“Now for the beginning of the end of a game that’s lasted millennia,” Kairon said, spreading out his arms, “The King’s Eulogy. Pay attention because this next show will be history itself.”

Millenia? Hoarfrost thoughts.

Kairon briefly looked at Hoarfrost with a smile.

“Are you really surprised that Thirteen is more than he seems? He hasn’t told you what he really is but you should at least know that he’s immortal.” Hoarfrost hid his feelings from his eyes as he returned Kairon's gaze. Kairon continued smiling and swiveled his head to stare directly at Thirteen again. “Well, this story includes Thirteen’s true nature and much more. Naturally, the Eulogy needs witnesses, so I hope Thirteen doesn’t mind his secrets being shared as the cost of the information he came here for.”

“I don’t mind,” Thirteen said, “We both know they’re only going to be further involved with us anyway.”

Then Kairon let his eyes rest on Thirteen for a moment longer with a smile. Then he reset his smiling mouth into a thin, straight line and his insane eyes became sharp and bright. For the first time, he looked concentrated and serious. Then a dark power gathered around him and his eyes turned purple. His presence instantly changed from a jester’s into something sinister, foreboding, and ancient.

Hoarfrost felt his hair stand up as a wave of icy goosebumps pass over his skin. It’s not just Thirteen who is more than he seems, isn’t it, Kairon?

Violet animus steamed off of Kairon like gas. It quickly filled the air around them in a roiling mess that flowed like thick smoke and yet shimmered like a mirage. Kairon began the story in a slow, deep tone.

“Let this mist show you the images of my mind as I tell the ancient tale of the Crimson King. The King’s story starts long, long ago in primordial times, at the time humanity mysteriously received the Original Powers before recorded history.”

Hoarfrost blinked as the swirling purple mist filled his entire vision, replacing the room with vivid illusory images.

Burning orbs of different colors flickered into existence in the purple mist. Some of the flames were vague and shifted colors in the background and others burned brightly in the foreground, including a crimson orb, a purple orb, a green orb, a golden orb, and a black orb. Then the shadow silhouettes of humans appeared and slowly walked to the orbs, each holding out a hand to one.

“The Crimson King’s power, also known as the King’s power, is one of these original powers that survived into modern times in pure form due to it having the highest ‘immortal factor’ among all the Original Powers, which all have some degree of immortality.”

All of the orbs and humans faded into the mist except for the crimson orb and the shadow of a human touching it. That human then glowed crimson and a crown formed on his head.

“Throughout time, only a select few knew hints of what the King really was. This is in part because he kept changing forms, with each reincarnation of himself serving a ‘term’ as King. He would perform a ritual for his body to die and for him to lose his memories and become reborn in a new image every now and again that better suits the world as it changes.”

Shadowy blood spilled from the chest of the shadow and it fell down to its knees, the crown falling from its head to the ground. Then the shadow disintegrated into ashes and the blood rose from the ground and morphed into a new shadow of a different stature, who picked up the crown from the ground.

“These memories were not completely lost, however, as the isolated Crimson Temple preserves all information regarding the past Kings including their memories guarded deep within. This is how the King chose to evolve to stay abreast of the progression of humanity and not become weighed down with outdated values and simultaneously protect his true identity.”

The mist showed the Crimson Temple from the outside; a looming, domed obsidian fortress built onto the side of a snowy mountain. No path led away from the Temple’s entrance, there was only a bare patch of rock in front of the door and a steep cliff beyond it.

“The Crimson King was able to accomplish these rituals and much more due to his mysterious Crimson power, called ‘Blood Arts,’ which allowed him to manipulate the animus within a human’s blood. With these Arts, he was unstoppable on every foreseeable level with immortal-level defenses and the ability to manipulate other supers at will, such as by setting them on fire from the inside using their own animus as a target.”

A group of shadowy figures wielding pitchforks and swords appeared in the purple mist, raising their weapons in anger towards the shadowy King. The crowned man raised a hand at the crowd and the mist turned red, then the shadows exploded into fire, then dark ash that blew away.

