The sky above the imperial capital of Cledra had never looked more ominous. What began as a gentle evening drizzle had transformed into something far more sinister—black clouds swirled in unnatural patterns, occasionally splitting apart to reveal glimpses of an alien void beyond. Lightning crackled with colors that shouldn't exist: deep purples that hurt the eyes to look upon, and silver-white flashes that seemed to burn themselves into one's retinas.
Emperor Alaric Krest stood at the massive crystalline window of his throne room, his reflection overlaying the chaos outside like a specter. At thirty-five, he possessed the bearing of a man born to rule—tall, broad-shouldered, with sharp aristocratic features that seemed carved from marble. His long dark hair was pulled back in the traditional imperial style, and his golden eyes, a mark of the royal bloodline, surveyed his domain with the cold calculation of a predator.
The Obsidian Palace, seat of the Cledran Empire for over a millennium, trembled beneath his feet. Not from the storm—Alaric had weathered countless tempests from this very chamber—but from something deeper, more fundamental. The tremor seemed to originate from the very bedrock upon which his empire was built, as if the earth itself was rejecting his rule.
"Your Majesty," came a voice from behind him, smooth as silk yet somehow making his skin crawl. "The court astronomers have completed their readings."
Alaric didn't turn. He recognized the voice of Darwel Blackthorne, his closest advisor and the man he'd trusted above all others for the past fifteen years. The man who had stood by his side through three succession wars, the Sundering of Kaeleth, and the Great Expansion that had tripled the size of their empire. The man Alaric considered a brother.
"And what do these learned fools tell us about this... atmospheric disturbance?" Alaric's voice carried the weight of absolute authority, each word precise and measured.
"They claim it's unlike anything in recorded history. The celestial alignments are..." Darwel paused, choosing his words carefully. "Impossible, sire. According to their calculations, the stars are positioned as they should be in roughly three thousand years. Some speak of dimensional fractures, others of divine intervention."
Alaric finally turned, his golden gaze fixing on his advisor. Darwel was a man of average height and build, with prematurely graying hair and kind brown eyes that had earned him the trust of nobles and commoners alike. He wore the deep blue robes of the High Chamberlain, adorned with silver threads that caught the unnatural light from outside.
"Divine intervention?" Alaric's lips curled into something that might have been a smile, but held no warmth. "Tell me, Darwel, which of our conquered gods would dare intervene now? The Flame Lords of Pyrrhia? The Sea Witches of Nereon? Or perhaps the Sky Dancers of Aethel?" Each name was spoken with contempt. "I've seen their 'divine power' reduced to ash and bone beneath our standards."
"Perhaps it is not intervention, but judgment," Darwel said quietly. "The people whisper that the empire has grown too vast, that we've reached too far—"
"The people," Alaric interrupted, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "would whisper that the sun rises in the west if it meant avoiding their taxes. Since when do we concern ourselves with the mutterings of peasants?"
Darwel bowed his head. "Of course, Your Majesty. Forgive my presumption."
But something in his advisor's tone made Alaric study him more carefully. In fifteen years of service, Darwel had never once questioned the empire's expansion. If anything, he had been its most ardent supporter, often suggesting military campaigns that even Alaric deemed too ambitious. The man who now stood before him seemed... different. Smaller somehow, as if he were carrying an invisible weight.
Another tremor shook the palace, stronger this time. The massive chandelier overhead—crafted from the crystallized tears of the last Dragon Empress—chimed ominously as its crystals struck against each other. The sound echoed through the throne room like a funeral dirge.
"The military situation?" Alaric asked, moving toward his throne. The seat was carved from a single piece of black stone, taken from the heart of a fallen star. Its armrests were shaped like coiled serpents, their eyes inlaid with rubies that seemed to glow with inner fire.
"General Vorthak reports unrest in the outer provinces," Darwel replied, producing a leather-bound ledger from his robes. "The Skylands are in open revolt, the Sunken Isles have cut off all communication, and there are reports of... strange happenings in the Shadowlands."
"Strange happenings?"
"Entire settlements found empty, sire. No signs of struggle, no bodies. Just... gone. The advance scouts report that the very air feels wrong in those places, as if reality itself has been scraped thin."
Alaric settled into his throne, the stone somehow remaining comfortable despite its fearsome appearance. He had sat in this seat for twelve years, since the death of his father, Emperor Mordred the Conqueror. Every decision that shaped an empire had been made from this throne—declarations of war, peace treaties that favored only Cledra, edicts that brought order to chaos through strength.
"And our allies?"
For the first time, Darwel hesitated. The pause lasted only a heartbeat, but Alaric noticed. He noticed everything.
