Deposited in a field of reeds, Jack rolled to his feet before kicking off the ground to deliver a flying knee kick into Micheal's chin.

The man stumbled back, blinking repeatedly before Jack's fist found his jaw followed by a spinning kick that knocked the archangel onto the ground.

“You impudent!” Micheal spat, raising his hand at Jack to blast him only for nothing to happen.

Jack's boot found the man's face, this time breaking Michael's nose with an audible crunch.

The archangel staggered and rose to his feet, his eyes glaring at Jack as Sahaqiel and Lilith flanked him.

“What is this?” Micheal hissed as Jack began wrapping his hands in what appeared to be tape from a table that had suddenly manifested.

“I believe I told you I was going to fuck you up,” Jack said, turning to face the depowered archangel. “I didn't lie.”

Jack raced forward, throwing a jab, the archangel backpedaling to maneuver Jack's fist to the side and deliver a throat jab that was greeted by a kick.

The two traded blows, attacking one another with a flurry of fists, kicks, and throws.

Finally the pair separated as a fist found Micheal's jaw while his fist struck Jack's chin.

“What's the point of this catharsis Jack?” Micheal spat before Sahaqiel suddenly punched him followed by Lilith striking out with a chain only to be caught by the archangel as he caught and twisted Sahaqiel’s fist. “You've doomed humanity into another cycle of mediocrity, another forty thousand years of unenlightenment! Billions will perish again and their blood shall be upon your hands!”

Micheal kicked Sahaqiel away while pulling in Lilith and headbutting the woman.

“Do you understand the good you've undone? The thousands of years of cultivation that you've wasted? You were supposed to be the ultimate weapon! The one who would destroy Adam and usher in a new age of mankind!” Micheal spat, walking towards Jack. “We could have journeyed the stars! I had plans!”

“Sucks when things don't work out, doesn't it?” Jack replied.

“Don't work out? You troglodyte! You held the power of the entire world in your palm! The controls to reshape humanity and you use it to build this illusion? This pathetic show of self-serving delusions?! I would have made you glorious! The greatest hero to bring down Adam and end generations of suffering!” Micheal spat before his head involuntary twitch. “I saw it! I saw it! I-I! AHGH!”

Micheal’s face began to contort, his white suit suddenly ripping as his body abruptly stretched then rubber banded.

“What?” Micheal said before his hands suddenly rose, gripping his head while Jack looked on in confusion.

Then the archangel snapped his own neck, the man falling to the ground before putting out a hand to catch himself just shy of falling.

“You infantile curr!” Micheal hissed, his body glowing. “The archangel coughed, droplets of black ichor visible on his blackening hand he used to wipe away the blood. “The fate of all mankind hangs in the balance! And yo-”

Jack narrowed his eyes at the monologuing angel who spasmed as two white grotesque wings burst from the back of his suit.

“What's happening to him?” Jack asked, turning to Sahaqiel and Lilith.

“I'm unsure,” Sahaqiel said, standing at the ready.

Then, Micheal screamed, a chorus of voices leaving his body that momentarily multiplied before remerging.

“GaaaaH!” Then the Archangel's body exploded, a flash of light blinding Jack for a moment only to die down and reveal three bodies.

A clone of Sahaqiel, Micheal, and an unknown man with sickly white wings, skinny frame, and golden hair that flowed past his shoulders.

The man with wings stood with a scowl, his gold eyes darting between the body in a white suit and then to Jack.

“Micheal…” Sahaqiel said, recognizing the archangel’s new form immediately.

“So this is what you are,” Jack said, staring at the man who was scrawny and frail, his form a far cry from the large body he had once inhabited. “You're… small.”

At the word small Micheal snarled, opening his mouth to berate Jack only for a fist to greet his jaw before he could speak.

Then a foot met his stomach, followed by Jack's heel stomping his cranium before the angel could recover.

“Where are you going?” Jack asked as the depowered angel began to crawl away. “I know what you've done. I know what you are.”

Jack stood over the crippled figure and reached down, grabbing the archangel by his long blonde hair. “A monster in the guise of a man.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Monster?!” Micheal spat, his face twisted in an expression of offense before Jack punched him.

He reeled, skidding a few feet as Sahaqiel turned away and Lilith grinned.

“Monster…” Micheal repeated, wobbling to his feet with his constitution almost unable to stand as his eyes shook with rage. “What do you know?”

Jack and Micheal locked eyes, the latter not backing down despite Jack towering over him.

“Since the inception of this new world, I, and I alone held the will to see my vision through. Even as heaven split apart beneath my feet! Even as every comrade I outlived faded to memory. Even as I wandered this world for twenty millennium!" Micheal sneered, "Monster? So what? Villain? Who cares? I'd do it all again if it meant saving humanity from this doomed cycle of warfare!”

“Next you'll tell me it was all necessary? For a greater good? All the pain? All the suffering?” Jack said, kicking the man who fell and curled up into a fetal position. “All my suffering?”

Micheal attempted to rise, but just as he found his footing, it was greeted by Jack's boot breaking his jaw.

