Ashen-gray flakes drifted through the air like snow falling in hell. The metallic stench of blood and the lingering aura of slaughter began to fade alongside the remains of the Red Cross Army, which crumbled into dust. This war was over... and the long trial of this Box had finally come to an end.
Amidst the eerie silence, the body that once belonged to Knight was now utterly transformed under Uriel's control. As her intense soul power fully awakened, it warped the physical vessel into her original likeness.
The youth's body was replaced by the flawlessly curved silhouette of a woman. Her skin was as radiant as moonlight hitting snow, and her pure white hair cascaded down her back like a frozen waterfall. Her face possessed a sublime beauty beyond human imagination, every feature perfectly placed, like the masterwork of a creator.
Her heterochromatic eyes, one like a blazing sun, the other like a frigid moon, closed slowly as she felt the wind brush against her skin.
It was a sensation she hadn't felt for thousands of years since that Holy War, the war where she was betrayed by those she loved most, those who had once sworn to die for one another. They had ruined her, erasing her fame, her cathedrals, and her very identity from history as if she had never existed.
But her soul had not found the freedom it deserved. Though she had awakened from her long slumber, the power that once shook the heavens had vanished almost entirely, leaving only a tiny, smoldering fragment deep within. And worse was her current state... She had to rely on the body of this youth named "Knight" to sustain her fragile life force.
"Two souls in one body... what a wretched way to wake up."
Uriel murmured in a voice as melodic as celestial music. Her eyes slowly turned toward the still-closed cathedral doors. Inside resided the human lives Knight had been willing to sacrifice his own to protect. She stood still, letting the hallucinations of the past rush back to sear her heart.
The vision of that day... the day the heavens turned blood-red. Uriel saw herself with wings ablaze, scanning the shattered battlefield after Michael and Lucifer had conspired to stab her in the back.
Following the betrayal at the summit of the tower, a great purge began. Uriel remembered a death more cruel than words could describe. She saw the host of angels who had once sworn the same oaths now thrusting spears into her followers without mercy. The once-pure white cities were stained crimson with the blood of humans who had tried to defend her sanctuaries.
She still remembered the thundering footsteps of the masses. Those humans... the ones she had loved and cherished. The moment they saw the defeat of their guardian goddess, they changed in the blink of an eye. When Michael declared Uriel a "traitor," the humans who had once received her blessings spat upon her statues to save their own lives. They helped ignite the fires to burn the holy scriptures containing her teachings and used giant hammers to shatter the foundations of faith she had gifted them.
'I see him... the youth whose life I once restored, now the first to bring the chains to bind me,' Uriel gritted her teeth until her jaw cracked within the transformed frame. She saw herself pinned to an execution altar in the center of the city she had built, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of humans shouting curses. They struck her name from everywhere from stone tablets, from songs, and from their hearts as if to say every kindness she had ever shown was a lie.
The immense love she once held for humanity transformed into the flames of hatred the moment her teardrops touched the blood of those she had once protected. To Uriel, humans were no longer creatures worthy of mercy. They were a sickening "gray" faithless, treacherous, and ready to bite the hand that helped them the moment the wind changed direction.
She looked down at the hands, soaked in blood so dark it looked almost black the representative of the failure of her ideals. Her eyes peered deep into Knight's soul, and she forced herself to yield just once. After all, she was the representative of Justice, and she would grant Knight a reward of righteousness this once.
"...Since you desire to save them, I shall grant you this whim, just once."
She moved her elegant fingertips and snapped them lightly. A faint silver shockwave spread like a ripple on water, surging toward the hollow-eyed villagers inside the church. The foul mist that had consumed their minds until only shells remained was cleansed in an instant.
Inside the dim cathedral, a spark ignited in the previously vacant eyes of two middle-aged women.
"Mother...?" Lina's trembling voice broke the silence. She stared at her mother's face, which suddenly regained a healthy flush and a familiar clarity.
When her mother focused on her daughter, Lina lunged into her mother's embrace, her tight grip reflecting the terror accumulated throughout the journey. The suppression of seeing her mother as a mere puppet was finally released in a heartbreaking sob.
As for Aeta, the boy who had tried so hard to be strong collapsed beside his mother. His mother's calloused hands gently stroked his face. Aeta buried his face in her lap, his body shaking like a small child. The silence was replaced by the weeping of joy, a scene of life restored at the final second.
However... miracles always have a price. The villagers' bodies gradually became translucent, their skin turning into glowing white particles. They were not dying, but their roles in this trial had reached their end.
[Congratulations! You have passed the trial! Teleporting back in 10 minutes.]
[Advisory: Please remain in a safe area.]
"How noisy..." Uriel complained in an annoyed tone, looking at the system's golden text with loathing. To her, this system was nothing more than another layer of a cage.
She watched Lina and Aeta, who still held their mothers tight even as the bodies began to dissolve. The children's eyes were filled with profound gratitude. They turned to Uriel's divine form at the cathedral doors, bowing low to the stone floor in a final gesture of thanks before everything faded away.
Uriel watched the scene with a disgust she could barely tolerate, yet she watched until the end.
'Gray creatures...' She stared at the human tears with cold eyes. To Uriel, the world once had only "White" for righteousness and "Black" for evil. But looking at humans, she saw only a nauseating paradox.
