Nozh stood as the second pinnacle in all of creation.


    Clad in armour of light that rivalled any in the cosmos, she was so powerful that if she ever fully manifested in the third dimension, she could burn entire galaxies to ash.


    After having completed her training, she had some free time to tend to her world, Pech which, after having been neglected for some time, had become a noxious, nightmare scape strewn with dark jagged rocks and blanketed by a grey smog that robbed the surface of colour.


    And yet, life was present.


    Lining the innumerable caverns beneath the surface was an entire biosphere of life and, among the strange life forms, were humanoids only the were short, had pale skin, dark eyes, wide noses, clubbed fingernails they got from a past of having to dig through the soil and large ears that allowed them to barely survive beneath the surface where what precious little oxygen was present was produced by the fungi, algae and other organisms that called the sub-terrain home.


    Nozh genuinely felt bad for having let the humanoids suffer for so long.


    She could feel the burning sting in their every breath and the ache of their hunger but she wasn’t sure whether or not to help them directly so she consulted Fogo who she found him cuddling with Vidente atop the Diamond Needle, on the uppermost platform where the brightest light in all the universe usually stood watch.


    Nozh felt the love and passion in each kiss they shared and while this made her feel a little embarrassed to witness directly, her matter was more important.


    [Ahem!]


    Fogo turned an eye to her while slowly rubbing the roots of Vidente’s feathers with his fingers which made Nozh’s own mind dull as a wave of pleasure washed over her.


    [What?] He grunted.


    [Umm… my world’s doing pretty bad. Should I help them or…?] Nozh averted looking directly at the two lovebirds but she could perceive everything so shying away didn’t help.


    [If I was Ma’am, I’d say something like, do what feels right and if I was Kōritsu, I’d say something stupid like leave them be, but your world’s a death pit. Not sure what you can do without using a ton of Kilnessence and we really shouldn’t use more of that stuff than we need since we haven’t found a way to generate it. So, my advice is that you give it a try but it won’t be easy.]


    Nozh turned to Vidente who’s eyes were glazed as she softly mewled making Nozh roll her eyes as she descended.


    [You know what, just forget I asked.] She clicked her tongue while thinking of a way to help.


    Fogo was right about Kilnessence.


    While the universe was brimming with it, the unseen fuel that seemingly drove actuation itself, it wasn’t infinite.


    They needed to be cautious with how they used it and, fortunately, the Angels themselves had massive pools of the stuff within them.


    But Nozh didn’t want the suffering of her people to lose its meaning.


    To just swoop in and change their world and all they knew.


    She had abandoned them but she would do what she could to redeem herself in their eyes.


    She started by looking the total population of the world over.


    There were about one hundred million of them, divided into the five Hypogean Superclusters.


    Massive, industrial cities where people spent most of their time trying to generate oxygen which was used as both a resource and currency in handheld tanks.


    No one walked without an oxygen mask unless they were in a place that was both sealed and had sufficient life support systems.


    Water was surprisingly abundant, flowing down into the caverns from the oceans on the surface and filtered by the algae.


    Cleaning the water was simply a matter of harvesting the algae and conducting a little further purification.


    Nozh thought of what to give her people.


    Yana had given his world faith and Fogo had given his strength.


    What did she have to offer?


    She thought back to her family and the times when they struggled.


    Something they appreciated, through all the bickering and arguing was the fact that they had each other.


    And while contentment was important, it wouldn’t help her people in the long term.


    The Superclusters seemed to be disconnected and acted independent of each other but Nozh wondered what they would be able to achieve if they were united and so she thought of how to make that a reality.


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    She couldn’t manifest because… she’d kill everyone with her brilliant light but she could offer guidance and raise a champion who could unite their people.


    Heck, she could even give said champion several blessings.


    So, with that in mind, Nozh began her search.


    She wanted someone much like herself.


    Someone she could entrust with the fate of her world.


    She found a candidate in a young orphan girl who struggled for scraps in Abell, the capital city of the Pavo–Indus Supercluster.


    She was shorter than most other children, malnourished and spent most of her days chewing on unprocessed algae that stuck to the bottom of the large metal pipes that transported water across the city.


    Nozh felt an immense amount of pity for the sickly little girl, having experienced poverty herself back on Earth, and so chose her to be the vessel of her will.


    Not just for who the girl was and had been through, but what she would become.


    The next step was to give her a body able to withstand her blessing.


    Unlike Yana, her light wasn’t like the gentle light in the morning sun, it was more like the light from a quasar.


    She made her way back to Vidente who was now in an empty part of the seventh heaven where the inquisitive angel stood before an army of one hundred and seven artificial beings of grey flesh and armour of light only their Halos were dangling just above their heads, meaning they technically weren’t alive yet.


    The seven who stood at the front of this celestial army were actively being injected with Kilnessence by small, crawly things in their veins that Nozh found incredibly creepy.


    [Vi?]


