Pain.

  Cold.

  Dark.

  Hurtling through a formless, endless void of inprehensible colors, he felt his mind slipping away, as his body disied, bit by bit, being devoured by the primordial storms that surrounded him.

  All for naught, as he felt his very soul being ed.

  He had amassed fortunes, and armies, and powers beyond pare, a in his final moments, it all seemed so futile, so meaningless. As he fell, he saw his life fsh before him, his triumphs, his failures, and he felt only regret, only bitterness.

  He had aplished so little in the end.

  Born into overty, raised in a world filled with strife, he'd risen to power through his own ing, charisma and ruthlessness, building loyalty with his men starting from adolesce.

  Yet he'd been a tool of others. First the Empress, and ter a puppet to his own ambition.

  The world she'd built was a cruel one. One where the strong preyed upon the weak, where the powerful oppressed the powerless. He'd grown up in the slums of the heart of the empire, a pce of poverty, and disease, a pce of suffering and cruelty.

  His heart had grown cold and hard, like a stohe only warmth he ever knew was the fire that burned within him, a fire fueled by ambition and the desire to be the oo trol others. And the fire had ed him, driven him to beore and more ruthless and callous, to do anything to achieve his goals.

  Until oeful day, his mother had announced she was once again pregnant.

  He had been a mistake. His parents had never desired t a child into the empire, but they had do again. His mother had always been kind to him, despite her own hardships. She had always shown him love and passioe her own pain and suffering.

  He had always known she was a kind soul, a good person, but he had ruly appreciated her until he was a man. When both she and his father had been ordered to be executed on the whim of the Empress. He'd been powerless to do anything.

  He had not shed a tear since childhood, but that day he wept. He had never felt so alone, so lost, so broken.

  Yet his little brother, barely out of the womb, had been spared.

  Even with the status he'd attained as a rising star, he could not stay the execution of his own parents.

  It was the st time in his life that he had cried, and he had sworn that no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice, he would never allow his brother to experiehe cruelty and injustice of this world, even if it cost him everything he had achieved in life. He had to create a better world. For his brother.

  He'd promised him, and himself, he'd do whatever it took to make the world a better pce for him.

  He'd wao take his brother with him and flee the empire to the north. But he could not abandon the crew who had helped him climb to the position he held. The lives of so many people depended on him.

  So he stayed, even when he realized that it was not just his parents who suffered uhe Empress's rule. The whole of the empire suffered.

  It would ironically be the empress's ht hand who would teach him love again. Not in the romantise. No, it was a love that came from passion, from kindness, from empathy.

  A girl he'd once seen as an obstacle, and ter as an enemy. She was the first person who had made him feel anything other than hatred. And in doing so, she showed him the way, showed him a path to follow. She and her beloved. The woman who had been his owor and older sister figure

  And so he had bee the Empress's most loyal servant.

  Waiting. Watg. Biding his time for his ce. And when it had e, he'd taken it.

  But in his hubris, his arrogance, he'd made the most fatal of mistakes.

  As he twisted his ko her during the final battle of his rebellion, and the moment he felt the life fade from her, she'd ughed in his face.

  In his arrogance, his need for revenge had ed him. And so when he felt his soul begin to unravel, he finally realized his error.

  It had been the world's brightest star who'd saved him as the storms of the gate raged and tore at him back then. He would have perished in moments had she not been there.

  She'd shielded him with her magic, the dazzling pink light that always seemed to surround her enveloped him and protected him.

  He had never felt anything like it.

  The empress and her aremesis, the young woman who would bee a legend and the woman he had betrayed, the woman he had sacrificed to his own lust for vengeance. Both had fallen into the gate, but the magical girl who had intervened had mao fling him back out.

  A hero until the very end, she had not hesitated for a moment, and he'd watched as she'd leapt into the raging storm of chaos to save the one person iire world who she had every reason to despise, the teenager who had been her sworn enemy for as long as either of them had existed.

  That single moment, seeing that woman leap into the abyss without hesitation or fear, to save another, it had shattered his heart, shattered the stone cold wall he had built around it for so many years.

  As he was hurled out of the portal, the shockwave had knocked him unscious. He distinctly remembered his ears ringing and his head spinning, as the world around him had seemed to blur into a smear of colors and lights.

  He could dimly remember the magical girl's panion. A man in power armor scrambling to grab onto her, and then vanishing into the gate after her, and the portal vanishing.

  When he awoke, he'd found himself lying on the cold hard ground, his body battered and bruised, but otherwise unharmed. His eyes had turned blue as the sea, but he would never fet the feeling of his soul fraying, being ripped into pieces. The same eyes would pgue him with vision after vision in years to e.

  For a moment he had felt ainess and a despair unlike anything else, a void of emotion.

  He was alive. He was free.

  And so he built his own legend. No matter what, his brother would have the future he had promised.

  But he had not fotten his past.

  The uling ramblings of the empress.

  The warning the demon in human form had given him as he had plunged a dagger through her heart.

  "I see... everything... all roads... all worlds... the future and past... you think you stop it. But it will all... all... all e to an end. Meaningless. Pointless... Nibiru... will e in the end as foretold."

  It was that which drove his as. That which had driven him to create the foundation for his new fiefdom.

  A new world order. A new era. Ohat he would create, ohat would endure.

