"Ouroboros…" the voice of an angel groaned, thick with pain. "You stupid cunt, when I catch y — !" He choked, silver blood spilling from his mouth and running down his chin in sparkling streams. "You and that red-haired idiot friend of yours!" He kept cursing, one hand pressed hard against his chest, trying to hold in the heart that looked like it might fall out any moment.
Long locks - like countless silver threads - veiled his face, shimmering and shifting as he moved. "Where the hell even am I…" he mumbled, looking up. The hair parted, revealing an androgynously beautiful face, pale and ethereal.
Before him stretched nothing but rock. He was on a cliff, dark stone enclosing him on all sides except one.
To his left stretched a massive drop, the ground hidden beneath a sea of grey clouds. Thunder pulsed and flickered inside them, like restless serpents trapped below.
"Why am I still in my body — gah!" he tried asking himself, right before vomiting. A white liquid gushed from his mouth. Eyes bulging, the angel gagged and retched until there was nothing left inside him.
Wiping his mouth, he growled and gripped the heart in his hand, finally tearing it out of his chest. "What is this bullshit!" he roared, hurling the heart off the cliff. He slammed his fist into the rock beneath him, sending a spiderweb of cracks shooting out with a thunderous crack. The cliff groaned, threatening to collapse under his rage.
'I should have reincarnated in a new body!" The angel thought, his eyes blazing with a white glow. In each eye, a silver snake biting its own tail slowly spun. His whole body began to radiate a silvery light, growing brighter and brighter until he shone like a white star.
Behind him, a massive illusory snake appeared, its body twisting and coiling. A second snake emerged to join it, their bodies connecting and circling each other until together they formed a single, enormous wheel — an endless loop of silver shapes and shifting symbols.
The cliff kept groaning under the strange pressure, the angel's power searing through the space around him like fire, soon to devour the whole fabric of space.
Suddenly, the two snakes stopped their strange dance.
Their jaws opened wide, then clamped down on their own tails, locking into a white, illusory wheel that flickered in and out of existence, as if reality itself struggled to contain it. The angel's powers seemed to be alien to this world
Taking a deep breath, the angel slowly pushed himself up. His legs trembled, threatening to give out. 'If I can't get a new body, I'll just have to restore this one,' he thought.
A strong gust of wind slammed into the cliff as the enormous wheel behind him began to spin counterclockwise. The glow around him dimmed, and his white skin writhed and shifted.
Every wound on his body sealed shut, the flesh knitting itself back together. Even his tattered white robe reformed, pure and untouched.
His fate had been reversed, returning him to the moment before he was ever injured.
"Much better…" the angel hissed, standing upright as the wheel behind him vanished, the snakes devouring each other until nothing remained of them.
He rolled his shoulders and took a cautious step forward, testing if his legs could still support his towering frame.
They could, easily.
"Now… where in the Abyss am I?!" he shouted, staring ahead into a sea of endless clouds.
***
It seemed like Mercurion — a Sequence 1 Angel — had been mindlessly walking along the cliff for nearly an hour, but in reality, he was divining every possible way to return to his own world.
Indeed, this was not his reality, but something entirely else.
An Angel's perception was practically impossible to fool unless you were a True God. So naturally, Mercurion knew without a doubt that he was far from home. What gave it away even more was the absence of his anchors — he couldn't feel them anymore. Born a Mythical Creature, he didn't strictly need them anyway, so that wasn't too bad.
"Here it is!" he exclaimed, his angelic voice echoing against the mountain.
Before him was nothing but emptiness, but in his vision flowed a mercury-coloured, illusory river of light.
The River of Fate itself!
There, a silvery thread flowed down the river. It was Mercurion's Fate. Tracing it backward, he saw a deviation in its course. No, it wasn't even a deviation. It was outright nonsense! His thread had no beginning at all, as if it had been placed into the river out of nowhere! And that was a completely different River of Fate too?!
His eyes twitched as he held back from shattering the entire mountain beneath him. "Where is my Fate?!" he roared, his long fingers reaching out to grasp the illusory thread, trying to move it, but it wouldn't budge. Giving up, he shifted the river itself, changing its flow and searching for a moment in Fate that might show him the way back. Or at least provide him a clue where he was.
"AH!" he exclaimed, a wide grin spreading across his face that bared his serpent-like fangs to the world.
Mercurion's sudden excitement stemmed from noticing a Fate indirectly connected to his own. The golden, glowing orb was slightly behind the 'beginning' of his thread, but with his minor authority over Fate, he could feel it was somehow linked to him and his sudden appearance here.
Grasping the orb in his hand, Mercurion's eyes widened, turning fully white as images flooded his mind.
A hunched figure in a black robe and wearing a demonic mask was weaving something from golden and silver threads, connecting them into a beautiful tapestry. 'Is he weaving… Fate?' Mercurion was stunned.
Despite being an Angel in a Pathway that was all about Fate, even he couldn't fully control it..
Hell, even the Great Sun God Himself couldn't!
"Who is this wretched worm, and why is he connecting my Fate with that of his reality…" he practically hissed, his brows furrowing into a glare, anger replacing his excitement.
Before the vision could end, the black-robed figure looked up. The demonic mask showed no emotion, but something told Mercurion the strange demon was looking straight at him… and grinning.
Once the images finished flooding his mind, the angel stayed silent for a split second. Then, he exploded into fury.
His body expanded, flesh and bones tearing as he transformed into a giant scaleless silver snake, the surface covered with dense patterns and symbols. He roared, thrashing and shattering the mountain with his titanic form.
"I will find you, weaver of Fate!" the colossal snake hissed, crushing the mountain beneath him in a devastating calamity.