“Argh!” Kevin cried as he was once again hit with a powerful blow, this time to the gut.

“You talked about ‘honor’ and ‘courage’, but it seems that your side is unwilling to abide by the rules that you yourself put in place!” Kain roared as he tossed Kevin around like a rag doll. “They either care that much for you that they would defile the one-on-one duel to save your weak little ass, or they fear the repercussions of your death more than they fear their loss of honor!”

Closing the gap between him and the airborne Kevin, Kain grabbed the back of Kevin’s head with his massive gauntlet-clad hand and smashed Kevin face-first into the dirt.

“However, knowing what you are like…” Kain said mockingly as he repeatedly smashed Kevin’s face into the soil, “I can guarantee that they aren’t trying to save you out of a desire to see their ‘beloved Hero’ live. The hatred they feel towards you is beyond palpable.” After planting Kevin’s face firmly into the earth, Kain grabbed one of his legs and swung the hopelessly outmatched Hero like a makeshift flail to hold back the people who had come to save him. “You are no ‘Hero’! You are just as evil, if not more so, than I myself! And as for your arrogance to assume you can harm those I care for… well….”

Kevin’s body slammed into that of one of the other Heroes and sent Vladimir flying. An impact powerful enough to send the wall of super-strength and durability hurdling off into another direction was more than enough to shatter Kevin’s spine, and Kain tossed the used dishrag of a Hero aside as he screamed in rage.

“YOU WON’T TOUCH MY FAMILY! I WON’T LET YOU!”

As Kain raged against the other Heroes, Kevin barely held onto consciousness. He used his one good arm and hand to pop another health potion and laid helplessly on the ground in agony as his bones and flesh repaired themselves over the next few minutes. He was too overcome with pain and fear to think about trying to fight Kain and decided that escaping with his life was the better thing to do than try and use the obviously ineffective ‘Mega Pistol’ on him. He could feel the earth shake as the Abominable King rampaged among those who had come to save him.

Heroes were sent flying with injuries ranging from moderate to severe and soldiers and cavalry alike were utterly obliterated as the ruler of evil tore man and horse alike to bits with magic and his bare hands. Kevin laughed softly to himself, knowing full well that those who he would leave behind would likely not survive. But that did not matter so long as he, the True Hero, lived on. He would grow stronger and by the time that he next fought that monster he would win easily and in but a single move.

Kain was too occupied by his rage to notice the now fully healed Kevin take out a scroll and charge it with mana. Kevin’s ‘saviors’ were too busy being utterly demolished to notice the runic circle appear beneath the person they were trying to save. It was only when the scroll finished its work did anyone realize that Kevin had not only fled the battlefield, but he had used the scroll designed to allow the entire combined Confederacy forces to evacuate for himself and himself alone.

Kain realized that his rage had blinded him to the flight of the bastard, and this was the tipping point that pushed the more ‘morally grey’ side of him that the ‘Creator’ had become into the background and let the ‘OG’ Kain out to play. This was a side of Kain that was completely devoid of any moral and ethical restrictions that the newer side would have placed on him. In this moment, with the ‘dog’ out of the cage, he was truly worthy of the title ‘Abominable King’.

Howling like an enraged beast, Kain shredded thousands of men with rampant blasts of various types of magic and swung his twin halberds with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Horses clad in cataphract armor were bisected not just vertically, but horizontally as the side containing Kain’s enemy became a scene out of Revelations. All the while, Kain was screaming and roaring in a manner more fit for an animal than a sapient being. The only sounds that made any sense was the occasionally explicative and cries of “Death!”, “Kill!”, “Destroy!” and others very similar in intent.

Realizing that there was no way to win, the Heroes each got as healed-up as possible and fled the carnage. They mounted their horses and fled like the devil himself was at their heels. The soldiers and knights were not so lucky. They were hunted down by the rage-fueled Abominable King himself and massacred to the last.

…

Kain stood surrounded by the shredded remains of more than ten thousand men and more than two thousand horses, all in various states of dismemberment. His breath was heavy and ragged, still filled with the blind rage and bloodlust that had filled him not even two days ago. He still stood in the same place that he had stopped his rampage in, not having moved a single step from his position in roughly one and half days. His eyes still saw red, and the ‘darker side’ of his split mind was still in control. Occasionally a bird or other critter would get too close, only to explode due to the sheer force of hate and rage that filled the area.

Kain’s eyes blinked and then closed as his heavy and wrathful breathing slowed. When he opened his eyes again, he was back in control of himself. He straightened himself up from his hunched over posture and loosened up his tensed muscles. With a look still filled with malice, Kain turned and walked back to his city, his desire to end the potential, but partially impotent, threat that the Heroes posed once and for all.

He had been too soft. He had allowed them to grow and, in his desire to face a more interesting opponent, had permitted them to become a threat, no matter how small, to those whom he cared for. He had been a fool to act like a stereotypical ‘big bad’ and allow the threat to his reign to get more powerful and more influential. He would no longer be playing with kid’s gloves. Wherever the Heroes appeared he would meet them with overwhelming and unstoppable force.

With a simple command to the forces at every front, he would begin a true counter-invasion. Their ‘Holy War’ would end with their nations under his control and their resistance shattered irrevocably and irreparably. Kain trudged through the mud that was filled with blood and gore and once again beheld his city. He would not let this place fall, nor would he let those within come to harm, that was what he promised himself.

He would make the Luminas Confederacy and the Luminas Church pay for ever daring to threaten what was his.

…

Kevin staggered to his feet as he regained consciousness. He felt different than before. It was almost like he was not in control of his own body. He felt something weird around his neck and the sensation of having undergone the procedure to get a tattoo on his forehead. Then he realized that he was walking somewhere without intending to. As he walked without wanting to down the halls of the Vatican City, he eyed a mirror and, as he passed it, he realized why he felt so strange.

He was wearing a slave collar, and to make matters worse he was marked with the ‘Stepford Rune’. He was the exact thing he had made roughly 50 or so others into, a mind trapped in a body that he could not control; a prisoner watching the world go by within the cell that was their own head. He had to focus a massive amount of his own power to keep from having the combo of controlling devices rob him of his own will to be himself.

“NO! This can’t be happening! I can’t be a slave! I am the True Hero! I am superior!”

Kevin tried to scream out this and many other things, but the only thing coming out of his face was his breath escaping though his nose. Kevin tried to fight against the control of whoever was manipulating him, but he simply could not do it. All he could do was hold off the encroachment, and even that was difficult. Soon enough, he found himself before the Pope herself who gave him an ultimatum.

“Serve the interests of the Church willingly and without cowardice and you can walk free despite the collar and rune. Refuse and we will use you in the same way, but you will have no control at all or ever again.”

He had no option but to accept. Finally having regained control of his body, Kevin almost berated the Pope, but in a rare moment of competent thought he decided not to. He made his way to his quarters and ran through scenario after scenario in his head of how he would have won and how he would have forced the Pope to be his bitch, but in the end these were just the same thoughts one might have in the shower several hours after the fact.

Kevin would make sure that the next time he fought that damn monster of a man, he would win. He just needed to figure out how the fucking hell it was that the Abominable King had avoided his ‘Mega Pistol’ without moving so much as an inch. He spent another few hours trying to figure out the trick that had been used before he stumbled upon it during his internal ravings. After realizing the trick, he finally decided to try and work hard for once in his miserable life. After all, he had to find a way around the trick, for only then could he one-shot the despot and reclaim both his freedom and his position.

After being forced to wear that damn pair of controlling devices for three hours, they were removed, and Kevin was once again free to plot his revenge without restraint. He would gain more and more power and then he would show the world who the True Master was.