Chapter 54: The Ninth Heaven
Lucifer ceased all movement the moment Eve cried out the name "Jehovah."
For a fleeting instant, he gazed upon the human woman—disheveled and kneeling upon the earth, directing her pleas toward the Ninth Heaven—and the bewilderment and helplessness etched upon his face surpassed even that of a newborn creation.
*Silence!* he wanted to shout. *Who are you calling out to?*
*Who is the one whose name you speak?*
But then, accompanied by a pressure so overwhelming that none could ignore it, the figure of God appeared in the Ninth Heaven.
God—who had remained utterly indifferent to the entirety of Lucifer's rebellion—had revealed His form solely in response to Eve's cry. Lucifer parted his lips to speak, yet it was as if he had lost all faculty of speech; he could utter not a single word.
Those golden eyes fixed upon him, devoid of the slightest emotion or ripple of feeling.
It was not the wrath he had imagined, nor the disappointment he had anticipated.
There was nothing.
Beneath those golden eyes, all living beings were as insignificant as ants.
He knew no cold, yet in that moment, his entire body trembled uncontrollably as he gritted his teeth, striving to preserve his pride.
Yet, the Sovereign of the Highest Heaven reached out His hand.
A single, swift motion.
Allowing for no plea, showing no mercy.
A force beyond imagination descended upon him.
Any resistance crumbled—pale and futile—before such terrifying power.
This was the power of the Creator God; with a mere flick of a finger, Lucifer—along with every angel who had joined his rebellion—was cast down.
There was no distinction made.
Whether they had once basked in God's divine radiance, or held a station above all others...
In God's eyes, such things held no meaning.
The howling winds whipped his long hair into disarray, while an unbalanced force seized his body, dragging him violently downward. Lucifer kept his eyes wide open, gazing upward through the chaotic tangle of his flying hair.
Countless angels screamed in his ears; they had not been annihilated—they were still alive.
Yet, the sensation of being alive was more terrifying than death itself. Their wings—once instruments of flight—had become useless appendages, and the force of gravity—which they had once so effortlessly defied—had transformed into the very source of their panic. Deep down, they despised humans for their inability to fly; yet, when stripped of the very gift of flight they held so dear, the fear etched upon their faces was indistinguishable from that of any human.
He was, perhaps, the only one who made no attempt to resist—who simply surrendered himself to the fall.
He felt none of the terror that gripped the other fallen angels, until his eyes fell upon the small chapel of the Sixth Heaven.
His eyes widened as he gazed upon that place—a place so familiar it felt like an extension of himself—and within his gaze, a faint spark of light ignited.
He had often come here to find respite; and every time he emerged from its sanctuary, he felt as though there was nothing left in this world to fear—that all the things which had once sown dread and doubt within his heart would, in the end, simply fade away.
When was the last time I was here?
As the thought crossed his mind, the small chapel drifted past him, receding further and further into the distance; and then, he began to feel a rising panic.
Wait!
He hadn't yet...
Hadn't yet... done what?
He stared blankly up at the sky, until his gaze once again met those golden, beautiful eyes—eyes that belonged to no being of this mortal realm.
It was as if he had been brought back to life; a spark of vitality rekindled within his emerald eyes. Yet, that spark was like a candle flame flickering in the wind—it wavered for but a moment, and then was extinguished.
Had he, in the end, truly been cast aside?
'Oh, God...
Why?
Surely, every step of my journey has been laid bare before Your eyes.
For the sake of what angels? For the sake of what Heaven? My pain and my struggles... my pride and my tireless efforts...
Every word I spoke, every scheme I devised...
My deepest yearnings and my most extravagant hopes—did they all appear utterly laughable in Your sight?
Your power is such that You could have reduced me to dust and ash in an instant.
Yet, You chose to watch me climb, step by agonizing step.
Was it merely to be amused by my folly? Or was it simply because You did not care?
Now, at this final moment, I find I no longer know which answer is the more absurd.
