The air, which had been nothing but the blank, cold void of space, suddenly tore open. From the blinding, geometric rift, a presence descended. It was a tall, severe figure, their body wreathed in unnatural, singing light, bound by chains that looked like spun gold but dripped a thick, coppery black blood.
"You are Deon Bloodzec," a voice boomed, flat and final, "and I, the Authority, condemn you for your multiversal crimes. Your sentence is eternal suffering, a fate I will ensure you fully comprehend before the dark claims you."
A sound like grating stones escaped Deon's throat, which quickly turned into a mocking, rattling laugh. "Ha! Detail it? Spare me the sermon, my dear god-thing. I know exactly what your 'forever' means. Or does the idea of 'wasting time' not even compute for you?"
"Eternal suffering is no ordinary torment. For the first billion years, two contradictory needles one of absolute light, one of absolute darkness will stitch your flesh, agonizingly slow. For the next era, your mind will be ripped across dimensions daily, forcing you to watch every loved one fail and perish. And finally, after a billion years of that, you will be cast into a mortal shell. Mind awake, body a beast. Stripped of all power, you will be reduced to mere animal instinct. You will harvest ten billion lives just to glimpse control again. Then, the cycle begins anew."
The voice faded into nothingness.
Deon dangled in the black, endless nowhere, his shackles biting deep, yet he was still laughing his damn head off, even after that smug Authority voice dipped out.
"You piece of shit, you'll regret every second of this!" His shout didn't echo; it simply got swallowed by the hungry dark.
Then, the nothingness gave birth to the tools of his torture: a silent, creeping school of freaky needles. Some were pitch-black shadows, others a blinding, sterile white. They circled him slow, like sharks before a bite, then, without warning, began to drive into his flesh.
A raw, guttural roar was ripped from Deon's throat. "What is this?! They're fire and ice at once! Searing my muscle, freezing my goddamn bones at the exact same time! What nightmare is this?!"
Ten trillion years. The number was irrelevant; it was a living, grinding fact. All the energy was long gone from Deon; his shackles now bound an inert husk. The senses, the rage, the memory of his own screams had vanished two trillion years ago. What remained of Deon Bloodzec was a consciousness that was nothing but a blank, silent echo, adrift in the black.
Then, a voice. It did not boom, nor whisper; it simply occupied the darkness that was his mind.
"It is time," the voice said, detached and absolute. "Time for this particular reality to end. Everything returns to me now. You are a fragment, Deon, like all the others. The tapestry will be pulled apart, but the next weaving... will be different."
With a sudden, catastrophic shift, Deon's body exploded into countless motes of energy, dissolving entirely. At the same instant, the fabric of the universe around him began to tear, collapsing inward into a singular, silent point.
Where reality had been, there was now only the absolute void. Yet, the emptiness did not last. Immediately, countless new bubbles of existence began to bloom, connected by shimmering, intricate dimensional paths.
The bubbles of reality continued to form until the Absolute Authority halted the flow of time. A strange unease rippled through its being.
"The structure holds, yet the ultimate design is undefined. The End is missing. I cannot violate the Act of Creation itself. To correct this, I must form a cosmic body. However, it will take at least twenty years."
Thus, the creation of a cosmic body began. The process demanded an immense amount of pure energy. Nearly fifty million universes had to be drained to extract the essence required.
From this act, countless entities were also brought forth, each designed to operate and maintain the framework of reality.
[Planet: Earth – Kingdom of Vermok]
It was early morning in the capital of Vermok. A boy sprinted through a dark alley, clutching a loaf of bread he had stolen from a baker. He slid beneath the low cot in his derelict shack and devoured the warm bread in a single, desperate, silent gulp.
The door creaked open. Heavy footsteps echoed inside.
"Where are you, Avion?" a drunken voice roared.
"I am here, Sir Glen," Avion rushed toward the entrance.
Glen, the owner of a circus in the capital, had purchased Avion as a slave to work for him. The man's hand shot out, seizing Avion by the hair and yanking him into the air.
"You worthless brat, you missed the morning haul! You know I'm short-handed in the pit," Glen spat, his breath reeking. "A week. No rations. Let's see how funny you feel then."
Avion muttered under his breath, "Sure, like you were feeding me royal delicacies before."
"Did you say something? Answer me, why didn't you come?" Glen snarled as he hurled Avion out onto the street and kicked him hard in the stomach.
"I am giving you five seconds. Get up and run to the place I told you about this morning," Glen barked, slamming the door shut as he began to count.
