30 - [Abyssal Seraphim]

Walking out of the entrance portal for the spatial tunnel to the Chiral Prism Dimension, Syrakel (Sa-ee-ra-kell) sighed in exhaustion.

She wasn't really exhausted, but spending 5 years to get back was really just too long. Even if she was an old monster at the Abyssal God realm, that didn't mean she liked walking through an empty spatial tunnel for years on end.

That's why she rushed back this time, unlike taking her time when she went in. Besides the potential importance of the news she was bringing back, she really just wanted to get out as fast as possible.

So she had managed to come back out after just 5 years, vs. the 2 decades it had taken her to reach the other side when she went in before.

Taking no time to admire the luxuriously decorated and finely crafted halls of the encampment around the entrance portal, she directly teleported out and appeared 10,000 km. away, at a different camp. This one was guarding a different portal, and had a different style to it as well.

The wellmade architecture that lead to the portal was useless in any practical sense, since the only ones going through this portal, and the other one, would be strong existences that could at least teleport in one way or another.

Still, the buildings looked nice.

Immortals paid a lot of attention to making sure things looked good. When you lived forever, you learned to appreciate the little things, like architectural design on halls in buildings you'd never need to roam in since you'd just teleport past them.

Spreading her aura to let the guards know she was there, she teleported in front of the portal, where the guards stationed there were bewildered for only a short moment before instantly saluting with their hands to their chests.

These guards didn't look the same as, say, human guards.

For one, all the guards in the camp were women. Moreover, they had pure white skin just like Syrakel, and also like her they had black tattoo like striped marks all across the limbs and forming patterns on their torsos.

Only, they had fewer black markings than Syrakel, by a noticable degree.

This was a feature of the abyssal seraphim, the strongest ones either had a lot of black markings or close to none at all, although so did the weakest, which got confusing.

Being in the middle in quantity meant you were also middle of the pack in strength.

Many species had physical markers of strength, just like them. For instance, archangels had more wings than normal angels, 3x as many to be exact, and seraphim had an extra pair than even archangels.

Well, that wasn't exactly true, but that's a story for another day. All you need to know is all archangels have a seraphim form and all seraphim have an archangel form, so they weren't exactly fundamentally different in the same way angels and archangels were.

The abyssal seraphim, despite their names, were not, and make no mistake about this, in any way the allies of the angels.

At least, not yet at this point in history.

Although they were technically Sacred type beings, like angels were, and normally all Sacred type beings were on the same side, they were an exception.

Most Sacred type beings lived in Heaven, while some were scattered across the cosmos, but the abyssal seraphim were a race from, as the name implied, the Abyss.

The Abyss was name of the "underground" region beneath the cosmic floor, and at the center of the cosmic floor, there was an entrance to the Abyss in the form of a large, deep hole.

When I say large here, understand it means over 100,000 km. in diameter.

In other words, you could fit a planet through and have it fall all the way down no problem.

Some larger planets might not fit though.

The Abyss was home to a variety of creatures, and was separated into 100 floors.

The deeper one went, the more terrifying and powerful the creatures became.

By the 11th floor, you'd find beings at the same level of power as those in the void magic stage of the Class Blood system of power.

By floor 30, there were gods.

By floor 60, there were abyssal gods.

Floors 90-100 had a level of power noone knew about. All anyone knew was to steer clear of it.

The abyssal seraphim were angels that, through a series of events I won't discuss here, fell into and got trapped in the lower levels of the Abyss.

Lower levels being floor 50 and below.

In order to survive, as all beings in the Abyss must do to survive, they had to sacrifice their element.

Species were grouped into "elements", which formed what they are. For reference, manaless creatures formed by organic materials, like unawakened humans, are considered "neutral" element.

Someone like the current Merca was considered of the "Mana" element.

"Sacred" was also an element, denoting angels, archangels, seraphs, seraphim, powers, principalities, and other creatures of Heaven.

Heaven in this case refers to one of the 3000 realms in the inner cosmic ring.

Hell had the "demon", "unholy", and other elements. Well, I'll stop there, but you can imagine.

Similarly, the Abyss had the "abyssal" element.

The Abyss was a dangerous place, for a wholly different set of reasons than the danger of, say, Hell.

Hell was dangerous because it was supposed to be a place of torment for many beings. However, there weren't many powerful beings in it.

The most powerful beings, the Demon Kings, weren't even self-made. Each and every Demon King was hand selected by a certain figure, to manage and rule over Hell.

Past demon kings were demon gods, and gods appeared in the Abyss like they were common goods past the 30th floor.

Essentially, the strongest beings in Hell couldn't survive a second past the 30th floor of the Abyss.

Hell was meant to be an awful place mainly for weaker existences.

In comparison, the Abyss could terrify almost anyone.

The thing that allowed Abyssal creatures to run so rampant in strength was something called "abyssal energy".