And there... not far away... stands that prison.
How terribly familiar it looks...
For within those walls, I once called out to You—time and time again.
I called upon Your name amidst the biting frost...
I called upon Your name amidst the scorching flames...
If those torments could have moved Your heart to mercy...
Then what did the pain inflicted upon my flesh truly matter?' Only amidst the sulfurous acid rain...
Do I dare not call out;
Indeed, I even fear that You might suddenly appear.
My face, corroded by potent acid, is hideous beyond recognition;
I dread losing my composure before Your eyes,
Forcing You to witness this ghastly spectacle of my ruin.
Yet, I once secretly harbored a desperate hope—
That You would suddenly appear,
To lead me away from that ceaseless purgatory.
Even if You spoke in a tone of rebuke,
I would still be delirious with joy.
That You would once again take my hand,
And lead me into that paradise—a place not meant for angels.
I would not care; so long as it were just as before—
To be cherished and treasured by You.
No matter where we were, that place would be my paradise.
It was a desperate hope—and a dream I yearned to make real once more.
Until *Jehovah*—that single name she uttered—shattered all such hopes.
That single name of hers outweighed a hundred, a thousand of my own humble calls.
Is that so?
Tens of thousands of years have passed.
My God...
I have stood by Your side all this time—
Yet Your name...
Your true visage...
The absolute truth of Your very being...
I have never truly known.
As for me...
Did You ever harbor even a flicker of genuine partiality?
Did You?
Will You ever?
God looked down from the heights.
He looked up toward the clouds below;
Their gazes met.
Hatred?
Resentment?
No!
There was nothing!
There *should* be nothing!
"I won."
A strange smile curled upon Lucifer's lips; he spoke the words within his heart, knowing the Creator could hear them.
"For the sake of humanity, You willingly cast aside Your own promises."
He clung tightly to this final shred of dignity, striving to ensure he would not suffer a total, crushing defeat in this struggle.
But in the end, he could hold back no longer.
He was afraid.
He feared that God's loathing for him had grown so profound that He would no longer even deign to listen to the voice of his heart.
And so, he spoke aloud: "You broke Your word!"
That voice—once so exquisitely clear and melodious—twisted and warped within the distorted air, becoming hoarse and hideous to the ear.
But he no longer cared! "I was not wrong; I refuse to admit fault! Yet *you* have come out to see me!"
He laughed.
"You lost! Jehovah!"
He laughed madly, though tears welled at the corners of his eyes.
Love—he knew not when it began, nor did it deepen gradually; yet for the sake of this utterly disastrous conclusion to ten thousand years of companionship, he had sacrificed everything.
Including a love he himself had yet to recognize—a love so fervent that, for a time, it had even eclipsed his hatred.
Those tears were born of that love, shed amidst the angel's fall; and just as they were on the verge of evaporating completely in the searing heat...
God reached out and caught them.
Touched by the warmth of those crystal-clear tears, God's otherwise placid, unperturbed countenance stirred ever so slightly.
'Lucie... ultimately, it was My own indulgence that allowed you to harbor such forbidden delusions.'
God gathered that single, burning tear and gazed downward.
Nine days and nine nights.
Nine days and nine nights the angel fell—from Heaven to the mortal realm, and from the mortal realm down into Hell.
God stood upon the clouds, watching the entire time, until Lucifer and his rebel host finally crashed into the earth's surface.
Hell, upon beholding the plummeting angels, recoiled and refused to accept these fallen stars; yet with a gentle touch, God forced its maw open, compelling it to swallow every last one of the fallen host.
It was the demons' insidious whispers that had instigated this calamity; now, God decreed, they would be forced to reap what they had sown.
Overwhelmed by the sudden influx of so many fallen angels—beings who still retained traces of their celestial light—Hell was plunged into a state of unprecedented chaos.
It roared; it bellowed in fury.
