The Lost Book of Chaos: How to Divide the World (The Secret Wars of Angels 1)

by Thomas, J. D.

Judas nodded, understanding.

  “There are bigger battles going on,” Gabriel said. “Bigger problems that we are facing, and there are not enough of us angels to do everything all at once. We need to prioritize our energy and resources. It is not our job to keep humanity updated on useless knowledge. Remember, you are here to serve us, not the other way around.”

  “But that’s unfair,” Judas said, “you angels may see that as unimportant, but there are those of us who value Truth.”

  “And why is it unfair?” Gabriel said.

  “For example,” Judas said, “a lot of people seek to follow the path of the righteous, but they don’t know of this, why is it not made available to them?”

  “As I said, humans were originally there to serve angels, not the other way around,” Gabriel answered. “It is still true to this day, though there are many among the malakai who are beginning to think differently. The Master for example, is one of many who believe that you humans can rise as our equals.” Then Gabriel was silent, as if sensing the many thoughts that was now running in the mind of Judas. The angel waited for Judas to be ready to listen again.

  When Gabriel saw that Judas had caught up, the angel continued. “Some of the knowledge still survives, though very few people possess them,” Gabriel said. “However, if you look hard enough, you will find what you’re looking for. It is hidden from the rest, but to those who seek, the True History still exists.”

  Judas still thought that was unfair. People could waste a lifetime doing that. Wasn’t the point of history to learn from the experiences and mistakes of the previous generations so you could make better decisions today? If you had to spend your entire lifetime looking for the truth, by the time you found it, it would be too late to use it for anything. The angels could at least put more effort into keeping everyone well informed.

  But more than that, Judas felt uncomfortable with the notion that humans were there just to serve the angels. That didn’t sit well with him. Weren’t humans and angels both there to serve the True Creator? Shouldn’t angels and humans be equal?

  “Ready to listen?” Gabriel said, and Judas nodded. “There are many misconceptions about us angels, but I will give it to you piece by piece across several lessons.”

  “Over time,” Gabriel said, “our relationship with you humans has changed as our race mingled with yours. From servants we began to treat you as friends, and from friends we began to treat you as our brothers. Today, many of us angels consider you as our equals. To this day, angels mingle with humans and bear half bloods, humans with the strength of angels.”

  Judas felt the hair on his arms rise. Angels continued to copulate with humans, and bore half angel, half human breeds?

  “But make no mistake,” Gabriel said, “many of you humans, especially these Romans, label everything they do not understand as gods. Even the half bloods, they label as gods. But that is far from truth. The truth is that there is only one True Creator.”

  “In the past,” Gabriel continued, “angels also contributed to this misconception because they claimed that they were the True Creator. In so doing, they have lead the humans astray. These malakai used religion to gain absolute control.”

  “So,” Judas said, “angels can lie?”

  “Yes,” Gabriel said. “But we angels of Sky Jerusalem have made a vow to always speak truth. We live a life to never break our Covenants.”

  “The lesson here,” Gabriel continued, “is not to be so trusting of what any angel says. That goes to include what I say.”

  “Think with your own mind,” Gabriel said, “see what is good, and do not let others take advantage of your blind faith. Countless people have died in vain, after angels and even human leaders led them to wars. Is it the fault of the leaders? Or is it also the fault of the blind followers who put faith in the wrong leaders?”

  Judas nodded.

  “But the problem doesn’t stop with angels claiming to be the True Creator,” Gabriel continued. “Even good angels who never claimed themselves to be Creators were misinterpreted by humans to be the Creator.”

  The sphere updated its moving images, showing him a different group of humans, whose attire looked familiar to Judas. They were his people. Had they been wrong all along? Had they been praying to an angel, rather than pray to the True Creator?

  Indeed, he remembered one time when The Master had laughed at the disciples while they were praying. When they asked The Master why he was laughing at them, The Master had answered: The Creator you are praying to is not the Creator that I pray to. While you pray to the god of the Earth, I pray to the god of the Universe.

  Judas listened further.

  “And then humans added to the problem,” Gabriel continued, “because some of the scribes and priests thought that since there was only one True Creator, then why should there be a need for mentioning angels? As a result, they removed all of our presence from the Scriptures, and claimed that the actions of angels were the actions of the True Creator. They took the words ‘El’ and ‘Elohim’ to mean God.”

  Judas’s stomach soured. The tips of his fingers went cold. All the things he had believed in, they were being torn apart, and not gently at that.

  Gabriel showed him many things, the histories from the beginning of the reign of angels. Even the history of angels. The deeper it went, the more troubled Judas became.

  “Tell me when you are ready,” Gabriel said. “Because I know this is not easy to take.”

  Judas took several breaths to calm himself before nodding.

  “We angels were here from Adam, Abel, Cain, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, to Moses, and before,” Gabriel said. “We were always here, and are still here. Your ancestors have dealt with us angels again and again, and yet suddenly human priests have decided to remove us and attribute all actions of different angels as the True Creator. Do you see the problems this can cause?”

