NOVEL NEXT Chapter 680
With his army behind him, Sam now stood before Ramiel's palace. It was an opulent marble temple, covered in streaks of gold and diamond. The palace rested on a gigantic cloud island, which was big enough to house a small country. The temple itself took up a good portion of that area. It was grossly oversized. Still, it looked like what one might expect from Heaven, but it felt off in a sense. Shallow, even.
As Sam looked at the massing armies gathering in the open sky around the cloud, he realized why. The aura of majesty coming from the building wasn't real. It was fake. Nauseatingly so. It was as if one had distilled the essence of awe, and then edited it and released that through a tinny loudspeaker system in every direction. It felt forced, and that immediately canceled out its purpose.
A thousand cherubs surrounded him. They wielded an eclectic array of weapons, but the auras of power that they exuded were nothing to scoff at. Each one was at the peak of E Rank, or in three cases, beyond even that. They were disenfranchised with their lot, and ready to wreak revenge on those that had wronged them.
"We'll handle Ramiel," Sam said to the cherubs standing directly behind him.
Jariel, Ozriel and Altariel looked nothing like the first cherub Sam had encountered, Ezekiel. While he had been disgustingly overweight, a waddling mound of flesh, these ones looked like they were lifted from the covers of fitness magazines. Each was built like a professional athlete, and had majestic white feathered wings. Jariel wielded a flaming broadsword, and went shirtless, with only a loincloth to cover himself. Ozriel held a scythe, and wore dark plate armor. Finally, Altariel, the only female in the group, used a bow.
"As you command, lord." Jariel's voice was rich, but also surprisingly soft. He was the most talkative out of the three cherubs, though.
Ozriel and Altariel simply nodded their agreement.
"As for the rest of you," Sam called out, "focus on stalling the weaker forces. Ramiel is a D Ranker, and we can't defeat him unless all we have to worry about is him."
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He received a massed yell. All those gathered under his banner were fighting not just for their lives, but for their freedom. If Ramiel died, they had a chance to escape before the true mistress of the Forbidden Heavens returned from cultivation. Nobody there had a chance at defeating her, but they did have one in fighting Ramiel.
Sam glared at the palace, and as soon as the last angle entered formation, he charged.
A single footstep rang out across the skies, and Sam's vision zoomed in on a golden armored man striding out from between the two pillars of the palace's main archway. He was ten feet tall, and wings of white hot flame extended from his shoulder blades. A halo of golden light floated over his head. It was Ramiel, Lord of the Forbidden Heavens. The closest thing to a god this realm had, at least while its true ruler was away.
Sam opened a portal directly behind Ramiel, and thrust a bolt of energy through. The searing projectile of red and blue light streaked out, impacting Ramiel's back. Or, at least it seemed to. In reality, it glanced off of an invisible barrier superimposed between the angel and the portal. He was completely unharmed.
Ramiel laughed, the sound booming across the world. "What do you take me for? One of the peons that I rule over? I am a D Ranker, and you are barely an E Ranker!"
Sam smirked. "An E Ranker that's been killing all of your servants. Does that say something about me? Or maybe, something about you?"
He and his three subordinates jumped through the portal and appeared next to the titan of a man. Ramiel snarled and held out his right hand. A spear of celestial light formed out of nothingness, and dropped into his hand. Ethereal flame covered the ornate weapon, accentuating the various swirling designs that made it up. It was surrounded by a swirling cloak of power, almost as strong as that of Ramiel.
With a shout, Ramiel slammed one foot down. A shockwave of aura, like an atom bomb, exploded outwards. Sam felt the full weight of an angry D Ranker crushing him into the ground. Then, with a shout of his own, he lifted the aura off his shoulders with his own.
It was extremely hard to fully crush another's aura unless they were far weaker than yourself. Sam wasn't that much weaker than Ramiel, though, and as a result he could fight back. Jariel and the other cherubs could not, but they could layer in their own auras with Sam's, and support him. A half dome of light formed around the quartet of warriors, and provided an inviolable bulwark to Ramiel's assault.