Subterranean volcanoes erupted, sending waves of molten lava surging toward the gathering places of the demons—forcing those who had been reveling in the spectacle to experience, firsthand, the true meaning of living in the very depths of hellfire.
There were no exceptions; none could escape their fate.
As recorded in the *Book of Creation*: In the first year of the Celestial Era, the Arch-Seraph led a host of angels in open rebellion.
The scope of this uprising was vast; whether taking a stand for or against, virtually every angel in existence was swept up in the conflict. From the Lunar Sphere to the Saturnian Sphere, a total of 352,812 angels rose in rebellion; of these, 335,655 were cast down into Hell—a number constituting one-third of Heaven's entire angelic host.
Furthermore, 21,308 angels perished during the uprising. Of these, 17,157 were rebel angels, while the loyalist guard suffered the loss of 4,151 members; additionally, over four hundred thousand angels sustained injuries.
Statistics are cold and dispassionate things, yet for a rare moment, God found Himself gazing at these figures, transfixed.
After a long pause, He chose not to yield to His own inclinations and cast His gaze once more upon the angel languishing in the abyss below.
A wrong is a wrong; its nature cannot be altered by the mere indulgence of a self-righteous mercy.
The Nine Heavens—once so vibrant and flourishing—were now left more than half-empty. Yet, the surviving angels felt no sense of relief in their own survival.
Their expressions were numb, their movements listless. They either sat amidst the post-war desolation of the Seventh Heaven, resting in weary silence, or else stared blankly at the gaping void—the very breach God had torn through the celestial realm to cast down over three hundred thousand angels.
Nourished by the spiritual energies of Heaven, the void was slowly beginning to close in upon itself.
Perhaps, before long, it would shrink until it vanished from sight entirely.
Yet the angels could not erase its existence from their minds—much in the same way that, amidst the chaos and disorder of the rebellion, none could fathom how God had managed to discern those harboring disloyal hearts from among a host of a million angels, singling them out to be ensnared and cast down.
This marked God's first direct intervention since the very act of Creation; and with that single, sudden strike, the ensuing shockwaves instilled a profound terror in the hearts of every angel.
High above the clouds, the Creator remained outwardly unchanged; yet, never again would any angel look upon Him as a benevolent Maker.
They gazed down into the abyss—at that falling ember of fire that had plummeted for nine days and nine nights—terrified that God, in a fit of displaced wrath, might cast them all down from Heaven alongside it.
God sensed the angels' wavering faith and their fear; yet, within His golden eyes, there was neither sorrow nor joy.
For as long as the rebel angels continued their descent, He watched them; and for as long as He watched, the silent angels remained paralyzed by fear.
Only when He finally withdrew His gaze from the frenzied, shrieking demons of Hell did His dispassionate eyes sweep across the Seventh Heaven—and indeed, across every single angel throughout the entirety of the celestial realm. They grew tense as the Divine Will lingered upon them; God surveyed them one by one.
He was not angered.
These angels were, after all, good.
Though they were weak, they were nonetheless worthy of commendation.
Yet, at this moment, God had no mind to bestow praise upon them; He cast His gaze around the realm, then fixed His sight upon the Sphere of Venus.
Almost every angel had participated in this rebellion—even the Powers, those angels so adept at weighing the balance of gain and loss.
There was but one exception. God returned to the Grand Cathedral and summoned all the remaining High Angels and Archangels to stand by outside its gates.
Of the original Seven Archangels—Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Samael—some had fallen, others had rebelled; now, only four remained.
Michael and Gabriel had distinguished themselves through their defense of Heaven; Metatron, though held captive, had faced peril without fear—unswayed by the rebel forces, he had held his ground from beginning to end, ultimately leading the angels of the Fifth Heaven—who harbored no rebellious intent—to break through the siege and reinforce Michael.
Only one Archangel—a Seraph—had remained entirely inactive throughout the battle.
In God's eyes, to have rendered no service was, in itself, a transgression.
As Belial, the Archangel of the Powers, emerged from the Grand Cathedral, he entrusted his authority to the Cherub Raziel.
