An angel, huh.
Could it be as powerful as a god? That wouldn't make sense though.
Whether or not is was more powerful than a god was not important, or at least, not as important as figuring out whether they are my enemy or not. But judging by the conversation she heard with Black just then, I was compelled to label her as an enemy.
If we were to clash, that'd be a problem for me. Not only do I have no clue about her, but...
Yeah. My head.
Healing and restoration magic didn't work. And I couldn't think of anything else to do aside from putting my head back on my body, preferably without having to hold it with my hands.
So I used magic threads to stitch my head back on. And that was the best I could come up with. Surprisingly, I could get my blood flowing properly, and breathing was back to normal. It doesn't make sense but it works.
Now I could properly focus on my opponent. I would've liked to have a conversation first, but it didn't seem like she was up for it.
Actually, it was more like she looked down on me, as if I was someone unworthy of paying attention to. No. That couldn't have been the case. She called me something. Heaven's Favored.
She looked at Black, intending to say something to him.
"No interrupting."
His smile was enough of a response. Then he bowed his head and walked back, leaving the two of us.
She didn't move, nor did she speak. And it didn't seem like she was planning to. But I had to know something. I couldn't wait for her to make her move.
"Is there a reason, why you're after me?"
There was a long pause before she decided to speak.
"Tell me, Takumi." I didn't expect that. "Where do you think we are?"
What? "Heaven."
"That isn't the answer I'm looking for."
I theorized that she meant where we were specifically. If that was the case, "The first trial."
"Correct. Then there's no need for further questions."
It took me a while. But I understood it eventually. Black said that there was someone in the trial who wasn't supposed to be there. Clearly he was referring to her.
If there was someone who wasn't supposed to be there, then that means that things changed. The trial itself changed.
Judging from the vibes she was giving off, clearly I was meant to defeat her. But if that were the case, then it would've been too easy.
Was this all that the trial had to offer? I was expecting something that'd probably hurt a lot more than this. Something that could bring out the worst of me, or the best. Something that'd make me question everything.
But if the only thing I was meant to do was defeat her, then It'd be an utter disappointed.
No. The trial changed. That means that there might have actually been something else. But who even controls the trials anyway? If completing them meant that the individual would become a deity, wouldn't that make them something very, valuable? Or powerful? I can't find the right words.
She was able to change it, most likely altering it completely. That meant that she was incredibly strong. The strongest opponent I had ever faced ever since coming to this world.
"I am merely the test giver." She said. "I hope you're not overthinking it. Let us try to make this quick. That was my intention from the beginning but you managed to survive."
It was tough to tell what she was thinking. Her face looked soft but stone cold at the same time. Like a doll.
There was no way I was going to hold back. Not in the slightest.
I removed my eye patch and opened my eye. It shone like a polished gemstone, gleaming with pink light. My skill was fully activated.
Overheat.
A skill I got during my fight with the hero a while back. This one gave me half more power than what I had when activating it. Physically, it shows that its activated by pouring steam out of my mouth.
I was ready, planning on how I could make the first blow. But that plan backfired a little too quickly.
My limbs were caught by chains that appeared out of nowhere. There were two stone pillars they tied me to. It was so tight that I could barely struggle. And to make it worse, they were manifested by divine mana. There was no way of breaking free.
What about-
"Don't bother."
Among the two rings on her back, one moved. More like, it split into dozens of smaller arcs. The one that was a perfect circle.
The arcs fell on the ground around me, trapping me in the center.
But I wasn't going to let that happen.
I used teleportation and successfully got out of the chains. But I was still in the circle. It was a barrier. This was because I moved too slowly.
A short blade appeared in her hands, which she held before her face. Then wings appeared on her back, with feathers that glowed as brightly as the sun. The blade was set ablaze and it flew directly at me.
That triggered the feathers on her wings, that they all launched themselves to me. After passing the barrier, not a single one missed.
Starting with the short blade that pierced me directly at the center of my chest. And though it was short, it was able to come out on the other side.
The fire burned my flesh and clothes, distracting me from the numerous other projectiles. Each of them cut me like knives, revealing my flesh and bones.
It was painful, and healing magic didn't work.
"Now then. Let judgement be passed."
And a huge sword dropped from the sky, big enough to cover all the area in the barrier, slicing through it but leaving no gaps for me to escape. All I could do was look up at it.
It drove itself into the ground, making it look as if it had no end.
With feathers long vanished from her wings, only the underlying bone and sinew remained — slender, graceful, and tapering to delicate, claw-like ends.
Only one ring remained on her back . This meant, that if I was still alive, she'd be in an even greater disadvantage.
Once the sword disappeared, the air began to clear. But she didn't wait for it. She could already see through the dust. I was still there, alive and breathing. She wasn't going to have that.
In the middle of the now clearing dust, she came to me, while I knelt on one knee, feeling the pain and all.
My body could barely move. I only managed to breathe heavily.
She grabbed the blade that was in me.
"How did you dodge it?"
I didn't answer. So she stared into my eyes, most likely looking at my memories.
"So that's how it is."
