Into Heaven

Life is truly remarkable. Just half an hour ago, I was floating in the air, lamenting the tragedy of being hit by a car. Now, I have sprouted a pair of wings and stand in a queue with a group of others, all equipped with wings, preparing to ascend to heaven.

Ordinary people might think I have remarkably high emotional intelligence to remain so composed upon realizing I have wings. The truth is, when I first sensed the warmth on my back, I thought it was down feathers, but it turned out to be wings. One of them was badly injured, causing excruciating pain when it tugged at my nerves. I came close to clutching my head and screaming while running naked in circles around the crowd. However, everyone around me with wings seemed extraordinarily calm, engaging in elegant discussions about life in heaven. I felt that if I were to lose control and start wailing, I would come off as a lunatic.

I had assumed that these creatures, which should be called angels, were just like me, dying tragically and ascending to heaven at a young age. However, upon closer observation, it seemed that they only had wing injuries and not the despair of having just died. What we all had in common was that one wing was broken, while the other remained intact. The undamaged wing felt like a natural part of the body, without any foreign sensation. Even though I had never possessed such an organ in my short-lived 20 years, I could easily move it, just like I would with my own arms.

After observing for a while, I concluded that we were not on the surface of the Earth. When I looked down, beyond the white clouds and thin mist, I could see a vast blue ocean thousands of meters below, adorned with countless particle-like fragments of islands. The scenery was mysterious and breathtaking, yet the sheer height of it all made it suffocating.

This happened during dusk, as if someone was holding a giant circular lantern, casting a dazzling orange glow. Simultaneously, clusters of pure white clouds were being incinerated into a fiery red, enveloping us.

At the end of this long queue was a grand Roman gate, bathed in the evening sun, giving it a dreamlike quality. On the two gate pillars, intricate relief murals depicted several angels entwined and encircling the pillars.

The silver-haired young man ahead had both his hair and wings turned golden in the sunlight. He raised his hand over his head to shield his eyes from the still-blinding sun and turned around with a gentle smile.

"It's been a while since I returned to heaven. I hope to make it back to Jerusalem before nightfall."

Suppressing my urge to ask, "Do I know you?" I pondered for a moment before coming up with a question, "Dude, how did you die?"

He sighed, "Look at you, always so blunt with your words, getting into trouble. Isar, the term 'death' is used for lowly creatures like demons. For the noble children of the gods, there is only a return to the origin, no death."

Isar. He knew that name.

I once had a dream as a child, where an angel with an indistinct face called me Isar. I thought it was a good omen, so I used it as my online handle. Now, being called that name, I felt like I was meeting an online friend in real life.

"Before we die, we are human, right?" I asked, refusing to accept the answer.

"The children of the gods are the highest and most noble beings. What is a human? I've never heard of it," he replied.

He claimed he had never heard of humans.

If there are no humans, then what was I before? What was my life?!

No matter how I questioned him, he claimed not to know the term "human." To prove that I might be crazy, he even asked the angels around us, who also claimed they had never heard of it, casting sympathetic looks at me as if I were a weaker being. Suddenly, I had a feeling that I hadn't died but had instead crossed over to somewhere else.

A cloud drifted by, and the evening sun's radiance dimmed slightly, making the young man's wings appear even clearer.

Unlike the angels we see on television, in art collections, and in games, his feathered wings weren't pure white but had a subtle silvery-gray tint. One of his wings was also damaged: the left one gently waved, while the right one hung limply, barely clinging to life.

I unconsciously glanced at my own wings, finding them to be similar, with a hint of gray.

Observing the entire queue, some angels had gray wings, some had white, and some had blue. Even among those with the same color, there were slight variations, akin to a group of pigeons with similar feather colors but never quite uniform.

After what felt like an endless wait in the line, we finally neared the grand gate. It was then that I noticed an angel standing beneath it, who appeared exceptionally refined in both attire and appearance. For now, let's ignore his luxurious and noble clothing; focusing on his wings, they were twice the size of ours, with six wings in total, gleaming like pure gold in the evening's fading light.

"Isar, don't act so helpless as if you've never seen a great angel before," the silver-haired youth in front of me turned and couldn't help but say, "Or have you fallen for Prince Tyrrel again?"

"You mean the guy with six wings up front? But he's a man."

"Are you bewildered? High-ranking angels are genderless. Why do you always insist on comparing them to yourself?"

I admit his words startled me. I nearly unzipped my pants to check if my "little soldier" was still there. "Wait a minute, what do you mean? Are we...?"

"Of course, we're all men!" The silver-haired youth pondered for a moment and added, "Well, I'm still a boy."

After a while, Tyrrel loudly called out, "Next!"

