Rebirth-Transcending All Beings-Chapter 69: Angelic Story

Vergil woke up to nothing but utter silence. His eyes fluttered open to a world of liquid light and dancing shadows. At first, he thought it was a dream.

Then they regained their clarity and the coldness of polished sediment against his back told him otherwise.

He blinked once, a flicker of his senses returning. Everything happened too fast. ’Mother, why?’ The words gnawed his mind, festering and becoming a scab.

He tried to move.

Nothing.

There was no pain from torn muscles or broken bones. Only a hollow absence remained — draining his body of the strength to move.

’Move dammit.’ He tried and tried. Yet the best he could do was blink. His eyes fixated on the darkness above before realising how familiar the landscape was.

The ceiling was unnaturally jagged. Faint streaks of light filtered through the darkness, casting shadows on the symbols on the walls.

It was a place most familiar. The spike.

The obsidian pillar that rose endlessly into the abyssal chasm — a monument that he himself was tied to by history.

Yet it was also a place of comfort.

"You’re awake." The voice came out softly but reverberated through the passageways of the cavern.

Vergil shifted his eyes towards the origin of the noise.

Luminare — perched only a few metres away, cross-legged on a flat expanse of polished sediment.

One hand rested on her lap, the other loosely holding what appeared to be a crystal — idly tracing runes into the ground beneath her.

Her gaze wasn’t focused on him. She stared at the infinite abyss of a ceiling where freedom was found.

"Your state will only last a few more minutes."

’Why are you doing this mom?’

The words he wanted to speak refused to come out. He wanted to ask why she attacked him but his lips refused to part.

He could only listen, watching as she closed her eyes.

"...But should I tell you a story?" she asked, not waiting for an answer.

A faint hum echoed from the spike.

Then fell quiet again.

And she began.

"One upon a time," Luminare whispered. "There was an angel."

Her voice was hollow, not sad but empty — stripped of the illusion and decoration that once radiated in her voice.

"She wasn’t cold or cruel. Just... unfeeling. Most angels are born with emotions. Yet that angel was particularly different. For that reason she was isolated and hated by others.

Her eyes opened slowly, but she still didn’t look at him. "No matter what happened, she didn’t cry when her kin were slaughtered. She didn’t smile when they became victorious."

"Even though she was the daughter of the goddess," she continued. "They scorned her, called her a defect behind her back — never daring to say it to her face."

"And when the great demon war started in the world of man, the angels enacted their plan."

The hand that was drawing symbols stopped in its tracks. "They betrayed her. Struck her down. Tore off her wings one by one. But they couldn’t kill her, and she ran.

Vergil watched, as a suffocating unease built in his chest before pressing down on his heart as his mother spoke.

"She fell from the sky like a star," Luminare murmured. "Hiding beneath the ground, far from the heavens."

Her fingers resumed tracing the runes, but slower this time. The shape of the runes began to reveal itself.

"She couldn’t go home, the connection was destroyed. Her body couldn’t heal anymore — the wounds were too deep. She knew she would die eventually, but ever so slowly.

"A painful death that would take tens of thousands of years."

Vergil already knew whose story this was, his gaze intensifying. He didn’t know what she was doing, all he could see were a layers of runes surrounding where his body laid.

The crystal in Luminare’s hand etched one final rune before being tossed into one of the passageways.

She paused as the spike pulsed once again.

"She was too scared to kill herself."

"She had the lifespan of a god — a blessing to their kind, but a curse to herself. An angel doesn’t die easily, so she did what she could."

"She carved an array, something no one else would even think of. A space time array to isolate herself from the world. To disappear, to never be found. And... so time inside would move faster."

Vergil’s pulsed slowed. He finally understood what the space-time array was truly for. It wasn’t for warding off intruders.

But to accelerate the slow crawl towards death.

"Thousands of years had passed," Luminare rose. "But not many outside."

Her hands wrapped themselves around her stomach. "She waited for death, then eternal rest to come. But."

She dared a single look at him, but her eyes couldn’t bear to linger on him any longer, forcing herself to turn away. "It never came."

Luminare stood close to the spike, wearing the tattered remnants of her gown that symbolised her as royalty he had once shown her.

She titled her face upwards, towards the abyssal sky now devoid of light. Her lips barely parted before extending her hand towards the obsidian surface of the spike.

"However, the angel felt something she never felt before in heaven," she whispered. "The desire known as freedom. To not have to live up to the expectations of others."

"She enjoyed life down here," Luminare said, finally turning her gaze towards Vergil, her expression softening. "She ate even when she didn’t need to. She practised the violin she kept as a keepsake."

"Though there was nobody to listen to her music, she didn’t have to fight for anyone."

She took a few steps forward, each step echoing across the marked floor. She walked not as an angel but a mother nearing the end of her journey.

"However," her voice cracked as she sat next to her child. "After a thousand years of this. She became lonely, with only a spear to talk to."

"She couldn’t go out. She would be hunted if the humans realised they had failed."

"And she couldn’t fly out even if she wanted to."

"And so, for the thousands of years to come, she suffered silently. Going mad once or twice. But she came back — returning to herself."

Her voice and tone lowered to nothing more than a whisper. "Soon, she knew she was near her life’s end. And she was glad."

’Don’t continue... please mom,’ Vergil wanted to say.

"Then, a boy came from the sky above, like a fallen angel... before being pierced by the spike."

"He struggled to live, wanting to survive. The angel watched from afar and his desperation moved her."

Her fingers tangled his hair, forming small locks before letting go. "She realised he was not a man but a half-devil. But she didn’t care. She took him in anyway."

"Not as a friend or a comrade. But as a son. The angel wanted her own family, something she couldn’t have."

"They enjoyed their time. Laughing, singing, teaching." Tears welled in her eyes, falling to the floor.

"The angel wanted that life to continue. But her time was ending. She had little left. She didn’t want him to be alone."

She walked to the spike, and as she did, the symbols carved into the floors resonated, pulsing with divine resonance.

"So she created a way to be with him. Forever."