“And what would the price be for returning my wife, children, people and city?” Kain asked. This was the first time that Lord Wolfenstein had ever required there be a payment for his(?) ‘services’, and the look on his(?) face made it clear to the Abominable King that the entity would demand something quite valuable indeed.

“Oh, I don’t know…” Lord Wolfenstein said while looking around the corrupted papal throne room. “Nothing major, just that I be allowed to put a seal on that newfound power of yours and that you take over the world. Nothing really big at all. And don’t worry; I’ll release that seal if it is absolutely needed. Can’t have my best asset- I mean, I can’t have the rightful ruler of this world die so soon. Especially not when you have so much work to do to prepare for what is to come.”

“And what is to come?” Kain asked.

“Oh, don’t mind that. I’m just rambling. So, are you going to take my deal? Mind you, there will be times down the road when you will wish you still had access to your new power but, due to accepting my deal, you will be unable to tap into it. But don’t worry, as I’ll flip the switch whenever there is no other option.”

Lord Wolfenstein held out his(?) open hand.

“What do you say? Care to get back what you lost at minimal cost?”

Kain did not need to think about the decision. If sealing this nigh-omnipotent, nigh-omniscient power and swearing to conquer the world was all it took to return what had been lost, he would willingly make that deal. As he moved from the corrupted throne to Lord Wolfenstein, his only thought was how he could make it up to those who had been erased. He would have to make perfectly sure that Necrograd and his family were completely beyond the touch of anyone or anything that could hurt them, but he would have to do so in a way that would avoid making his family feel caged up.

“Put ‘er there!” Lord Wolfenstein said while offering his(?) hand for a handshake.

Kain did not hesitate for a moment and took Lord Wolfenstein’s hand. As soon as he did, he immediately felt lethargic and weak, as if he had been lying in a bed for at least a month with no exercise or major movement of any kind. His body had been remade in order to accommodate his new, divine power, but now his abilities were back to what they were prior to his ascension while his body remained as it was before being sealed.

Barely able to keep himself from falling to the floor out of weakness, Kain kept hold of Lord Wolfenstein’s hand in order to keep himself from hitting the ground. As his powers were sealed bit by bit, he gradually began to lose consciousness until he was like a man who had been up for two and a half days straight and had just taken three over-the-counter sleeping pills.

“There we go.” Lord Wolfenstein said with a grin as he(?) grabbed Kain and carried him to back to the seat formerly owned by the now-dead head of the now-destroyed Luminas Church. “You just sit tight for a bit and I’ll bring back everything.”

“How will they react when coming back from erasure?” Kain mumbled as he began to drift into unconsciousness.

“Erasure? Who said they were erased?” the entity said with a smirk. “I merely spirited them and the city away to a place beyond time and space for a while so they wouldn’t get hit by that beam of energy.”

“Then… the light?”

“That, Kain my boy, was what happens when you finish blinking something outside or reality mere femtoseconds before it would have been erased. Opening a portal to a place beyond existence that is big enough to swallow all of that stuff yet having it only open for a nearly insignificant period of time still creates a massive flash of light. To put it another way, a nuke only replicates the sun for a mere moment, yet the light is still quite massive and blinding. That much power being exerted so quickly had to make some kind of impact, and I made that impact a massive number of photons rather than an earth-shattering kaboom fit for something like an Eludium Pu-32 Explosive Space Modulator. Or would you have preferred that this planet explode into a large dust cloud?”

Kain didn’t answer. He had heard enough and let himself fall asleep. He knew all he needed to know; his family, people and city were safe and had not suffered the torment of being condemned to non-existence, and that was good enough for him. It did make him feel as though his rage and rampage was for naught though, which left him feeling a bit bitter, but it was the thought that counted.

If he only had one concern, it was that the people living in the newly established satellite state that once was Rusk still held the false goddess Lumina as their deity of choice. He was unsure of how they would react when the news reached them that not only was the most recent head of their religion dead by his hands but also that their center of worship had been irreversibly tainted by their new ruler’s power and that all the surviving clergy in the area were either dead or insane.

But dealing with issues like that would have to wait until he returned from his sleep. Until then, he would have to leave things in the hands of his wife and children, not to mention the advisors, generals, admirals and bureaucrats. For now, he would have to drift off to dreamland and wait for his body to readjust itself.

“Don’t you worry yourself about anything while you sleep, Kain my boy.” Lord Wolfenstein said as he looked at Kain sleeping in his new chair. “I’ll make sure that everybody knows just what you did to avenge them.”

Lord Wolfenstein looked to the place where Kevin had been before he had accidentally erased himself, then turned and faced a seemingly random direction.

“And don’t you fine people worry just yet either, my dear observers. The suffering of a certain douchebag is not over yet. Being happy that he erased himself isn’t enough schadenfreude, I think. Hold on to your pants and/or panties if clothed or genitals if you are going commando (I don’t judge), because this is where the fun starts!”