On a planet named Nirvana, in the throne room of an enormous silver city, the archangel, Michael, sat deep in thought. He had just received a most troubling report. He sighed and looked out to the breathtaking megalopolis below.

It was, in his opinion, the most beautiful city in the entire Universe. The sun shone down unimpeded on the silver buildings every single day. When the night came, one could see every single star in the sky, and they reflected off every structure making the entire city sparkle.

There was a simple reason that the day and night sky were always perfectly clear here. It was because his city was located on a sprawling bed of clouds high in the sky.

Eons ago, Michael had commissioned the building of this majestic metropolis as a gesture to his people. It had not been easy, as Michael was perhaps the only supreme being who could not simply use his power to manifest whatever he wanted.

The city was his way of demonstrating his goodwill to his people. In spite of how they had treated him, he still wanted them to feel his love and grace.

The nine foot tall angel unfurled his massive wings and stretched them. He set his right elbow onto the armrest of his throne and used his right arm to prop his head up as he thought. Michael wore a sleeveless, white robe. He had grey eyes and light brown, curly hair that almost reached his enormous shoulders.

Regardless of his staggering height, the most striking things about Michael were the layers upon layers of bulging muscles that burst from every single inch of his exposed flesh. Even while he was sitting still, they rippled under his skin constantly.

Growing up, Michael had been constantly called a freak. He was feared and hated by his own people. His size and strength was not the only thing that set him apart either.

Even after he had advanced to the Spirit Realm, Michael had never developed an aura. He was born without the ability to wield qi. Every bit of matter that he absorbed went directly to reinforcing and empowering his body.

Because of this, Michael had no way to use techniques. He had nothing to rely on aside from the strength of his arms.

However, that strength had been all he'd ever needed. Michael was a paragon of the value of specialization. His physical power would come to be feared across the Cosmos.

In the many thousands of years of his life, only one person had ever met him fist to fist and lived to talk about it. Even the Beast Dragon could not match Michael's bodily prowess.

This had not always been a blessing, though.

In his youth, all he had wanted was to be just like everyone else. The fact that he was three-and-a-half feet taller than the average angel did not go unnoticed by his peers. They ostracized him for being different. Even his parents were afraid of him. His early existence was as lonely as could be imagined, and Michael hated every moment of it.

When he grew too big for his teachers and classmates to handle, his own people had chased him from his village and exiled him to the wild. There was a jungle famous for the terrifying monsters that called it home, and the angels suggested that he go there to be among his own kind.

He spent years in a constant struggle for survival. It was not easy to sate his impressive appetite, as the monsters would soon discover. The sight of his enormous wings soaring through the sky would come to be dreaded by all the jungle's denizens.

A few years later, after Michael had proven himself the most monstrous of all the monsters in that jungle, he came across a group of three young angels in a desperate battle with a many-headed panther-like monster.

The by then feral Michael promptly dropped from the sky and slayed the beast effortlessly. He then picked up his giant kill onto one shoulder and began to carry it back to his camp for dinner completely ignoring the three angels that he had saved. He might have butchered them too, but in his eyes, they did not look like they would make a good meal.

The three of them were amazed by the display of herculean strength that this wild angel had shown seemingly without even trying. They followed him back and watched him tear off large hunks of meat from the slain beast with his hands and eat them raw.

They tried repeatedly to begin a conversation with Michael, but he had been alone for so long, his social skills were nonexistent.

However, though he soon became hungry again, he found that he still did not want to eat his guests. There was a simple reason for this.

It was a hope that Michael had carried throughout every part of his life. Even when he was detested and cast out by his own kind, there was a wish within him that had never died for a single moment. A flame that still burned in his feral heart.

He wanted a friend.

Michael hadn't asked to be bigger and stronger than everyone else. He never wanted to be born without the ability to use techniques or even form an aura and manifest qi. But no matter what he had done, or who he had approached, they had universally feared and hated him.

Still, Michael could never bring himself to hate the angels back. All he had ever wanted was for one person to look at him and see him for what he was.

It was days before he said a single word to the three visitors. Raphael and Gabriel had wanted to leave, but Lucifer insisted that they stay.

Lucifer had always been the best at everything. He was the most charming, the best looking, and the most talented. Every angel either wanted him or wanted to be him.

What they failed to understand, however, was that it was impossible to put someone on a pedestal without alienating them from everybody else. Lucifer may have been worshipped, and Michael despised, but they were both separated from the rest of angelkind.

