"Elegy!" Selz cackled, "You thought you could pull a fast one on us, huh!? Believed yourself to be capable enough to outsmart the God of Knowledge!?"

"You tried to trick us..." Pry felt hurt, "Even after we respected your wishes."

"Sorry, but this isn't gonna be the last time I trick you." Elegy truthfully apologized, "You guys, I know you mean well, but this isn't how I want things to go down."

He lightly bowed to show his sincerity before turning around to keep digging the tunnel leading to the surface. Selz was infuriated by this nonchalant attitude, but was even more shocked to finally notice just how steep the tunnel had gotten. By this point, Elegy was almost digging directly up, the rubble causing the already difficult to traverse terrain to send the two Gods sliding down to the base.

"Hmph." Selz looked down, "So this is how you wish to play. You're planning to leave us down here while you alone escape."

Pry gasped at this, "Huh!? No way...!"

"...Sigh, that's not true." Elegy denied it solemnly, "I already told you that I don't intend on leaving you to die. We're all getting out of this hole safely, and that's a promise."

"But not at the same time." Selz added.

"Hm..."

Elegy put his back up against the narrow tunnel before lifting his legs up to support his weight on the adjacent wall. He no longer had any contact with the ground.

"H-Hey, how'd you do that?" Pry yelped.

"To continue digging straight up for an extended period whilst at the same time holding yourself up like this requires an insane amount of core and arm strength." Selz explained begrudgingly, "He knew our human bodies weren't nearly as trained as his angelic body, so he used it against us to create this gap."

"You won't get crushed by the ground anymore." Elegy glanced down, still keeping up the pace of ascending up the tunnel he was digging, "I made sure to dig up gradually and slowly enough for you to be able to "climb" up the regenerating tunnel. Just stay there for a while and wait for the tunnel to bring you up slowly while I get things done on my end."

"What are you planning to do!?" Selz yelled.

"Something... interesting." He half-joked, "Get excited, I don't think you'll be expecting such a twist."

"Elegy, there's gotta be another way of doing things!" Prylos pleaded, "We can work together! We're on the same side, we'll help you get Vastoria and everyone else back to normal!"

Selzion looked on as the angel above them dug into the darkness above. It would still take him about an hour to dig himself straight up to the surface, meaning it would take the Gods at least an entire Heaven's day. By the time they even leave the hole, much less find Elegy, he'll have already finished doing everything on his checklist. They were successfully duped.

"Enough, Pry." Selz grabbed his shoulder, "He's been fed enough lies, there's no reaching him anymore."

"But I'm not lying!" Pry cried out, "We can do it, we can!"

"But not the way he would like it."

By this point, they couldn't even see Elegy anymore. He was already that far up from them. Never mind climbing after him, the Two were too exhausted to even stand up after such a tiring day of mining and fighting. This humiliation broiled quietly within them, the feeling of helplessness they've never yet had the chance to experience as Gods was burning itself in them as humans.

"I'm gonna puke..." Pry sat down on the ground.

Selz surprisingly agreed, "I was... outsmarted. By A MERE HUMAN!"

"I can still hear you." Elegy's voice said from above, "I'll give you a chance, you know. Just tell me, right here and now, how to save Vastoria without involving that stupid cherubim and I'll come down."

"Eleg-!"

"You dare pity us, mortal!?" Selz went mad with anger, "Your filth was granted mercy by US, not the other way around!"

"Selz, now's not the time!" Pry begged him to shut up, "This is our chance! We can turn over a new leaf, he can...!"

Selz spat back, "I will never kneel to that imbecile, nor any man whose mortal soul walked the corporeal plane! He will, he will...! Ah."

"Calmed down, finally?" Elegy jeered from the shadows above, "Or did you finally short circuit?"

"Of course, the solution is to wait!" Selz immediately calmed down, "Yes, yes, when out of options, one must bide their time. This is the solution, the correct way."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"You're supposed to seize the day, not wait for it." Elegy advised.

"We wait... until we become Gods again." He added.

"Eh?"

"Yes, our time is soon to come. The countdown until we return to being Gods, rid of this accursed humanity." Selz announced, "Just a few short, measly days and everything will be set straight... All. with the snap. of a finger."

With such a bold declaration accompanied by the aforementioned action, even Elegy felt his hairs stand on end. The snap reverberated throughout until it reached his sensitive ears, the ringing it caused sending shivers down his spine. For a split second, Elegy felt his grip on the walls between which he was sandwiched begin to slip, but he was alert enough to not fall from it. The Gods had just announced a war. A microcosmic war wherein only three individuals duked it out, amounting to two sides—Themselves... and him.

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***

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"Ngh, urk!" Elegy gasped for breath with each swing of the pickaxe growing weaker, "Hngh...! Agh, finally!"