“However, despite his terrifying power, the King was never feared by the people. He would only use his strength to vanquish evils and do many heroic deeds and bring prosperity to earn the trust of the people and instill his values of order and restriction on the governments of the world.”

A throne appeared and the king sat on it. A flag flew behind him and rows and rows upon shadows formed and bowed before him.

“Throughout the years, the King overcame an uncountable number of calamities and obstacles, whether it be supernatural enemies, natural disasters, or diseases. However, no matter what it was, the King always managed to survive and make his mark through the ages…”

Images of different forms of the Crimson King flashed in front of Hoarfrost in rapid succession. The King working amongst the men and women of the jungle in feathered, tribal garb. The King in a desert robe, overlooking the construction of great pyramids. The King in shining armor, standing in front of a legion of knights, a great beast slain at his feet. The King in a military uniform, sitting at a long table with a cigar in hand…

Kairon’s words continued as the flurry of images continued to flash before Hoarfrost’s eyes.

“These cycles of the Crimson King’s ‘terms’ continued for a number of centuries. For every secret known about the King, only more questions are raised. What exactly does the ritual of changing forms entail? How much of the King is the same person as the one who first touched the power thousands of years ago? What are his motives for striving to always try to influence the world with his values of restriction and order? Why does he always work alone and kill any other wielders of Original Power that cross his path?”

Then the images stopped. Hoarfrost blinked as his mind tried to process the wealth of information it was taking in.

“However, some of the mystery began to unravel twenty-three years ago through the story of the King born into a rapidly modernizing world.”

The flurry of images stopped in the form of a tall, broad-shouldered man with golden eyes and red-and-gold streaked hair. Hoarfrost’s breath caught with pure awe as he met the man’s gaze.

Finally something familiar, something I can analyze. He had seen this man in the news and on the internet hundreds of times. It was Alister.

Though it was just an illusion, he felt a ghost of his presence by just looking at him, clad in the original white Ultimate League with golden embroidery matching the unnatural gold highlight of his eyes and hair.

“Like the many Kings before him, Alister was proud, strong, charismatic, and utterly invincible. He spent the first years of his term enlisted at the top international hero organization at the time, Grandilion, where he racked up a reputation of selfless and flawless victory. Once he was nominated as the top hero of the world and had the ironclad faith of the people, he broke away from Grandilion to form his own more elite organization, the Ultimate League, which he planned to use to control the modern world.”

Hoarfrost nodded. Alister’s track record in Grandilion was household knowledge at this point.

Although I don’t know anything about what happened in ancient times, there isn’t any reason to doubt that part of his story so far. However, Alister being a “term” of this immortal King instinctively makes sense and also fits with the fact that nobody knows Alister’s childhood, He thought. However, the critical information is what comes next…

The image of Alister disappeared and the mist darkened to a mixture of red and black as if to signal the change in mood.

“However, Alister was not the only one participating in the modern arms race… You see, there had been an immortal man in the shadows behind the King the entire time who had never dared face him in the light. The man played an invisible hand in orchestrating most of the major obstacles the many different Kings of the past had to face without ever giving himself away.”

A large image of Kairon’s smiling face appeared in the mist as a part of the story for the first time.

“Of course, I’m talking about myself.”

Hoarfrost looked into the insane purple eyes of the face directly in front of him and primal fear and revulsion rose from somewhere within him.

I don’t know about immortality or anything else, Hoarfrost thought, slowing down his heartbeat as he calmed down and began studying the image carefully. But something in those eyes is definitely not ‘human.’ My instincts are certain on that.

“Even though I may not be nearly as strong as the King in terms of raw power, like his, I vaguely know my powers are Original.”

The image of Kairon’s face disappeared and was replaced with him touching a glowing purple orb symbolizing his receiving an Original Power.

