Other people’s reality… isn’t necessarily not my dream.
The mañjusaka. The strange, otherworldly mañjusaka.
In the flickering dim light, I saw a man standing before me.
His black hair flowed like a song; his demonic eyes gleaming stars.
“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven!”
Though he wore black just the same, black hair, black robes, the exact face of the Archangel—he was at the same time completely different.
His eyes were blood-red, like the crimson flames behind him rising straight out of Hell.
He stood before me, arms crossed, head lifted high in arrogant pride, one side of his mouth curled into a devilish smirk.
Behind him marched thousands, no, hundreds of thousands, of demons, all with the same crimson gaze.
This is…
This is Lucifer, the Ruler of Demons.
He raised one gloved hand, lowered his head slightly, that smile deepening, and beckoned with a subtle curl of his fingers.
At the same time, fire erupted beneath the feet of the demon army. Scythes in hand, they charged forward in a blaze, ferocious and overwhelming.
My instincts compelled me to retreat. I closed my eyes and stumbled back.
But just then, a ray of holy light descended, and in an instant, the Ruler of Demons vanished, replaced once more by the untouchable, radiant Commander of the Archangels.
Blood crept from the corner of his mouth.
One hand gripped the red-stained front of his white robes; the other clasped mine.
His voice was weak, but steady. “I saw it coming. But being stabbed by you… hurts more than I expected.”
My hands trembled violently around the hilt of my sword. Tears streamed from my eyes like rain.
“Lucifer! You have to live! As long as you’re alive, even the Demon Realm can be a new beginning! You must not die! You have to live!”
His smile was pale. “I won’t die. Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
I was weeping so hard I could barely breathe, my sobs rasping like broken wind.
The abyss stretched behind him, the wind cold and black as pitch. Lucifer’s golden brows glimmered faintly, almost glowing. His long hair billowed in the wind, fading as his strength ebbed. He furrowed his brows. And for the last time, as the Commander of the Archangels, with those sky-blue eyes, he looked at me.
“I could never hate you. But if you let me go, if you leave me to walk alone, across the chasm of light and shadow — then from this day forward, we will be strangers for all eternity. Tell me… do you truly not regret it?”
He let go of my hand.
And with the black wind, he fell into the abyss below the Mountain of Creation.
The pain at that moment tore through every boundary.
Tears kept falling, and all I could hear, completely ruining the mood, was Metatron’s teasing voice:
“Little Michael is really such a softie. Crying like that!”
I was stunned.
Meanwhile, Gabriel had collapsed onstage, clutching her knees, sobbing uncontrollably.
Sniffles echoed throughout the audience.
Raphael weakly lifted Gabriel’s hand and delivered his lines like a rote recitation:
“Satan has been condemned. We may now live happily ever after.”
Metatron comforted me as I cried, half from emotion, half from the illusion. But his voice was tense. “We’ve completely messed this up. And we’ve crossed a line. I don’t know what’s going to happen…”
That whole night, my mind was in a fog. I didn’t know what was coming.
But I knew one thing:
I had to find him.
Lucifer was just ahead. He had taken off his costume.
His golden hair spilled over the white silk of his holy robes.
Still radiant, still impossibly noble.
As if sensing me, he looked up.
His eyes were like the deep and endless sea.
There was still time.
He was looking at me. He was standing there, looking at me.
I ran.
Ran as fast as I could, crashing into banquet tables and upsetting dishes, drawing a storm of complaints.
I stopped before him, panting hard.
“Lu… Lucifer, I’m going with you.”
Lucifer froze, just slightly. His hands stopped moving, and he looked at me with an expression that hovered somewhere between confusion and awe.
I took two more steps toward him.
“Even if I complain all the time… the truth is, I really love Heaven. If I could stay here forever, I would want to build a world for the divine race, together with you. But if you’ve chosen to turn your back on Heaven… Then even if it means bearing the curse of the Arterra family, I’ll fall with you.”
The costume in Lucifer’s hands slipped to the ground.
“If your dream is to create a world of freedom… then maybe my dream—”
I scratched the back of my head awkwardly, but still looked him straight in the eye.
“—is simply you. I want to be with you. From this day on, wherever you go, I’ll follow.”
A long silence followed.
Lucifer didn’t reply right away. He simply lifted his gaze and looked up toward God.
