The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 230: Helios

Chapter 230: Helios

The two girls spent the next few minutes comparing illusions on their tablets as Rain looked into the chamber. It smelled a bit like sweat and rust, but everything seemed intact.

A few minutes later, once they were done - and Cassie had more mana - both angels turned to Rainier.

"Ready to go?" Malz asked.

Rain let out a puff of air. "I hope so," he said, looking around at everyone.

"You’ll do fine," Cassie said, opening the box containing her other two gems and handing one to Rain.

Rain gave her a smile and picked up one orb. He turned, and stepped into the chamber, opening the holder and waiting as a tiny cascade of dust fell from it. As soon it was in place, he closed the holder and turned around, facing the door.

"See you in a few," he said, before pushing it closed.

The setup was ultimately quite simple.

As soon as he was comfortable, all Rain needed to do was circulate his mana before pushing it into the emitter. Using the mana contained in the crystal, the emitter would generate a "pressure cycle" that his body would try to absorb until its limits, after which he simply had to maintain control while slowly letting the pressure expand his soul - the container for his magic.

It was a similar technique to how he’d adapted to the middle floors of the dungeon in Norneau, but far more focused, and as he would discover, persistently painful.

Shoving aside the pain, he focused on his breathing and his mana, the back and forth against the pressure, letting just enough of it in to expand his vessel. Slowly. Slowly...

*

It started as a low roar.

Like tumbling rocks or a distant waterfall.

Something which built and built as if it were getting closer... and then...

A sudden pinch in his chest made Rainier open his eyes. He looked down to find himself hovering over a battlefield, and an arrow had just landed where his heart should have been. Only instead...

Pulling the arrow out, with barely a wince at the pain, Rain saw for just a moment as the godflesh began to heal itself. An annoyed "Tsk" sounded from his mouth and he cast it aside.

None of the movements were his, but he could see and feel everything around him.

He could see...

The streets of Araqlun were covered in bodies. Angels and non-angels everywhere fighting. It was impossible to tell which side was which.

A human mage suddenly flew in front of him, and everything went white as she blasted pure energy at him, only for it to part around the barrier he erected around himself.

A moment later, a sword materialized in his hand and he slashed into the mage’s shield, shattering it in one strike before thrusting his blade through her heart.

"Only human," his voice growled, before kicking the woman off the blade.

Imprisoned in the moment, Rain was horrified.

"Bene Elohim!" a male voice called from the side, and Rain turned, gazing upon an angel that was brown-haired and white-winged. "Are you hurt?"

"No. Have you secured the lab?"

"We did as you said and triggered the growth cycle. Once the lab is broken there’s no way she can send any more trees to either world. The mana drain should shut down her entire operation."

"Good. Once we’ve secured the city we’ll get a task force together to burn the one she landed on Sheol," Rain’s voice replied. "You will lead it, as my executioner."

The angel smiled broadly, and Rain saw that there was blood on his robe, and a sword very similar to Kir’s old one in his hand, but with a short handle in proportion to the blade. "What about the ones who escaped on the tree? Or the ones heading to the planet?"

"Burn them or let them flee. They’ll be dead soon enough," Rain felt his face rise into a sneer. "Assuming they haven’t figured out how to live on mana alone," he chuckled. "As for the planetside trees... Assuming the seeds survive the atmosphere, we could always use them as outposts."

Rain could feel his utter contempt. His thoughts that everyone who struggled and died below him was vermin.

Suddenly a massive sound like straining metal sounded from below. Rain began to hover towards the edge of the city.

Far, far below, trees were bursting out of a metallic structure that dwarfed anything Rain had ever laid eyes on.

Araqlun stood atop the gutted trunk of a single, massive tree, and the only other trees were far, far in the distance.

"Beautiful," he whispered.

One new growth began to twist through a massive plate, one with unfamiliar letters writ large. But Rain could feel their meaning in his mind. The word. Aidaeb.

The name of one of the three prime gods.

As the life crawled toward the sky, he inhaled the fresh energy of the trees, feeding on an infinite source of mana. So much life, so much power.

Another angel flew in from above.

"Helios!" the man called out. "The Professor is on the line in the planning room."

"Has she expressed a desire to surrender already?" Rain... No, Helios smiled.

"She says she’ll only speak to you."

"Well then, let’s get this over with," Helios chuckled.

Leaving the battlefield behind, Helios rose on angelic wings that were framed by the godflesh, like armor, instead of being comprised of the substance.