“I also know that since the beginning, I didn’t have any technique to switch forms like the King had in order to evolve and start clean in each new age. As centuries passed, all I could do was stay in the shadows and exist outside of the King’s notice to stay alive, barely clinging onto purpose and life.”

The mist shifted and an image of Kairon knelt on the sand of a vast desert, holding his head and silently rocking back and forth as a violent wind blew the golden dust around him.

“As I slowly lost my sanity, I swore I would eventually bring down the King and be free. For that purpose, I exchanged my memories, my identity, my entire self to become something larger… to become the Psycho. A creature with nothing to lose and a mind as malleable as time itself.”

The image of Kairon changed to a standing, confident man with that insane light in his eyes and the desert background changed into a flowing mass of senseless colors.

“At around the time when Alister began forming the Ultimate League, I anonymously founded the Freedom Federation. Where he emphasized worldwide restriction and restraint on powers, I wrote extensive manifestos about the benefits of a freer society of supers. While his organization got far more press and general attention, my papers were quietly a success with all the powerful supers.

The mist shifted and revealed Alister smiling as a crowd of cameras and microphones pointing at him. He gestured and spoke as lights flashed. Then the mist shifted and the scene changed to depict a suited man sitting alone in a dark room, intently reading a webpage emblazoned with the Freedom Federation logo.

“Although we’d already repeated this cycle of battling ideas countless times before in history, this time it was different. For the first time, my ideas spreading in the shadows were more impactful than your ideas spread from the world’s limelight, as more and more influential people from around the world were slowly, silently joining my side. For the first time, the world acknowledged me as the correct one between us. It was at that moment I knew I could finally seize the King’s position for myself and bring freedom to the world. It was then that I began personally leading Federation meetings with the direct goal of bringing down the Crimson King.”

The mist depicted Kairon sitting at the head of a long table of shadowy participants, a Federation logo emblazoned on the wall behind him.

“Alister’s main weakness was his arrogantly proud nature as King. By trying to be both the world’s top public figure as well as a keeper of ancient secrets, there were many openings for a powerful group like us to exploit. Of course, we used any and every cowardly method at our disposal. Since he would kill us at any opportunity, it had always been a brutal war from the start.”

The mist depicted a flurry of chaotic images. A dark office where a woman silently passed a sheaf of bills to a suited man with a League uniform. A newscast of a series of deadly bombings. A cloaked operative crouched on the roof of a building. A website with a red headline that read “Alister, selfless hero or bloodstained liar?”

“Through our various methods, we were able to completely infiltrate the organization to set up and execute a plan to wipe out the entire League in one blow.”

The Federation had been strong enough to take down the Original League at its prime in one strike? That’s all he’s going to say about that? There has to be more to these “methods.” Hoarfrost thought.

He looked through the misty room to Thirteen, who was still looking intently into the mists and focusing on the story without giving reactions. It didn’t look like he really cared about the lack of information there.

Maybe that part of the story wasn’t what he was looking for…

“Of course, that was the easy part. The real task was executing or crippling the King himself. However, I had been dreaming up how to do just that for centuries and I knew exactly what to do,” Kairon continued.

Ah, Hoarfrost thought. I guess this is it.

Kairon must have thought so too because he began directly addressing Thirteen instead of talking about Alister as if he were a different person and his tone became more mockingly dramatic. The mist also became more sharp and colorful to depict the next images even more vividly.

“While the organization wiped out your Ultimate League in one blow, you were off chasing a lead that finally led to the man behind everything over the years. Little did you know, it was a trap; I had deliberately let you find me.”

The mist shifted and depicted the tall, imposing form of the fully uniformed Alister opening the double doors into the dark interior of an abandoned warehouse. A man stood up quickly in response to the intrusion. Kairon.

“I pretended to have almost no power at all, just enough to stay alive, and feigned desperation for survival. You were wary, but your sense of evaluating power from someone’s blood was a power of yours that had never failed you before. And besides, I had always been extremely wary, and now I was prostrating myself beneath you with absolutely no guard whatsoever. If I were faking it, I would be risking the immortal life I had been endlessly, meticulously protecting. In the end, you fell for my ruse completely.”

