Azrael’s body bulged, his horns glistening brighter and his hair shining with a more lustrous light.

His anger made even the air seem to boil.

A pair of blood red gauntlets formed over his fists, each one warping the air from their mere presence.

His perception of time slowed drastically, until everything around him moved like it was crawling.

Beside him another copy formed, made entirely from crimson essence born of rage.

Smoke drifted from his lips with every breath, as though he were a volcano waiting for the right moment to erupt.

The angels in the area stopped moving, rooted in place as they stared at the maddened demon before them.

"What are you waiting for?" Michael yelled, jolting them from their fear.

The angels lunged, their spears glowing with an ethereal light.

The ground where Azrael had stood cracked apart, and he was no longer there.

His clone clenched both fists, lashing out with force enough to rival a nuclear blast.

Angels exploded as the fist broke the sound barrier and detonated the surrounding air.

Rain began to fall.

It was not ordinary rain.

It was blood, raining down from the angels above.

The clone did not feel it.

Without delay it lunged again, rolling both fists into a single hammer as it locked them together.

Boom.

The earth exploded, jagged spikes of pure rage essence erupting from the ground.

Millions of angels were impaled, the spikes running clean from their feet to their heads.

At the center of the battlefield, Azrael’s fist connected with Michael’s face.

Michael’s head snapped backward, his spine cracking from the force of the blow.

Blood flew from his mouth on impact.

Azrael’s left gauntlet shifted form, spikes growing from its knuckles as he drove it into Michael’s chest.

Michael’s eyes went wide as his heart was punched clean through.

He gathered the last of his strength and thrust upward, pouring every drop of essence in his body into that single attack.

Time itself seemed to break under the strain.

A stretch of seconds blurred between them, lost entirely from memory.

But one thing remained clear.

Azrael had taken the attack as though it were nothing.

"Now taste what ten percent of that felt like," he said, raising his head high.

Light gathered in the space between his horns.

Then he swung down.

A massive beam of light tore through the air, piercing straight through Michael’s chest.

His heart exploded on impact.

Michael collapsed to the ground, eyes wide.

The angels who had been attacking Azrael’s clone froze, their bodies fading into nothing.

Azrael did not care.

His gaze turned toward the sky.

He launched himself upward, his body streaking through the air like something no longer entirely human, or demon.

In that moment he was nothing but a savage beast given form.

He broke through the atmosphere as though it offered no resistance at all.

His strength seemed to grow without limit, the rage feeding back into itself endlessly.

Before he could fully break free, his clone joined him.

They tore through the planet’s atmosphere together, sending a ripple that swept across the entire world below.

Only one thought remained in his rage consumed mind.

The angel race.

Without pause, Azrael shot forward.

Millions of years passed within the blink of an eye.

The demon race had already carved out its name as the strongest force in the world, second only to the dragons.

Well, not the demon race as a whole.

It was the one hailed as the last of the Wrath lineage among them.

Azrael stared down from above the angel race’s home planet.

Beneath him, the remnants of the Celestial Army stood frozen, pinned in place by the pressure he radiated without effort.

His clone tore through them in a massacre, killing without restraint or hesitation.

"You are making a grave mistake. The dragons will destroy you for breaking the balance of the universe," one of the Celestials yelled, before his head fell to the floor.

Azrael did not answer.

He could not.

This was merely a husk, a vessel carrying his soul.

The true Azrael had been bound and restrained by the rage itself.

He looked down at the destruction he had wrought upon the angel race.

Alone, he had ended a war that had lasted billions of years between demons and angels.

This should not have been possible.

Even the dragons, the very pillars of the universe, could at best hold both races at bay and limit the destruction of their endless war.

Deep within Azrael’s body, something else stirred.

It was his true soul, fighting to break free from the shackles of anger.

A thick red chain wrapped tightly around his entire form.

"Rest easy. I will achieve everything for you," a drifting figure made entirely of rage essence said to the struggling Azrael.

Azrael laughed wildly at the words.

"It’s my body, you bastard. Why should I hand it to you?"

The figure said nothing.

It turned and began to ascend, slow and steady.

This was Azrael’s sea of consciousness.

"Come back. Did you really think I would let myself stay trapped here this long without a plan?"

The rage figure turned.

Swoosh.

The chain lashed out, smashing into its head.

The figure plummeted, crashing onto the ground below.

Before it could recover, Azrael was already above it.

The chain whipped around the figure’s body at his command, binding it tightly until it could no longer move.

The figure convulsed violently, struggling to break free.

"Stop fighting it. You already know this is pointless," Azrael said, before swimming upward toward the surface of his own mind.

Outside, his body shook violently before going still.

The rage clone tearing through the angel race was dispelled instantly, bursting into a haze of crimson mist.

The red sheen across Azrael’s body faded, and he returned to normal.

Then a wave of dizziness crashed into him.

His body jolted, tilting sideways from the sudden weight of it.

His vision blurred, darkness swallowing his sight until he felt nothing at all.

"Argh," Azrael gasped loudly the very next second.