Author’s Note: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, et cetera.

I know I haven’t posted Immortal Soul in ages. There were a lot of reasons, but whatever. I thought I already posted everything I wrote already, but then I realized there were actually a few ‘chapters’ that were just sitting around in my Google Drive from 3 years ago. I say chapter, but Chapter 1 is probably 16k words or more. It’s broken up into a bunch of parts, which I’m actually going to go through and edit before I post, instead of just being lazy and posting it ‘raw’.

Seriously, why did I make so many mistakes back then? Oh well, I need to read through this again anyway because… I think I might try to ‘finish’ Immortal Soul. It’s been like 10 years now. I don’t wanna pull a George RR Martin. I started this series when I was 22, now I’m gonna be 32. It’s kinda insane to think about.

Of course, I also wrote hundreds of other books between now and then. Yes, hundreds. If you add up all the volumes at least. Immortal Soul was my first ‘real’, original work that I posted online though. And I continued it on and off for about 7 years, coincidentally. Volume 7 was always intended to be the ‘end’. Maybe not some conclusive ending like “Everybody died! Hahaha~!” As is so common now days in a lot of stories. Or “Everybody lived happily ever after.” Which is an older trope.

My endings usually just tie into another story. For Immortal Soul, there are already a lot of other stories involved. Practically every story on this site is connected in one way or another.

Anyway, sorry for taking so long. Should’ve probably posted this 3 years ago, but somehow time just disappears so quickly when you’re not paying attention…

Chapter 1: Descent into Chaos, Part 1

*Michael’s Perspective*

The difference between Heaven and Hell, has and always will be a matter of perspective. Everyone has their own wants and desires, obsessions and compulsions, fetishes and taboos. Just because you call a place Paradise, doesn’t mean that everyone who lives there will be happy or satisfied with their lives there.

I’ve seen plenty of ‘Heavenly Kingdoms’, that are filled to the brim with immortal assholes and eternally damned servants. People who call themselves God or Goddess are usually the first ones to embrace slavery and pretty much every other form of depravity imaginable. All while pretending to be above the judgment of mere ‘Mortals’.

On the other hand, I’ve also seen ‘Hellish Wastelands’ and more than a few Demonic Abyss’ that were quite beautiful. Most of them involved lots of tentacles though… Something about boneless fleshy appendages that either freaks out or turns on most ‘humanoids’.

Some people can spend ages alone and be totally content, while others can’t stand a single day of solitary confinement. For that matter, I’ve seen people kill themselves from loneliness in the middle of a densely crowded subway, in a city of ten million people. Perspective is everything in life, no matter whether you’re a Mortal or powerful enough to be considered a Deity.

Finally, the most essential and distinct difference between Heaven and Hell: Time. Some people treat it as the greatest blessing and would do anything to get just a few more seconds… While others wish that their time was already up, but are unable to die, no matter how hard they try.

Even if your Soul is immortal and unending, life is never so indefinite. No matter how powerful someone or something becomes, life is never ‘eternal’… Even if it feels like it sometimes.

Anyway, the reason why I’m rambling on about this philosophical bullshit is because… Well, it’s basically a habit at this point.

By now, you should know quite a lot about me. One way or another. My name is Michael. The original, not that asshole Rapture. That’s a whole other story and I’m not even going to try to get into that nonsense.

In the beginning, the very beginning, as far back as I can remember… There was a single entity. I don’t want to call it ‘God’, because there was nothing else that could compare with ‘It’. Eventually that Divine Cell, split into two separate existences. Perfectly equal and disgustingly simple.

Imagine two Slimes, I guess. One of those stupid balls was named Helel, the other one was Michael. Okay not really, we didn’t actually have names yet, but we didn’t really have any distinguishing features either. 

Considering that the two of us were all that existed, it’s not surprising that our first instinct was to try and eat each other. Didn’t really work out, since we were equally powerful. Since we couldn’t devour each other, we eventually both divided once.

Helel created Raphael, and I created Gabriel. Now there were four of us. All equally powerful and unable to eat each other, yet… When Gabriel and Raphael divided, the balance was broken. Helel and Michael were twice the size of Gabriel, Raphael, Azrael and Uriel. So we obviously tried to eat them in order to grow.

Things became more complicated then. In order to survive, Azrael and Uriel decided to ‘fuse’ together into a single whole. While Gabriel and Raphael did the same. It was another stalemate until Helel and Michael said: “Fuck it!” And tried to fuse together like the others. It didn’t work though. Instead of combining, they ended up single-cellular fucking. Both of them got smaller and created a third ball named Anael. The other two thought it looked fun, so they did the same thing, creating Sariel.

There you have it! The 8 original Immortal Souls! Why not 7? Well, unsurprisingly, Michael ate Anael shortly after that and things kind of got more and more complicated from there. I won’t go into too much detail, but that’s just a bit of backstory.

Since then, similar stories have played out countless times between us. Usually not very happy endings, or beginnings, or middles to be honest. Just a lot of sex, violence, death and destruction. With creators like ‘us’, it’s not surprising that so many worlds are so fucked up all the time.

The important thing is that I have seven major ‘Incarnations’: Michael, Anael, Abaddon, Raijin, Leviathan, Ares and Lunael. Not necessarily in that order, but yes, I am the sum of all seven personalities in one way or another. Assuming your incarnations don’t try to murder you or ruin your life, they’re pretty damn useful.

For example, even though I was descending down into the depths of the Northern Mountains, I was still getting updates from Raijin and Anael. The exact content? Well, a live video-feed of Luna showing off her celestial ass, seeing the awkward reunion between Ethir and his mom… Then watching that dumbass Raijin use Asmodeus’ Avatar as a fucking taxi to Hell!

The only problem was that everything was in slow-motion. And I’ve been around long enough to know exactly what that means. The deeper we traveled into the abyss, the closer we got to Armageddon.

Before all that nonsense though, let’s go back to where we left off. Amber and I pushed open those giant gates, the ceiling was flashing from the neon pink and red slimes… And a battalion of heavily armored idiots were blocking our way.