The Supreme Being had vacated the throne. He urged the denizens of the world to pick a new leader among them. The strongest of those denizens took his words as a motive to start a war. As the years passed, the war grew more and more gruesome as the number of participants grew. This war was soon called the War For Supremacy.

It was the 200th year of the War For Supremacy. By this time, all races were drawn into the war. The entire world had turned into one huge warzone. On the Day Continent, there was a battle happening between the forces of Hydra and Bakunawa.

*Boom!*

An explosion erupted in the middle of a sea of serpents. Screams and roars resounded. Serpentine Beastmen clashed with claws and fangs. The air was tainted by the poison gas they released. Their blood had permanently stained the earth. In this melee of madness, a child was wielding an ax.

“Ahhhh!”

He roared at the top of his lungs as chopped off an enemy’s leg. They fell to the ground. He split their head with his ax. He leaped back to avoid a spear. He threw his ax. The ax hit his attacker in the center of his face. The boy ran up and used the falling body as a springboard. He latched onto an adult twice his size and ripped his throat open.

“Ohhhhh!”

He roared with his mouth stained with blood. This war was already going on for over a week. The boy had been fighting nonstop since it began.

(Survive! Survive! Do anything to survive!)

He chanted in his head. He was kicked away with cracks reaching his ears. He bounced off the ground and a few times. He slowly lifted his upper body. A spear pierced through his chest.

“Die, you fucking brat!”

His attacker screamed at him as he pulled out his spear and readied to go for the kill.

“S-Survive!”

The boy flew up and pounced at his enemy.

“Die!”

He twisted his body to narrowly avoid the spear. He released his claws. He ripped his attacker’s head off and landed behind him. His hand holding the hand was cut off the moment his feet touched the ground.

“?!”

He turned around and saw a flash. The world began to spin. He heard a thud. He found himself looking up at a headless body. It was his own. His life flashed before his eyes. Since he could remember he was surrounded by blood and violence. He knew nothing but fighting. He desired nothing but to survive.

“……..”

The light vanished from his eyes as his blood mixed with thousands of others on the ground.

(Why was I even born?)

His head was crushed by a foot, bringing an end to his life.

“……….”

Miko silently floated in the dark realm in his Satan form. His eyes were lifeless as tears flowed and memories poured into his head.

The 313th year into the War for Supremacy, God Continent.

“Charge! Charge! Kill those filthy Olympians!”

“Push them back! Crush those Norse Pigs!”

A Norse army was clashing with an Olympian army.

“Mother Freya, I offer the souls of my enemies to thee!”

A woman blew through the Olympian army with a thrust of her spear. Enemies rushed at her from all sides to encircle her. An explosion erupted behind her. A man coated in lightning disrupted the encirclement.

“Captain, I’m here to back you up!”

The man and the woman stood back to back.

“I thought I told you to fall back?! I’ll hold them off myself! My head is enough to give you guys enough time to regroup with everybody else!”

“I can’t allow you to sacrifice yourself for everybody else! Not when we were set up to die by our superiors! We’ll survive and report this to Lord Tyr!”

“You fool…”

The woman tightened her grip on the spear.

“Don’t blame me when you die!”

“Hahaha! We’ll feast in Valhalla together!”

Waves of enemies rushed at them. They faced them with fire in their eyes. Blood and flesh danced in the air. Screams and roars played a melody of war. The two cut dozens of enemies with every move they made. Their enemies chipped away at their energy and flesh. Their breaths became rugged, their vision was stained red, the bodies were stacking up around them. After what felt like forever, the woman’s weapon fell from her hand, along with a few fingers.

(So the piece of flesh holding them together finally snapped….)

She turned around. Tears flowed from her eyes as she saw her comrade standing tall with countless weapons lodged into him. He was obviously dead. Yet, she chuckled a bit.

“You continued to have my back even in death…I guess I’ll have to pour you a drink when I get to Valhalla.”

Her enemies pounced at her. Swords, spears, ax, various weapons hacked away at her body. The last thing she saw was the tip of a sword thrusting at her eye.

“………”

Hate, love, despair, hopelessness…all of these emotions mixed together inside Miko. The memories of countless lives were stored in his head. The combination of these things gave birth to something that would eventually make up his core.

MADNESS.

“After that, I spent who knows how long dying cursing everything around me.”

Present time, Miko was recollecting his experiences to those of the three clans.

“……..”

There was a heavy silence from everyone else as they listened to his every word. There was none in the room who didn’t show shock to what they heard. And yet, Miko spoke without a change in emotions.

“At first, I believed that I was just seeing the memories of others from various ages, but that was wrong. Those memories were my own. The lives that they lived, I lived them. Their pain, their suffering, their despair, they all belong to me. When I realized what was happening, I tried everything to break out of the hell I was cast into, but it was no use. I couldn’t resist being swept away by the river of time. I couldn’t escape the cold hands of fate squeezing my neck. I was forced to live in the most chaotic times over and over again. I’ve killed and killed and killed and killed until it became as easy as blinking.”