“Father,” he said calmly, “I renounce the rebellion. I shall depart from Heaven, leading my followers—and the one I love.”
Then he turned toward me with a smile and reached out his hand.
My heart surged, impossible to put into words.
I reached for him…
But just before our hands could touch, the world blurred into chaos.
I was swallowed by a spinning void.
A voice whispered at my ear. Playful, cold:
“Righteous Archangel Michael. Your fairytale ends here.”
The air grew thick. My body felt heavy.
I opened my eyes slowly and sat up.
In front of me was a dark silhouette. Blurry at first, but behind him, a pair of bony wings spread wide. His eyes burned red.
“Cowardly little Michael,” he drawled. “I waited two whole years for you. The least you could do is thank me.”
I shook my head and finally saw his face.
“Luc—no… Yang Lu!”
Yang Lu smiled. “That’s me. Any objections?”
I looked around. The setting was disturbingly familiar.
The horizon burned with stone-melon-colored dusk. Not far off, a colossal stone gate stretched skyward.
The entrance to Heaven.
This was the place I first arrived when my soul came to Heaven.
“Lucifer… Lucifer! Where is Lucifer?!” I leapt to my feet and stared at the gates. “Why did you bring me here?! I have to find him!”
I bolted toward the gate, but Yang Lu caught my arm.
“Let go!” I struggled.
Yang Lu sighed. “I got impatient waiting, so I brought you back a little early. But surely you remember what happened after that scene…?”
My breath caught in my throat.
“And besides,” he added, pointing down instead of up, “if you’re looking for His Majesty Lucifer, you’re going the wrong way. Should be heading down.”
His Majesty… Lucifer?
It couldn’t be true.
The Morning Star.
Vice Regent of Heaven.
The Right Wing of God.
Archangel. Seraphic Commander…
Every title, every heavenly rank Lucifer once held, God had stripped away.
No. No—since the day I entered Heaven until this very moment…
I’d been living in the past.
Yang Lu pulled out a bone-carved pocket watch and checked the time.
“It’s Jehovah’s Calendar, Berduth 8731, year 13,921. By Luciferian Reckoning, it’s the 7020th Year, Twelfth Month, Twenty-Second Day. Ah yes—the time difference between Heaven and Hell is nine days and nights. You probably remember that.”
Nine days and nine nights…
Celestial History and Infernal Chronicles both record it.
On the 4th day of the first month, Berduth 8731, Year 6900 of Jehovah’s Calendar, Lucifer fell into the Abyss after nine dawns and dusks adrift in Chaos.
That day, a third of Heaven’s stars were dragged down by the ancient dragon—
A third of the angels followed him into exile.
Though gravely wounded, Lucifer’s might easily overwhelmed the fractured demon tribes.
On the tenth morning, the army of fallen angels conquered Hell.
On the fourteenth of the same month, Lucifer ascended the Infernal Throne.
He granted the demons eternal life, and was beloved by many for his pro-demon stance even during his time in Heaven.
He named the city of Laim as his imperial capital, called his palace the Palace of Ten Thousand Demons, took the hexagram as his crest, and declared January 14th the Day of the Fall— the grandest holiday in all of Hell.
In that same year, Lucifer found Lilith by the Red Sea. Together, they held the most magnificent wedding the Abyss had ever seen, within the halls of the Palace of Ten Thousand Demons. Before long, they gave birth to the young prince of the underworld, Mammon, the demon of Greed among the Seven Deadly Sins, and one of Solomon’s Seventy-Two Pillars.
From birth, Mammon possessed terrifying power, devious cunning, and a wicked heart. Yet he revered and obeyed his demon king dad with the utmost loyalty. Sixty years later, when Lucifer decided to relocate the capital to Rodeoga, the still-young Mammon commanded legions of laborers to build a new palace for his father—Pandemonium—a miracle of the Abyss.
New creations always grow with wild abandon, just like the Demon Realm itself.
I clutched my head, recalling all the madness of my past: how jealousy had blinded me red, how I once challenged Lucifer to a duel foretold a thousand years before… and how utterly I lost. The shame of that defeat still clung to me. I fled in disgrace, Heaven’s disgrace, thoroughly and unequivocally defeated.
