The Guardian gods

Still, the angel offered no response, only its cold, merciless stare.

Vellok's voice rose, his despair turning to a frantic plea. "Take me! Take my life! But please, spare my people. Spare our world!" He looked directly into the angel's eyes, a final, desperate offering. "My life for theirs. It's all I have left."

Vellok's desperate plea hung in the silent, star-filled space between them. "My life for theirs," he repeated, his voice barely a whisper, the last vestiges of his pride and power now gone. Still, the angel remained motionless, its gaze fixed on him with a chilling indifference.

The angel's silence was not an act of cruelty; it was a deeper, more profound refusal. It was a being of concept, not emotion, and Vellok's pleas for mercy, his offers of a trade, were simply irrelevant. To the angel, there was only the sealed, broken law of its confinement. Vellok was not an individual to be punished or saved; he was merely the weak, temporary container of a stolen power. His life, and the lives of his people, were meaningless in the face of the cosmic injustice that had been done to it.

As Vellok's hope finally shattered, a new sound echoed in the mental space a low, rhythmic groan, the sound of the chains straining. With each passing moment, the cursed diamonds outside grew stronger, and the light they absorbed was not just from Vellok, but from the angel itself. The chains holding the angel were weakening, and Vellok, on his knees, could feel his connection to the world to everything fraying. The end was no longer a possibility; it was an inevitability, and he had been reduced to a powerless spectator of his own demise.

Vellok's mental defeat was the final key. As his despair took hold, the chains holding the angel weakened, then snapped. With a powerful flex of its arms, the glowing chains shattered into dust. The angel dropped gracefully, its feet hovering just above the ground. Six magnificent white wings spread out behind it, but their purity was fleeting. As Vellok's essence faded, the brilliant feathers began to darken, their color shifting to a deep, ominous grey.

Vellok, defeated and lost, watched with a blank expression as the angel walked past him, its form dissolving into countless motes of light. Its imprisonment was over, its wrath now free to be unleashed upon the world that had betrayed it.

On the outside world, Ikenga felt the exact moment the angel was released, his replenished divine energy a silent witness. He was about to command the planet to eject the diamond orb into the vacuum of space, but he was too late. The diamond began to melt, the curse washed away by a growing wave of light. Then, an explosion of light consumed the entire planet.

The world became a furnace, fire spreading across its surface, but with a flex of Ikenga's will, it was quickly snuffed out. The planet, pristine once more, calmed itself.

Ikenga stood where the orb once was. Before him lay a sight of impossible scale: a single wing that dwarfed him, making him look like an ant. Near it, he saw eyes of immense size. His seeded planet began to undergo a profound and terrifying change. The plants, mountains, and rivers all began to sprout wings and eyes. The world, once a masterpiece of a god, was now a grotesque mockery of life, its very nature corrupted by the angel's rage.

Anything that had been touched by the light emanating from the being was being overridden, its form forcibly changed.

"Primal form," Ikenga thought to himself. He recognized the state instantly. It was the ultimate manifestation of a concept being's full power, a state of unbridled divinity.

Ikenga roared, his fingers swelling in size as he too, began to assume his primal form. He transformed into a colossal gorilla with two sprouting horns, each the size of mountains and with its own ecosystem. His enormous body became a living forest, with trees and glowing plants taking root on his skin. His curse tattoos manifested as glowing veins spreading across his colossal form.

Now, a figure matching the angel's size, Ikenga's past life knowledge helped him identify the being before him. "A Cherubim." The four faces of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle, and the four wings covered in eyes, were the unmistakable signs of what it was.

Both beings' colossal bodies dwarfed the planet. Ikenga's form took up one side, while the angel's figure took up the other. Ikenga's primal form immediately canceled the angel's influence on his seeded world, or rather, it halted it. His own primal form began to influence the surrounding area, with the nearby terrain growing thick fur and trees twisting into the shape of apes.

The eyes on the angel's face focused on Ikenga, its voice a strange, halting sound at first. "Origin God," it said, its voice deepening and clarifying with each word. The angel's speech quickly lost its childlike quality, becoming clear and resonant.

"I thank you for your help and intervention with my freedom. If you never came around, I would have been stuck in that mortal creature's will and body for a few more centuries."

Ikenga opened his mouth to speak, his voice echoing the same strange clarity as the angel's. "I got a glimpse of the mortal's past and your miserable life. It is only right of me to act when one of our own is being disrespected and taken advantage of."

The angel went silent for a moment, its multiple eyes observing him. "Yet," it finally said, "it seems you are here to stop me from taking an act of vengeance that is right by me."

"You are indeed right, Angel," Ikenga said, his voice echoing across the vast landscape of his primal form. "I am here before you to stop your act of vengeance, but it is for my own selfish reasons." The temperature around them began to spike, the very air sizzling with the angel's displeasure.

"I have a name, Origin God Ikenga. I go by the name Zadkiel, meaning 'righteousness of God,'" the angel stated.

"And your selfish reasons have also led you to work with those hateful demons from the Abyss," Zadkiel said in a mocking tone, its many eyes a storm of cold fury.

Ikenga responded by punching the earth below him, the planet itself groaning under the force. He was not pleased with the angel's tone.

"I might have worded my words poorly, but my goal is nothing as small as a selfish reason. My goal has a world, a family, and children depending on it. And if working with demons meant it was to be accomplished, then I would happily work with them."

The angel took a step closer, its multiple eyes focusing on Ikenga. "Your goal? That world harbors one who betrayed me and kept me imprisoned for years. It tarnished the glory of us angelic beings. Turning them and their world to dust is barely enough to wash away the shame on my name."

Zadkiel's voice grew into a furious roar. "I was made a joke by mortal creatures who matter not in the grand scheme of things!"

Ikenga truly felt stupid standing in the angel's way. He knew he would have done worse if he had faced the same fate. The angel had every right to its anger and its claim for vengeance. That's why Ikenga found himself at a loss for words to justify his actions. But it was no lie that the goblin world was important to him and could help him achieve his goal. He would have to find a way to make the angel understand.

Ikenga didn't try to justify himself. The anger in Zadkiel's multiple eyes was too pure, too deep for excuses. Instead, he spoke a simple truth.

"I am not here to deny you your vengeance, Zadkiel," Ikenga said, his voice rumbling across the planet's surface. "I am here to offer you a better one."

The colossal angel paused, its roar dying down to a low, humming rumble. Its eyes, hundreds of them, all focused on Ikenga, waiting.

"Vellok and his people tarnished your name, made a mockery of a concept being," Ikenga continued, his massive gorilla form standing firm. "Turning them and their world to dust is a fitting punishment, yes. But it is also a fleeting one. The universe is vast. Your shame, their crime, would be forgotten in a cosmic instant."

Ikenga gestured with a mountain-sized hand toward the planet. "My goal is not just to save this world; it is to use it as a tool. A tool to achieve a grander purpose. A purpose that could give you a far more lasting and satisfying vengeance."

"You speak of using them as a tool? What could they possibly offer a being of my stature?" Zadkiel's voice was a low growl, its anger still simmering beneath the surface.

Ikenga saw that the angel was willing to listen. "Why not take our mortal forms? My celestial garden is looking more unsightly the more we stay in this state," Ikenga offered, a suggestion of diplomacy in his tone.