The Land of Souls.
That was where Judas and Alfia currently stood.
Suspended between the Lower World and Heaven, it existed as neither life nor afterlife... only the silent bridge connecting the two.
A vast, timeless expanse where the breath of life faded and the glow of rebirth began.
This was where reincarnation took root.
When a mortal died, their soul drifted upward to Heaven.
There, they were granted rest... some brief, some long... before being brought before the gods.
The divine purified them, cleansed away memories, emotions, lingering attachments... everything that tied them to their previous existence.
Only then would the soul be guided back downward, returning to the Lower World to begin anew... a life separate from the old, unburdened by past joys or tragedies.
Such was the cycle all mortals knew.
A truth so widely accepted that it had woven itself into the very culture of the Lower World.
Ever since the gods descended and walked among mortals, the process had become common knowledge.
Which was why, despite some Gods being infuriating, childish, or outright cruel, almost no mortal dared to harm them.
Even with their Arcanum sealed, reduced to the strength of ordinary people.
After all...
What stopped a god from holding a grudge?
What prevented a deity from simply waiting... patiently, for decades or centuries... for the moment a mortal's soul returned to Heaven... only to torment them for their insolence?
Even ignoring that, a God could still exert a faint echo of their divine authority in the Lower World... just enough to make any mortal kneel if they so wished.
The Will of the Divine and Heaven itself.
No mortal could escape it.
It was simply...
Untouchable.
Absolute.
An eternal law woven into the very fabric of creation.
And the reincarnation cycle was part of that absolute will... the cosmic river through which every soul flowed, again and again, since the dawn of existence.
If anyone other than a god tried to interfere...
...
...
...
Actually...
No one knew what would happen.
Not even the gods... beings who had lived for millions of years, who had witnessed the rise and fall of countless civilizations... could imagine such a thing.
Because in all of history, not one soul had ever disrupted its flow.
Until now.
Judas Spade stood as the first mortal in existence... the first being ever... to forcibly interrupt the path of a soul's journey between Heaven and the Lower World.
By destroying the gateway to Heaven itself.
A feat so unprecedented... so blasphemous... so far beyond the comprehension of any deity...
That even the heavens... usually silent and aloof... seemed to tremble in response.
And for the first time since the dawn of creation... the absolute will of Heaven had been shaken.
Which is why they sent an executioner.
A servant of the Gods.
An angel.
To fix the flow that had been interrupted.
...
The angel's head tilted... slowly, deliberately... as if studying them not with eyes, but with something far colder.
A judgment.
A sentence.
Judas instinctively shifted his stance, placing Alfia behind him.
He studied the figure's posture, its aura, the patterns of light drifting around its body.
FWOOOM—
Six wings unfurled at once, releasing a blast of divine force that tore cracks across the empty realm.
The air itself seemed to scream as halos of light rotated behind its back like executioner's blades.
Then—
THUMP.
The angel took a single step forward.
One step... and space collapsed.
Reality buckled, folding toward the angel like a planet dragged toward a collapsing star.
Judas felt the pressure with his body.
"...Tch."
He tightened his hold on Alfia and forced his stance to remain firm.
The angel's voice, not spoken but projected directly into their souls.
"One among you has broken the sacred cycle. Present the transgressor."
A ripple of divine law surged outward like a shockwave.
Behind Judas, the rift he'd opened flickered... then shattered into glittering shards of space.
'So escape is no longer an option.'
His gaze tightened.
The angel raised its hand.
Light surged at its palm, condensing into a spear of blinding white.
A weapon of pure celestial judgment.
Alfia's eyes widened.
"Judas—!"
A spark of recognition flashed in her voice; some pieces of her memory were clearly returning.
But Judas couldn't afford to dwell on that... not now.
He stepped forward, gently placing her behind him.
"Stay back."
The angel lowered the spear toward him.
"Identify the transgressor. Last Warning"
Judas cracked his neck.
His eyes hardened.
"...You're looking at him."
The angel's wings flared.
The spear ignited.
And the void itself trembled as Heaven's executioner prepared to strike.
The angel moved first.
No warning.
No sound.
Just light.
Without a word, the angel descended. Its speed was impossible to track...an instantaneous blur, a convergence of divine light aimed directly at him.
Judas' eyes narrowed.
He didn't dodge. He met the strike head-on.
A massive shockwave erupted the moment their powers collided, shaking the surrounding void.
The force was immense, enough to tear mountains in the mortal realm... but Judas' stance remained unbroken.
Energy radiated outward from his fist.
The angel swung again, a brutal, precise assault that could cleave through a continent.
Judas countered, every punch and every swing of his arms creating arcs of raw energy, dissipating the angel's strikes before they could connect.
"This... is manageable."
Judas muttered as he surveyed the chaos in front of him.
He shifted his gaze towards his hand, closing and opening his palms, feeling the immense power coursing through his body.
'This is the Soul Realm... where strength is not decided by one's physical body, but by the strength of one's soul.'
Judas flexed his fingers again, feeling the subtle vibrations of energy respond to his every thought.
The angel hovered, its six wings slicing the light into jagged shards that spun around like a deadly cage.
Each wingbeat resonated through the soul realm.
Yet Judas did not flinch.
The angel recalibrated, its six wings spinning, forming a blinding cyclone of light.
Each feather became a blade, each motion a potential fatal strike.
Judas moved... not frantically, but purposefully.
He danced through the onslaught, weaving between the beams of energy.
His own attacks weren't wasted... every strike pushed back against the angel, gouging through its divine defenses in precise, calculated bursts.
For a moment, time seemed to dilate. Judas' aura flared, rippling outward in purple shockwaves that collided with the angel's radiance.
'Strength here... is about control, about imposing your will.'
He mused.
'Not just brute force.'
Which is why...
'Kneel.'
He exerted his will outwards.
The aura he exuded created a heavy, suffocating pressure that sent the angel's body crashing down.
Suffocating.
Overwhelming.
The angel looked up.
The angel looked up, the cloth that once covered its head now torn and tattered, and in its eyes Judas no longer saw the cold indifference from before.
Only one emotion remained.
Terror.
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