"Duke Ravencrest has not responded to our summons," Darwel said finally. "Nor has Countess Nightshade or Baron Grimwald. In fact, sire, we've received no communication from any of the Great Houses for the past three days."
The silence that followed was deafening. Outside, the storm raged with increasing fury, but inside the throne room, the only sound was the soft crackling of torches and the distant chiming of the chandelier. Alaric's fingers drummed against the serpentine armrest, each tap echoing like a hammer blow.
"Three days," he repeated slowly. "And you're only informing me now?"
"I... I wanted to be certain before troubling Your Majesty with—"
"Certain of what?" Alaric rose from his throne, and despite Darwel being merely ten feet away, his voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. "Certain of exactly how isolated we've become? Certain of how many knives are pointed at my back?"
"Your Majesty, surely you don't suspect—"
"I suspect everything, Darwel. It's how I've survived this long." Alaric began to pace, his royal robes—black silk embroidered with golden thread in the pattern of a crowned serpent—flowing behind him like liquid shadow. "My father once told me that an emperor's greatest enemy isn't foreign armies or natural disasters. It's the moment he stops questioning the loyalty of those closest to him."
As if summoned by his words, the great doors of the throne room burst open. But instead of the usual contingent of guards or a messenger bearing news, what entered was far worse: nothing. The doors stood wide, revealing only an empty corridor that stretched into darkness deeper than should have been possible.
"Where are my guards?" Alaric's voice cut through the air like a blade.
Darwel had gone pale, his eyes fixed on the open doorway. "I... they were there when I entered, sire. Captain Drakemoor and his men were at their posts."
A new sound reached them from the darkness—footsteps, but wrong somehow. Too heavy, too rhythmic, as if the walker was deliberately mimicking human movement without quite understanding it. The sound grew closer, echoing in a space that shouldn't have been able to produce such echoes.
"Alaric," a voice called from the darkness. It was unmistakably Captain Drakemoor, yet something about it made both men's skin crawl. "Your Majesty, you must come. There's been... an incident."
"What kind of incident?" Alaric called back, but even as he spoke, he was reaching for Sovereign's Edge, the ceremonial sword that hung at his side. The blade had tasted the blood of three pretender kings and countless rebels. Its obsidian length seemed to drink in the light around it.
The footsteps stopped. For a long moment, the only sound was breathing—too much breathing, as if several people were standing just outside the range of vision.
"The kind that changes everything," came Drakemoor's voice, but now it was accompanied by others. Voices Alaric recognized: Duke Ravencrest, Countess Nightshade, General Vorthak. All speaking in perfect unison, their words overlapping into a hideous chorus. "The kind that ends empires."
Alaric drew his sword in one fluid motion, the blade singing as it cut through the air. Beside him, Darwel had produced a curved dagger from his robes—a breach of protocol that would normally have earned him a swift execution, but given the circumstances, Alaric found himself grateful for the company.
"Stand with me, old friend," Alaric said, not taking his eyes off the doorway. "Whatever comes through that door, we face it together. As we always have."
But when he glanced sideways, expecting to see Darwel's familiar face set with determination, he found something far worse. His advisor was smiling—but it wasn't Darwel's smile. This expression was cold, calculating, filled with a malicious pleasure that transformed his kindly features into something monstrous.
"Together?" Darwel's voice was different now, carrying notes that hadn't been there before. "Oh, my dear Alaric. We haven't been together for quite some time."
The dagger, which had been pointed toward the doorway, now pressed against Alaric's ribs. Not breaking the skin yet, but positioned with surgical precision over his heart. Alaric had been in enough battles to know that a single thrust would end his life.
"Darwel," he said carefully, not moving. "What are you doing?"
"What I should have done years ago," came the reply. "What all of us should have done. You've become a disease, Alaric. A cancer that's infected not just this empire, but reality itself. Did you really think you could conquer infinite worlds without consequences?"
"Infinite worlds?" Alaric's mind raced. "What are you talking about? We've conquered seventeen kingdoms, not—"
"Seventeen kingdoms in this dimension," Darwel corrected, and now his voice was definitely not his own. It held harmonics that made Alaric's bones ache, as if multiple people were speaking through the man's throat. "But your ambition, your hunger for dominion, has torn holes in the fabric between worlds. Every conquest, every subjugation, has weakened the barriers. And now something has noticed."
From the doorway came a sound like reality tearing. The darkness beyond was moving, flowing toward them like liquid night. Within its depths, shapes could be glimpsed—tall figures with too many joints, creatures that existed in too many dimensions at once, things that the human eye couldn't quite process without causing physical pain.