  If what Gabriel said was true, then it would indeed present a lot of problems. If, indeed, humanity had looked up to the examples set by the angels rather than the examples set by the True Creator, then that would explain why humanity was in such a messed up state. But there had to be something else. Judas pondered for a moment at the possibility that Gabriel was not telling the truth.

  But what reason would Gabriel have to lie to him?

  Was Gabriel testing his faith?

  Did he need to prove himself first?

  “I think you’re lying,” Judas challenged. “This, this is just a test!”

  Maybe that was it.

  However, Gabriel sighed.

  Judas felt nauseous.

  “That will be enough for today,” Gabriel said. The angel opened the door so Judas could leave the room. Slowly, Judas went out the room and out of the structure. He headed back to his quarters.

  This was just a test.

  There was no truth to what Gabriel was saying.

  Judas leaned himself on the wall, because otherwise he would have fallen from weakness.

  “How is he doing?” The Master asked Gabriel. The Master wore simple white robes, unadorned. His long hair fell untied behind his back. His eyes were full of compassion, as if he saw the goodness in everything in the world, no matter where he looked.

  “It is to be expected, he is resisting the lessons of the True History,” Gabriel said. “We should let him get over it at his own pace. It might take him a few days, weeks, or months but even if it takes him years, we can wait. If we go too fast, we will break him.”

  “I believe in him,” The Master said. His voice was gentle. “Growing up together with him, I know he can do it.”

  “You put too much faith in a... human,” Gabriel said. “If even us angels can’t solve the problem of our Great Wars, what makes you think he can do it? Sure, I have seen him face The Immortal King. There is bravery there, but aside from that… There are many angels and humans who have greater potential.”

  The Master was silent for a few moments.

  “You underestimate human
ity,” The Master said, “In my time with them, I have come to learn more about them than the rest of you angels have. They are more like us than you think. But they have the power to become the Savior because they have what we don’t.”

  “And what is it that they have, that we don’t possess already?” Gabriel said. “Power, technology, wisdom, Long Life.”

  The Master paused several seconds before answering.

  “Urgency,” The Master said. “Their short lives push them to their limits, to become their fullest before their time runs out. They are a young race, but look how far they’ve come! I have faith in them.”

  “Weren’t the First Keepers threatened when humans came to possess Forbidden Knowledge?” The Master reminded Gabriel. “Didn’t we come down to divide them after they almost finished the Tower Ship of Babel? They have the potential to rival us, and in such a short time. They may have the potential to exceed what we have accomplished, given more time.”

  Gabriel did not look convinced. “But because their lives are short, they don’t value it,” Gabriel countered. “They are more willing to throw away their lives because they know they will die anyway. We, who live the Long Life understand the true value of life.”

  “But do we, really?” The Master said, “Here we are, still caught in our own wars. No matter how powerful we become, and no matter how far our technology has advanced, we are still destroying each other. The curse of the Ouroboros haunts our race. We are destroying ourselves. The Earthborns continue to fight against the Angels of Sky Jerusalem.”

  Gabriel didn’t have any words to respond to that.

  “Whether the Savior comes from them,” The Master said, “or whether it comes from us, we will never know until it happens,” The Master said, “or whether he will come at all. But we must always have hope.”

  “Hope,” The Master said, reaching out a hand towards Gabriel, “that we can end all the wars and needless suffering. Hope, that we can end the curse of the Ouroboros. For the end of all wars and needless suffering.”

  “For the end of all wars and needless suffering,” Gabriel echoed, taking The Master’s hand.

  “For the end of the Ouroboros,” Gabriel said.

  Keep seeking, and you will find.

  And when you find,

  you will be DISTURBED.

  -The Gospel of Thomas

  Ask, and it shall be given you;

  seek, and ye shall find;

  knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

  -Matthew 7:7, Luke 11:9

  Chapter 26 - The Golden Serpent Bracer

  The next day, Judas woke up, remembering only vague moments from what happened with Gabriel. He could, however, remember being taken to room with a spherical object that showed him moving images, the moving images corresponded to what Gabriel was saying. There was a swirling mass of images and thoughts in his mind that didn’t make sense.

  He met Gabriel that day and asked the angel what was happening.

  “I have hidden much of the True History inside you,” Gabriel said, breaking Judas’s trance. “One by one the knowledge will reveal itself to you as you need them. Everything will come at the right time.”

  “But why not reveal it all at once?” Judas said, though he thought he already knew the answer. His head was aching from all his new memories and, if there was any more, his head would probably explode.

  Judas jumped. An angel had left the room and Judas wasn’t even aware there was another besides Gabriel. The door closed seamlessly. Who was it? And did that angel also teach him something?

  “It can drive a human insane if the world he thought he knew suddenly changed so much,” Gabriel explained. “Trust. Believe, and in time you will remember it all.” Believe? Gabriel had just destroyed his entire belief about life!

  “But it’s just a day’s worth of teaching, how can there be so much,” Judas said.

  Gabriel looked amused. “We have trained you for seven days without sleep,” Gabriel said. Seven days? Judas sighed. No wonder he felt like this. At that time, someone entered the room. When Judas saw who it was, a wave of relief washed over him and all thoughts of doubt vanished.