That night, Lucifer laughed on the shores of the Red Sea, aloof, tender, divine… yet all the light that once adorned him as an archangel was long gone.
He had grown ever more beautiful. And ever more terrifying. Like the mañjusaka blooming across the scorched plains of the Abyss, deadly, dazzling, and impossible to forget.
He was no longer Ruthfel, the archangel at God’s right hand.
He was Lucifer, King of Hell.
God withdrew the divine radiance once gifted to him, sealed it within a small box, and entrusted it to me.
One year later, Metatron bore my child, a lovely boy.
Everything that had once belonged to Lucifer, his goodness, light, sensitivity, innocence—I gave it all to that child. Every last spark sealed in that little box.
Metatron asked what we should name him.
I said: “Hanniah.”
And Hanniah turned out just as we had hoped， every inch the perfect angel. He despised war, abhorred all bloodshed, and revered God with a purity that never faltered. He often followed Raphael to the cathedral to pray for both angels and mankind. I remember clearly the day I took him to the lawn during his early school years to teach him swordplay—how to grip, how to swing, how to strike. But he fought me fiercely and with tears in his eyes.
He said, “Father, you are Heaven’s highest angel. How can you teach me such cruel things?”
Metatron burst into laughter. I was left awkward and speechless. I took his hand, helped him swing the little sword, and said gently, “Hanniah, having great power doesn’t make one cruel. On the contrary, it is power that protects those you love. No matter what happens, both I and your Heavenly Father wish for you to be beautiful, strong, brave, and confident.”
…Just like the one who once gave all this to you.
Only power, true power, can preserve happiness for those you hold dear. That was the hard-won truth I learned in a thousand sleepless nights filled with regret. If I hadn’t been so weak back then—so unsure of heart, so lacking in strength—I would never have lost Lucifer.
That day, when I placed my hand in his, God grew angry for the first time in over a thousand Berduths. He cast Lucifer from the Sanctum and summoned the host to destroy him.
For three days and nights, the heavens burned. The sky was light and shadow, the earth, fire and ash.
Lucifer’s rebellion began in triumph. But then I arrived, wielding the sacred sword Flame passed down by my father.
Lucifer pulled me behind him.
And then, like a scene straight from the vision of Divine Punishment, everything happened again atop the Mountain of Creation.
In that moment, every battle angel surged forward, their blades crashing down upon Lucifer.
And yet, he bore only a single wound.
The one I gave him.
I truly went all in—piercing him once, and not satisfied, shoving the hilt forward to drive him off the edge. He fell from the Mountain of Creation… because of that final strike.
As he fell, Lucifer did not resist.
He simply looked at me.
No shock. No hatred. No sorrow.
Only that quiet gaze.
That battle came to be known as the Dusk of the Divine.
In the end, Heaven emerged victorious. God banished all rebellious angels and humans from Eden. Lucifer became the King of Hell, Satan, Lord of the Abyss.
But cast out from Heaven, humanity had no power to build a new world. They were left stranded beside the endless Red Sea, what would become the mortal realm.
For more than seven thousand years, as humanity grew in strength, the distance between the Red Sea and Heaven stretched ever greater. And the gap between angels and demons grew into an uncrossable chasm.
Afterward, God conferred upon me the titles of Prince of the Divine, Angel of Justice, and Lord of Light, and entrusted me with the command of Heaven’s Legions. I succeeded Lucifer’s former position as Archangel and the Right Wing of God.
Yet as the years passed, my longing for Lucifer only grew. Perhaps the deepest kind of guilt in this world is knowing you’ve utterly wounded the one you love most.
I prayed daily in the Ruthfel Cathedral, asking a God that no longer belonged to him to protect him—but the guilt would not fade.
On one final night, I relived all my memories with Lucifer, then used magic to seal them away inside a crystal orb. I cast it down the Mountain of Creation. From then on, I sought nothing more. I served God with my whole being and set about rebuilding Heaven.
Across millennia, the Infernal Realm underwent leap after leap in progress. Though its material standard of living still could not rival the decadent luxury of the high divine races, its egalitarian system bred a cohesion far stronger than that of Heaven. Militarily, it had long since become a serious threat to the divine race. But the angels remained ignorant. Most still clung to their illusions, basking in the glow of being the “most sacred of all races.”
