Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat—
Kaiser: "HUH?!"
Kaiser lurched upright with a violent gasp.
The floor.
He had risen from a floor forged from utter darkness. A floor forged from nothingness itself.
Sweat streamed down his light-brown skin as his lungs desperately clawed for air. His trembling hands slammed against the black surface beneath him, fingers spreading wide across the abyss.
Wet.
The floor was wet.
His tangled white curls clung helplessly to his forehead. His scarlet robes hung heavily from his body, drenched by rivers of cold sweat. Every breath felt ragged. Every heartbeat felt wrong.
His heavenly-golden eyes darted wildly through the endless void surrounding him.
Right?
Nothing.
Left?
Nothing.
Behind him?
Nothing.
Forward?
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
An infinite sea of absence stretched in every direction.
No stars.
No sky.
No horizon.
No end.
Kaiser sat alone within a kingdom of emptiness, stranded somewhere and nowhere all at once. The vastness of it sent terror racing through every vein of his body like liquid frost.
Kaiser: "W-Where am I…?"
His voice vanished into the darkness.
Swallowed whole.
The Dictator slowly pushed himself upright, staring deeper into the abyss as though the void itself might answer him.
Kaiser: "J-Jerry—"
SNAP.
The memories returned.
The fleet docking upon the sandy shores of the Lunar Isles. The delicate rose-pink blossoms. The rolling blankets of silver mist.
Jerry's diversions.
Jerry's lies.
Jerry's truth.
The Pillar of Pandemonium.
The Defiled Ones.
Those filthy creatures. Those vile abominations. Those monsters that should have remained buried beneath eternity itself.
Then—
Him.
Kaiser suddenly doubled over.
A violent torrent of coughs tore from his throat as he collapsed back into the freezing waters beneath him. Black liquid exploded outward from the abrupt impact.
His entire body shuddered.
The Titan of Banishment.
The Greatest Adversary of the Balance.
The Herald of the Ageless Wars.
???: "How utterly pitiful. You're already broken."
The ancient voice echoed. The darkness itself seemed to stop breathing.
???: "Shattered like glass. Hmph. And I haven't even gotten started yet."
Every single muscle in Kaiser's body locked.
His eyes widened.
That voice. He knew that voice well.
The pressure arrived a heartbeat later. An unbearable force seized his limbs, ripping his knees from the waters.
His spine straightened. His neck craned upward.
Higher.
Higher.
Higher.
Until his gaze finally met the wretched beast towering above him.
The writhing mass of foul pink flesh.
The cavernous eye sockets.
The impossible silhouette.
There he sat.
The Ageless Brain.
Upon his obsidian throne.
The Titan appeared even larger than he had upon the Lunar Isles.
Far larger.
His five-hundred-foot form now seemed insignificant beside this incarnation. He eclipsed mountains. Dwarfed kingdoms. Blotted out reality itself.
Those skeletal arms rested comfortably upon a pitch-black cathedra vast enough to imprison cities. Thick gray nails tapped lazily against the armrests.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
A dreadful rhythm.
A funeral song.
The hundreds of blistered mouths embedded throughout his massive chest slowly stretched into crooked grins.
Some laughed. Some chuckled. Some remained stitched shut by grotesque cords of sinew, yet even they somehow managed to split into fractured smiles.
The stench reached Kaiser moments later.
His stomach nearly folded in half.
Worse.
Far worse than before.
It was a smell beyond rot. Beyond decay.
A toxic plague that seemed to infect the soul itself. Breathing within the Herald's presence felt less like inhaling air and more like swallowing death.
Then there was the crown of the nightmare.
The brain.
That colossal, pulsating mass resting atop the Titan's impossibly thin neck.
Rivers of black bile streamed endlessly from its fleshy folds, cascading downward like poisoned waterfalls before vanishing into the ocean of darkness below.
Each pulse sent crimson light spilling across the void.
Each pulse painted the abyss blood-red.
Each pulse made the Titan seem less like a living being… and more like a god-sized wound carved directly into existence itself.
Kaiser: "URGH!"
With a furious roar, Kaiser tore himself free from the invisible force restraining him. His body staggered forward across the sunken floor as he raised his head toward the absurdly gigantic being looming overhead.
Absolute contempt burned within his brilliant golden eyes.
Kaiser: "Where am I?! What have you done to me?!"
The Ageless Brain slowly raised a single finger.
Snap.
Every laughing mouth stitched across his monstrous torso immediately fell silent. The sudden quiet was somehow even worse.
The Ageless Brain: "Look who's gotten feistier."
The Titan's countless eyes narrowed.
The Ageless Brain: "That's hardly any way to greet the man who just spared your life."
Kaiser scoffed sharply.
Dark waters rolled down his soaked robes as his hands curled into trembling fists. His pale hair shifted gently beneath the freezing winds of the void.
Kaiser: "Whatever this place is, I suggest you end it immediately. I refuse to become some puppet for your twisted entertainment."
Slowly, he raised a hand toward his face, expression darkening.
Kaiser: "I…"
The memory made his gut twist.
Kaiser: "I died. You killed me—"
The Ageless Brain: "No."
The interruption came instantly. Cold and matter-of-fact.
The Ageless Brain: "I merely placed you between life and death. Somewhere and nowhere."
The Titan lazily tapped his throne as the infinite darkness seemed to pulse around him.
The Ageless Brain: "Your fragile little body remains with your comrades. But your consciousness…"
The Titan's countless scarlet apertures focused solely upon Kaiser.