  It was The Master.

  “What happened to your neck?” The Master said, chuckling.

  Even after Gabriel and Arcana healed him, the spots left by the noose around his neck was still visible.

  “Just a little accident while escaping... your followers.” Judas was not about to reveal that he had considered killing himself.

  The Master nodded at him. “Good thing you survived all that,” The Master said.

  Judas could say the same thing about The Master. “How did you... How was it even possible that you could survive all that torture? It felt so real... I thought you were really gone... I survived, because the soldiers were too busy with what was happening to you.” Tears welled in the eyes of Judas. He had tried to believe that his Master was still alive, but it was different when he actually saw the Master in person.

  “I thought I had to climb The Blue Rose before I could meet you,” Judas said.

  “No matter,” The Master said. “We will meet again there and have a longer talk. But Gabriel and I decided it best that we meet now, after all the new memories you just learned.”

  “Feel my hands,” The Master said as he extended both of them. Those hands felt smooth, though right in the middle of each there was a hole about the size of a large nail. Those hands were like his hands—the scar of the nail, one on each hand, forever left there.

  “From now on, nothing will be normal,” The Master said, this time grimacing. “Everything you knew about the world will be turned upside down.”

  He knew what The Master was trying to say. Judas needed to let go of his previous beliefs, no matter how hard it was. He needed to, somehow, accept the True History.

  “I will try to learn everything,” Judas said.

  The Master nodded.

  “You did well playing the part of The Betrayer,” The Master commended. The betrayal was only a role. The reality was, it had to happen for the prophecies to come true.

  “Somebody had to do it,” Judas said. “I did not want it to be me to be the one to lead you to suffering, but I couldn’t let it be anyone else either.” It had to be done, and Judas Iscariot, the most trusted among the twelve apostles, was picked for it. If The Master had a best friend among them, it would be him. But of course, Judas wasn’t just a best friend. He was the Master’s brother, since they shared the same mother, and they had grown up together.

  “The other apostles,” Judas said, “they are furious of the betrayal.” The Master nodded.

  “In time, they will understand,” The Master said.

  Judas hoped the news had reached the apostles that he was seen dead, hanging from a tree. They would believe that. They were good people, the other apostles, but they hated him now.

  Then, another angel entered the room carrying an obsidian box. The Master gestured for Judas to look at it. Judas studied the box, he touched it, it felt smooth, and solid as stone.

  “This,” The Master said. “is for you.” Judas wondered what was inside it. “Press it there and it will open,” The Master said. The box opened with a sound like a distant waterfall. Inside, there was a golden arm bracer in the shape of a snake coiled several times. The length of the bracer was almost an entire arm.

  “Wear it around your arm,” Gabriel instructed in his deep commanding voice. Judas did so. Despite being made of gold, it felt comfortable and fit his arm perfectly, almost as if it was crafted just for him.

  As put the golden arm, a familiar voice spoke in his head.

  Ah, at last, The Great Serpent Nacash said in his head. I can take a permanent physical form rather than always hide inside your blood. This blood will be perfect.

  There was something that told Judas that he shouldn’t speak of Nacash to Gabriel or even his Master. They might think he was going crazy.

  “This golden arm bracer is your guid
e,” Gabriel said, “Your sword. Your shield. Your armor. And your wings.” And as if as an afterthought, Gabriel added, “It is also a vault of wisdom.”

  “Thank you,” Judas said to The Master.

  “You seem, distant,” The Master asked. “Does the True History trouble you?”

  Indeed. Judas’s mind said he was open, but his heart spoke differently. He felt the whirlwind of emotions return. He was loyal to The Master, there was no doubt about that, but learning what he had just learned, even though much of it was still shrouded from his mind, was a totally different thing. Judas tried to push the emotions away and cleared his mind until he found the stillness from within. The Master put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I believe in you just as you had faith in me,” The Master said. “From this day forth, you will no longer be an ordinary human, you will be like us. You will live among the angels. You will drink from the Fountain of Life like the angels. You will fight the battles we fight.”

  Judas nodded. He wanted to put more spirit and passion into his words, but in his troubled state, they just weren’t there. Still, seeing The Master had uplifted him considerably.

  “Very well,” The Master answered. “I have to go. Gabriel and the other angels will guide you through your next days. But before I go, I have something important to share.”

  Judas looked up.

  “Your greatest mission is to save the world from destruction,” The Master said. “But there will be many steps.”

  “The first step is to understand the nature of the threat,” The Master said. “Why do we angels destroy ourselves in Great Wars? Why do we destroy the world we live on? This is the threat of the Ouroboros.”

  “The serpent biting its own tail,” Judas said.

  The Master nodded. “Do you know what it represents?”

  “There are people among us who seek to destroy each other,” Judas said. “I have seen the wars of humans all over the world. Brothers against brothers, fathers against sons. The Ouroboros is the symbol that represents us destroying ourselves.”

  “That is the Ouroboros of Humanity,” The Master said. “However, the problem does not exist in humans alone. Angels too continue to suffer this problem. The Ouroboros of Angels that destroyed heaven persists to this day.”