It happened to be the turn of the silver-haired youth. He seemed somewhat excited and flapped his wings rapidly as he approached, like a dog trying to please its owner.

"I'm Carlo, Your Highness," he said with a cheerful smile.

At that moment, another gray-winged angel who had walked over from Tyrrel's side noticed me and rolled his eyes. "If you're not going to queue, please don't block the path. There are plenty of people behind us. Thank you."

Another angel chimed in, "His specialties are flattery towards the archangels and ignorance. Standing at the front again, he's probably trying to ingratiate himself with Prince Tyrrel."

Before I could recover from this open personal attack, Carlo had already flown over, grinning ear to ear. "Isar, look, look! My wings are fixed!"

"Oh, so your wings are fixed... What? Your wings are fixed!"

Carlo spread his wings and flapped them rapidly, causing feathers to fall onto my face. "Yes, yes! Prince Tyrrel is truly amazing. With just a light touch, my wings were restored!" He looked like he might rub his hands together and prepare to fly away like a fly.

I swallowed hard. "By the way, why is Prince Tyrrel here?"

Carlo stopped flapping his wings and furrowed his brow. "Did you get knocked out in the demon realm or something? Tyrrel is the gatekeeper of our heavenly realm. If your wings are damaged or fall off, you need him to repair them, or else you can't return to heaven."

It seemed that paradise was more advanced than I had thought. Apparently, wings could also be repaired.

"Next!" A loud voice echoed.

My heart skipped a beat, and I hurriedly walked forward.

I stood before Tyrrel and noticed that he was completely different from the other angels. His countenance exuded an awe-inspiring aura, making it almost impossible to meet his gaze.

"Turn around," Tyrrel said.

I obediently turned around.

A warm light emanated from behind, warming my back as my muscles tensed. Tyrrel spoke from behind, "Isar, sometimes I don't know how to describe you. Given your original status and position, you could have lived a good life up there with wealth, power, and fame. Everyone sees you as undervalued, wondering why you always fuss over trivial matters."

"What do you mean?"

"…Never mind," Tyrrel sighed. "May God be with you. Hallelujah."

I took a few hesitant steps, and Tyrrel added, "By the way, your punishment period hasn't ended. You can't return to the Seventh Heaven, understand?"

I nodded.

Initially, I thought Tyrrel was quite handsome, but his advice-giving reminded me of my dad, which was somewhat unbearable. However, according to him, it seemed like I had indeed crossed over.

Unable to fully accept this reality, I returned to Carlo's side. He seemed completely unaware of my distress and flew around energetically, flapping his wings noisily. "Dear Isar, don't walk so much; it looks ugly."

For almost every human, flying is a dream. Regardless of what had happened to me or whether I was possessed by demons, at that moment, I felt an irresistible urge. I tentatively moved my wings, and behind me, feathers spread out in the moonlight, casting a sacred and beautiful shadow in the clouds. Slowly, my feet began to rise, the shadow below me also spread wings and gently fluttered. The speed was slow, but incredibly stable. My heart pounded, and I was so nervous I couldn't breathe.

Watching the clouds, the ocean, the islands, and the chaotic sky grow further beneath me, the vast and boundless heaven was both exhilarating and terrifying. As a human, I felt an overwhelming fear of heights and stopped midway, too scared to move.

"Where are we going now?" I asked.

Carlo flew over, one leg stretched straight, the other half-curled, looking extremely relaxed. "I'm going to Jerusalem, and you're going to the Second Heaven. Did you hear what Tyrrel said? Your punishment period isn't over; you can only go to the Second Heaven."

Under his bombardment of strange terms, I finally couldn't take it anymore. It took about twenty minutes to convince this tsundere youth that I knew nothing from earlier until now and that I had lost my memory.

Finally, he widened his eyes, slightly open-mouthed, as if he had seen me eating a cockroach. "Isar, even pigs have brains. Why don't you?"

Yet another unfamiliar term, and I was on the brink of breakdown.

Fortunately, Carlo firmly believed that amnesia was only temporary. He explained the geography and culture of this place in broad strokes.

The world was divided into three major realms: Heaven, the Red Sea, and the Demon Realm.

We were in Heaven.

Heaven was ruled by the Lord of the Seventh Heaven, and beneath him, seven archangels governed the seven levels of Heaven.

The class system in Heaven was extremely strict. At first glance, angels with fewer wings were considered lower-ranking, residing in the lower layers of Heaven. Angels with more wings were higher-ranking, living in the upper layers.

While lower-ranking angels had opportunities to rise through the ranks and gain more power, their lifespans were less than one ten-thousandth that of higher-ranking angels. Thus, most of them never had the chance to ascend before dying or rather, "returning to the primal state."

Isar and Carlo were both "Power" angels.

