Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)

604. Humanity Must (Not) Grow Wings

Frost pummeled the Fourth Apostle until its armor shattered. Even after its HP had reached zero, she continued to strike it like it was the source of her torment.

“No one wanted this. Elysia perverted the meaning of Salvation. No one knows what it means anymore. Wingless Doves do the same thing!”

Frost smashed her fist into its chest.

“The Beholders!”

Again. Light could be seen through its fragmented body. Each punch made a wet, crunchy squelch.

“AND THE IMPURITAS!”

Her entire arm pierced through its body. When she retracted it with a heavy tug, the entity stared back at her with strange eyes. They were slit like that of an animal. This Apostle was a Demi-human. It was not surprising considering the old world had Demi-humans, but what was strange was that the Icon of Judgement referred to everything as mankind.

The Fourth Apostle | HP: 0

< “We are humans. Wings were not meant for us.” The Fourth Apostle laments >

< Hell had been harrowed. The Apostles it called friends laid in a pool of blood >

< Alas, the wings that they were promised to bear were pointless >

< The cage of misery was everlasting >

< [Pale Reverence] >

< [Pallid Regrets] >

< “Bear wings and fly. Soar to my absolute heights to find where paradise resides.” >

The fourth spear joined the rest above Frost’s head. She looked down at her fingertips, then at a distant Little Frost whose hair continued to turn white.

“To bear wings. The Icon of Judgement is giving them wings, but all its doing is killing them. Like humanity was never supposed to go through with it. Voice. I won’t ask again. What was it trying to transform them into?”

Frost looked up to see a colossal Marker. More continued to form in the background with each wingbeat. The irony of having transformed into something free of sin yet hid sin itself underneath nearly made her laugh.

“They couldn’t escape it even when they turned into that. The One Sin. It’s still human inside despite this.” She harvested the entirety of its veins and nerves, revealing a hideous bramble of red and blue. “It’s like they’ve been imprisoned rather than elevated into whatever the hell this is.”

< They have become remnants of the price that was paid for paradise >

< Something that was intended to be absolved of all sins >

Another hundred slices brought the total to 500 now. A long, dreaded silence lingered for the next half-hour as Frost rushed across Paradise, devouring many Markers as the hairs of her Innocents continued to replace the white.

The Pale Web hadn’t altered their movements. She expected them to have become stiff with calcified limbs. But instead, they began to bear an uncanny resemblance to the Black Wings. Soon, they’d look just like the Healers.

Then it hit her.

“Can it create Healers?” Frost blurted out as she moved into a different quadrant of the inner walls.

She could not approach the sacred garden as she was not the One Marked by Judgement, so she was forced to search this layer for signs of the Princess.

Suddenly a prompt belonging to the Icon of Judgement appeared before her.

< Wings are needed to reach new heights >

< Why do they bring down humankind? >

< Grains of sand continue to slip through its feathers >

< It cannot clasp on sensible reason >

< So it tries again. To bring them into an image resembling itself the closest >

The answer immediately struck her like a shooting star.

Her heart was then plunged deep into an icy sea as her blood ran cold.

“Angels! The Icon of Judgement – It tried to turn humans into Angels!?”

The answer was absolute.

Angels in appearance were nothing but humans with wings. Angels with white hair and lacked said wings were the New World Angels. Knowing this now, she realized that the transformation process must have gone wrong.

Or right in that twisted mind of the Corrupted and those that came before it.

People were burned to prove that they were guilty. It was an impossible trial that mimicked everything around her. If they weren’t guily and truly innocent, then they would not have transformed into Markers.

To begin with, not all humans could become Healers – no, Angels in the first place.

What remained were not just remnants, but incomplete transformations. The Markers were false Angels, forever bearing the One Sin which was humankind itself.

Frost could not find any Healers, nor anyone with white hair in Paradise.

But if Healers were spared like the Innocent, then it explained how the Princess was spared. For now, because everyone knew how the story of Paradise ended. The Princess was destined to die and to receive [Penance].

“What about the White Forest? Didn’t Angels come from there!? Like the Arbiter!?”

< The White Forest that lies at the borders of understanding and the one within the garden closest to the Captured Star are two very different things >

< I do not understand the former. But the latter is where Angels as you and I know were born from >

It threw a heavy wrench into Frost’s theory of the Icon of Judgement being Elysia. Because Elysia was born from the White Forest in the garden of GEN-00; the Captured Star.

“Then if it’s not Elysia… then who the hell does it represent…?”

Her breathless question was met with the sudden arrival of three Apostles.

< [Serve Me, O Apostle!] >

They crashed into the walls, pulverizing it from top to bottom as they stood shoulder to shoulder, their armor slightly duller than the previous three.

< Someone that gave me life >

The voice uttered.

< And a purpose I thought I had failed >

< “A grief that I hath taken pity for thee. O’ Paolo, descend into the gates of hell. I shall bless thee with the power to resist the turbulent winds of missing love.” >

Despite it being duller, their stats were heavily bolstered.

< “My teachings will be etched into tablets. They will be absolute, and thee, Hannah, shall be the one to teach thy kin my truth.” >

< “My first perfected Lucifinia; arise from utter beginnings and serve me from my Kingdom of Paradise. Rise my morning star in a world where night and day has become one.” >

She did not foresee seeing three of them to be an issue. Even with the Seventh Apostle being far stronger than the other two.

But Frost could not be more wrong.

< [Trumpet’s Call] >

<> [Promise of Paradise] <>

All three of them simultaneously summoned their pale spears from the moment they arrived. And as if things could not be any worse –

< [All Will Be Judged] >

– A pale, feathery snow descended onto Paradise.

< DETERMINED EFFECT: Greatly enhance the abilities of the Apostles. Pale feathers will fall from the Icon of Judgement and enact [Salvation] on those it touches. Those who repent will be afflicted with [Penance] >