"The Old Ones," Darwel continued, his free hand beginning to glow with an eerie purple light. "Beings from the spaces between spaces. They've been watching you, Alaric. Watching your empire grow, watching you tear hole after hole in the cosmic order with your wars of conquest. And they've decided that enough is enough."
"So this is what you are," Alaric said, his voice steady despite the blade at his ribs. "Not my advisor. Not my friend. A puppet. A vessel for things that exist outside creation itself."
"I was your friend," Darwel replied, and for a moment his voice was his own again—filled with genuine sadness. "For fifteen years, I served you loyally. I believed in the empire, in the order we brought to chaos. But when they came to me three months ago, when they showed me what your conquests were truly accomplishing..." He shuddered. "I saw the cracks in reality itself, Alaric. I saw what lies beyond. And I knew that the only way to stop the coming catastrophe was to stop you."
"Then you're a fool," Alaric spat. "Whatever these things promised you, whatever they showed you—it's lies. I am the emperor of the greatest civilization in history. My empire brings order, stability, prosperity—"
"Your empire," Darwel interrupted, pressing the blade a fraction deeper, "is built on the bones of countless civilizations. You've never brought order, Alaric. You've only imposed your will through force. And that will has grown so strong, so absolute, that it's begun to warp the very foundations of existence."
The darkness had reached the threshold of the throne room now. As it crossed into the chamber, the temperature dropped by at least twenty degrees. Frost began to form on the windows, and the torches flickered as if the flames themselves were afraid.
"Look around you," Darwel said. "Your guards are gone. Your nobles have fled or joined us. Your empire is crumbling even as we speak. The only thing keeping this palace from being swallowed by the void is the symbolic importance of this moment. Your death here, now, will serve as an anchor point. A way to seal the cracks you've created."
Alaric laughed—a sound devoid of humor but full of contempt. "You speak of my death as if it's already accomplished. Tell me, Darwel, in all your cosmic wisdom, did your masters mention exactly who you're dealing with?"
Before Darwel could respond, Alaric moved. Not away from the blade, but toward it, driving his body onto the dagger even as he twisted, letting the steel pierce his side rather than his heart. Pain flared through him like liquid fire, but he'd endured worse. His free hand shot out, grasping Darwel's throat, while his sword arm swung in a vicious arc.
Sovereign's Edge bit deep into Darwel's shoulder, drawing a spray of blood that was definitely not human—it was too dark, too thick, and it moved with a will of its own. Darwel screamed, but the sound came from multiple throats, creating a harmony of agony that echoed throughout the chamber.
"Did they tell you," Alaric snarled, his grip tightening, "that I once strangled a dragon with my bare hands? That I personally executed seven pretender kings? That I've stood knee-deep in the blood of armies and emerged without a single scar I didn't choose to bear?"
The darkness was flooding into the room now, bringing with it shapes that hurt to perceive directly. But Alaric didn't look at them. His attention was focused entirely on the man who had been his closest friend, who had betrayed everything they had built together.
"I am Alaric Krest, first of his name, Emperor of Cledra, Conqueror of the Seventeen Kingdoms, Bane of the Dragon Courts, and the Last True King!" Each title was punctuated by increased pressure on Darwel's throat. "I have carved my will into the fabric of reality itself through conquest and war. I have made gods kneel and demons bargain. Do you really think some cosmic parasites hiding in the dark corners of existence can simply erase me?"
But even as he spoke, he could feel his strength fading. The wound in his side was deeper than he'd initially realized, and whatever poison had been on the blade was spreading through his system with ruthless efficiency. His vision blurred, and the sounds around him became distant and hollow.
Darwel managed a strangled laugh. "Your arrogance... even now... you don't understand. This isn't about what you've accomplished, Alaric. It's about what you represent. You've become a symbol of absolute will imposed upon reality. And symbols... symbols can be very dangerous things when they refuse to accept their proper place in the cosmic order."
The emperor's grip loosened involuntarily as the poison worked its way through his nervous system. He stumbled backward, one hand pressed to the wound in his side, the other still gripping his sword. Around him, the darkness had completely filled the throne room, and within it, he could see eyes—thousands of them, belonging to creatures that existed in geometries his mind couldn't process.
"You were meant to be great," Darwel continued, his voice now completely alien. "A unifier, a builder, a force for order. But greatness without wisdom, ambition without restraint, will without limit—these things become cancers that consume everything around them. Including themselves."