Among the nine levels of angelic hierarchy, "Power" angels were at the sixth level, the last rank among the intermediate angels. Although "intermediate" angels might sound decent, thinking that being a "Power" angel wasn't that bad was quite foolish and naive.

How should I put it, the Power Angels are the firstborn creations of God. In the past, they served as the vanguard of the divine army during conflicts with the Demon Realm, and after the battles, they've been tirelessly guarding between the First Heaven and the Second Heaven, defending against the incursions of the Demon Kind—so far, it sounds good, right?

However, angel wings are quite unreliable. Whenever they come into frequent contact with dark forces, they inevitably change color. That's also the reason why Carlo and I have wings with odd colors.

In Heaven, there isn't much of that human notion like "The more mixed, the more beautiful!" The proud angels, being the most powerful race, believe that the purity of wing color represents everything. Once their wings become associated with dark colors, these angels are akin to stray dogs on the street, disliked and feared by others.

It's easy to imagine the treatment the hardworking yet unappreciated Power Angels receive in Heaven. Consequently, they've grown increasingly resentful toward Heaven, giving rise to waves of fallen angels. Afterward, the reputation of Power Angels only worsens, forming an irreparable vicious cycle.

I felt particularly downcast; even in this new world, it seemed I hadn't found a stroke of good luck. However, on second thought, being alive is better than lying as a corpse on the roadside, so I accepted it.

—Of course, at this moment, having such thoughts, I must have seemed incredibly naive and foolish.

Since we're talking about angels, ordinary folks would naturally think of demons. Carlo also mentioned that the Demon Realm indeed exists in this world.

In our era, Jehovah might be seen as an atheist figure, but Satan was believed to have had no childhood. It's said that Satan has seven siblings, and the eldest is named Lucifer, the King of the Demon Realm.

Why did Tom Ellis receive star-like treatment at our school?

Because everyone said he had the aura of the Demon King Lucifer.

Of course, in our previous lives, none of us had ever seen Lucifer in person, and before arriving in this world, I wasn't foolish enough to imagine that angels and demons truly existed. But it seemed like everyone had strong feelings about the Demon King. Whenever Lucifer appeared in shoujo manga, he was astonishingly handsome, the perfect blend of evil and beauty, a contradiction of light and darkness, capable of tossing aside the supporting female characters repeatedly, winning over their hearts. Whenever he showed up in a game, Lucifer was almost certainly tremendously powerful, serving as the final boss with hundreds of thousands of HP. A single special move could result in a game over for players, challenging them to defeat him again and again, even though it was almost impossible.

I belonged to the latter category, and even now, I remember being annihilated by Lucifer's "Satanic Wrath" in middle school while playing a game. That game was the first RPG in my life that I couldn't conquer, so I developed a certain obsession with Lucifer. Although that Lucifer was nothing more than a product of lasers burning binary code onto a disc's circuit board, then read by a CD-ROM, men always have a certain yearning for defeating their fellow men, even if he's just a hole left by organic dyes. So, I asked, "Carlo, when will we ever have a chance to meet His Majesty, the Demon King?"

"Are you talking about Hadd?" Carlo retorted. "That ugly and lazy guy isn't anything special."

"Hadd? Isn't the Demon King Lucifer?" I exclaimed.

"Demon King? Isar, did you just call His Majesty Lucifer a Demon King?! I'm going to tell His Majesty Raphael about this, and you can expect to be locked up for centuries!"

"Lucifer... Your Majesty, is he in Heaven now?"

"Of course. He practically never leaves the temple, and meeting him is just as difficult as meeting God. What are you even thinking?"

Suddenly, I had a moment of enlightenment.

Legend has it that Lucifer was indeed the Archangel once, sitting at the right hand of God. Later, due to his rebellion against God, he was cast into Hell and became the Demon King.

Considering the current situation, it felt like a return to the past.

Thinking back to the dream I had before.

In that dream, there was a female angel kneeling before me, a Heavenly realm, and the repeated mention of "Lucifer"... Could it be that the reason behind that dream didn't have much to do with Tom Ellis, and there was actually some kind of destiny at play?

Thinking this, I couldn't help but marvel at how I truly embodied Carrie's boyfriend, even emulating her illogical thought patterns.

In fact, most of what was happening now was probably a result of my intense resentment toward Tom Ellis in my dream before I died.

But even if it was a dream, it still had to make sense. I asked, "Alright, I get it. You should tell me what mistake I made."

"Because, because of your association with His Majesty Metatron..." Carlo said this, then suddenly pointed to the sky and exclaimed, "Look, look over there!"

I followed his gaze, but aside from the brilliant golden sunset, there was nothing else.

Just as I was about to turn back and ask, Carlo had already flown far away.