“An angel… can only come from the awakening of a being… with the potential who undergoes an outburst of extreme emotion,” Micheal hissed, turning to Sahaqiel who looked away as Jack headbutted the archangel. “I made you. If you had just followed my vision I could have made the world perfect. Fixed it.”

Jack frowned at the thought of a world envisioned by such a man.

“Yes you did make me, and look at what I've become,” Jack said before lifting the archangel by the throat. “You're wrong about one thing though, this cycle won't continue.”

Suddenly the field of reeds vanished, replaced instead by a space of fleshy tendrils and twitching black masses. A horror show of an Eldritch nightmare of flesh and meat. The collective gunk of corrupted data that had been pulled into the Infinity Machine from across the world.

All of the mana in the world, held in one space. Bottled up and threatening to explode.

All the power in the world… so close to Micheal and yet so far.

At the far end of the space, a familiar figure, the one known as Adam that hung suspended by Lilith’s chains above the core of the Infinity Machine.

“What is this?” Micheal spat.

“The rest of your life,” Jack said as Adam raised his head, his eyes glaring with power.

****

Hours Earlier.

In the illusion of his old apartment, Jack furrowed his brow, listening to the recording of a curly-haired brunette woman in a white toga shown to him by Lilith on his desktop.

“I am Eve, the creator of the Infinity Machine and transcribed is the last of my legacy. If you are watching this, you possess incredible tenacity and strength. Which means the seals have failed and the world is doomed…” The woman trailed off, the message shaking for a moment before stabilizing. “To understand your predicament, I originally created this tool as a means to resuscitate those fallen in the great war. To catalog and guide the lost souls back to us who were victims of petty wars and grandiose schemes-”

The world around Jack changed, revealing a room where Eve stood with a dagger in hand, surrounded by armored angels led by a figure wearing white armor.

Micheal. Albeit a less emaciated one.

“-But I was betrayed. What was meant to be a dispassionate tool to return lost loved ones to the world became a weapon. A corrupted object to be used to deem who was worthy and who was not. To sift the souls of those loyal to Micheal and grant them immortality while dooming the others into being recycled.”

It turned to Eve being pinned down, the woman shouting to not touch the golden sphere.

Yet the man with six wings didn't listen.

“He said we needed to be selective. Needed to only allow those who were worthy. But I knew better. I could see it in his eyes.”

The illusionary world changed again, revealing a shadowed figure who tore through the angels.

“Adam… My beloved. The strongest amongst us…” Eve said, touching the man's face who didn't react. “The machine wasn't complete when Micheal attempted to activate it. Perhaps due to my rage, perhaps due to my sorrow and feelings of loneliness… Adam was called forth from the world of oblivion. But he wasn't my Adam…”

Jack found himself hovering over Heaven on fire, the city engulfed in flames as angels rallied around Raphael and the other Archangels.

“We told a lie. Micheal and I, both complicit in the death of our world. One out of love. The other, power. We spurred thousands to die for us, sacrificed billions in a desperate bid to fix our mistakes…” An explosion lit up the illusion, panting it entirely white until Jack was back within his apartment room. “And we nearly extinguished humanity because of our hubris.”

Eve turned to Jack, the woman softly smiling.

“Time ran out for my world. I could not finish my life's work. But. If you are here. And if you possess the strength and intellect, perhaps you could finish what I started,” Eve said as her form disappeared to be replaced by Lilith who held a white orb in her palms.

“What is that?” Jack asked, looking at the swirl of information.

“Schematics… everything we need to fix the machine, I think,” Lilith said. “Protected with admin privileges but with Sahaqiel’s help, we can override it, find a way to reverse everything.”

“And Eve?” Jack asked with Lilith shaking her head.

“The usable soul data stored only goes back about fifty years. Except for those selected with certain strengths, almost every other soul is corrupted or fractured,” Lilith said as their surroundings turned to one of numbers and a rotting field. “This message was all I could find.”

“I see,” Jack said, “So… all we need to do is repair the machine right?”

“In theory? We'd have to purge the corruption and that could take… years? Decades? Our data is saved under the admin tab so we'd be effectively immortal, we'd also have to purge Adam and… If this goes wrong, we could make everything worse. We could rob everyone of magic and only delay this happening again.”

Jack closed his eyes, taking a moment to process as the fight raged outside the machine.

He opened his eyes. “Tell Sahaqiel, it's time-

****

Present:

-we cleaned up this mess,” Jack hissed as he threw Micheal to the ground.

The archangel sprawled, his body glowing with the power of Gehenna.

Then it clicked for the archangel.

“This could take millenniums!” Micheal snapped. “How are we supposed to win against that thing?!”

“Oh don't worry,” Jack said as Adam vanished, decapitating Micheal only for the angel to reform a moment later.

“We've got time,” Jack said as his body arced with power and golden tattoos caressed his skin.

Jack turned to Sahaqiel and Lilith, the pair standing with him with their bodies glowing.

Sahaqiel smiled, readying her staff of lightning while Lilith summoned a black scythe wrapped with obsidian chains.

Although it would take some time, Jack wouldn't be alone in this battle as he turned his eyes to the soul of a young girl with green hair gestating in a dream where she could walk.

"Let's get this done," Jack said before summoning Gram to his hand and charging the figure known as the First Awakened.