He landed before a set of massive doors carved with a black circle under which every race was falling toward the ground. Even angels and demons.

He approached the door and raised his hand.

"Password," a voice in the air said.

"Helios Three Alpha Tenet Blue," the man said, emphasizing each.

"ID confirmed. Welcome, Security Officer Nico."

Helios tsked again, annoyed at the title he’d been given.

He walked into a massive room that was dominated by a table of white marble, inlaid seamlessly with a colorful stone map of Ayther.

A woman stood at the head of the table, behind the arc of some sort of device covered in buttons. It’s for communication... Rain realized, based on the internal sense that Helios had. She was short of stature and had black, glossy wings. Her eyes were almond-shaped and she had black hair striped with strands of white and silver.

"Hello Henry," she said. "Or should I call you Helios? If I’m being honest, I thought it would take less than three centuries for you to think yourself a god." The way she spoke was oddly accented to Rain, but odder still was the white coat she wore, upon which was sewn an unfamiliar set of symbols. And yet, through Helios, Rain could read them. Her name was Nasumi...

"Aiko. You’ve stood in my way long enough, so why don’t you just admit your defeat, hm? Your precious trees and the caretaker network have you trapped in a dead zone. There won’t be mana there to sustain you, and without sunlight, all the food will be up here. So the only thing I want to hear from you is ’I surrender.’ Do that and I’ll let you and your little clones do what you’re supposed to and work for me."

"You will not take this facility without me, Henry. I swore to the people that they would receive a fair world. A world in balance. A world where people like you and your father won’t need to exist."

"My father had the right view. The world needs order. A divine hierarchy to keep things pristine, with a place for man and a place for all else that is pure. A new Earth that cannot be exploited because we are the guardians of it. So quit this resistance and surrender, and you can be part of the new order."

"Spoken like a true madman. I had thought that this was a mere tantrum of yours at first, but the blood in the streets says otherwise. And for that blood, I will take the future you want away from you."

"Heaven must be pure," Helios shouted. "Can’t you see that? But no... if you will not be a part of it, I’m sure there’s some version of you that will. "

"This is not heaven, Henry. And you forget one thing. I have the singularity, and you don’t. Without Aidaeb, your ’Heaven’ will be your prison."

Singularity?

The woman reached as if pulling something in front of her.

Suddenly, red lights went off everywhere, along with a sound like the wailing of some frightful creature.

Henry barked a laugh, but behind it, Rain felt uncertainty and fear. "Not so smart for a scientist? You don’t have the mana to enact the Project now."

"I am not activating the Project." The illusory woman shifted as if in an earthquake. "I am taking the singularity away from you, where you will never touch it."

Helios’ eyes widened. "You fool. You’ll kill us all!"

"What’s a dead world to a Nasumi, hm? But no, you’ll live. You’ll even get your heavenly little trees. The mycelial network will take care of that... in a few thousand years," she sneered. "But will all your precious promises keep you alive that long? I wish I could see when the knives come out for you." She rocked again, and suddenly the whole city seemed to be shaking... Until just as suddenly it stopped.

A laugh crept out of Helios’ throat. "You failed, didn’t you? You don’t even have the mana to jettison the core-"

"My lord!" the angel who’d brought Helios here pulled his attention, pointing out the doors.

Falling away from Araqlun and its blue sky was a massive orb, moving far faster than anything Rain thought possible for its size.

And now Aiko laughed. She laughed and laughed.

Rain felt like he was in a room with two insane people.

"I was wondering what my last words to you would be, Henry. But I suppose I will leave you with the words of my partners: ’Don’t bet everything on a magical solution when a mechanical one works just fine.’"

She held up her middle finger, and then the figure distorted and was gone.

Helios turned and watched as the orb descended upon Ayther, its surface burning a pale orange and white as it passed through the air. Where it landed was an open patch of water between three continents.

There should have been an impact. There should have been... something. But instead, the orb seemed to plunge into the deep blue without a single thing amiss... until the oceans began to twist. Until the molten, spinning carnage of inconceivable scale began to gather around the hole forming in the world, ripping land the size of whole kingdoms apart as the darkness began to surround itself. Like the center of a flower, closing itself to the darkness...

But then as suddenly as it began, it stopped. The darkness shrank. The molten chaos closed over it. The seas still roiled, and the world was still destroyed and smoking, but now there was a new continent, grey and red and ugly, the mountain range of another land stuck to its east along with a collapsed shelf.

Not knowing what he had just witnessed, Rain awoke...