"Welcome, welcome indeed!" A man ontop of a cliff said casually, but his words were heard all over the dark, rocky valley.
'Ah?' I was confused and almost to the point of maddeningly dizzy. For a moment I thought I was seeing hallucinations. The blue sky had ceased to exist in the range and molten rock spires as walls surrounded the large crowd of different looking humans all in white robes.
"It seems that a large scale destruction caused by the demon god Omh has led you all here, onto the Valley of Limbo. I am the valley's guardian and an archangel, Kre'ser." Said the man on the cliff as my dizziness wore off. He was dressed in black-golden crystal armor with smooth silver metal edges. But the more important questions were...
'Valley of Limbo? Archangel? What the fuck?' I thought. This was a first time experience and terrifying, but my heart did not waver.
"Do not panic, and don't worry, you are not able to, but you are dead. This is the path of reincarnation. The limbo decides whether you are good or evil, whether you are able to reincarnate or not. Those who are deemed evil are to be in forever servitude in the caves beneath the spires." Said the archangel.
'Good or evil? I haven't experienced such idiocy in days. There is only your ideal of justice which you use to determine what is good and what is bad.' I expressed my thoughts on the situation to myself. I somewhat wanted to let the 'limbo' know what I thought of it, if it could read my mind.
"Now, show these spawns your light, O' mighty God!" Yelled the archangel and raised his left hand into the sky. An octagram shaped pure light pillar appeared above the cluster of people. It blinded everyone, including me. I looked down and put my hand above my eyebrows to cover the immense amount of light surging into my eyes. Suddenly I saw a man left to me glow in cyan and vanish into the pillar the next moment. The woman right to me glowed in red and was pulled down into the depths of the cold ground. One joyed, the other agonized. I still couldn't panic even with the intense feeling of fear inside me.
The valley was now not only covered in pure light from the pillar, but also cyan and red from the people who were judged. It was like seeing tens of thousands torches lit up over the course of 30 minutes. I closed my eyes in hopes of averting the fate that awaited me.
After the light faded away, I relaxed my hand and opened my eyes. I was still in the same place, but nobody was around. Not even the archangel. I was sure that I would be judged as evil for my wickedness, but I wasn't even deemed good?!
'A glitch?' I thought. Something was definitely off, but I didn't waste my time waiting for the next pillar to arrive or the next archangel. I started walking around the valley and to my surprise, the valley was colossal. It wasn't easy to see earlier with the thick crowd of thousands around me.
In hopes of finding something other than rocks, I took strides towards the cliff which the archangel stood upon.
'What kind of an angel doesn't have wings?' It bugged me if I didn't get the answer to that.
"Different conceptions bring conflict" A voice spoke in my head, it had no clear vocal range and sounded odd. It had no characteristics.
'Are you Limbo?' I talked in my head once again.
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"No" It said. I stopped walking and suddenly felt the huge amount of emotions course through myself in an instant. All the stress that built up because of the events made me weak and I fell on my knees, my whole body trembling.
"Unwanted state of calm removed" It was too much to bear so I passed out instinctively.
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The cold ground woke me up. My body shivered until I opened my eyes and jumped up to be cautious. I didn't feel any part of my body freezing anymore.
'What is happening to me?!' I didn't like what has happened up to now, but I am glad I haven't died yet. The built up stress disappeared aswell, but I am still in the valley. I remembered about the voice in my head, but I decided not to call it out because I feared that something dangerous might happen again. So I continued with my task of walking towards the cliff.
On the way I thought about death. What it means to die and if this is the afterlife.
Hour and a half passed when I reached near it, still pretty far but near it. I noticed that there was no way to reach on top of the cliff. I sat under it's shadow and started meditating to gather mana. I had read my fair share of novels featuring reincarnation, so I had hopes it would work. After a few minutes of sitting, I realised that there probably was no such thing as mana in the valley. It was now even stranger how the previous events occurred.
I stood up after my pathetic attempt and patted ashes off my lower-half robe. A quick head turn to the left and right gave me even more interesting ideas, it was to meditate near the heat coming off the molten spires.
'Cultivation, was it? Another power besides mana.' I thought.
After a whole hour of walking, I finally reached the proximity of a spire and the heat was tolerable. I sat down and went into a lotus position (As usual) near a lava vein that flowed from atop the spire. Once again, there was no reaction so I sighed and thought..
'If there only was something like a "Perfect Celestial Body Tempering Technique"'
Suddenly, I felt my whole body going into a state of turmoil. It felt like my entire lifetime's worth of movement was gathered into this single moment and it kept coming at a tremendous speed. My muscles stiffened and loosened, a process which kept repeating itself for a few minutes.
After it was all over, in the span of 5 minutes, I was panting heavily as I placed my hand over my heart. It felt like all hell was let loose with those words that passed my thought.
"Shit." I squeeked.
The ground started shaking, but I didn't lose my balance.
"Now that you have attained power, are you able to fight off the sinners?" The ominous voice came back to me, even though I did not call for it. As it voiced out it's words, out of the lava vein came out a hand. The hand had a maroon color to it while having a little decayed flesh mold on it. I stood up, but uncontrollably I jumped incredible high and I just looked as the ground got farther.
"AAAHHHHHH!!!" I screamed in terror. I was atleast 35 meters high when I saw the "sinners" fully out of the lava. Their bodies extremely mutilated and barely kept together.
My jump momentum ceased at 80 meters and I descended. It was even more terrifying to see the ground come closer very fast, but I felt confidence after being able to even jump so high. To my luck, once I instinctively plummeted on my feet, I didn't receive any damage.
I looked forward at the 27 sinners standing infront of me. All of them had their chest tore open with magma dripping out. I knew what I had to do...
'Fuck this!' I thought and started running in the opposite direction at an incredible speed. I was thrilled about having such fast running abilities more than the jump power, but it was not the time to celebrate.
'It's better to hide and cower than cause a disturbance that might awaken unnecessary wrath. The archangel is the valley's guardian so I have to be careful!' I decided, to which I noticed that I've already reached the cliff where I attempted to gather mana. It should have atleast taken an hour to arrive from the nearest spire.
I looked up and spectated how far I would have to jump with my enhanced eyesight. I estimated around 300 meters.
I squatted and strained my muscles as much as I could. The ground beneath me started cracking. The ground shattered as soon as I pushed away. In a matter of seconds I was already higher than my destination point and continued to reach even higher.
'Shit! Shit! Shit!!' I was beginning to see the horizon as I flew further. The planet was scorched in flames, except for the valley.
"A Zenith God turned a fire elemental lord into this ball of fire for his personal use, as if you'd be judged by someone like that" The voice exclaimed. I stared at the mesmerizing view before asking..
"How high did I jump?"
"2000 meters"
"FUCK!" I yelled and started falling down. It was a whole another experience compared to an 80 meter fall. The velocity was alarming, even to the point where my instinctual-self was all over the place.
'I can make it!' I told myself and prepared for a landing, just as before.
The proper landing was a success, but I felt the impact way more this time. The cliff was fine aswell without any large damage except a huge hole. (Oops)
As the dust cleared away I walked to the edge of the cliff and stared at the valley which was crowded... Crowded?
"W-What are you doing here? WHO are you?!" Said a familiar voice. I looked behind and saw the archangel, Kre'ser