Chapter 408 Getting Invited to Heaven
Yes, an elevator door standing by itself in the middle of nowhere, with nothing connecting it above! Curious, I tried to circle around it, but when looking from behind, it seemingly didn't exist.
[What are you doing, human?]
As I was going back and forth curiously, Azrael couldn't help but tilt his head in confusion. Even I was confused, though.
"Why an elevator? Isn't it supposed to be stairs?"
[Ahh...]
When he heard my serious question, a faint smile appeared on his face.
[At first, it was stairs, as you said. However, climbing up millions of steps just to reach heaven was found to be too bothersome. So, we switched the method to something simpler: the elevator.]
Oh, so because the angels found it troublesome to climb flights of stairs, the method of going to heaven changed? Well, I guess that makes sense. Laziness is the number one contributor to innovation, after all.
[Looks like the transition is over. Come with me.]
Azrael waved as he tried to fit his over 30-meter-tall build inside the 2.5-meter-tall elevator. No matter how I think about it, he shouldn't be able to fit at all.
"...!"
But magically, his body began shrinking to about 2 meters tall, turning practically human-sized in an instant. His wings were folded tight around his body, though, as if trying to take as little space as possible.
"Hurry up; the elevator isn't going to stay here for long."
Even his voice got toned down, from sounding like a heavenly being speaking directly to my mind to now releasing his voice out of his mouth like a normal person.
"R-Right, coming!"
The elevator was a bit cramped. No, it was supposed to be wide enough for both of us to fit, but his wings were taking up enough space for two people. Of course, I couldn't just cry and tell him to pull back his wings. I'm not bold enough.
After I entered, the elevator door began to close. Then, Azrael pressed the only button on it, causing the entire thing to shake as it began ascending.
"Woah...!"
The feeling that we were going up was felt through my body. It was hard to explain in words, but it felt like something was pressing down on your shoulders as it began to move.
Silence spread inside the elevator as neither Azrael nor I spoke a single word. We just spent the time staring at the number shown atop the door, counting up from zero to... about a million now. This isn't counting the elevation in meters, is it? Probably something more abstract, like the number of universes we passed through.
*TING~!*
Then, roughly a minute later, when the number shown on top was fixed at 1,00,000,000, the elevator finally stopped and opened its doors. Spread right outside is a cloudy path, definitely fitting my image of what heaven would look like.
Azrael walked out without waiting for me; his wings ended up bumping against my head, however. That hurts, but I didn't raise a complaint. No, it's not that I'm afraid of him, but rather of the two panels standing proudly as guards right outside.
"..."
These two... they feel as powerful... no, a lot more powerful than Azrael!
'A stage above beyond-god-level?'
That was the only conclusion I could come to, but how to reach it was beyond my understanding. In the first place, reaching beyond-god-level was already as abstract as it could get.
"Human, hurry up, or I'll leave you behind."
When Azrael's voice entered my ears, I noticed that he had already proceeded way ahead. I ran at a trot as I kept gazing at the two angel guards, thinking they would block my path. However, nothing happened even after I passed them. Was I too weak to even garner wariness from them? Possibly, that's the case.
After reaching Azrael's back, I matched his pace as we walked on.
"So this is heaven?"
I looked around, and apart from having the ground turn to clouds, it wasn't that different from what I was used to. Buildings were standing here and there, all pure white, making it hard to distinguish them from the clouds themselves.
'But the scale is at a different league!'
Everything was made to fit someone as big as those two angels at the entrance. Suddenly, I remembered about Jack and the Beanstalk, the story where a giant was living in a castle past the clouds.
Could that story, perhaps, be about heaven then?
Anyway, as I followed behind Azrael, we soon approached a large castle in the distance. Yes, it was LARGE. Even if I were the same size as the angels, I would still feel that it was large.
It was so high that its tall spires pierced through the highest clouds, while the entire castle was wide enough to fill the entire horizon in my view. This definitely isn't a construct possible on Earth.
"We'll be heading straight to have an audience with God. Don't worry about manners, as God isn't petty enough to pick on you for that."
"An audience with God?!"
Wait a minute, he's not talking about "god-tamer" God, is he?! I suddenly became nervous, wondering what God looked like. Some scriptures say that God made humans mirror his own appearance; others define gods as concepts who have no physical bodies. I wonder which one is true?
"We're here."
"So fast?!"
The castle was so far away earlier, and we're already at the front gate! Azrael, as if not hearing my cry of surprise, pushed the big, heavy-looking doors open. The white doors swung open, not releasing even the slightest creak as they went.
When the doors opened, the inside of the castle became visible.
"..."
It was... A simple design? There's a straight path leading onward, with two paths going to the left and right.
Azrael continued walking forward, so I had no choice but to follow his steps. The hallway was long, enough that it took us ten minutes of brisk walking just to reach the other end, where another white door was blocking the way.
All the white walls, white floors, white ceilings,and white doors were making me think I had lost the ability to see color. Being the only one wearing a glaring black-and-red Seimei-style robe, they're battle attire, I stick out like a sore thumb in this white space.
Again, Azrael pushed open the doors effortlessly, causing the view ahead of them to be visible.
"..."
Ahead of us is a coliseum, or more specifically, a courtroom.
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