The more abyssal energy one absorbed, the more a certain decay process would ensue.

Slowly but surely, the absorption of abyssal energy would erode one's element, until eventually their element was replaced with the abyssal element, and all their energy was replaced by abyssal energy.

The angels that got trapped in the Abyss placed supreme importance on their Sacred elementality. It was a blessing given to them by their Lord God.

The common concensus among Sacred types was that it was a better fate to die than to give up the Sacred element.

Still, due to certain reasons, they were forced to give it up. Absorbing the abyssal energy of the Abyss to grow stronger, they became abyssal creatures.

However, angels were angels after all.

Where demons might eat each other to grow stronger, humans might grow untrusting of each other and fail to work together, and beasts would lose themselves to the abyssal energy, all of which would result in a complete annihilation and replacement of their element with the abyssal element, the angels managed to come up with something better.

Angels were clever little things, more cunning than you'd probably expect, yet also being able to work together better than almost any other species in the cosmos.

With that teamwork and intellect, the team of angels that got trapped managed to find a way to maintain their Sacred element at half the original purity.

The end result were the abyssal seraphim, entities that were half sacred element and half abyssal.

Using this fusion to their advantage, they managed to grow in strength until they stood at the peak of the 89th floor.

They grew overconfident, and challenged the 90th floor that was forbidden among denizens of the Abyss.

The end result?

Utter defeat.

They were forced to run away from the 90th floor, completely destroyed and wiped out.

Their original numbers had been a mere 20, but they managed to bolster this to 20,000 at their prime.

I won't go into angel reproduction here, but just know it isn't sexual reproduction.

However, after the incident at the 90th floor, those numbers fell back down to a pitiful 2,000.

1/10th their original size.

Casualties of 90% were ridiculous, no matter the battlefield. To make matters worse, the beings on the 90th floor didn't let them leave.

Going up to the 89th floor, they were chased.

Going up to the 88th floor, they were chased.

Same once they got to the 80th floor.

And the 70th.

And the 60th.

By the time they were at the 50th floor, the pursuers still hadn't stopped, but now they were stuck.

Ths reasom they had been trapped was because of a seal of sorts at the 50th floor that only affected them.

The creation and backstory of that seal is a matter for another day.

Now, they had nowhere to run, and their pursuers were after them.

What they had found on the 90th floor were Abyssal Gods in the droves, a swarm of them, each at the peak of the Abyssal God realm. At their head was a being they could not make out.

He didn't chase. He only ordered the countless Abyssal Gods under him to chase, and lay chase they did.

Just when the abyssal seraphim thought it was the end, the Abyssal Gods' momentum and aura directly broke the seal that was trapping them.

Immediately, they used their half-pure Sacred element to connect to Heaven, and were immediately teleported out of the Abyss and into a certain large platform in the cloudy Heaven realm.

After that, certain events transpired that caused them to fight against the angels, but thankfully for them, they were leagues stronger than most of the angels, so they managed to win.

The only exceptions were the archangels, of whom there were 7 who were as strong as Abyssal Gods, so they had to be sealed rather than killed.

The angels and the demons had a whole big thing going on, and the demons didn't exactly appreciate the angels being defeated by these newcomers, so then ensued a battle with the demons too.

Believe it or not, the demons and the angels, although not all old grudges had been settled, but the leaders of both races had actually been on friendly terms for a while now.

Hearing what had happened, the demon gods were furious, and promptly started a war with the abyssal seraphim.

Although they were outnumbered, it had to be known that the weakest abyssal seraphim was at the god realm.

Unlike the 7 archangels who at least put up a fight, the demons were much worse off. The only exception was The Devil, the apex demon god who ruled them all, who barely fought equally against one leader of the abyssal seraphim.

However, the abyssal seraphim didn't only have over a thousand gods, but also 100 abyssal gods.

100 abyssal gods vs. The Devil all alone, it was clear what would happen.

Like the 7 archangels, The Devil also had to be sealed, since they could not kill him.

Like the Devil and the 7 strongest archangels, there were also other entities that were immensely strong and difficult to kill in the world outside the Abyss.

Immortals were, well, immortal. Not all demon gods and archangels were immortal, but many of the stronger ones were.

In those immortal lives, they had made many friends. And all of those friends happened to be the supreme powers of the cosmos, like them.

Arachne was also one of these individuals.

So ensued a great battle of the ages, but due to the vast distances in the void, and the barrier between and the outer and inner rings, very few outside the inner cosmic ring knew all this was going down.

Now, the fight had mostly settled, and most of the former great powers were wiped out, their leaders sealed away, and the few individuals that mamaged to survive and escape were in hiding.

All this was an "Apocolypto: Event".

Events were things the Lord God arranged every now and then to keep things interesting for himself, and among the different event types, Apocolypto: events in particular were unique.

It was easy to grow lax and complacent in eternity.

You live forever, all your friends live forever, almost all if not truly all your wishes come true once you are past a certain level of power.