While watching that fleeting joy, Uriel suddenly recalled a lingering memory fragment from Knight's body. An event one night where Lina offered a bowl of soup made from wilted vegetables to Knight with trembling hands. The girl's eyes were full of hope and a pathetic weakness. And most irritating of all was the "wavering" of this boy named Knight.
'Ridiculous...' Uriel critiqued her mind with disdain. 'This child accepted that bowl of soup with guilt, yet he ate it anyway to sustain himself for the fight. The soft-heartedness wanting to refuse clashing with the survival instinct... what a dismal shade of gray. Your indecisiveness over even a small matter like this is proof of how lowly humans are...'
Her hatred did not begin from a void; it began from a shattered "Love." Uriel was once the angel who loved and cherished humanity more than anyone.
She had once humbled herself to walk upon the filthy earth just to protect them one by one. Yet, in the final hour of the Holy War, the humans she had cradled were the ones who conspired with her siblings to destroy her. The past replayed like a scar that would never heal…
She saw herself standing amidst the flames consuming the temple she had built. She saw the face of the king she had once granted victory, now holding a torch to her statue. She saw the warriors whose wounds she had healed, now using the swords she had empowered to crazily scrape the name "Uriel" off the sacred walls.
'What did I do wrong?' she had asked herself. 'Was it because I was too upright? Or because I refused to turn a blind eye to the evils you claimed were necessary?'
The prayers turned into curses. Humans who once knelt for mercy now called her a demon just to escape heaven's punishment. They betrayed her trust by painting black stains upon her pure white wings. Great love turned into a hatred that reached the soul. To her, humans were faithless, ungrateful, and the most sickening contradiction in the universe.
She closed her eyes, ready to discard the loathsome body and retreat silently into Knight's frame to sleep until her time came again.
"Leaving so soon, Uriel...?" A voice, icy yet strangely familiar, echoed from behind.
Uriel froze. The beautiful transformed body shuddered not from the boy's fear, but from the instinctive reaction of an angelic soul that recognized this "killing intent." She slowly turned around.
Her heterochromatic eyes flashed with shock and resentment. Amidst the thinning smoke and ash, a young man appeared, clad in a cloak as black as a starless night. He did not stand on the ground but floated elegantly above the ruins. In his slender hand, he held a gargantuan "Pitch Black Scythe" that radiated an aura of death so thick the atmosphere warped.
"Lucifer..." Uriel spat the name with a trembling rage.
The man in the black cloak did not stop there. The shadowy figure dissolved into incense-like smoke, closing the distance in an instant. Uriel, her power not yet restored, could only widen her eyes as she felt the chill radiating from the tall figure approaching her.
Lucifer reached out with a slender hand as cold as ice beneath a grave and tilted Uriel's chin upward. His fingertips traced her exquisite features deliberately, his eyes beneath the black hood staring deep into her trembling, furious gaze.
Lucifer leaned in close until their noses nearly touched. His cold breath brushed against her radiant cheek. He leaned down and whispered mockingly into her ear.
"Your current state is truly pathetic... yet strangely pleasant to look at." He pressed his fingertips slightly harder against her chin before sliding them across her thin, rose-colored lips with insolent familiarity.
"Inhabiting a lowly human body full of greed to cling to life. You, who were once so arrogant in your pure white justice, have now become a part of the gray you so despise. The scent of a human clinging to you... it is truly nauseating."
Lucifer pulled his hand away but continued to watch her reaction with a sneer. "I came to tell you something... We are waiting for you inside the Tower... at the very top, along with Him."
He pointed the tip of his scythe toward the sky, which tore open with a slight flick of his wrist, revealing the dark silhouette of a gargantuan Tower piercing the clouds like a pillar of the world.
"This Tower still holds much of what you desire, Uriel. Use that human body you so loathe to drag what remains of your fragmented self up to find me at the summit... Don't crumble away from your own disgust just yet. I am still waiting for the day you return strong enough for me to 'kill' you with honor once again."
[Teleportation: 2 minutes remaining]
The figure in the black cloak began to fade into gray smoke. Lucifer vanished without a trace, leaving behind a pressure that rattled Uriel's nerves.
She collapsed to her knees, hitting the ground hard. The sensation of the traitor's touch and the human scent made her want to vomit.
'Filthy... both Lucifer who fell into darkness, and this unbearably weak body.' Uriel clenched her teeth.
The humiliation of living through imperfect flesh and blood was the cruelest punishment. She hated Knight's sensitivity, hated his indecision toward humans, and hated that she "had" to rely on it.
"You traitors..." The sorrow of betrayal surged again, but transformed into a hatred far more intense.
She looked down at the slender, blood-soaked hands. The blood was a deep red, almost black. He was the representative of the failure of her ideals. Uriel looked up at the warping sky.
"...Keep your necks ready, Michael, Lucifer. Even if I must be stained by this nauseating body all the way, I will climb up there, tear off your masks, and burn this twisted world until only pure white ash remains!"
[10... 9... 8...]
The system's final countdown echoed. Uriel's perfect form began to blur, dissolving into a great flash of light along with her soul, which swore to reclaim everything as the "Avatar of Judgment." She shut down her consciousness with disgust, handing back control to the youth whom she would never accept as a part of her own soul.