Strongest Among the Heavens

Passive Skills, General Skills, Class Skills, skill trees, weapons—Azrael explained all that and more. He was given the opportunity to choose his first weapon. He learned how to open his inventory. He learned his first General Skill.

It was a long, long tutorial and Azrael was calm and patient throughout it.

"There's settings? Seriously, whoever made this Game System was thorough."

Azrael was silent.

Kazi smiled. 'So there is a particular person that made this. Interesting, interesting.'

If it was a group, then Azrael would have said so. But no. She refused to entertain an answer. In Kazi's experience, that meant there was a big secret. A big guy sitting on a big chair.

Kazi pretended to be busy with the settings. "Adjustments to fonts, size, colour, language. Eh, I'm good. Blue is fine."

"Remember, there is a support system that will help if you require help to navigate the system. However, know that it will only answer questions pertaining to the system. The Q&A system will not reply to questions regarding the Heavenly Games or anything else."

"So I can't just use it as a calculator, eh? Bummer."

Azrael refolded her hands. "Voice any lingering thoughts and concerns. Once you exit your home, I will disappear."

"Aw, where will you go?"

"I cannot say."

"Will we meet again?"

"I do not know."

Kazi tilted his head and cutely attempted to woo her with a smile. Nothing. She stared at him like he wasn't there. 'Fascinating. I wonder if all angels are like this.'

A flicker in the eyes, a change in cheek colour, a twitch, a sign, an uncomfortable physical response, he got none of that from Azrael. His smile widened. Humans were so easy to figure out but maybe angels and demons would be different.

"I can't wait to meet you again." Kazi got up from his chair and extended a hand. Azrael stared at his hand, then his face.

"A handshake," Azrael stated.

"Yep. For luck."

Azrael stared at him some more. "Okay." She shook his head.

He grinned. Her hand was cold to the touch. Seriously, it was like gripping a block of ice. If he wasn't already adjusted to crazy temperatures, he would have yanked his hand away.

"Exit home."

With that, the white abyss began to bleed away and the gorgeous sight of Azrael faded.

***

When Kazi teleported to the White Abyss, his expectations were high yet he expected them to be broken. After all, this was the after life. Expect the unexpected. But to have his expectations completely blown away regardless of knowing it was an ethereal experience. The Heavenly Tower was a beast of a structure. Nothing in all his travels rivalled this thing. Not the Eiffel Tower, not the CN Tower, and not World One.

Throughout his life, Kazi had travelled a lot and nothing—and he meant nothing—compared to the behemoth he was seeing here.

It was as black and sleek as obsidian and as daunting as a divine being. While the world around them was white, the black tower stuck out like a terribly arranged flowerset.

It wasn't just Kazi either. Slowly but surely, more and more people started to pop in. All of them seemed to have gotten the same spiel he did from Azrael and all of them were dressed in black. Men, women, the outfit did not discriminate.

"What the hell…"

"That's the tower!"

"So we really are dead…!"

He could hear mutters of Azrael and the Heavenly Tower. He could hear discord and panic.

The players started to talk louder and louder. Kazi himself observed their reactions, preferring to stand back and watch the mayhem. Swords, shields, and axes were strapped to their backs. A select few even carried their weapons in their hands, as if ready to pounce on someone.

'Azrael said this is a totally neutral zone. Unless you're in Valhalla's Colosseum, you can't injure or torture another person.' Kazi's eyes darted left and right. He could count on one hand the number of people that seemed comfortable with the situation, much less the weapons on them.

A voice came. Not through his ears but his mind. A powerful, moody man that seemed to speak in an ancient dialect. For a second, there was gibberish. Kazi understood bits of it: a mix of ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Eventually, his words started to translate into Bengali.

"—Cain, doth address thee! This day marks the dawning of the Heavenly Games, a new chapter in thy life! Live with purpose! Fight with valour! Gather points aplenty! And above all else... emerge victorious! The foremost trial, the initial gate, hath already been unlatched. Go forth now and grasp thy destiny!"

Kazi blinked. Cain…Cain like from the Bible? Cain as in the guy who killed his brother? No way. What was this, a mythological meet and greet?

"W-was that just me, or…?" An East Asian kid next to him muttered. Kazi glanced at him, then his environment. Judging by the kid's late reaction and the eventual wide eyes of the surrounding players, Kazi concluded that the message was pre-recorded. Three feet away, he observed a black-haired woman teleport in and did a countdown.

The woman was confused, afraid, then froze in place. After that, after the message played through her head, she looked distraught.

'Ten seconds. Ten seconds and a message from Cain comes in.' Kazi curled a finger under his chin. 'Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. It's like a voice mail. I wonder how they do it. But, more importantly, the gibberish at the start. This is just a guess but I'm assuming it was because I could sort of translate the Adamic language—the language of the original human language.'

He hummed to himself. So much intrigue, so much mystery. Kazi couldn't wait to dismantle it all.

"Hey, kid." Kazi tapped the smaller male next to him on the shoulder. He was a teenager, fourteen or fifteen. The eyes gave it away. Turning around, the poor kid was swimming with uncertain emotion. He was calm yet unable to make a decision. Typical teenager psyche.

Kazi flashed him a comforting smile. "You wanna join up with me? Two is better than one, right?"

"S-sure, I don't…mind."

Everybody else was starting to move. Thousands were entering the encompassing gate of the Heavenly Tower, which flickered blue as they came close, disappearing. He assumed the gate was teleporting the players inside. Either that or it was killing them like lambs to the slaughter.

"What's your name?" Kazi asked.

"I'm Daiki."

"Oh, you're from Japan? Cool. I'm Kazi." He pointed to himself. "I'm from Bangladesh. I am, or rather, used to be an archeologist."

"I'm a middle schooler." Daiki rubbed the back of his neck and accidentally touched the brown strap housing his sword. "I, er…nice to meet you."

"Huh." Blink. "Quick question: do you speak English?"

"N-no, not really."

"What language am I speaking then?"

Daiki answered slowly, "Japanese…"

"Huh." Kazi grinned. So there was something Azrael omitted. Language was automatically translated for each person and tailored to their preferences.

Considering the change in options for language in the settings and that minor glitch with Cain, it lined up. Moreover, since Azrael never mentioned it, perhaps the language system wasn't faultless. Perhaps there were errors and holes within this system that had apparently existed for centuries.

"I'm also assuming you've never met someone from Bangladesh?"

Shyly, Daiki shook his head.

"That's okay, haha. Hopefully I made a good impression." Kazi extended a hand. "We don't have to partner up or anything but I'd feel weird if I left a kid to himself."

"Thank you…"

Hesitantly, Daiki took it. His hand was quite weak in terms of grip yet there was coldness to it. Kazi ended the hand shake with a curt nod.

"Alright then. Let's get going, shall we?" Kazi pointed at the gate ahead and the people swarming it. He could feel Daiki relaxing by his side. Walking together, it seemed like things would go better.

He noticed a timer above the gate: 167:55. The numbers were floating without support or a television screen. It was like magic.

'I assume it's a timer. I shouldn't get too ahead of myself though.'

He jotted the information down in the back of his head. For now, he had a crowded gate to get through.