Just before Glen reached five, Avion staggered to his feet and bolted toward the circus grounds.
"Strange dreams weren't enough, were they? Now I deal with this pig, too." Avion muttered as he reached the location.
He slipped into the back tent of the circus, smeared clown paint across his face, and pulled on the tattered costume. Then, joining the other slaves dressed as clowns, he stepped into the performance ring.
They juggled, tumbled, and entertained the crowd with forced smiles. At the end of the act, Avion climbed the high rope and began his balancing act, suspended above the ground at a dizzying height.
Just as he reached the middle of the rope, it snapped and sent him plummeting.
No worries, there's a net. I'll fall on the net, Avion thought.
But luck betrayed him. The safety net had not been tied properly. Instead of catching him, it only slowed his fall slightly. The loose net only scrubbed off a fraction of his speed. The impact was less a splat than a bone-jarring, life-crushing thud that shattered everything beneath his skull.
As his vision blurred and consciousness slipped away, a voice echoed in his mind.
"If you want to live and achieve what you desire, say the word 'Rule' in your final thoughts."
"Rule…"
The moment Avion whispered it in his mind, a deafening blast shook the world. The entire Kingdom of Vermok was erased, leaving behind nothing but a massive crater.
Avion's eyes fluttered open. His body was whole, every wound healed. He gasped, shouting, "I'm alive! Hur-" His voice cut short as he looked around. He was standing at the center of the crater.
"How in the name of the gods am I... how is any of this possible?" He staggered back, the heat of the ruined earth rising through his rags. "I flat-out died, didn't I? This has to be the waiting room for hell."
Still dazed, he caught his reflection in a nearby puddle.
"I don't remember being this handsome… Wait, now's not the time for that. Where the hell am I?"
His appearance had completely changed.
A voice suddenly echoed in his head.
"Hey brat, if you're done with all those stupid thoughts, can we finally talk about something important?"
Avion froze. "Right. Okay. I'm definitely in hell," he muttered aloud, swallowing hard. "Yes, uh, Mr. Devil Sir, what exactly is it that you want to talk about?"
"Are you out of your mind? Look under your left arm."
Avion glanced down, and his eyes widened. "What the hell…? A talking mouth… on my hand?!"
"Now that you know I'm the one talking, listen carefully. First, you're not dead. This crater used to be the Kingdom of Vermok. The moment you said 'Rule,' I ruled out your death, simple as that. Second, I am no devil. I am Deon, the Destroyer of Worlds. And lastly, I saved you because I have a job for you—"
"Simple, my ass. Preventing death and wiping out an entire kingdom for no reason… that sounds exactly like a devil's work," Avion muttered, rubbing his left hand against the sand.
"Shut up, brat. You're distracting me." The voice, a low, savage growl, vibrated through Avion's bone. "Don't forget I can obliterate you in an instant."
Deon shifted from threat to command. "Listen closely. If you have any intention of surviving, let alone living that quiet little life you apparently want, then you will follow my directions. From this exact moment, we start a journey. We'll cross every damn universe, tear through them to gain power until we're strong enough to face the Absolute Authority and claim my revenge." A hollow, unsettling laugh scraped through the mental connection as he finished.
Avion reacted not with fear, but with weary annoyance. He scooped a handful of hot, black sand from the crater floor and began to casually dribble it directly into the talking mouth on his hand.
"An adventure across universes, you say? Sounds like a lot of work." Avion squinted at the dissolving sand. "But why exactly should I risk my neck for your personal revenge? And seriously, who is this 'Absolute Authority'? What did they do to you that warrants this level of desperate payback?"
"Are you trying to get incinerated, you insolent fool? Stop that, now!" Deon's mental roar was a physical shockwave, making Avion's teeth ache.
"I'll tell you everything, but not now. The clock's running out. You decide: take my deal, or die right here. Simple as that." Avion felt a cold, predatory crooked smile stretch across the invisible face of the entity inhabiting his hand.
"Deal," Avion replied, wiping the residue of sand onto his ruined pants with a lazy smirk. "But you owe me explanations, Mouth."
"Good. Now listen, because this part is final," Deon snapped, ignoring the nickname. "If you try to back out, if you try anything stupid, or if you even think about breaking this pact, your life ends. Instantly. Understand?" A genuine shiver of absolute certainty ran through Avion. "I will give you the power, the knowledge, everything we need. For now, we start small. We explore this ruined planet. And the first stop, hack, cough… after I get this filth out of my throat, will be the Kingdom of Eterion."