Until one day, the Infernal Realm massed its forces and struck. In under a year, it seized the First and Second Heavens. Even then, the angels insisted it was merely a lapse in divine strategy, that the demons’ strength had nothing to do with it.
Yang Lu idly ran a hand through his hair. “If you knew you couldn’t win, why bother resisting? What’s the point of fleeing to the human realm? You got caught anyway.”
“Fleeing to the human realm?”
“Forget it. You wouldn’t remember everything. Metatron said you lost three memory crystals in total. We’ve only recovered one. But this one alone is enough for you to remember what you need.”
I gazed at the Gates of Heaven before me, stained with the weight of ten million years of divine history.
I was sure I hadn’t fled from fear of battle.
But why did I flee then? I couldn’t remember.
“You reap what you sow, huh? Still, I didn’t expect this: that all of Lord Lucifer’s magnificence could not match your thirst for power. Wasn’t a few thousand years as Archangel enough? Did it feel good? Even Lady Lilith outranks you now as Queen of the Infernal Throne. Things have come this far—don’t you regret it? If you’d fallen with His Majesty Lucifer back then, half the Infernal Realm would’ve been yours by now…”
“Enough.”
Yang Lu smiled. “Your Highness, Archangel. In your dreams, you’ve asked a thousand times: what is real, and what is illusion? Well, look behind you. At the mystery of Heaven. Try walking in. You just might want to stay in the real world.”
I spread my wings and rose into the air, feathers trembling in the wind. I soared across Heaven shrouded in smoke and clouds, over distant ruins, crumbling estates, ancient castles—all still bearing the marks of the sacred.
I passed the summit of Jerusalem, my robes billowing as the winds of all four directions filled them.
Jerusalem had long changed hands. Its current ruler bore my name: Michael. The statue in the city’s heart, once of another, had thousands of years ago been replaced with one of me holding a sword.
In the illusions of the Misty Forest, all things began to stir from sleep. I glimpsed my reflection in the flowing water below.
Golden six wings. Crimson hair. Gone was the youth and immaturity. The angel in the reflection was fully grown now, surrounded by beauty and radiance, as if he had just stepped from sacred light, the Right Wing of God once more.
The capital tolled midnight. Its bells echoed across the city. All those years of prosperity and dreams… returned now, piece by piece, to my heart.
The mists lifted. The dream ended. At last, I saw the truth: a silence that comes only after every ship has sailed.
……
…
Night had fallen on Shima. And somehow, everything looked just as it had seven thousand years ago. The roses lining the streets glowed pure white in the darkness. Silver buildings still reached into swirling mists. The most striking structure in the city remained that same grand cathedral, named for the first archangel of Genesis, built in the age of the Divine Envoys. As ever, the cross at its spire gathered all the light in Shima.
The Lord once prayed there. I once encountered Lucifer there. We had listened to sacred chants together beneath that vaulted ceiling. I remember it clearly, how the church had been filled with angels, all in white, listening devoutly to the holy word. Lucifer and I had whispered in the pews. His voice had been soft, so soft, his smile gentle beneath the sunlight that poured through the stained glass. His icy blue eyes, his lashes, seemed almost to merge with the light.
Now, thousands of years after Lucifer’s fall, only extinguished lanterns and dry fountains remained. A weathered stone slab bearing the name Ruthfel lay dim beneath dust. That once-holy place had long since been forgotten by the ages. Only the twin gryphon statues at the cathedral doors still spread their wings, forever ready to fly.
I stepped inside. The stained glass, the angelic murals, the walls of candles all lay thick with dust. The corners were laced with cobwebs. The great hall was desolate, lit only by fractured starlight spilling through cracks.
All those distant memories… it felt as if they’d happened only yesterday, when that Power named Isar had first met the Commander of the Archangels here.
Now, beneath the great cross at the end of the cathedral, no one stood. No one prayed.
I folded my six wings, walked to the cross, drew my white hood over my head, and looked up, toward the same heavens he once gazed upon.
We each held fast to the dreams in our hearts. And each paid the price for them.
For freedom, Lucifer surrendered Heaven’s glory, his rank, and those who once loved him.
For Lucifer’s freedom, I gave up my own, condemning myself to live forever in a world without him.
Author: Tav Tav
Translating
The Right Wing of God, the one seated at the right hand of the Most High.