Everyone in the room started to imagine it. Eras of endless wars. Eras where life had no value. Eras where death would always have one hand on your shoulder.

“Do you know how many times I’ve fallen in love? How many times I’ve become a parent? How many parents and siblings I’ve had? How many times I’ve grieved the loss of my lover, my children, my friends, my family?”

He looked at his palms.

“Do you how many times I’ve had to kill them with my own hands?”

“?!”

Everyone’s eyes widened as their gaze on Miko became stronger while he stared at his hands. They would appear stained with blood before appearing clean again. He clenched his fist.

“I got fed up. I was tired of losing those I loved to the world. So I decided to put them to rest myself. At first, I tried to make it as painless as possible…But it didn’t make a difference. The guilt and disgust towards myself drove me mad. Before I knew it, I was beginning to enjoy the madness that the pain of loss gave me. I started reveling in it.”

He showed a creepy smile.

“I once strangled my pregnant mother to death. I beheaded my father in his sleep. I’ve set my siblings on fire. I fed my lover and children to a pack of mad beasts. I became addicted to the taste of my own tears. I wanted nothing but to destroy everything, including myself.”

The image of Satan Miko appeared in everyone’s mind.

“Eventually, I regained my senses and I stopped killing everyone around me. That’s when I learned that madness is sometimes an escape from reality.”

He chuckled.

“Realizing the things I did and how I enjoyed it was the final blow to my heart. I no longer wanted to live. Life was equivalent to suffering in my eyes and I had enough of suffering.”

Miko raced the tip of his thumb across his neck.

“That’s when I started killing myself every chance I got.”

He started listing off his fingers.

“I hung myself 156 times, slit my throat 248 times, stabbed my heart 34 times, blew myself up 79 times, set myself on fire, or dove into lava 15 times because that really hurt….Well, you get the idea.”

Miko looked around and saw everyone wearing uncomfortable expressions. He awkwardly cleared his throat.

“Anyway, eventually I was brought to the Invisible World where I met with Aniket, where we talked about a few things for the first time. I was even shown a glimpse into the future. After that, I woke up and went to meet Krow.”

(He purposely left out what he and the Supreme Being talked about and what he saw in the future….)

Tia sighed.

(Well, I’m sure no one is going to press him to speak after everything we just heard. There’s a limit to how much the mind can take. Also, I doubt Miko is going to say anything.)

She folded her arms in front of her.

(This pretty much explains why Miko is the way he is and how he obtained his knowledge. The problem is…)

“Miko…”

Sasha held Miko from behind.

“I’m so sorry….”

He could feel his shoulder becoming wet. He smiled and placed his hand on her head.

“I’m just glad that you’re alive and well, Mother.”

“You don’t need to worry about me when you’ve been through so much!”

“Ah, I didn’t tell you my story for you to feel sorry for me. I just wanted you to know more about me.”

The smile slowly faded from Miko’s face.

“Besides, you’re wasting your time feeling sorry for me.”

(When he fought the Solar King Taiyo, Augustus was pushed beyond his limits and went into a coma for a while. When he came back, he had a different vibe about him. An ominous vibe.)

Tia’s eyes sharpened as they locked on Miko.

“I’m not the one you should be feeling sorry for. After all, I intend to return the hospitality that this world has shown me.”

(The problem is, Miko is giving off that same vibe.)

“What do you mean by that, Miko?”

Rouge spoke after a bit of hesitation.

“What else?”

The corner of Miko’s mouth rose as his fangs became bear.

“I’m gonna put the world through the same hell it put me through. That’s the only path left for me, who have experienced true madness.”

(The Augustus who woke up that day and the Miko before me are the same…)

Tiamat smiled.

“A monster hellbent on achieving their goals at the cost of their own souls.”

“Listen up. My goal is to turn the Dragna Empire into a juggernaut that can survive even the end of the world.”

He spread his arms.

“In other words, I want to make it so that you will be able to survive a war so large, so destructive, so gruesome that even the Supreme Being can’t ignore it! That is the type of war that will fall upon the world in the future!”

His words sent chills up everyone’s spines. Joesph and Tiamat suddenly had a sense of déjà vu.

“Higher Beings, Irregulars, Mortals, and the Supreme Beings! All the pieces are slowly coming together! All the parties involved are building up their strength! So we must as well!”

(Wait…Didn’t Augustus say this exact same thing?)

Madness and rage could be seen swirling in Miko’s eyes as his image overlapped with Augustus’s.

“I will lay the foundations, after that it will be up to everyone else! Turn the Dragna Empire to an eternal powerhouse no one can touch!”

He grinned.

“And to do that, we’ll need to free Nero and his siblings.”