Alaric fell to one knee, using his sword as a support. Blood was pooling beneath him, spreading across the obsidian floor like spilled ink. But his eyes—those violet eyes that had intimidated kings and terrified armies—remained fixed on his betrayer with undiminished fury.
"I... will... not... yield," he gasped. "I am the emperor. I am the law. I am order itself made manifest. You cannot simply erase me."
"Watch us," came a chorus of voices from the darkness.
The creatures began to emerge more fully from their shadowy realm. Alaric caught glimpses of impossible anatomies—limbs that bent in too many directions, faces that existed partially in spaces his eyes couldn't follow, bodies that seemed to be composed of living void. They moved toward him slowly, almost respectfully, as if they understood exactly what he represented and wanted to savor this moment.
But as they drew closer, something strange began to happen. The wound in Alaric's side, rather than continuing to weaken him, began to burn with a different kind of fire. Not the cold poison that had been sapping his strength, but something warmer, more fundamental. Something that felt like... power.
"What...?" Darwel's alien-influenced voice carried a note of confusion. "This wasn't... the poison should have..."
Alaric looked down at his wound and saw something that made him laugh with genuine amusement for the first time in years. The blood wasn't just flowing from the cut—it was glowing. Glowing with the same golden light as his eyes, as if his very life force was responding to the cosmic insult of these creatures' presence.
"Did you think," he said, his voice growing stronger rather than weaker, "that an emperor who conquered seventeen kingdoms through force of will alone would be so easily dispatched? Did you imagine that someone who has bent reality to his desires for over a decade would simply accept extinction?"
The glow was spreading now, radiating outward from the wound to encompass his entire body. The alien creatures recoiled slightly, their impossible forms wavering as if his presence was causing them physical discomfort.
"I have spent my entire life proving that will can triumph over any obstacle," Alaric continued, rising to his feet with newfound strength. "I have made the impossible kneel before me. I have turned myths into servants and legends into subjects. And you—you things that hide in the spaces between spaces—you think you can simply delete me from existence?"
The light surrounding him was growing brighter, and within it, shapes began to form. The ghostly outlines of armies he had commanded, kingdoms he had conquered, enemies he had defeated. As if his very life force was a catalog of his achievements, made manifest as weapons against these cosmic invaders.
"No," he said, his voice now carrying the same impossible harmonics that Darwel's had possessed, but clearer, more focused. "I reject your authority. I reject your judgment. I reject the very concept that anything in this universe or beyond it has the right to limit my will."
The creatures were actually backing away now, their forms beginning to dissolve at the edges where his light touched them. Whatever they had expected to find in Emperor Alaric Krest, it clearly wasn't this—a human being whose force of personality had become so absolute that it could actively resist cosmic forces.
"Impossible," Darwel whispered, his own possessed features showing something that might have been fear. "No mortal consciousness can maintain cohesion in the presence of the Old Ones. No individual will can stand against the inevitability of entropy itself."
"Then you've never met a true emperor," Alaric replied.
But even as he spoke, he could feel the tremendous cost of this resistance. The light surrounding him was beautiful and terrible, but it was burning him from the inside out. Whatever force he was drawing upon to resist these creatures, it was consuming him in the process. He could feel his very essence being transformed, changed into something that was definitely no longer human.
The realization should have terrified him. Instead, it filled him with a savage satisfaction.
"If this is the price of defying you," he said to the retreating creatures, "then I'll pay it gladly. But understand this—I will not yield. I will not submit. I will not be erased. And if you force me to become something beyond mortality to preserve my empire, then that's exactly what I'll do."
The light reached a crescendo, and suddenly the throne room was filled with a sound like reality screaming. The stone walls cracked, the crystalline chandelier shattered into countless fragments, and the very air seemed to catch fire. Through it all, Alaric stood at the center of the maelstrom, his will holding him together even as everything else fell apart.
Then, abruptly, everything stopped.
The creatures were gone. The darkness had retreated. Darwel lay motionless on the floor, his body returned to its normal human appearance but clearly lifeless. And Alaric...
Alaric looked down at himself and saw that the glowing light had faded, but its effects remained. His body was unmarked by any wound, but he could feel that he was fundamentally changed. The very nature of his existence had been altered in ways he couldn't yet comprehend.
He walked over to where Darwel lay and knelt beside his former friend. The man's face, in death, had returned to the kind expression Alaric remembered. Whatever had possessed him was gone, leaving only the mortal shell of someone who had once been closer than a brother.
"You were wrong, old friend," Alaric said softly. "You thought my will was a cancer that would consume everything. But you failed to understand that some cancers are stronger than the bodies they inhabit. Some diseases don't destroy—they transform."