After an entire hour of mining through nothing but solid rock, he finally poked through the cloud layer, signifying he was just a few meters away from the surface. Immediately, he changed directions to the side so he could dig out a rest spot. Previously, he couldn't waste the energy required for this maneuver, but now he was certain that he could afford it. The first breath he took after completing this mammoth task was taken with his full lung capacity.

"Ahhhh!" He breathed out loudly, "I did it! Ah, should I shout down so those Two know as well? It's only polite."

He peeked down the dreary abyss of the drop he had dug out, waiting quietly for himself to make a decision. Even after an entire minute of giving it some serious thought, Elegy concluded he should just get going.

"But politeness might make me lose here." He stepped back, "I feel bad for those Two, but they 'are' my enemies. Actually, keeping them out of the loop is actually tactically more advantageous for me. Eugh, still feels cheap though..."

In the end, he concluded the best idea would be to dig out a larger chunk of the surrounding clouds and toss it down the pit. Cloud in Heaven 2.0 dissipated by themselves like snow after you dug them out, so this was his way of leaving the decision up to fate. If the cloud reached them, it would give them a clear sign that he has reached the surface, and if it didn't, they'd be none the wiser.

"Not like it matters, though." Elegy shrugged, setting his sights straight up to continue digging, "The second those horrid sounds of the pickaxe hitting the rocks stops echoing for them, they'll reach the same conclusion."

He swung a few more times before it happened. The beautiful Sunrays blessed him from the tiniest of crevices embedded between the clouds. In fact, given how much time he's spent in the dark, this sight had actually caused sore Eyes instead of treating them.

Elegy squinted, "Gah! Woo, that's tough!" He then reached his hand out, "Hngh!"

Punching through the ground, he had garnered the attention of many passers-by. Certainly, a random man poking through the ground with a golden pickaxe wasn't something you'd expect to see on your regular walks, but the scene nonetheless had occurred. Some backed away, others curiously approached him, but the general consensus was that he was quite the anomaly.

"Need help there, bud?" One angel put his hand out.

"Hey, thanks." Elegy accepted it gracefully, "Careful, don't fall. It's super deep."

The nonchalant comment only attracted more suspicious gazes, but it was no longer his concern.

"It's not every day we see a dude come out of a hole in the ground." Another onlooker joked.

"Huh? But what about...?" Elegy glanced back at where the previous hole he originally fell down was, "Ah, patched up already..."

"What's that?"

"Nothing, be careful around this area." Elegy warned, dusting himself off before leaving the premises, "If you do fall, though, be sure to tell the Two idiots down below that they got nothing on Elegy."

"Eh-!? Ele...?" The poor guy was left confused.

Tired, but motivated, Elegy ran in a random direction until his legs could run no longer. In truth, they were so tired that he had fallen to his knees the moment he lost the passers-by behind him. Only then did he calm down to remember his own plan.

"Oh right, I gotta tell the others!" He chuckled to himself as he pulled out the walkie-talkie, "Sab, Nerys, come in."

Static.

"Sab? You there?" He shook the talkie for some reason, "You can talk like usual now, I destroyed their devices."

Radio silence. No, something was miss...

"Urk..." Elegy desperately started naming names, "Migu? Sheep, Energy, anyone?"

"...Kzzt!" The walkie-talkie startled him.

"O-Oi! Come in, anyone!" Elegy panickedly yelled out, "Even if it's somehow you Two, don't scare me like that!"

"Did you forget about me already?" Hats laughed from the other side.

"W-Wuh...? Hats, you're okay!" Elegy felt tears of joy well up from within him, "I thought you and the others were demotivated by the cherubim!"

"Demotivated?"

"Ugh, it means the opposite of motivated—but never you mind that!" He shook his head, "Hats, tell me where you are right now."

"Try and guess." He giggled.

"Heh, that's funny, kid. But now's not the time." Elegy chuckled back anxiously, "If you don't know, that's fine too. I'll come find you no matter what, so at least try and describe the area a bit."

"Describe it..." Hats' young voice cut out a bit, indicating he was looking around as he spoke, "There's nothing around me. As usual, the clouds are White and the sky is Pink."

"Nothing around y-" Elegy bit his tongue, "Hey, what was that last part just now?"

The sky was Pink. Not Blue, but Pink. Elegy knew there was only one place with such a description, and it reeked of a certain blurry and wing-encumbered head.

"Alright, I get it now." Elegy nodded, "Stay where you are, kid—I know where to find you."

"Really? Gee, that'd be great." He smiled back, "You're really cool... L."

"..."

His heart sank once he heard that nickname be used for him by the kid he wanted to protect so badly. A cherubim's power is to change the fate of any soul it encounters. Another way to put it is that it has the ability to change the trajectory of another person's life or afterlife. Sort of like injecting custom commands for a program to run by itself before it eventually continues on without them. In other words, the angel talking to Elegy over the walkie-talkie wasn't Hats...

"Cherubim!" Elegy shouted out, his face Red and his veins popping, "You just made the biggest mistake of your lousy afterlife, you goddamned soulless wench...!!!"