NOVEL NEXT Chapter 672
Lost in thought, he didn't notice the incoming projectile until it was almost too late. A leering skull crafted from shreds of pure white light screeched across the sky, coming from a nearby cloud. Wisps of polychromatic vapor drifted from between its stylized teeth and from its eye sockets. Sam's hands flashed up out of instinct, and a shield of energy popped up. The skull crashed into it with a surprising amount of physical force, and he went tumbling backwards, without anything to hold onto.
He teleported to the island, only to find that he had barely covered a quarter of the distance. As another skull came speeding towards him, Sam cursed the strange dimensions of the realm he was stuck in. A few more usages of Wormhole Call did the trick, however, and Sam soon stood above the island, floating on a board of hard light.
Below him was a strange being, in the process of conjuring another skull. It looked like a cherub, but grotesquely enlarged. Whereas a normal cherub was fat, cute and rosy cheeked, this thing was just the former of the three. It looked like someone had taken an obese, middle aged man and stuffed him into a child's halloween costume of an angel. Rolls of quivering lard trembled as the man muttered to himself, shaking his pendulous jowls.
Sam let gravity pull him down, landing by the cherub. He took in more of its appearance. while the clothes it wore were tattered and much too small for it, the wings were real enough. Only, they seemed far too small to propel such an engorged creature aloft. Indeed, as the angel, if it could even be called one, got to its feet, the wings fluttered pathetically, a few gusts of wind all they had to show for it.
Sam let out a bit of his aura, and to his surprise, the creature shuddered, paling as it felt Sam's true strength.
"Don't hurt Ezekiel!" the thing howled, before throwing itself at Sam's feet. "He doesn't deserve it!"
Sam curled his lip, and took a step back as the cherub reached for his armor. "Why were you attacking me?"
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
The creature rubbed its meaty hands together in supplication. "King Ramiel instructs all of us cherubs to attack anyone not of his court. Outsiders aren't supposed to be in here, but you managed to enter."
"King Ramiel? Is that the lord of this realm?"
The cherub hissed. "No! We do not speak of the Supreme One! King Ramiel rules in her stead. She... what is the word... is cultivating." The last word was injected with so much hatred and disdain that Sam was taken aback.
"Cultivating? What's so strange about that?"
Ezekiel hissed again. "We cherubs cannot cultivate. We are stuck at whatever level the master leaves us. It is a chain that shackles Ezekiel to the ground, despite him having wings to fly."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "Really? From my experiences, everything living can cultivate, or at least level up."
"Not in this place. The Great Machine barely reaches here, and most of its power is directed towards Lord Ramiel and the mistress."
"So this is some sort of pocket dimension?" Sam asked. "Where exactly am I?"
"This is a sealed dimensional space, affixed to the Heaven of Eternal Reward. The mistress leeches power from that realm to support this one. There is very limited access to the Great Machine in the afterlife, so it's equally poor here."
Sam nodded, though he had no idea what the Heaven of Eternal Reward was. He was still fishing for a System notification, though there hadn't been any yet.
"Anyway, Ezekiel wishes that someone would free him," the cherub declared, a wistful tone in his voice. "He cannot free himself."
"How?" Sam asked. "What do I need to do?"
Ezekiel froze, staring at Sam. His mouth opened. "You would help me?" he asked, not talking in the third person for the first time. "You would free me from this torture?"
Sam shrugged. "If I can. What do I need to do?" he repeated.
"I am enslaved by Baroness Sariel, one of Ramiel's children. She holds my contract, and those of a thousand of my brethren."
"Contract?"
"This entire realm is patterned after the Heavens," Ezekiel explained. "Every one of the 'angels' here are under duress. I cannot leave of my own free will, and I must follow the orders of my superiors to the letter."
"Doesn't sound very much like Heaven," Sam replied. "I would have thought such a place to be a lot more equitable."
Ezekiel spat disdainfully. "What do you expect? Cultivators keep their power after their demise. They just move to another realm. It's exactly the same as the mortal world."