Under the sunless sky, I sat, my excitement easily visible while I waited cross-legged and on the damp soil. Earlier in the day, master had told me to come sit down after my training session was over.
'This is the exact scenario in any show or anime where the hidden and powerful master teaches his disciple his secret art!'
"He He" I couldn't stop myself from laughing out loud in excitement, but I covered my mouth with "hmph!" as soon as I saw master walk into my view.
I immediately stood up and bowed like any other Shonen protagonist would, my movements were so quick that even the grass meters away was ruffled by the wind.
"Master!" I shouted
Just watching the grass move from my sheer speed made my heart pump faster, ever since I've awakened what master called Will my body changed, changed to the point I'm probably considered superhuman, hell just yesterday I split a tree as thick as a fridge with a single swin—
swissh!, my thoughts were cut off as the sound of something cutting wind reached my ears, and a split second later, a heavy pressure landed on my chest, folding me in half and knocking the air out of me.
I gasped on the ground, clutching my stomach, "Never." The words resounded again; they were cold, demanding. I looked up, "Never call any man, creature, or abomination your master."
Seconds later, my body was forced to stand by what I could guess was his will, "Never bow or kneel down to any man, creature, or abomination"
"Hah!" I stopped mid breath as I felt something wash over me, flooding with the urge to run or at least the urge to die to die in any way, in any place, all except here and by him. A very long and painful death, that's what Mast- no, He radiated. I couldn't think, i couldn't move, the forest was silent with only the drumming sound of my heart pounding in my chest.
"And NEVER call any man, creature, or abomination other than our FATHER Master". The killing intent receded as I let go of the breath I was holding.
In a hoarse and shaky voice i replied "T-Then why didn't you tell me before?"
He gazed down at me, "Because you're a will user.... and lessons are taught through pain" ,his eyes were unshaken by the unrequired violence he imparted on me.
'Huh! THAT MAKES NO SENSE! WHAT DO YOU MEAN LESSONS ARE TAUGHT THROUGH PAIN?! ' I thought, but before I could protest, He spoke again:
"Now sit, for I will tell you how all came to be." ________________________________________________________________________________________________
"In the beginning, there was nothing. Then:
"Let there be light."
Light erupted, omnipresent and absolute,
time-space and the building blocks from which all would flow came into being.
Particles swirled and collided, forging gases and other exotic matter.
Gravity seized it with ruthless hunger, collapsing it into the first black holes—titanic, insatiable, swallowing everything.
Our Lord, our Father, our God looked at it and saw that it was good.
At the center of everything lay a singularity,
so massive it dwarfed all that was, is, and would ever exist.
With it, He willed existence itself.
With its body, He forged His Kingdom—vast, unyielding, a scaffold for all that would live and all that would perish.
With its ring, He made His Gates—thresholds of power and order, circling infinity, marking the limits of chaos.
With its heart, He made His Angels—smart, precise, eternal, the fulcrum of all law, will, and consequence.
From these, the first currents of reality flowed.
And from the dust, the leftover of this cosmic event, he molded it.
And from that mold, He created Man.
You are his children, and he gave humanity their home, Erets, where the first man lived. His name was Adam."
'Wow,' this sounded like a version of the bible, but more cosmic, wait, did he say you? But before I could continue my thought process, I looked at mast- teacher, who now looked at the cloud covered sky, and I was shocked, for the first time since the abuse he committed on me, not counting the "training", I saw emotions, a mix of emotions, sorrow, anger, and..... nostalgia?
"Adam was the representative of Erets. Father gave Adam the task of naming all that resided on it, but he saw that Adam needed a helper. So the Lord God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord, God, made a woman from the rib he had taken out of Adam, and he brought her to Adam. Then Adam said:
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."
She would not be below man nor ahead of man but to forever stand by his side, as equals, as our Lord, God intended. He told Eve what he told Adam: You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die"—
"Argh," His tale was interrupted by the unceremonious growl, "sorry mast-... sorry, " I replied while clutching my chest in pain. My body still twitched from the amount of killing intent, making my injury probably a fractured rib hurt. It wasn't really my fault for interrupting him... he won't hit me, right?
Thankfully, I was right. I fixed myself into a better sitting position and listened as he waited until I finished.
And continued "Free will, that is what he gave us and all life, Our Father didn't want mindless machines...whose only purpose is to do good and serve him, no he wanted beings...who could choose," his gaze no longer showed any of that nostalgia, it was becoming more sorrowful and sharper.
"Father wanted children who would choose to love him, to choose kindness, to choose Him" his voice now sounded like a whisper, but loud enough, as if afraid to fade with the breeze.
"Before Father made Adam and Eve, before even the Angels, He made us—the Archangels. Each of us was a Pillar, a guardian of a specific Truth of our Father."
My heart skipped a beat, the pain in my ribs momentarily forgotten. Us? I looked at him—really looked at him. The way the shadows seemed to avoid his skin, the way the wind didn't just blow past him, but seemed to obey him. 'No way... this is some high-tier Isekai twist,' I thought, my mind racing through every anime trope I knew. But the sheer weight of his presence told me I shouldn't treat this like a show.
"Michael was the sword, the defender of the Kingdom's sanctity.
Gabriel was the voice, the bridge between the Singularity and the creation.
Raphael was the hand that mended the fraying currents of reality.
Uriel... Uriel was the light that revealed the path of Law.
And then, there was Lucifer.
He was the Morning Star, the most perfect of us all. He was the one who stood closest to the Father's heart. And he knew that." His voice sounded bitter, filled with ancient hatred. "He saw that he was perfect. He decided he was equal—no... that he was greater than Father."
I watched him spit out those last words like the vilest thing he had ever tasted. His face was scrunched in disgust; even the forest seemed to share the sentiment, as if the trees themselves shivered at the memory.
"He committed the first ever Sin. The Original Sin: Pride."
'One of them... he's one of them.'
My breath hitched, and for a moment, the pain in my ribs was a distant hum compared to the roaring in my ears. I stared at his form, how his gaze looked upward. He didn't look like the statues in the old cathedrals. He didn't have wings of light or a halo. He looked like a man who had seen the world break and couldn't fix it.
'Which one is he?' I wondered, my eyes darting between his calloused hands and the cold, sharp gaze he leveled at the sky. 'Michael? The one who kicked Lucifer's ass? Or Uriel... the one who doesn't care about anything but the Lord's Law?'
I wanted to ask. The question sat on the tip of my tongue, burning worse than the 'Will' in my veins. But then I remembered the heavy pressure on my chest and the way he said lessons are taught through pain.
Did I even deserve to know his name? I'd heard that names held power—by asking, would I be trying to drag him down to my level? Would he see my curiosity as the same Pride that broke the Heavens? I swallowed the question, the lump in my throat feeling like lead.
"You may say it," His voice cut through my thoughts like a blade through paper. I looked up and saw, for the first time, a warm smile on his face—a light so pure it almost brought my eyes to tears.
"Do not confuse Pride with curiosity, Loid. Before the first dawn, I was the Messenger of the Highest. I am the Voice of the Lord, the Strength of God, and the Guardian of the Gates of the Kingdom."
He leaned forward, his presence expanding until it felt like he filled the entire forest. "But to my brothers, and now to you... I am Gaḇrīʾēl."