Gabriel's golden eyes looked up at him with a smile, which to Azrael was a disgusting grin that he wished he could rip off and tear apart.
"You!" Azrael couldn't hold it in because he felt an extreme urge to vomit, so he threw up on the spot.
"What did you do to me!?" He shouted in a broken voice, Azrael still felt the burning in his throat after vomiting.
His body was still experiencing the reflections of what he just experienced. Small tremors and the sensation of the repeated wounds created by his younger self. Not only that, he could still feel the fear and the desire to escape as if the little him was still on top of him.
To make matters worse, he could still feel the claws of death dragging him into its cold and inert embrace where it would seem. A place where he could not resist even if he wanted to.
Azrael's eyes reflected her disdain for Gabriel. That even though she was kind and non-aggressive, she never hurt him, nor did she show authority or her power.
Azrael was aware that she was powerful, when she introduced herself she called herself someone of "Solar" level, that title did not sound weak at all. But Gabriel didn't demonstrate that power and didn't wield it either, that only made Azrael think it was a facade in a way.
He had thought.
'If she has power, she can use it to do what she wants with me. But she doesn't, it must be a bluff to get me to cooperate.'
But in these few days, even when he tried to escape, he insulted her or became unruly. She didn't do anything, appealing that her face had shown the wrinkles on her forehead showing her anger.
She just sighed and let things go.
But today was different, she did something that even if it didn't hurt him directly, it made him tremble. His perception of the Angel in front of him could only change his perspective to a cautious one, which made it clear that she was not weak.
He was the weak one.
"How does it feel to witness your own sins?" Gabriel said with a smile.
"It's not nice to be you the subject of your own experiments is it?" Gabriel leaned in and brought her face close to Azrael, the smile on her face widening in a mocking manner.
"Spit."
Gabriel moved her head to the side and the spittle Azrael threw passed by the side of her head but didn't even touch her. Her smile and tone of voice was undisturbed even in the face of the disrespect.
"Look at you, you could have done so much, the world even blessed you with a healing ability so strong you could have saved millions. But look at you, you ran away from your planet, you came here in order to continue doing evil. Sigh, since you were a child you have been so cruel? You must really enjoy hurting others," Gabriel asked pitifully, finally whispering. "I don't know how I'm going to guide you on the right path..."
"Enjoy? Cruelty? I was just a kid who lived in a cruel environment where it was die or survive and guess what that kid survived."
"So you blame your environment that's the big reason why you're so evil?" Gabriel said as she raised an eyebrow.
"Not at all, I don't hide behind silly excuses. Killing, lying and cheating, I do it because I enjoy it because I did it since I was a kid and even when I knew the alternatives I preferred to follow that same path. Even when I had the opportunity to save thousands I preferred to sacrifice them for my own pleasure."
"You are a psychopath"
"No, I can empathize with the pain and happiness of others. I just don't tremble to end the lives of others, I don't feel sad for lying to you. Do you think I haven't cried, that I haven't fallen in love, that I haven't felt sad for others? Of course I have, but at the same time I know that those feelings didn't suit me, so I rejected them myself".
"Enough is enough, sit down and count again, don't try to escape again either, I haven't hurt you and I don't intend to. I told you, my mission is to turn you into an Angel who represented my race of Angels."
"Tsk" Azrael stood up, his body trembling and picked up the table and tools, which he had thrown away.
As he sat back down he picked up some sand and began to separate it until only a small, golden grain remained. Which was then placed in the jar.
"Count aloud" Said Gabriel.
"190" Said Azrael without much encouragement.
"Higher."
"190!" shouted Azrael as he placed the grain of sand and picked up a small handful of sand again.
The metal cards in his hands moved and separated the golden grains until he was down to just one grain of sand again. Gritting his teeth, Azrael shouted.
"191!"
"With more excitement!" Gabriel said with joy.
"191!!!"he shouted louder.
"And with a smile!"
"191~!!!!" said Azrael with a big smile showing his white teeth, his jaw of marked by the force he was exerting almost looked like he was about to break his own teeth
x-x-x
"505.500~!!!" Azrael shouted with a smile on his face marked like a mask, his shouts were full of false and shallow emotion. He just had to control the tone of his voice in order to pretend he was excited.
Obviously Gabriel noticed it but she didn't give it any importance, as long as she kept that emotion and his smile was enough for Gabriel.
In all this time Azrael could not access the system, so he did not know what had made him so weak, although his obvious suspicion is that it was the fault of the pen he took. He also couldn't sense his mana and he couldn't absorb it either, so he couldn't get stronger, he was now as weak as a normal human than in an average physical condition.
His ability was also useless, not to mention that having no mana he could not use it. His situation was precarious, but at the very least the Angel was good.
She gave him food and water and allowed him to go to the bathroom privately. Even with that privacy he could not escape.
Each day he can collect 500 grains of sand. Although some days he may collect more or less, it all depends on his daily mood. But he has been tired of trying to escape for a few weeks now and concentrated on killing time counting sand.
Tin!
|Physical upgrade completed|
|Mana core => Faith Core|
|The main mission of the Angel's path obtained|
|Redemption of the irredeemable man|
|Main Mission: upgrade to Adept level - individual level|
|Secondary mission of the main mission|
|Secondary mission: Go to the space crack. Walk through the crystalline lands unaided and head to where the sun goes down, go through the crystal graveyard and find the tree of hope in the land without water.
Azrael looked at each notification with surprise and could only feel overwhelmed. There was no turning back.
Gabriel who was next to him looked at the system window, she was able to see that same window.
Normally the system windows are private and there is no power that can make it show to others.
But this was the advantage of the paths, some paths can be traveled individually without any guidance. But others can be created so that a guide will stay by your side to help and advise you, it can be a spirit or it can be another person. That person will be given special permissions to guide you, so that outsiders can see the window of the system.
"Can we begin, can you then please walk?"
Azrael looked at her with resistance but knew he had no choice, as he looked at Gabriel smiling he knew she now had more permissions to force him to walk.
Azrael rose from his place, his body was hunched forward from the weight of the chains in his hands. As he was about to walk Gabriel stopped him.
"Take a jar of 1000 grains of sand with you, also the table and the cards" she said with a smile.
"What for?"
"Didn't you learn anything?" said Gabriel, even though deep down she didn't put him here to count sand with any
"Perseverance, how useless, working with effort has many results, I recognize that, but I am sure that this is not the type of perseverance that they were trying to teach me. Most likely they were trying to make me see that things can be achieved in different ways with effort, and you just had to perceive in your actions or maybe that if I persevere I can have a change. Still that doesn't take away from the fact that it is futile perseverance." Azrael said as he picked up, the table, a jar of 1000 grains of sand and the two cards. The two cards he kept in his pockets, while the jar of sand and the table he carried by hand.
Gabriel looked at it without showing any emotion, but internally she was surprised.
"Perceverance..." She muttered as if it was she herself who learned something.