He stood and walked back to his throne, settling into the familiar seat one last time. Around him, the throne room was a ruin, but the chair itself remained intact. As if even cosmic forces acknowledged that this was where power belonged.
The storm outside had calmed to a gentle rain, and the strange colors had faded from the sky. But Alaric knew that this was not an ending—it was a transformation. Whatever he had become in resisting those creatures, whatever price he had paid for refusing to be erased, the consequences would follow him.
But he would face them as he had always faced adversity—as an emperor.
The last sound heard in the Obsidian Palace that night was the echo of royal laughter, carrying notes that were definitely no longer entirely human, echoing through empty halls where an empire had died and something far more dangerous had been born.
Then darkness claimed everything, and Alaric Krest, last emperor of Cledra, ceased to exist.
Suddenly, everything turned black.
Alaric looked around, but it was as if his eyes were closed. Everything around him was pure darkness, an endless void that seemed to swallow light itself. He started to move, or at least he thought he was moving—it felt more like levitating in an endless abyss where concepts like up and down had no meaning.
"Where am I...?" His voice echoed strangely in the void, coming back to him distorted and hollow.
He looked at his hand and gasped. It appeared pure, unblemished by the blood and battle that had just consumed him. His hands, once hardened and scarred by war and training, were completely unrecognizable—smooth, unmarked, as if he had never held a sword in his life. His eyes widened in shock as he inspected the rest of his body with growing panic.
Nothing else seemed to have changed about his basic form, except for one glaring detail that made him flush with indignation.
"What is this farce? How can I see my own body when there doesn't seem to be any light here? And why am I completely devoid of clothing?!"
The embarrassment of his nakedness cut through even his imperial composure. An emperor, stripped bare in some cosmic void—it was an insult beyond measure.
As if responding to his outrage, something drew him forward in a direction he couldn't name. A small sphere of light appeared in the distance, pulsing gently like a heartbeat made of starlight.
"What is this thing?"
Despite every instinct screaming at him to be cautious, Alaric allowed himself to be drawn toward the glowing sphere. As he approached, the light grew brighter, more intense, until suddenly everything around him turned pure white. The sensation was overwhelming—like being caught in the heart of a star.
Then, he felt completely empty, as if he were being erased or someone was taking a fundamental part of him. In front of him materialized a purple obsidian stone, crystalline and beautiful, pulsing with an inner light that seemed to resonate with something deep within his soul.
He instinctively reached out to touch it—what else could anyone do in such a situation? The stone floated toward his chest, passing through his skin like a specter, leaving no mark but somehow becoming part of him.
After several seconds that felt like eternities, a pain worse than immolation surged throughout his entire body. It was agony beyond description, as if every cell in his body was being rewritten at the molecular level. His screams were lost in the white void surrounding him, consumed by the blinding light that threatened to strip away his very consciousness.
The pain continued until he could bear no more, and darkness claimed him once again.
Alaric opened his eyes to find himself lying at the bottom of a crater, the earth around him still smoking as if something had fallen from the heavens. He was, to his profound irritation, still completely naked.
He looked at his own body before rising, noting that he appeared exactly as he had in the void—unmarked, changed.
"Where am I...? Who... Who am I...? What is this place...? WHY AM I NAKED?!" The last question came out as an indignant roar that would have made his courtiers cower.
Alaric regained his composure and tried to remember anything beyond the void. The memories came slowly, like pieces of a shattered mirror reassembling themselves.
"Yes... Yes... I remember. How could I have forgotten? I... I am Alaric... Alaric Krest... I am the one and only Emperor of the world... But where am I...?"
When Alaric tried to recall anything more specific, all he could see was emptiness in his mind, as if there was nothing where detailed memories should be. The broad strokes remained—his identity, his status, his absolute authority—but the specifics seemed to have been stripped away.
"What are these strange buildings...?" He squinted at the distant skyline, noting architecture completely unlike anything in his empire. "I don't remember authorizing this... Did Darwel authorize this behind my back...?"
Then a new pain appeared, but this one felt different. It wasn't negative—it felt like a liberation, a dam bursting inside his mind. Suddenly, he remembered the betrayal of his brother, his face, the cruelty in Darwel's eyes as he drove the poisoned blade home... and his promise... to make him pay... to make them all pay...
Engine sounds could be heard overhead, and Alaric looked up. Women, dozens of them, wearing strange armor he didn't recognize, appeared in the distance, flying through the air with some sort of mechanical apparatus.
"Humans...?"
His lips curled into a cold smile. Perhaps this new world would provide him with the opportunity to fulfill his promise after all.