When Lucifer looked at Michael, he saw a kindred spirit. He saw someone who would understand his pain.

And so Lucifer stayed and talked to Michael until the giant angel finally worked up the nerve to respond. After that, they became the fastest of friends.

With Lucifer’s backing, Michael was able to return to angel society. They still feared and often loathed him, but Michael didn’t mind. He finally had the one thing that he had so desperately craved for all his years.

He had friends. Raphael and Gabriel soon came around and accepted Michael as well. The four of them became inseparable.

They trained and fought and advanced together. Before long, they were the most powerful angels who had ever lived.

At this point in time, the Universe was mostly dominated by one alliance of the ancient races.

Michael and Lucifer decided to change that. They fought to free the angels and make them a force to be reckoned with.

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Eventually, they advanced to the peak of the Celestial Realm and took on the title of archangel. Gabriel and Raphael would reach those heights as well, but they could not keep up with the rapid ascension of Michael and Lucifer.

Before long, the angelic faction was among the Universe’s most powerful. Michael had never been so happy. Not only did he have the best friends he had ever dreamed he could, but he had also become a hero to his people.

The very same people that had once spurned him so viciously now cheered his name whenever he walked by. Michael had no idea that triumph could taste so very sweet. Little did he know, it would soon turn to ash in his mouth.

The angels chose to follow Michael. They chose to worship Michael.

Lucifer, the archangel of light, was not used to standing in anyone’s shadow.

When he could take it no more, Lucifer abandoned his friends. He left for the home planet of the demons, a large world that the archangels had conquered together called Purgatory.

If the angels would not give him a throne, Lucifer would make one for himself. He turned the demons against the angels and split the angelic faction’s territory in half.

When Michael was first told of Lucifer’s sedition, he killed the messenger. How could they say such things about his best friend? It wasn’t until the archangel of sound, Gabriel, carried the news that Michael accepted the truth.

His first and greatest friend had really betrayed him.

If he had just asked, Michael would have given up the throne to him in a second. He was forced to accept that Lucifer would not do the same for him.

The angelic faction’s territory was divided, and it remained so to this day. Michael’s territory was boxed in by Lucifer’s. To expand, Michael would have to go through his old friend, and he was still reluctant to do so.

In spite of everything, he couldn’t bring himself to hurt Lucifer. Michael believed in the virtue of grace.

Even if his fury was justified, Michael knew that it would only lead to more pain and violence. Mercy and forgiveness, however, these things could save the Universe and everyone in it.

So he had waited for thousands and thousands of years for his friend to realize the error of his ways, and he would wait thousands more if he had to. The patience of grace was without limit.

Still, the report that Michael had just received troubled him greatly. Two of the most powerful factions in the Cosmos had formed an alliance.

This changed everything. He looked up and met the eyes of an angel with long, straight blonde hair and glowing blue eyes with patches of white swirling in his irises.

“What will you do?” Gabriel asked him in his melodic but powerful tones. Michael had seen him use that voice to destroy worlds.

Neither Gabriel nor Raphael had ever been able to catch up to Michael, but that did not mean that they were not powerful in their own right. They had more than earned the title of archangel.

“There is only one option” Michael replied, his voice as low as his great size would suggest. He stood up from his throne and took a deep, calming breath.

This would not be pleasant, but he had no choice. He most certainly would not go to Lucifer, and there was only one other direction that he could go.

There was a small section on the outskirts of his territory that was bordered not by Lucifer’s demonic faction, but by the ancient race’s.

Michael stepped onto his terrace and looked up. Gabriel made as if he would follow, but Michael shook his head.

“This is something that I must do alone old friend.” Michael jumped and rocketed into the sky.

He was careful to keep his power reigned in. If he used all of his strength, not only would his cloud city break to pieces, but the shockwave could continue on to rip apart his planet as well.

Absolute strength demanded absolute control. With one moment of carelessness, Michael could accidentally kill everything that he held dear.

With one flap of his majestic wings, he entered the void of space where long distance spatial manipulation was easier and safer.

Michael extended his perception across the Cosmos until he found who he was looking for. They were not difficult to locate.

He summoned his True Willpower and folded the space between them flying through the tear that formed in the void.

What awaited him on the other side would haunt the dreams of any battle hardened warrior.

When Michael exited the tear and looked down on the world that he had traveled to, his incredibly keen eyes immediately found who he was looking for.

