Chapter 6: The Elf
The gods were creating the elves. Rich spiritual energy gathered, and five-colored elemental light swirled and shifted at their fingertips. The gods patiently sculpted the elf's features.
"Elves are without desire, innocent and carefree," the gods bestowed life upon him with the power of words. The Book of Creation appeared in the void, writing the name of the Elf King, 'Atledis'.
Atledis was born from the forces of nature. He was the same height as Lucifer, and their appearances bore some resemblance; both possessed a beauty rarely seen in the world. However, the Elf King had light brown hair and emerald green eyes. Compared to the inherent nobility of Lucifer's six wings of holy light, Atledis was more approachable.
He knelt on one knee, offering his loyalty and respect to the gods with heroic spirit.
Like angels and demons, the Elf King was born with inherited power. He awaited the gods to create more companions for him, but unexpectedly, the gods only gave him a twig.
"This is a branch of the Tree of Life. I promise that as long as the Tree of Life lives on in the mortal realm, the Elven race will never perish."
This was an unparalleled blessing. Atreides accepted the branch of the Tree of Life and bowed in gratitude, but the god remained silent for a long time. He looked up.
"My god, my companions..."
"You will know when you find suitable land to plant the Tree of Life."
The god's words ended there. Atreides, filled with doubt, began searching for suitable land for the Tree of Life.
The god did not linger on the mortal realm after this. He returned to Heaven to inspect the Seraphim's progress in creating angels. The Seraphim had already created dozens of angels, but only Lucifer was of Raphael's caliber.
Samael possessed considerable creative power; the angels he created, though not as powerful as Lucifer, were stable in their luminous forms. Next were Metatronta and Beelzebub. Gabriel created the most, though most of them possessed meager abilities.
There were also angels who hadn't been created at all. God's gaze shifted from the studious angels to another; Michael's mind raced, Belial was listless and lethargic—all as God had expected.
Lucifer, sensing the arrival of God's light on the seventh day, immediately looked up, as did Belial.
"My God."
"Hmm."
God glanced again at the Radiant Morning Star, whom he favored, then turned his gaze to the Cherubim created by Lucifer. The angel with the deep blue hair had equally deep blue eyes, his gaze moist.
"God, your beauty is truly supreme," he praised, his expression pure and innocent, yet his tone was filled with a yearning that seemed out of place, tinged with a reluctant restraint under Lucifer's veiled warning gaze.
This was an angel brimming with contradictions. God saw through the Cherubim's pursuit of all things beautiful in the world, and also glimpsed through time Lucifer's stern yet frantic teaching of the angels. Lucifer created only this one Cherubim in all his long existence because he needed to spend so much time teaching it, at least until God arrived, to teach this mutated angel some manners, which is why it turned out this way.
"Asmodeus"
This was the name God bestowed upon the Cherubim, acknowledging its angelic status. Lucifer breathed a sigh of relief. Asmodeus had a completely different personality and temperament; he didn't know how his carefully crafted creation had turned out to be such a… angel. Fortunately, God didn't seem displeased…
"Thank you for your hard work, Lucifer."
God is omniscient and omnipotent, and Lucifer felt a little embarrassed. At that moment, Michael led over a winged alien creature.
"God, look what I made! I named it the Griffin!" Michael excitedly pushed the alien creature towards the god.
There are always some angels who are oblivious to the situation, shamelessly proud of failing to create angels. Lucifer, before he could stop his whimsical companion, saw the griffin snort. Perhaps unaccustomed to being pushed around by Michael, it flapped its wings uncomfortably.
Michael had bestowed upon it too much spiritual power, making the griffin's wings extremely powerful. With a single flap, a gust of wind whipped through the air, nearly blowing the clouds of the seventh heaven to the sixth. God stretched out a finger and firmly pressed it down, preventing this creature from getting too close and slapping its wings against him—or rather, his face.
"Michael!" Lucifer hissed, a vein throbbing on his forehead.
God stared at the griffin, which howled. Lacking intelligence, it acted on impulse, quickly tearing a piece of its robe from the holy light before it and chewing on it.
"It…it might be hungry," Michael stammered, clutching the griffin's neck, at a loss. But to his surprise, the god wasn't angry. Instead, he fed the griffin a ball of holy light. The griffin swallowed the entire ball, let out a satisfied burp, nuzzled against the god's body, which shone with an even brighter light than any other part of it, and then lay down and fell fast asleep.
Somehow, at that moment, Lucifer caught a strange emotion in the god, different from the god's usual gentleness, like ripples on a calm lake. It was fleeting, but it was precisely this brief tenderness and indulgence that left an indelible image in his mind.
Even though he never saw it again after that.
Just then, the Elf King Atreides crossed mountains and oceans, traversed deserts and grasslands, and finally planted the Tree of Life in the forests of the mortal realm.
The Tree of Life took root in the mortal realm, and the gods, sensing its presence, caused the World Tree within the Great Cathedral to sprout and grow with incredible speed. To the astonishment of the angels, the gods vanished, reappearing atop their high throne in the Seventh Heaven.
He fulfilled his promise, announcing to the three realms the blessings upon the Elven race. From this day forward, this long-lived race would be born from the Tree of Life; as long as the Tree of Life existed, the Elven race would never perish.
A divine voice echoed, and Atreides led his people in worship towards Heaven. The Elves, conceived from mortal spiritual energy and born from the Tree of Life, were without desire or want. The gods had given them nothing, nor could they take anything away from them. Thus, the laws of nature had no room to interfere. The gods, sensing that faint glimmer of consciousness, extinguished its resistance.
"The rules are not subject to the will of the gods," the consciousness declared before vanishing.
"I am the rule," the god said indifferently. "In this contest, I have emerged victorious."
From that day forward, until the end of time, no law of cause and effect could supersede the Creator; the god was the sole ruler of this world.
The power of the laws was absorbed by the god, who sensed an even closer connection between himself and the world. With a wave of his left hand, using the angels created by the Seraphim as templates, the god mass-produced millions of angels. With a wave of his right hand, millions of lesser demons poured forth from Hell.
The vast divine power permeated the three realms; life arose in the water, birds flew in the sky, and creatures roamed the earth. The world began to function fully.
The god's golden eyes reflected the entire world; it was like a [blank], ever-renewing.
You provided the author Danmu's [Hebrew Mythology]: the arduous history of a world's creation.