Xavier felt as though he were drowning slowly beneath a mountain of crushing concrete. He had never expected his reign or his resilience to endure forever, yet the precious time he had left felt brutally truncated.
A horrifying, unseen plague had swept through his domain, forcing him to make a series of monsterous choices. Every single person who exhibited even a flicker of symptoms had to be executed on the spot by his own hands.
Initially, his remaining subjects harbored intense hatred toward his merciless decisions. His iron authority eroded under the sheer weight of the body count, which mounted to a terrifying summit day after day.
Xavier was forced to compel his mind to remain awake around the clock, deeply terrified that a desperate mob would take revenge on him while he slept.
Even the high healing mages perished in an intensely gruesome manner, completely ignorant of the dark affliction corrupting their blood from within.
