Alexis and her entourage passed through the overly large doors and entered the throne room of the newest addition to Darksol’s forces. As they approached the base of the stairs leading up to the elevated seat where Kain sat motionless, all of the people gathered felt deep down within them that something unusual would soon occur. However, before they could reach the bottom of the stairs, Lord Wolfenstein appeared before them and barred the way.

“Move aside.” Alexis growled, her anger at the mysterious entity still very much at the forefront of her mind.

“I asked you to come here so I could show you something.” Lord Wolfenstein said, an uncharacteristic smile on its usually unemotional face.

“And can it not wait until I have confirmed my beloved’s safety and survival? Or must you keep me from discovering some horrible truth that you are hiding? Perhaps you are afraid that I will discover that you are forcing my husband into a comatose state so that you can toy around with us all?”

At Alexis’ words, Lord Wolfenstein merely sighed and looked around the room.

“This is the place where, not too long ago, the so-called ‘True Hero’ erased himself by accident.”

“And do tell us what that has to do with anything.” Alexis said in a voice laced with hate.

“The way that boy’s power worked is that, in order to erase something, a price of equal or greater value must be paid. What must be paid can only be what others view as his ‘property’, which can include material wealth and even people. As he had lost both his slaves and all of his other possessions by the time of his final shot, he had nothing to offer up in exchange save his own mana pool. However, each shot, once it connects, instantly takes the equivalent value of what is to be erased. That meant that when he shot at Kain he was forced to pay more than just his entire remaining mana pool to attempt to erase him.”

“Damn it!” one of Kevin’s former slaves screamed. “He should have suffered for his sins, and yet he just ceases to be?! What kind of punishment is that?! He did so many terrible things… yet he walks away with no torment of his own?! Not even his own soul exists anymore, so how are we to get our promised pound of flesh?!”

Lord Wolfenstein wagged his(?) finger and snickered.

“Don’t be so hasty, my dear. He may be gone, but not for long. I agree with you all that you need to claim vengeance in order to stabilize yourselves, so I will be doing you and the observers a favor.”

Turning his back on the assembled people, Lord Wolfenstein held his(?) hand out to his(?) side and snapped his(?) fingers. At the moment he snapped, or rather just moments afterwards, a distortion appeared at the base of the steps leading up to where Kain slept. The distortion began to go from a mere blob to something more humanoid before vanishing to reveal Kevin. But this wasn’t the usual Kevin, nor was it the supercharged version created by the Luminas Church to act as their Super Soldier/Slave. No, this was a powerless Kevin, huddled in the fetal position and mumbling to himself while crying like a child.

“What… what happened to him?” asked Erwin Kreuger, the current Leader of the Greater Teutonian Union State and one of, if not the best mortal commander in the entire Greater Darksol Empire.

“Having your mind, body and soul erased from existence and then having yourself pulled back from that nothingness tends to do that to you.” Lord Wolfenstein said with a shrug. He(?) then turned to the former slaves. “Well, no time like the present. Go on and treat him about the same as he treated you.”

“But he’s already broken… He won’t even notice us, let alone respond.”

“Perhaps…” Lord Wolfenstein said as he(?) rolled both his(?) head and eyes to one side. “But this is the best I can offer unless you want him to try and lash out here and now. We all know that being utterly broken to the point where he is completely unresponsive may not be the best punishment, but it is the most fitting. How many has he erased? How many now exist solely in a place beyond everything and nothing, perpetually trapped in a state of nonexistence and unable to deal with the absolute oblivion they were consigned to? But, if you really want me to, I can restore him to sanity and have him do something stupid.”

Everyone looked down at the shivering mess that once was the so-called ‘True Hero’. What he had experienced in the place he had ended up had obviously broken him completely and it was unlikely that even restoring him to sanity and torturing him for years upon years would break the formerly defiant bastard in the way he was now. If what Lord Wolfenstein had reported was indeed true, Kevin had effectively been tortured and altered for what to him would have felt like centuries in order to make him into a super-powered slave soldier, yet this had failed to shatter or repress his will. If nine centuries worth of agony and mind-fucking being condensed into a matter of days was not enough to break Kevin, then Darksol as a whole did not have what it took either.

Ironically, Kevin had done all the work of breaking his mind and shattering his will all by himself. He had, in his own hubris, effectively broken himself with his own power and in a way that not even Alexis thought she could replicate. While it was regrettable that they could not torment him any more than this, it did give everyone a bit of schadenfreude to see the once ‘holier than thou’ and ‘genetically superior master race’ failure of a Hero reduced to such a sorry state.

“Ah, but now that this little surprise is out of the way, I will leave you to do as you will with this place. I have… other matters to attend to, and I’m sure that you would like some time to tour your new acquisition. As such, I bid thee adieu.”

Lord Wolfenstein vanished and left the VIPs and Kevin to deal with what was to come. He(?) had to start setting the pieces in place for the next stage of the game, and he(?) had to work (relatively) fast. He(?) knew it was only a matter of time before the true enemy of Kain would attempt to interfere again and he(?) had to make absolutely certain that all the right players were in just the right spots in order to keep the planet Mortis from being destroyed and his(?) entertainment being ruined.

The only question he(?) had to ask was where the next place that the other person who, like Kain, was caught up in this little diversion would strike from next. That other person had already nearly won the game set on their world and in their universe, and in order to keep things from getting out of control, Lord Wolfenstein would have to run interference for a while longer. It wasn’t easy being a being like himself(?), but it was an enjoyable job nonetheless.

Now he just had to sense from which direction the true enemy of his greatest current asset would arrive. East? West? South? So many avenues to use and so many places where the next phase of Darksol’s world-conquest could continue. Who would be next on the chopping block? Only time would tell.