Her grip around the handle of the blade tightened. She slowly dragged it towards my heart, intending to kill me before I could do anything.
I felt immeasurable pain at that moment. But even a scream couldn't come out.
Hearing my own flesh being cut... my body growing weaker by the second. My eyes began to close. I had already given up.
It ended before I could even do anything. What a pain.
While my eyes were closed, I felt a cold drop of liquid fall on my hand. It came from her.
She was sweating.
And for some reason, she looked worn out.
Then she crawled back before standing.
"Why... Why do you have Black Death's power in you?"
At that moment, I immediately remembered. I still had one more trick up my sleeve.
When a first defeated the version of Black Death that took over my body, I bottled up its power and stashed it away inside of me. At that time I did it because I didn't understand what I was dealing with.
But after being warned by Clara not to use it, I was afraid it might take over my body again. Maybe the next time that I did so, I wouldn't be able to fight it again.
The angel looked at Black frustratingly. This was going to put a damper at her plans.
Not only that, but now she revealed a weakness of hers to her enemy, and she knew that it was going to have consequences.
A wave of energy came by her, flailing her hair in the wind and clearing the remainder of the dust.
It came from me, who was now standing, surrounded by dark flaming aura.
Half of my face, on the side with the black eye, got covered by darkness, as I tapped into the power left in me by Black Death.
It looked different from last time, but I could tell the amount of power was even more.
Surprisingly, my wounds were healed, aside from my neck. Everything else was healed.
Meanwhile, Black watched as I used his power in excitement, knowing full well what it meant for him.
What looked like a magic staff appeared in the hands of the angel. It was made by a shiny metal and appeared more like a modern device or something otherworldly.
The final ring on her back, which had more of a rough surface than the previous one, began spinning faster before flying out in the same way, multiple parts, and covering her body, turning into armor.
Both of us were now ready for combat.
"With all my willpower, I pray to thee—"
"Devil's Gaze."
Her heart almost pounced out of her chest, causing her to cough blood.
When she looked at me, she saw it: a tear in reality, forming from nothing, warping everything around it.
Slender spindly appendages hooked to each side of the tear, pulling it apart. More and more of them appeared, making it look as if a giant spider was about to appear.
That was until you'd realize that there were 12 of them, all surrounding a main spherical body which slowly came out of the hole.
It opened, revealing itself to be a dark eye with no pupil and impure an impure eyeball.
It hovered over me, looking down on the angel.
It seemed to cause pain on the inside of her body, since she was bleeding from all the holes on her face.
I could tell. She was growing weak.
She was angry at Black, since he was the one that ruined her plans from the very moment he entered into the picture.
He was the one that made the original trial collapse, since there was no one to hold the Valley together, it collapsed in on itself.
It took her a significantly long time just to rebuild the whole area.
To make it worse, he killed the Ophanim before it could even do a thing.
Now, his power that's in me was able to...how to put it...dissolve perhaps, the attack that she used on me, allowing me to survive.
I learnt of how Black Death's mana, for some reason, seemed to be a weakness for her. With this, she had almost no chance of winning.
Her desperation made her go physical, attempting to attack me with the staff.
Though I was able to block it, its weight forced me ankle deep into the ground.
I retaliated with a single fist to her stomach, which flung her away.
Then I got to her and hit her again into the ground, causing a massive crater to form. This obviously wasn't enough to finish her off.
She teleported to safety and tried using healing magic, but the eye was still looking at her from a distance, disabling her spell.
She wasn't going to give up.
With the last of her strength, she used a cursed skill.
The leftover wings on her back turned into empty scales.
"Let this evil soul be judged in the name of Heaven. If found guilty, justice will befall him."
A blue flame appeared on one side of the scales. Obviously it was heavier than nothing.
Trumpets echoed all over, their blaring calls rippling through the air like a warning carried on the wind.
"Suffer the wrath of Michael's power."
This statement managed to trigger someone who wasn't even remotely close to where the action was happening.
Though the sky was practically cloudless, golden lightning still managed to somehow form.
Then it fell on me with such force that reality itself seemed to shatter—light split the sky, a thunderclap roared in my ears, and for a moment, everything burned white.
Finally, once everything had cleared, she was able to momentarily get a glimpse before the same ring that appeared on my neck came to hers.
"Sacrificial..."
She was scared, knowing full well what was going to happen next.
"Decapitation."
And just like that, the fight came to an end.
"Congratulations." Black said. "You beat an angel."
"Master! Are you alright?" Uzzaran asked while running to me after the fight.
"...Yes. I'm fine."
"But... Your neck. A...and your face."
I assured her that I was fine.
But that fight. It was not what I expected.
Though I was still close to dying, it felt, a little too easy.
It was the first time I've ever met an angel. Did I just have too much expectations?
...
Unbeknownst to me,
We had an onlooker.
Someone who closely, no, looked exactly like the angel I just defeated.
She had a satisfied smile on her face.
She turned around,
And at the short moment before she disappeared, something that wasn't on the one I beat came into full view.
An earring on her right eye.
"Primordial"