Monarch of Darkness, Arsene

The world was caught aflame by that madman Darkmane, who took no prisoners—slaughtering galaxies, leaving behind only wreckage of bodies as we traveled the Bed of Chaos—causing a cold knot to slip into my heart.

Duke Darkmane was a monstrous general, rarely had he taken part in war, but with just a few thousand Shadowfell. I saw nothing but death.

The Court of Nox had Twenty-Seven World bases stretched between the four superclusters. Each base carries more than a hundred billion Gods. Most were low gods, but the higher-ups were all Mid-Gods. It was quite a force, but with a Paragon and me, a Shadowfell about to be a High God. Blood painted the various realms.

It had only been a year since Lilith had left, but in that time, we had managed to secure about ten percent of the Western Supercluster. By my estimate, it would take about two thousand years to control this entire cluster, and that was only due to the travel time. Even with traveling through subspace, that was the best-case scenario.

That was why I sent a few Faceless to the three other Superclusters. While we killed and pillaged, spreading my master’s name, the Faceless would decentralized governments, making it easier for us.

Shooting the Madman a long stare, who held a grin upon his face, watching the world below burn, with the screams of women, and men, of various races begging for mercy reaching our ears from outer space. Duke Darkman nodded.

He had done this quite often. Out of every hundred worlds, we would burn a single one, killing everyone and broadcasting it to the entirety of the bed of chaos. Sparing not even the smallest of children, Darkmane would then destroy the world.

A message he called it. But from what I saw, he just wanted a reason to demonstrate his power. He wanted to see the fear in their eyes of theirs.

A fine demon he would make.

“General Darkmane,” Arlen, a young Star-Lord, made Shadowfell, approached saluting, with a prideful expression, his eyes a deep scarlet with the glow of hell emanating. “Shall we proceed with the destruction for the rest of this planet?”

Duke Darkemane nodded, ” Yes. Proceed. You take point. I—”

Snapping my head back, I stared coldly at the two High Gods that had just jumped from subspace. A frown slipped over my lips as I stared at their white armor, with the crest of a lightning bolt etched into their breastplate. My eyes narrowed as I could sense their cultivation almost touching upon Elder God.

The two of them had silver eyes with a glow that sent a shiver down my spine, but I quickly snuffed out that coldness.

‘Don’t attack,’ I calmly said to Duke Darkmane, with a soul whisper.

Using Subspace was a rare thing found in the Bed of Chaos. To my knowledge, the only ones to ever use it were those who carried legacies. But even then, without a strong understanding of space, most Gods ignored that ability. Resigning themselves to travel like a commoner through space instead of deadly subspace.

It was only in Noctem that I had ever seen people actually use Subspace as a way of travel.

“Who are you two?” I calmly asked, placing my hands behind my back.

“Mimir, the Wise,” The shorter stranger addressed, dressed almost like a knight.” Under the name of Aldrich, you are to cease these mindless slaughters and relinquish all souls you have gathered back into the cycle of reincarnation. You are disrupting the natural order.”

So they are with Aldrich.

“Forgive me, but I cannot do so. The lives I have taken pales compared to the number of deaths in the War of the Devil and Demons. Aldrich didn’t concern himself then, and since he is not in the Bed of Chaos, what you say means far less than the orders given to me by my master.”

‘There is a sniper.’ Darkmane warned, his voice very light, without concern.

My gaze lingered over the two High Gods, and a bit of a smile slipped over my lips when the one on the left, with short grey hair, spoke out, his tone filled with malice. ” You will stand down, Mimir. This mindless slaughter will not stand.”

“Do you sense any paragon?” I lightly asked, but Darkmane shook his head.

“They won’t show anyway. If the Lord of the Bed of Chaos is smart, he would have forbidden his Paragons from any forms of combat. Less he risks chaos.”

Twirling my fingers through the ends of my hair that fell to my shoulders, I smiled, “Good, then we will proceed to ignore them. They can’t do shit.’ Turning my back, I stared down at the world below. Watching as the Shadowfell, slaughtered like mad demons, I then folded my arms behind my back.

“Mimir!!!” One of the two knights howled. “Stand down!”

“Or what?” I snapped in response, waving my hand as a vicious whip of Heavenly Qi came down over the planet, cutting it in two. My gaze turned towards the two knights, ” What are you going to do? Unless you have a Paragon, you aren’t going to do shit. Fuck off.”

Anger flared over their expression, but Duke Darkmane had appeared behind them in but a moment, with a cold smile lingering over his lips. ” I have heard of this, Aldrich. How I wish to do battle with him,” he said, tapping the two knights’ shoulders, exploding their bodies in a fine mist.

“Master is already enemies with Aldrich, so killing some of his men will do very little,” I said, shaking my head as the world below began to tremble. Sending out a few commands for our people to retreat, I wondered if I was being too soft.

Should I be doing more? Should I do what the demons and devils did, leaving only broken souls and hearts? Master will not have use of these people, aside from converting them into Shadowfell. He has Noctem. 𝐛𝗲𝗱𝗻𝗼𝐯𝐞𝗹．𝐨𝐫𝗴

Twirling my finger through my hair, I smiled, “Darkmane, what do you think if we started killing every world that doesn’t immediately surrender? Master only plans to use the Bed of Chaos for divinity or breed Shadowfell. I say we kill two birds with one stone. We kill so much that worlds will begin to secede in fear of being our next victim.”

The Duke chuckled, ” I am only here to kill. Do as you please.”