On a large orange world that was almost completely made up of cities, there was one continent that was nothing but a barren wasteland. In the middle of this desolate landmass, hovering in a cloud of the most corrosive substance that had ever existed, was the divine Poison Dragon, Fáfnir.

He was a thousand miles long serpentine dragon with hideous beige skin instead of the normal beautiful scales. He had what seemed like vestigial limbs, as they were far too short to ever carry his long body across the ground.

Fáfnir’s snout was elongated and flat, like a crocodile with two fleshy whiskers extending from the sides.

Most beasts eventually chose to take a humanoid form when they reached a certain level in their advancement. It was the ideal shape to circulate qi through to form techniques. Fáfnir, on the other hand, had never felt the need to alter his shape.

In some ways, he was just as specialized as Michael. Although he had been born with some advantages, like the natural vitality of a dragon, there was really only one thing that Fáfnir did, and he did it exceedingly well.

He made poison.

His qi was so terrifyingly corrosive, it could break down the very fabric of reality. Fáfnir had once used that awesome power to dominate the vast majority of the Cosmos.

As Michael emerged from the tear in space, Fáfnir was already staring right at him.

Despite being over 100,000 miles apart, they could both see and hear each other perfectly. Still, Fáfnir flew straight out of the planet’s atmosphere to approach him.

It was an obvious attempt to mitigate the damage in case they broke into a fight. Not that it would matter. If Michael and Fáfnir went all out, there would be little left of the galaxy that they were in let alone the planet.

There would be no exchange of techniques between these two. For one thing, they did not really have any true techniques to exchange. More importantly, these two were not known for their ability to hold back.

Michael stared silently at one of his oldest enemies. He hated that he was forced to do this. If only Lucifer hadn't abandoned him, they would likely be benevolently ruling over most of the Cosmos right now.

Fáfnir coiled around himself like a snake preparing to strike and manifested a cloud of poison gas that he wrapped around his body for protection. It was one of the very few things in existence that could actually be harmful to Michael. It was possible that it could even kill him given enough time, but that would take weeks at the very least.

If they fought for keeps, it would be a coin flip between who would kill who first. Michael thought he would probably win, but Fáfnir likely thought the same.

The dragon glared at Michael with slitted pupils in his evil yellow eyes. His voice was even deeper than Michael’s and it always carried an unmistakable malice. “Why have you come here manbird?”

This had been Fáfnir’s insult for angels since the day they had first met so long ago.

Michael clenched his jaw in anger with a force so strong it would make a supermassive black hole feel inadequate. He had to be careful not to grind his teeth too hard or he would start to crack the reality inside his mouth. This was a lesson that he had learned the hard way when he had first broken through to his current Realm.

He had despised this creature since time immemorial. Michael would have rather worked with the Monkey King, despite his infuriating mischief, but his territory was too far away from Michael’s. It didn’t make strategic sense.

“You know exactly why I am here” Michael accused. Fáfnir’s agents would have informed him by now as well. The factions may have their own territories, but there was too much commerce and travel between them to keep a secret like this. “The old soldier and the World Tree are making a play for unexplored space. If they are allowed to grow too quickly, we may lose the ability to challenge them.”

The poisonous serpent’s eyes flashed with rage. “You dare question my power? I was ruling this universe long before you were even born manbird!”

Michael fought the urge to rise to the bait. In a way, Fáfnir was right, though he had only ruled because none of the other supreme beings had risen to prominence yet. Yggdrasil was nearly as old as the cursed dragon, but he had taken much longer to advance than the poisonous serpent.

After the World Tree, the Monkey King, and Michael and Lucifer had risen, Fáfnir‘s empire had come crashing down and the faction system was established.

“We have one chance to respond to this. Will you truly allow your foolish pride to cost you everything?” Michael tried to make the dragon see sense.

Fáfnir narrowed his eyes again and bared his fangs at Michael. Clouds of poison leaked from his mouth. Michael sighed. Fáfnir didn’t just use poison. He embodied it. Every aspect of his personality was toxic.

“What do you believe we should do?” the dragon asked in his deep, malicious tones.

“We need to contain them” Michael said, glad that Fáfnir was hearing him out. “The humans and the golems already have the advantage of proximity to unexplored space. We must find a planet beyond the edge of their territory and send allied forces there to keep them from expanding.”

Fáfnir turned his head down and to the side. Michael had been around dragons enough to know that this gesture meant that he was considering. After several moments, he turned back to Michael with an inscrutable but intense expression on his serpentine face.

“Is there a planet that you have in mind?”