Heaven’s Palace

"How many of you do I have here?" I glanced around the crowd of kneeling fallen angels as I tucked my trusty sword back into my dimensional space. It was like my own little inventory. Currently, it was just filled with all sorts of junk from precious ancient relics I collected during my early travel days to neglected candy wrappers and rubbish; stuff I was too lazy to toss in the garbage.

I did intend to clean up the space eventually, but the time to do so just kept slipping away unintentionally. However, it was at the bottom of my priority list thus far as it was not like I would ever be coming into contact with them ever again.

The Dimensional Space had a very neat function of simply placing whatever I desired into my hand the moment I reached inside. Although I would love to take credit for this masterpiece of an invention, El was the inventor of us two.

From living beings to unbelievable gizmos, even though I hated his very existence, some of the stuff he left behind was truly irreplaceable.

"Eighty-five, My Lord," Eraiel replied to my previous question as I zoned back in.

He had remained motionless as he knelt at the front of the crowd, his eyes locked onto the rough ground below as I scanned through my new army. Eighty-five soldiers of angels, all ready to do my bidding. Although it was extremely tempting to simply order the massacre of mankind, I held myself back. That was not the goal of today. In fact, human extinction was surprisingly low on my bucket list as they still had a lot of use to me currently, there was not only so much more to give and take, but to also learn from them.

It was only recently that I found out the intricacies of human psychology; how El had created the human brain to function. All of it was so interesting, new ideas were pumping into my head the more I learnt.

"My Lord, what are your orders?" Eraiel spoke up again as I once again zoned back in.

"Alright then," I waved my hand, as I let out my yawn. "You all are to go back to what you were before. Shoo. Shoo."

The cluster of angels bowed their heads as they flew back to where they emerged. With probably no more obstacles to the overly grandiose tower standing tall in the background, I leapt back into flight mode with one target in mind.

It had been a while since I had fought this much in a single day. From blowing up a car to killing my brother to creating my personal army of angels, I really hadn't had time to sleep at all in the past 24 hours. Moreover, I clicked my tongue, I still had that thesis to write. When was it due again? Around a week? That's something I had to check when I've finished with this business here, I let out another yawn.

As the tower grew taller, its true magnificence left my jaw dropping. Rather than a tower, it looked more like a heavenly castle made up of multiple stacked white pillars as it grew larger and it converged on either side. In the middle, a giant glassed dome loomed over the rest as it beamed out a bright golden glow of eye-blinding light. Millions of physical mana scattered into this realm from whatever was creating it inside. It was truly something no short of absolutely magnificent.

Its wooden-like front door stood in front of me; the external appearance of it was that of wood, but the materials that were used to create it were something unseen before in all of Earth's history. My eyes wandered to its slightly ajar nature as I pushed it open without much difficulty. It opened without a single creak as I glanced inside.

All around me, the dazzling pureness bombarded my eyes. It was akin to being continuously flash-banged from all directions. The holiness and pure interior design choice **caused my skin to crawl, if I was to compare it to an Earthly experience, I'd say that it would be like walking into the Vatican church in Rome, except instead of the artful designs etched into the walls, the soft glow of the amber light shining into the halls through the mosaic windows, replace it all with just white. The walls, white. The ceiling, white. The mosaic windows, All just shards of white. The only difference cutting away the monotonal white was the multiple bright crystal chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, occasionally catching the light from the windows and reflecting out a rainbow across the giant building.

"What in sanity's name is this crap," I muttered as I shielded my eyes from either exorcised by the intensity of all that occurred around me or just the risk of becoming permanently blind if I kept my eyes open long enough. Whichever comes first, honestly.

In hindsight, this would be a great torture chamber for those I detest.

After mentally jotting it down as the first place I desperately needed to renovate, I turned towards the stairs leading towards the direction of the room with the glass dome.

Upstairs was slightly better as the dizzying white was accompanied by some other colours as it decorated each wall and pillar around me. Upon taking a closer glance at the pillars, small runic words caught my eye. Written in the language identifiable only by El and I, thousands of random nonsensical phrases, words and poems littered all around the giant chapel-like hall, forming the overall aesthetic of the entire floor. From afar, the words were barely visible, seeming like simple lines and squiggles to the unknowing viewers.

I continued my way through the hallway, walking past the words as I skimmed through the words,

Transport

Find way

Play

Moonlit night reflected upon the pond, reflection sees through the veil.

They talk

Hug

Foster care

Worlds within words, life within lies, prosper and conquer the truth.

Money

I stopped as I took a step back, my eyes turning to the sentence beforehand.

Worlds within words,

Life within Lies,

Prosper and Conquer the Truth,

"Worlds within words?" That sentence kept tugging at me as I frowned. All around me, there were millions of words. Worlds within words, I glanced around as I finally let out a quiet scoff. There was no way, it was just a stupid random sentence written on the wall amongst other crazy words like Duck Breath and House Monkey, just because one phrase somehow formed into a relatively coherent sentence, doesn't mean it actually meant something.

I quickened my pace as I reached the end of the room, coming face to face with the fake wooden door; this time it was closed.

Placing a firm hand onto it, I pushed it open. With a small click, the door opened.