Kairon laughed heartily, obviously savoring the moment of keeping Thirteen in suspense before continuing.

“To make a long story short, I begged for my life. I said to you could put whatever curse you wanted on me to control me and I would be your slave for all of time doing the dirty work and hunting down those that would oppose you, that I had many, many contacts and it would be a waste to kill me here. I happened to know you could easily use Blood Arts to make that happen.”

The mist skipped ahead in the memory to Kairon on his hands and knees, his brown hair half-obscuring his crying face as he begged at the boots of the Crimson King, who looked down at him with intense hatred.

“You agreed and we shook hands. You thought you would take control of me with a Blood Art through that physical contact, but instead, I released all the power I had been saving up for that exact moment and destroyed your mind in a single mental blast of nuclear strength. My power tore apart your memories, your identity, everything, just like you had done to me. As a bonus, I ended up stealing the animus you flooded into my blood to execute that Blood Art that was meant to control me but had never had the time to manifest into that technique.”

Alister reached down and extended a hand, his face impassive. Kairon looked up, tears in his eyes, and took it. A thunderbolt crack passed between them and purple lines had shot up Alister’s arm and through his head while red lines shot up Kairon’s arm. Alister’s eyes widened for a split second, then they rolled back into his head.

“No matter how long you lived, no matter how strong you were, it only takes one moment, one mistake, and you’re dead. That wasn’t any different for you, Alister. There was no fanfare or slow motion as you died where you could make peace with how your long life ended. You died mundanely, in an instant, just like any other human would.”

Alister fell heavily onto his back, the whites of his eyes staring up into the ceiling. Kairon was heavily breathing, overcoming the effects of the Crimson animus and unable to really process what he had just done. Then he started shaking uncontrollably and crying tears of joy. Then Alister’s body began disintegrating into dust and blowing away.

“I was almost certain that destroying your mind would stop your reincarnations, but there was always the chance that I was wrong, so I stayed in the shadows and waited. Then you really surprised me. The creation of a new Ultimate League was announced. After a little research, I found that you were still alive, this time as the mysterious Thirteen. I knew though for sure that you were a minuscule fraction, barely a shadow of your former self, so I thought, maybe this was a good thing. My lust for revenge for all the suffering you caused me hadn’t been sated yet, so I thought that instead of having the story end with me humiliating myself to trick you, I could instead win by dominating you completely. And that brings us to the current situation, where I am currently engaged in humiliating you as much as possible instead of the other way around.”

The mist slowly cleared and left Kairon smiling at the trio of witnesses, his eyes dark again instead of purple.

“No,” Thirteen said, “You’re missing the most important part.”

“The real secret behind the Federation’s overwhelming strength, how could I forget?” Kairon said, shaking his head mockingly, “Thanks for reminding me, that’s what you wanted to know all along isn’t it?“

I want to know as well. No, I need to know, Hoarfrost thought. Apparently I have to deal with ancient and immortal Original Powers like Thirteen's alleged Blood Arts and whatever Kairon's purple power is which somehow lets him attack minds, create mind illusions, and somehow manipulate the Crimson animus he stole from Thirteen as well? I'm completely out of my depth in this entire situation and need as much information about these powers as I can get.

“There’s no reason to hide it,” Thirteen said, “Well? What will you do next then, knowing that? How long do you think you can keep me waiting before I decide to derail your plan?”

“Don’t be so impatient, Thirteen. In fact, if I were you, I would stall as long as I could and enjoy my last moments. You see, you’re about to get the information you want, except you’ll be experiencing it firsthand instead of being told,” Kairon said, “We’re beginning phase two of my revenge. The Ritual.”

He leaned back in his throne and grinned madly.

“You see, I’m not sure if I can really kill you, and I’m not sure if I really want to anymore. To truly dominate you… I’m going to force you to reincarnate as my puppet.”