Then, colleague? What's the deal?"
"You truly are a Wildcard, eh...?" Prylos praised(?) Gale's boldness, "But really, it's nothing special. Each nine hundred and ninety ninth of a second, the Gods' Abode is sent to the next district. Thus, though we are not technically in multiple places at the same time, regular people cannot explicitly tell the difference."
The explanation was quick and easy to understand. In essence, every 25 999ths of a second (corresponding to the other 25 letters of the alphabet), the Gods, as well as the Abode, are not physically in front of Gale. Instead, he sees and hears their afterimages, but because their flickering between districts is so unnoticeable, it effectively achieves the illusion that they're in all the districts at the same time.
"Doesn't that make you extremely sick?" Gale raised his Eyebrow.
"Does sitting in a horse carriage make you tired?" Prylos gave a rather good analogy.
"Hm. Eh, but what if multiple people are talking to you at the same time in different districts?" He continued with a puzzled look, "Doesn't that get confusing?"
"For a feeble human mind, holding multiple conversations seems impossible." Selzion chimed in, "But we regularly talk to hundreds of millions of believers through their prayers for every waking moment of their existence. In comparison, up to 26 conversations is nothing."
"Right, I can see that being the case..." Gale nodded, "So that's everything I wanted from you, which means it's my turn to sell my soul to the devil in return."
"Now we're being compared to devils? How hurtful..." Prylos looked sad to hear such an insult.
"Sorry, I was more so talking about your roommate." Gale felt bad immediately, "N-Never mind. Come on, what do you want from me?"
"He says some incredible things, and then brushes them off like they're nothing..." Selzion seemed pissed, but calmed down enough to tell him his demands, "Gale, was your current name, no? You are to find your friend Sab and have him take you to the Shrine."
"Eh? I wanted to do that anyways, though?" He tilted his head in confusion.
"Enter the Shrine with Throne, reach the bottom where your friends are, and bring them back to the surface." He continued, "Awake."
The plan Selzion wanted him to go through with was surprisingly lackluster. In any case, this was what Gale was planning to do from the start, so it didn't actually mean anything to him. The only thing that sort of made no sense was that he was to enter it with Throne and not anyone else, not to mention that part about bringing his friends back.
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"Are the rest of them already inside the Shrine?" Gale asked.
"They are, and if you do not hurry, they will reach the bottom." Selzion warned, "The Shrine was a scrapped dungeon event we had planned from before we released Heaven 2.0 to the public. It is dangerous, buggy, and full of death traps."
"What does that mean for them?" Gale asked.
"It means..." Prylos added a grim reminder, "Your friends CAN die inside, and their souls will forever be destroyed."
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"That's... that thing, right?" Gale looked somewhat puzzled, "The thing Vastoria told us about before—She and that Energy guy she was with could get wounded inside."
"Yes, though this was not an intentional effect of the Shrine." Selzion explained carefully, "It is a leftover mistake from a time when Heavenly Beings could still take damage and subsequently die from their injuries. We quickly understood that leaving that feature of humanity in would lead to mass wars in Heaven 2.0, so we made you invincible. However, we forgot to make it so for that Shrine as well."
"Eh? So it was just because you were too lazy to check your work before release?" Gale sighed annoyedly, "Way to go, geniuses..."
"Tch... You're not wrong, and this is our mistake." Prylos continued, "So to remedy that, we barricaded the entrance with a barrier."
"And look how well that worked." Gale crossed his arms, "Didn't you say my friends are all inside the Shrine?"
"That is due to the Great Filter." Selzion tacked on yet another foreign phrase to the already difficult to process conversation, "We made it so only seraphim who have forfeited their wings could enter the Shrine. This is because we needed a special group of capable people that could help clean up any messes from the inside if something were to go awry with it."
"Yeah, we just never expected that anyone could manage to stumble upon the exact circumstances by accident." Prylos chuckled, "You would need wings to get there in the first place, but you would need to give them up if you wanted to enter. We figured no one would do that unless we explicitly asked them to, but we failed to account for human errors, such as losing them and then after still somehow finding friends with wings willing to take you there."