The Ageless Brain: "Belongs to me."
Kaiser: "I DO NOT BELONG TO—!"
BOOM!
Dozens of writhing silver chains erupted from the abyss. They shot upward like serpents and wrapped around Kaiser before he could react.
Wrists.
Ankles.
Waist.
Neck.
Within moments he found himself hanging upside down above the ground, completely restrained. The chains stretched eternally into the void above, connected to something unseen.
The Ageless Brain chuckled, resting the pulsating flesh of his exposed brain against one massive claw.
The Ageless Brain: "Oh, child. You mortals truly amuse me. Watching all of you pretend you possess some grand authority over your own destinies…"
A dozen mouths laughed.
The Ageless Brain: "I could spend centuries enjoying that joke."
Kaiser clenched his jaw.
Kaiser: "WHY?! Why do this?!"
His voice cracked through the darkness.
Kaiser: "You called me an exceedingly boorish man! You said I had no ambition whatsoever! No drive!"
His eyes narrowed.
Kaiser: "What entertainment could someone like me possibly provide?"
Creeeeeak.
The Titan leaned forward, causing the massive obsidian throne to cry out in protest beneath his impossible, crushing weight.
For the first time in centuries, a flicker of genuine thoughtfulness crossed his ancient features.
The Ageless Brain: "It appears I was mistaken about you… Leif."
Kaiser froze, the sudden shock robbing him of his composure instantly.
Kaiser: "What?"
The Ageless Brain slowly rose from his throne.
Entire storms of pale dust exploded outward as the colossal god stood to his full height.
The void shivered beneath the weight of the Titan's presence.
Then the Ageless Brain began to walk.
Casually.
As though this infinite nightmare were little more than a quiet garden path laid out solely for his amusement
The Ageless Brain: "You're quite the fascinating individual, Oscars."
The Titan folded one arm behind his back and continued his leisurely stroll around the imprisoned Dictator, examining him the same way a scholar might inspect a curious insect trapped beneath glass.
The Ageless Brain: "Your absence alone has inflicted catastrophic damage upon those you claim to love."
Step.
Step.
The Ageless Brain: "Truthfully, I was shocked. Everything unraveled so quickly."
Step.
The Ageless Brain: "Hearts broke. Minds fractured. Entire lives veered off course. All because a single man happened to die."
A low rumble escaped the Herald's many throats as he raised one enormous claw before himself. His thumb and forefinger slowly parted, and between them a strand of crimson lightning sprang into existence.
The tiny bolt writhed like a living thing.
Wild.
Unstable.
Beautiful.
Its blood-red glow illuminated portions of the Titan's mangled form as he studied it with almost fatherly awe.
The Ageless Brain: "You're like a bridge, Oscars. A bridge holding countless people together. One that countless people depend on."
The strand flickered.
The Ageless Brain: "But every bridge suffers the same fate eventually. Time begins its work."
Its enchanting glow faltered.
The Ageless Brain: "The hinges weaken."
The crackling diminished.
The Ageless Brain: "The ropes begin to unravel."
The lightning sputtered.
The Ageless Brain: "And eventually… the foundation rots beneath the weight it was never meant to bear."
The Herald pressed his fingers together, extinguishing the strand within an instant. He then turned his attention back toward Kasier.
The Ageless Brain: "Everything your death has caused… is precisely why I brought you here."
Thousands of crimson pupils shifted simultaneously, each one gleaming with extreme curiosity.
The Ageless Brain: "I want to see the man hidden beneath this pitiful little performance you've been giving the world for the past century. The real Kaiser. The one you've buried beneath duty, beneath faith, beneath that painfully dull mask you insist on showing everyone else."
Kaiser sneered.
The silver chains groaned and rattled as he struggled against them.
Kaiser: "Tch. There is no hidden person. What you see is exactly who I am, you false messiah."
The Ageless Brain released an exaggerated sigh.
Several mouths upon his chest mirrored the gesture.
Others cackled. Others frowned. The Titan himself merely looked disappointed.
The Ageless Brain: "Oh, please. Let's not insult each other's intelligence, Oscars."
BOOM.
Kaiser's heart nearly stopped.
The abyss vanished.
The chains vanished.
The waters vanished.
Everything vanished.
Only the Ageless Brain remained.
His gargantuan face now hovered directly before Kaiser, so impossibly close that the Dictator could see entire rivers of black venom flowing between folds of throbbing flesh. Endless pupils stared down at him from every conceivable angle, stretching beyond sight itself like a diseased constellation painted across the heavens.
The Titan's voice dropped into a soft whisper.
The Ageless Brain: "You think you're clever. You think you've hidden it well. But trust me when I say this, Oscars."
The god's smile returned.
The Ageless Brain: "Your FEAR is painfully obvious."
Kaiser's breath hitched.
A single drop of sweat slid down his left cheek.
Cold crawled through his veins, slithering through his body like a nest of spiders burrowing beneath flesh. It carried with it an instinctive terror that no prayer to the Balance could fully suppress.
The Ageless Brain watched every reaction.
Every twitch.
Every tremor.
Every microscopic shift within the Dictator's expression.
His smile grew broader.
The Ageless Brain: "What exactly you fear, however… now that remains unclear."
He waved one claw dismissively.
The Ageless Brain: "No matter. It won't take me very long to discover what poisons your mind. What lurks within your heart. What fills your nights with dread when nobody else is there to see it."
SNAP.
The Ageless Brain: "And what transformed you into such a sniveling little weakling."