Monarch of Gluttony: System of Sin

Even though Raphael had made a choice, he still felt that Azekiel was going to call him wrong. He expected Azekiel to just say that he wasn’t the man who created this tower, but contrary to all his expectations, Azekiel accepted it!

Lia was quite taken aback. She chose to trust Azekiel, only to find out that he was the reason that even their soul was trapped here. So she had been helping their biggest enemy all this while? She should’ve come to terms with it.

“Is it really the truth? You are the reason we are trapped here?” she asked, clenching her fist.

“Nope. I’m not the reason you’re both trapped here. I’m the reason for every soul being trapped here. You two aren’t the only ones.” Azekiel answered. “Every King who had ever died inside this tower, or every human! Their souls still rests in the Tower and will continue existing as such.”

“You’re the reason we lost our memories?” She asked again. The more answers she received, the more her blood boiled. She felt betrayed. She hadn’t felt this betrayed even when Osiris refused to help him in getting justice for her sister.

Azekiel took a deep breath before nodding. “That’s right. I created a mechanism to wipe the memories after someone died as well.”

Lia just wanted to kill Azekiel at the moment. She had never hated anyone this much in her life. Even Raphael finally understood why Alion was saying that he was helping him. He understood why he told Raphael to kill Azekiel as he wasn’t a nice person. So this was why? He was right!

Azekiel wasn’t a good person. He played with all their lives… He played with their minds and their emotions! No wonder Alion hated Azekiel as well. So Alion wanted to go back in time to stop Azekiel before this Tower was created, but he ended up at the wrong time. That guy… He was innocent.

Lia also realized it now. She really regretted helping Azekiel in killing Alion.

“Why…?” In her broken voice, she only asked one question.

“Did you find it fun to play with us? Did you find it fun to play god in our lives? Did you find it fun to mess with our lives? To destroy them? And even after all that, you still used us?”

“Why did you do it?” Raphael asked the same question. Just why? And if he was the God of this tower, why was he in such a dire situation when they met him? If he was playing with others’ lives, then who was playing with him?

“Why did you create this tower? And who exactly are you?”

“You were right. I’m not a human. As for who I am, that’s a bit complicated to answer…” Azekiel didn’t know how to describe just what he was, as even he found it hard to describe.

After thinking about his words and how to describe the situation, he started speaking.

“I told you I created this tower to make sure that the other worlds had an opportunity that I never had? What do you think it meant? Why do you think the Tower only appears in the world with an apocalypse? Why does it open its doors for people in need?”

“I don’t know what I am, but I know where I’m from. I’m not from earth. The food I was eating before? That’s from the world where I first opened my eyes. Just like on earth, I didn’t know who my parents were. I was taken in by a family… Surprisingly each world has some nice people…”

“The world was very peaceful. Unlike earth, there were no wars there. Even then, it didn’t last long. A terrible disaster struck when suddenly meteors started raining on our world. It was like an apocalypse as if the heaven was punishing us. We had no place to hide either.”

“In that apocalypse, I lost everything. I lost my family and the girl I considered my sister. I also lost the person I loved… In the apocalypse, only one person survived.”

“You.” Raphael finished the sentence.

Azekiel nodded. “That’s right. Me… For some reason, I was the only one who survived, only to wake up in a barren world.”

“I didn’t have an opportunity to save my world… We didn’t have a chance of survival. That’s why I dedicated my life to bring my people back in any way I could. I don’t know what I was, but I was able to do what others from my world couldn’t. I was able to manipulate space and time to a small extent, but with time, I realized I was able to do much more.”

“Still, No matter what I tried, I couldn’t bring my people back. I couldn’t bring my family back as the time kept repairing itself.”

“That’s when I decided to create this Tower… A realm of my own, where even time and space couldn’t heal itself. I created this mess of space and time that was free from the laws of nature outside. I created this small world of my own.”

“And you made it capable of appearing in places with Apocalypses? To save people? But why after an apocalypse came? If you wanted to save people, why not before the Apocalypse came? Why as a last resort?” Raphael asked.

“Because it’s impossible to locate a world where an apocalypse is supposed to come before it does. Things are more complicated than they seem. Only when there is an apocalypse does the space time dimension around that world become weak enough for this tower to appear.”

“It still doesn’t make sense entirely. You say you’re the good guy who wanted to save people? Then why did you keep souls hostage? Why did you create this dangerous game of climbing the tower?” Lia asked. She had already believed Azekiel many times before, but not anymore!

“Why did you force people to kill each other in the name of climbing the Tower? Also, why did you keep the doors of the Tower closed to the people who died right outside the door on Earth? You are a liar! You are making up a story now!”