When put like that, Gale could only agree with their sentiment. In truth, you should always add a backdoor for every system in case you'd need to open it up for repairs. This "filter" of sorts was that backdoor, and with how many conditions it required for one to enter it, it really was unfortunate how their group somehow ended up inside. Now things were making a lot more sense, but there was still one thing Gale couldn't understand.
"But wait, couldn't they just make it to the bottom and sleep in those beds again to get sent to their homes?" He raised an Eyebrow.
"Do you think they got sent back because of the beds?" Selzion cocked his head back, "Those beds are nothing more than traps themselves. So long as you're asleep on one, you will never awaken. The only reason they got sent back was because of us."
"Because of you?" He asked.
"Indeed, we tapped into the Book's powers to-Unf!" Prylos began explaining, but a strong elbow to his side from Selzion stopped him abruptly.
"We just teleported them back to their respawn locations." Selzion coughed suspiciously.
Immediately, all sense of Gale's trust in them got thrown out the window because of this one slip of the tongue. Had Prylos not mentioned the Book, or heck, even if Selzion allowed him to simply gloss over it, Gale probably wouldn't have thought anything of it. Now, however, he was back to keeping his guard up around them, which made their next demand turn into a desperate plea.
"Please save them and relay to them the information we told you." Prylos fixed himself up.
"Hmm... Hey, why don't you just teleport them out yourselves, though?" Gale asked a reasonable question, "You said you did that last time, so what's the deal?"
"That was... a one time occurrence. We cannot do it another time." Selzion covered his tracks.
"I'm not buying it." Gale was about ready to call off the deal entirely.
"W-We'll resurrect you back into your life if you just help us with this one thing!" Prylos blurted out, much to Selzion's chagrin and Gale's interest.
"Oh?" Gale was now all ears, "Go on?"
"Pry, you...!" Selzion was livid, but Prylos kept going.
"We know everything about your human life." He explained, "You died young, but we can give you another shot if you help us with this."
"I died young, did I?" Gale listened in.
"Pry, stop this!"
"He's gonna die later of old age anyways, right!?" Prylos shut his colleague up, "Which means he'll be back here regardless! He gets what he wants, and we get what we want—We can't afford to lose this deal, Selz!"
Right, even if they did go through with their promise and brought him back, Gale would still later die of either old age or another early death. Death is inevitable for every human, and since a soul loses all of its personal memories of their time in the Living World, it would essentially mean nothing to Gale.
"It would mean nothing to Gale... but not to the person I was before." Gale reasoned before looking the Gods square in the Eyes, "Okay, if that's what you'll give me, then I'll do it."
"Listen, Gale! Your soul won't actually leave Heaven 2.0 at all, since it exists beyond time!" Selzion tried to warn him of this anyways, "It wouldn't do you any good to accept this reward, so how about instead we-!"
"I'll only do it if you revive me after the fact." Gale refused to look away, "Thanks for looking out for me, but I know what I'm asking for. And no, I won't take any other reward."
"Sigh, dammit Pry..." Selzion whispered to him, "How do you even plan on making good on that promise?"
"U-Uhm, you... can do it, right?" Gale asked just in case.
"Heh, don't worry, sure we can." Prylos glanced over at Selzion before revealing, "You'll be the only exception to the rule that forbids resurrection, surely you'll have earned it after this. Just come visit our Abode after you succeeded and I'll make sure you're back from the dead."
And with a content clap of his hands, Prylos sent Gale to a somewhat familiar location. Pillows everywhere around him, a shattered screen in front of his Eyes trying its hardest to show the game that was being played on it, and a regretful Sab hoping he can fix it with a couple of smacks to the top and sides.
"Dammit, work you piece of...! Eh, you!" Sab immediately jumped on top of Gale, fists ablaze, "This is all your fault, moron! Fix my damned TV or pay with your blood!"
"Ah, I just realized...!" Gale offhandedly commented on the cushion that saved his head from hitting the ground, "These pillows really are soft."