    [Yes?] Vidente asked while continuing to arm the army with weapons of light. Her wings handed each arm its respective tool of war and destruction.


    [Can you teach me how to do that thing that Yana did?]


    [You want to bring a human here?]


    [No. Not now, anyway. I just want to give them a perfect human so that they can do some awesome stuff on my world!] Nozh declared making Vidente smile a little.


    [Alright, when the human you’ve chosen dies, take their Soul and pour it into this empty Halo and give them a little residual Kilnessence. Then, boom. They’ll be able to exist in just about any dimension.]


    Nozh accepted a blank Halo from one of Vidente’s feathers.


    [Thanks, Vi! You’re the best!] Nozh rushed back to Pech where she prepared to put the still struggling girl’s soul into the Halo but, no matter how hard life got, no matter how much abuse, scorn and disregard, she lived on.


    The underground was a place where altruism and charity were punished.


    Why should I give you what I have when you can’t give me anything in return?


    If you don’t have anything else to offer then at least give me your body.


    Such things were said as the girl grew up, moving from place to place as the water pipes became informal homes to the extremely impoverished but even these people had no heart to spare for the girl who didn’t even have a name.


    This broke Nozh’s heart and so, when the malnourished girl turned eighteen, Nozh manifested the smallest ray of her light before the girl, who had found shelter in the Walls of Waste along the edges of Abell, appearing as the glimpse of an Angel.


    [Child… please let go.]


    The girl looked up, with sunken, yellowed eyes and coughed.


    “Mama?”


    Nozh’s heart broke further as tears fell from her eyes.


    [I know you feel like you need to keep fighting but just give yourself this one moment to rest.]


    The girl’s eyes fell for a moment as the Agnel’s plea rang.


    Tears had begun to fall from her own eyes, feeling the Angel’s anguish.


    The girl let out a deep sigh before finally letting out a deep sigh.


    She then closed her eyes and seemingly fell asleep.


    Nozh waited a moment, and before long, the girl had stopped breathing.


    Nozh promptly took her soul, took it to the seventh dimension and made her anew in her barracks. A messy marble palace where she kept various weapons and pieces of armour.


    The girl let out a panicked scream upon bearing witness to Nozh’s full form.


    “AAAAHHHHHH!” She screamed before running off and hiding behind a pillar of white marble.


    Nozh wanted to assure her that she was safe and that there was no reason to be afraid but she could feel the girl’s fear, so she decided to sit down and pat the spot next to her while sending her sincerity.


    A moment passed as the girl hid behind the pillar, looking for an escape but she could tell that Nozh’s presence touched all that was.


    Now only that, there were other similar presences in the universe and while this made her heart race a little faster, she also finally turned to Nozh with caution, rather than fear.


    “You… I saw you… who are you?!”


    [I am Nozh, an Angel.]


    Those words were all the girl needed to hear.


    While beings from different worlds or even continents spoke different languages, they could all understand the words of an Angel since Angels spoke to the soul.


    And every species, race and creed seemed to know instinctively what Angels were.


    It was a relationship that transcended instinct or even faith.


    As if the universe itself was reminding all that was that the Angels were the ultimate forms of being.


    “W- What do you want? I don’t have anything!”


    [I do not wish to take from you, I wish only to give, a pitiful attempt at atonement.] Nozh didn’t know why she was speaking so differently, so patient and warm.


    But it felt natural when speaking to a mortal.


    [I want to give you strength and insight, so that you may conquer your fate and your world so that a new age may be ushered. One of unity.]


    Nozh felt confusion well in the girl.


    Confusion which allowed fear to creep back into her heart.


    So Nozh decided to temporarily shift gears.


    [Mmm… what have you always wanted?]


    The girl’s eyes widened a little.


    She looked around and, after seeing the perfect architecture, reminiscent of that once found in ancient Rome, she seemingly came to the conclusion that she was in a dream which helped with her fear a little.


    “F- Food.”


    Nozh nodded before stealing some fine foods that were being prepared on Yana’s prosperous world with her wings.


    She then placed the food in front of the girl who, after suspiciously eyeing it over.


    The finest breads, meats and desserts all sat atop trays of silverware and were begging to be eaten.


    In an instant, the girl abandoned all caution, pulling the treys closer and messily eating as much as she could grab with her hands, dropping sauce and oil onto the otherwise clean marble floors.


    [Good. Now, what name would you like me to call you?]


    “I… Don’t have… one.” The girl said through massive bites of meat.


    [That may be so but is there a name that you may have wanted for yourself?]


    The girl paused her deranged devouring and looked up in thought from behind the pillar.


    She then swallowed before peeking around the pillar only to panic at the sight of Nozh who was still sitting patiently.


    The girl returned to hiding before looking herself over.


    While she looked very similar to how she did in her first life, she was different now.


    In this dream-like place, she was fit, clean and full of vigour.


    Burning like a newly lit candle.


    “Làzhú.”