"From this day forth, you shall be the leader of the Powers. Serve well."
Raziel and Machidiel exchanged glances; judging by Belial's tone, they could not discern whether he was jesting or speaking in earnest.
And if he *was* in earnest, they remained equally unsure whether his demeanor betrayed resentment or utter indifference.
Belial paid not the slightest heed to the angels' speculations. With a light, easy stride, he walked along the radiant, luminous steps of Heaven—drifting further and further away until, very quickly, he appeared as nothing more than a tiny speck in the distance.
Inside the Grand Cathedral, God had asked him why he had offered no aid in quelling the rebellion. After so many years spent in their midst, did he truly harbor not even the slightest concern for the safety of the Powers—those angels with whom he had lived side by side, day in and day out? In a rare display of vigor and keenness, Belial fixed his gaze upon the Deity seated upon the throne, his demeanor utterly devoid of guilt or remorse: "I was born with a cold heart—a fact You have long known."
"Had You truly wished for them to live, the angels would never have perished. The fate of all things under heaven rests within Your hands; only You possess the power to save them. If You chose to abandon them, then their destruction was inevitable; yet, had You not abandoned them, You surely would have intervened Yourself—so why, then, would You require my futile efforts?"
Ultimately, the world is destined for ruin; he observed all things with a clarity of vision that surpassed that of any other angel.
Such was the dark essence God had bestowed upon him; even after spending countless years steeped in the atmosphere of Heaven, Belial's outlook remained inherently passive and pessimistic.
It was the sin of Sloth: the conviction that inaction is always preferable to action.
"From the very moment of my birth, I belonged to the darkness; even though You kept me here in Heaven for so many ages, I never once forgot that truth." Belial did not believe his actions warranted condemnation; gazing up at the Deity, he felt—for the very first time—an urge to give voice to his thoughts.
"I was the very first angel to be created—though You deliberately chose to erase that fact."
"I remember that day as if it were yesterday: I, who was born of darkness, was cradled gently in Your hands amidst the radiant light." As Belial spoke of that moment, his features grew animated, his expression brimming with pure joy.
"You asked me to forget such a beautiful moment—yet that is something I could never, ever bring myself to do," Belial continued. "Then came Lucifer—he who followed me, the Arch-Seraph hailed as the very embodiment of perfection; Your favoritism toward him stirred within me a jealousy I could scarcely bear."
"For *I* was the one—the radiant angel—who should have been the object of Your anticipation, the recipient of Your love."
The Deity gazed down at the dark-haired Arch-Seraph speaking before Him, feeling a faint flicker of surprise at having underestimated the strength of a created being's will.
Belial remembered everything from the very beginning—perhaps because, during the initial process of creating the angels, God had inadvertently endowed him with a will and a talent far exceeding the intended measure.
"I must admit, I never cared for him; yet, witnessing the fate that has now befallen him... I find myself feeling a profound sense of melancholy," Belial murmured softly.
"Your favoritism, my Lord, is akin to a poison that seeps deep into the very marrow of one's bones. Perhaps, after all, never having received it was a blessing in disguise."
Having spoken his piece, he offered a respectful bow to the Deity, then turned and withdrew from the Grand Cathedral with an air of elegant composure. At the threshold, he removed his signet and the symbols of his authority, pressed them into Raziel's hands, and then—beneath their wide-eyed, dumbfounded gazes—he departed, light of step and swift.
'Is Lucifer the one You have chosen to govern the Darkness?'
'Even though he rebelled against You, You still show him Your favor.'
'Then I shall watch—watch to see if the Morning Star, now fallen into darkness, can indeed remain as proud as ever within that pitch-black purgatory, just as You desire.'
With that, he departed, vanishing without a trace.
Never again did any angel in Heaven catch a glimpse of his form.
[Provided by you: *Hebrew Mythology: The Arduous Chronicle of Raising a World* by the author Dan Mu'ai]