Gawking at Hot Angels

The sensation of being unmade lasted only a heartbeat before Lucian felt the atoms of his body being reassembled somewhere… else.

Solidity returned beneath his feet and he realized he was standing. Even from the flat leather shoe he wore, he could feel the cool, smooth ground, and the latent power that seemed to be humming within it.

The overwhelming light from Seraphina's staff faded, but when it revealed the scene around, he thought that he was going to go blind!

Such a beautiful place, such a wonder was not meant to be beholded by mere humans. It stole all of his breath and scrambled his sense of scale.

"Is this…" he tried to speak. "Is this Heaven's Gate?"

Seraphina smiled at his reaction. "Indeed it is, Sovereign."

Lucian's jaw dropped.

It didn't look like a gate at all. Not in any earthly sense. First there was an impossible vista of pure, radiant white clouds. These clouds were so dense and luminous that they formed solid, glowing plains that extended to infinity in every direction.

Because of the clouds, the air was crisp, cool and impossibly clean. Wind carried the scent of heaven. Heaven was all Lucian could call it because it was indescribable. It was sweet and indefinable, like stars and warmth given scent.

Yet that was just the start of it.

Rising from this sea of clouds and piercing the boundless azure sky above, were the Gates. That name only served as an idea rather than a true description because the Gates was not a barrier, but a city.

Before Lucian was a golden metropolis crafted from living sunlight and solidified auroras.

Towers. So many towers. Endless shiny towers.

They were slender, some were round, others flat and indefinite. Their spires of burnished gold, each easily dwarfing the churches Lucian was familiar with in his old world, soared upwards, their peaks vanishing into the shimmering haze of the upper atmosphere.

They flanked the main beautiful gate in the center, left and right, extending so far that Lucian knew for sure that it would be infinite. Endless.

They weren't uniform; some twisted like strands of divine DNA, others flared outwards like crystalline flowers in bloom, still others were geometric marvels of impossible angles, catching and refracting the ambient light into cascading rainbows.

Oh yes rainbows. There were lots of them. Lucian had even forgotten how beautiful they could look.

Some of the buildings had bridges. Rainbow bridges. Others had bridges of pure, solidified light, shimmering from a lightsource that seemed to come from everywhere. While many others had no bridges at all. Just tall and golden.

And breathtaking.

The scale was staggering, inhuman. Things like this could not be created by man's architecture; it was the physical manifestation of divine power and order, stretching as far as Lucian's overwhelmed eyes could see.

He began to feel the presence of mana in the air. It was even stronger here than in the cathedral. The very air thrummed with its deep, resonant energy, a constant background hum of celestial machinery.

"Breathtaking, isn't it?" Seraphina's voice, rich with amusement, cut through his awe. She stood beside him, although her heavyset breasts poked out awkwardly. She held her golden staff lightly, and placed the end on the platinum ground with soft authority.

"Don't fantasize about going through those gates. It's for the dead who lived holy lives according to Goddess Exalta's rules," she said to Lucian.

"Are you calling me a sinner?" Lucian asked mindlessly.

Her smile stretched. "No, True Sovereign. I'm simply saying you aren't dead yet. The living has no place in the land of the dead."

She looked away to turn, but noticed Lucian's gaze was still up ahead, locked at something with intrigue. "You're still staring. Do you want to see the dead and holy that badly?"

Lucian's brows creased, as though he was squinting, trying to make out what something was. Not too far from the gate were two women in white scanty robes. The peculiar thing about these women, however, was that they were flying.

"Are those angels?" he asked, genuinely surprised.

Seraphina's eyes sparked. "Haha! Of course! I heard that in your world, they were mere things of fantasy and myth. But angels are real here in Altareign, and they are servants of the Goddess and the Conclave."

Lucian's face showed understanding. "Oh. I see." One of the angels, a blonde one with ravaging hips, glanced at him before waving and fluttering away.

Seraphina's terrifying smile was fixed in place, those molten gold eyes watching his reaction with predatory satisfaction. "Try not to gawk too obviously, True Sovereign. It undermines the dignity you'll need."

She gestured not towards the grandest, central cluster of towers, but towards one slightly to the side – still impossibly majestic, but perhaps marginally less overwhelming. Its base was a massive, faceted crystal plinth resting on the clouds. "Come now. The Conclave awaits. This way."

She didn't wait for his response. Her hand, cool and demanding as polished marble, closed around his upper arm with the effortless strength of a mountain.

She guided him forward, but in Lucian's opinion, it felt more like she pulled him forward. As she walked, her steps were soundless on the luminous cloud-stuff, while Lucian's own was out of place and ruffled.

It didn't help that he was wearing a long white garment that was doing its best to trip him, but the luminous cloud floor also felt strange beneath his feet. Even though it was solid.

They approached the crystal plinth, and a section of it shimmered, resolving into an archway of pure, humming light. Seraphina strode through, pulling Lucian after her.

"How are the Priestesses expecting me to act like?" Lucian inquired as they walked through the archway.

Seraphina didn't look at him, even though she smiled at the question. "Pretense will only lose you points, True Sovereign. That is, if your goal is to score points with the Priestesses." She looked at him mischievously before carrying on.

"No! I didn't mean it like that!" Lucian said, following after her.

Soon, they were inside where the scale shifted from overwhelming vastness to contained, opulent power.

Lucian looked around and it seemed like they were in some kind of antechamber. The floor was polished mother-of-pearl, swirling with iridescent colors.

The walls were madly tall, likely carved from a single, massive block of clear crystal shot through with veins of liquid gold and platinum. Light streamed in from unseen sources, refracting through the crystal into dazzling patterns that danced across the surfaces.

The air here was cooler, still humming with mana, but quieter, more saturated. Ahead, a pair of colossal doors that were as bright as a sunny Monday, awaited them. Two angels, scantily-dressed, athletic and curvy, stood by the sides of the door.

Seraphina didn't pause for them or the doors. As they approached, the massive panels silently swung inward, revealing the heart of the tower.

Lucian turned around to get one final look at the angels who were just as curious of his presence before he turned back, realizing that he was inside an important place.

The Runic Chapel.

Somehow, he knew the name without being told like the room introduced itself once he stepped in.

The Runic Chapel was a hemisphere of crystal and light. The curved walls offered dizzying, panoramic views of the cloud-sea and the endless golden city beyond, yet the focus was irresistibly drawn inward.

At the Chapel's center, on a raised dais of flawless white stone, sat a semicircular table of bright, soul-lighting gold.

Seated around it, radiating power and ancient wisdom, were five women. But in the name of everything good, what unbelievable women they were!

Unbelievably hot women that is.