  And it had been the empress's st words, her st prophecy that had haunted him. That had made him prepare.

  For he uood that the veil had been pierced that day. The world of man and the other had been brought into tact. The boundaries had been weakened. It was iable that they would be tain and that the world of the dead and the demons would bleed into the world of man.

  But in the end, it was all for naught.

  He tumbled through the endless abyss. His mind was beginning to fade, as he was being ed, piece by piece.

  "Remember..." a woman's voice whispered.

  Remember what?

  He didn't know what he was supposed to remember. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered now. Nothing had any meaning. He was dying. And he had failed. The world he had tried to create, it was gone.

  A young woman in an e sun dress, and with raven dark hair stood in front of him.

  The image was blurry, but he could make out her farm. Her eyes were a brilliant e, and he could make out a hat of some sort.

  Who was she?

  And why did he feel such a e with her?

  "Remember..." she whispered.

  "Remember what?" he called.

  "Your promise..."

  romise? He didn't remember.

  "Please," she whispered. "Don't fail us... Save them."

  Her voice was fading, and he felt himself fading too.

  He didn't uand. He didn't know why, but he wao reach out to her.

  But he did remember something.

  The bright blue light, the color of her eyes, was all he saw. The only thing that kept him from fading into nothingness, was the memory of her face. He could hear the sound of her ughter, eg in his ears.

  The song of a Nightingale.

  But did he truly have to perish like this?

  No.

  He could not.

  A song stirred in the primordial abyss.

  He would not.

  The song of the Nightingale echoed in his ears, in his heart.

  She would not have perished so easily. Even with child and tainted by the void as he was on that day.

  She had taught him the value of a world beyond what could be seen.

  A world beyond what ossible.

  The impossible.

  And he had built an empire off that.

  He recalled the cry of a babe. Hungry, a healthy and full of life.

  He would not die. He would not leave this child alone.

  A cry in the dark.

  His brother.

  His promise.

  He had sworn an oath.

  His ambition would not be extinguished. Not yet.

  The cry of a babe as he ged his destiny. His fate.

  His little brother was safe and secure, tucked away in his crib.

  The world of man was about to be destroyed, and it to him to protect his little brother from the horrors that were about to befall them.

  Form returo his reality.

  He was no loumbling, he had trol over his body again.

  Buaked and in an alien void, but he had trol over his body. His body was whole. He was whole.

  The space he found himself in was surreal nonsense, but he found his footiheless.

  And he opened his eyes.

  Legions upon legions of untold horrors surrounded him.

  His heart pounded in his chest, as he looked around, his eyes darting from one moo another.

  He had been transported to a pce where monsters roamed free. He had no ons, no armor.

  Gnashih and blood-soaked fangs surrounded him, frozen in time, but his heart was calm.

  The air was filled with the stench of blood ah. He could feel the evil and malice radiating from the creatures.

  Unspeakable colors swirled and shifted, and the void stretched out seemingly infinitely in every dire. He was standing in the middle of a giay expanse, and there was nothing around him.

  But he could see a bright blue and e light in the distance, a small dot of hope.

  A mencholig began to py. It was a beautiful and sad song that filled him with a sense of longing and loss. But he was alive. Alive.

  And he reized the voice singing.

  It was a woman's voice. He didn't know where it was ing from, but it was clear and pure. And familiar.

  The mohat had surrounded him had frozen, their mouths open in silent roars of hunger and bloodlust, and their cws outstretched.

  He nursed his wounds, inflicted by the crushing grip of the beast that had impaled him. He was weak, but the blood loss had slowed and he could move.

  And just as quickly as it began, the woman's song ended.

  The legions of monsters around him began to stir again.

  The monsters around him roared into motion as he stumbled forward, his eyes focused on the light in the distance.

  He squinted, feeling the drain of the void around him as his vision blurred. His body felt heavy.

  'Heh. To give a man hope only to dash it against the rocks like that. How cruel.'

  He gritted his teeth.

  'So this is how it ends for me.'

  His vision blurred as his sciousness waned, his strength fading away, his life slipping away. He was so close, a so far away. So close, a so far away.

  So close...a so far away. So close, a... so far... away....

  He stumbled, and theo his knees, his body giving out on him.

  The light began to dim as the monsters rushed forward.

  ...

  The ughter of children. A little toddler of a boy, and a young girl.

  He raised his head. A small smile formed on his lips as he remembered the sound of their voices.

  He could see a young boy and girl running through a meadow of wildflowers.

  A poor wretched thing he'd found in the inner sanctum that fateful day, and a younger boy with a mischievous smile. Their faces were bright, and they ughed with joy. The sun was warm, and the air was fresh and sweet.

  A se of happiness.

  His hand ched, his body shaking.

  This was not how it was going to end for him. No.

  His body trembled as his blood boiled. The world was full of pain. And he would be the oo end it on his terms.

  Steel filled his eyes as the monsters rushed at him, their jae, and he reached into the void.

  And grasped something cold, aallid familiar.

  The monsters leaped at him, and he felt his strength surge, and the familiar weight of his knives in his hands.

  The cold, familiar sensation of the knife in his hands.

  He gripped it tight. And a cold smile formed on his lips as he faced the unending tide.

  And he roared, meeting the horde head on.