Yeah, even the fiercest of warriors would grow weak and coddled under such a reality.

The Lord God didn't want to see that. He wanted supplicants who were well prepped and able to deal with oncoming disasters. He wanted to be sure that if he couldn't handle something (which was almost impossible, but better safe than sorry, right?), that his subordinates and followers could handle the situation well in his stead.

So, he arranged the Apocolypto: events. They were real problems that the denizens of the cosmos and all the realms would have to deal with, and they'd have to suffer for it in the process.

Albeit, they often didn't suffer much. The goal wasn't to traumatize people, but just to keep them alert and aware.

This time, the Apocolypto: event was called [Abyssal Seraphim], and it involved the titular race, the abyssal seraphim, invading Heaven and causing an all out war in the 3000 realms.

The end result was that the angels were all slaughtered or sealed with no exceptions, as were all the demon gods, The Devil, all the demon kings beneath the demon gods, and all the powerful existences that tried to intervene somewhere in the middle of the war, like Arachne.

The demons weren't all slaughtered since they were more easy to control, but the angels would all rather die fighting than live, so they had to be all wiped out.

Of course, some angels chose to live and were in hiding.

Hiding in this case meant the outer cosmic ring, since the abyssal seraphim were already shortstaffed, so they couldn't be bothered to chase people below the god realm all the way to the outer cosmic ring.

They had tried to grow in numbers, but were still low. Without the Abyss to feed them limitless abyssal energy, they had to produce it in other ways, which was possible, but tremendously slow.

After who knows how many years, they had still only obtained 100 new members.

It had been thousands of years already.

Actually, this was 100 new god realm members so it was really actually quite good, but for them who had come from the Abyss, it wasn't worth getting excited over.

Because of the shortstaff, they allocated members to locations in a very sparse spread.

Across all the 3000 realms, there had to have been less than 500 beings equal in power to an abyssal god, and of them, some 400+ weren't participating in the event, so there were less than a hundred left to fight the abyssal seraphim, and they had had to be sealed.

Recall that the abyssal seraphim had exactly 100 abyssal gods.

This meant an abyssal god could be left to manage and oversee each sealed existence, with some left over.

The left over ones partly managed things in the place of the missing powerful existences, but mostly just lazed around.

They had set up headquarters in Heaven, since they were still of half Sacred element, so they felt most at home here.

Speaking of, they had felt kind of bad killing fellow angels, but it had to be done.

I can tell you the reason for the war now. It was simple, can you guess it?

The Lord God just told a small group of angels about the setup for the next Apocolypto: event, and told them to make it real.

Then came the entrapment in the Abyss, the need to sacrifice their element, the growth in power, the escape and teleport to Heaven, and the war.

It might surprise some people how easy it is to cast the world into war when you can control both sides.

Obscure political references aside, it was indeed that simple. Of course, to keep immersion in the event, the abyssal seraphim didn't say anything, but everyone more or less knew what was going on.

After all, in the inner cosmic ring, this kind of thing was all too common. It wasn't hard to guess.

Actually, there was a simple formula that could be used.

If something went wrong in the inner cosmic ring at a massive scale, it was either A) an event, or B) something had actually gone wrong.

And if things actually went wrong, it'd be pretty obvious.

After all, the new Lord God would have the old one's head on a platter for all to see.

That was something that had never happened in all the Apocolypto: events. The Lord God was never blasphemed, not in any significant way. The day that happened was when it would be clear to everyone that perhaps, just maybe, something had truly gone wrong.

Of course, this is just in the inner cosmic ring.

Nobody cares about the outer cosmic ring, the cosmic floor, or the Abyss, so plenty of blasphemous things happen in all of those places.

That might come as a sobering reality to many people, but it was the truth.

Why would the ruler of everything care about...well, you? Or me, or anyone else.

The idea that there even are 3000 realms in the inner ring that he does care for is already something more than anyone could ask for.

That's a whole 3000 more realms he cares about than he has to, ya know.

He could just be evil and create mass Hell.

Instead, Hell's just one place, among many. It's a pretty good offer as far as "worlds I'd like to live in" are concerned.

Well, unless you go to Hell. But like, that one's really on you, ya know?

Alright, enough about all this. Back to the portal room.

The guards, female, were wearing tight, scaled pants, boots, and tight cloth that covered the same places as a sports bra. In other words, the upper back, chest, and connecting clothing between the front and back. The abdomen was left naked.

Different from a sports bra though was the shoulder area, which was fully covered, and extended to the upper arm, like a shortsleeve shirt, but extremely tight-fitting.

This upper body garment was also made of some scaled material.

And of course, needless to say the abyssal seraphim, who were once angels, are all quite attractive.

The guards carried no visible weapons.

These were all the details you really needed to know to fully understand what was about to transpire in a certain room once Syrakel stepped through the portal, which she happened to be doing now.