The Mortal Burden – Book I

The Mortal Burden
Book I

Part I: Specicide Blues

These things rot in my primal brain. They eat through my sanity. It was slow at first, but gradually the plot thickened and I was left with the aftertaste of insanity. I have seen the battle between Gods and monsters, and seen the revelation that the Gods are the real monsters.

A painful march of death orchestrated by the symphonic hateful metronome of the defiled saints; fodder for those immortal beings.

Humans are nothing on the battlefield, except for rotting corpses, a welcome mat for oblivion. Their only use is for the advent of fear, and the haste of self-loathing. My only wish is to finally die before the aftermath—a hell not from the fear factories of the gods, but from the true Titans of Ragnarok, those of which have been too blasphemous to speak of throughout history’s slow, bloody march.

Death now can only be hastened for the few remaining, for I will bring it to them with open arms, and have them greet it with the warmth of friendship. They will slay their foes with a ferocity that no being has or will see for the rest of infinity. I wither in sadness, immortal, vacant of soul, terrified of freedom.

A festering cloud of disease and rot batters the landscape with its omnipotent sickness, defiling the pure, pristine life-force, decaying it with its stench. The rain, or what should be rain, storms down in a sickly brown torrent upon the earth. Parasites devour the life energy of those creatures within the range of hills. A spell of sickness conjured by an arch-demon of decay.

The vast armies of decay sow their seeds upon the earth, devouring all life for its wretched abuse.

This is war. This is oblivion.

Part II: The Mortal Burden

At first, the alarm resounded faintly through Clayden’s dream, but then in a second it became more intense; he was awake.

“…battalion. Alert is red,” the hurried voice of his general sprang to his ears. “This is a full alert. Suit up and stand ready for deployment. Full details will be given at that time.”

“Dammit, I just went to sleep three hours ago,” Clayden said to himself, half-awake with sleep clouding his eyes.

The barracks were ablaze with activity as the soldiers suited themselves into their heavily plated battle armor. Thousands of heavy, trodden footsteps resounded throughout the stadium-sized barracks of the 10th Assault Battalion.

Clayden pushed himself up slowly, clearing his eyes of more heavy sleep.

“Sir, you’re not setting a good example for the rest of us,” Carter, his communications officer, badgered as he fastened the last of his heavy armor onto his body.

“Shut up,” Jacob Clayden replied, suddenly reflecting on his sortie five hours earlier into one of the Alien Titans’ territories. *What was the objective anyway?* he asked himself. *It was suicide in the first place. Why did I volunteer? Titan armies have more powerful weapons. Not only that, they’re also insane. Just the other day one of my men was mauled by the augmented teeth of a Titan soldier, only after his legs and one arm had been severed by my lance. Why did we go?*

He quickly shrugged it off and suited up in his shiny metallic assault armor, powered by chemical reactions within its Bio-furnace, fueled by the blood of its wearer—stolen technology from the Titans being used for the sake of humanity.

Not many cities were left standing, but the ones that had survived became mega-metropolises, defended heavily by their inhabitants. One of these sprawls was defended by a human warlord known only as Lord Seth. In fact, all remaining human cities were either controlled by warlords or by military orders.

Lord Seth’s army was over three million strong, with at least one million in reserve, which were rotated into civilian and army life to keep essential city services in line.

Humanity, although overpowered by Titans and gods, still enjoyed fighting among itself, and warlords clashed with each other with such a ferocity that it could be deemed there was no threat to humanity’s survival. Humanity’s greatest gift, from whoever spawned these creatures, was the lust for war and the craving for domination. But Seth was different. At first, to gain power, he killed and maimed his way up the ranks; once he got his power, he began to network with the other Orders and Warlords in order to save humanity. They all could see that he was justified, for humanity had one last battle before it was destroyed.

And within the vast ranks of the Army of Seth, Jacob Clayden waited for his orders. Would they be to defend or to attack? Did it even matter to him anymore?

Lord Seth, an awesomely built man, stood at a height of seven feet; strength rippled through his mighty body like thunder. His long brown hair was gathered in a ponytail while he coldly coordinated his defense against his foe. Rumors of his supernatural intelligence abounded around him as legend. Some said that he battled against Necrem in his realm after the disappearance of the Warmaster, whose name has been lost through the ages, and through force attained supernatural strength, intelligence, and near immortality. But those were just rumors. What the humans lacked in force was almost made up for by strategic and tactical supremacy against their foes.

Seth was the master among these strategists, but his city would fall if he did not stop this gathering. He knew that they had run out of options.

“The Titan gathering has just entered the defensive perimeter, Sir,” one of Seth’s stalwart commanders relayed to him.

“I want the Zigrams launched now. Have them drop-load the 10th, 14th, 15th, 17th, and 25th assault platoons in tree cover before they intercept,” Seth feverishly ordered. “How far are the 5th, 6th, and 8th light mechanized divisions from the front?”

“Ten minutes to defensive position.”

“Good,” Seth smiled. “Have them deploy the infantry as soon as they reach their positions. Bombard them, now!”

Loud thuds and the thrusts of rockets rebounded throughout the city as the cannons shot their ordnance, like a rain of molten death upon their unseen Titan enemy. Missiles streaked off into the early dawn to destroy their unknowing enemy.

“I want the interceptors to flank the enemy on the left and drive them to the mountain. I want them cornered.”

His commanders quickly and coldly ordered their troops, knowing that each syllable brought death upon them.

“Are the 1st and 4th heavy mechanized battalions ready for deployment?”

“In five more minutes; the last of the heavy tanks are being fitted with the new hurricane missiles.”

“Good,” he paused. “When they’re ready, have the Hell’s Angels flank the left. The 4th can go straight up the middle to cover the infantry’s spearhead.”

“Yes, Sir.”

*Who are you again? I remember, you’re the Titan Ramses, fashioning yourself after an eldritch earthen warlord emperor. You’re as big as a pyramid in your colossal battle armor, but you have not the gall to destroy my city. You will be routed, as I have routed so many of my enemies.

Part III: Blood Furnace

Through a crack in the tree cover, Clayden glimpsed the immense size of the Titan, as tall as the largest building in the city, bristling with the destructive power of a hundred earthquakes. Beneath its colossal feet, waves upon waves of bloodthirsty clones charged into the artillery barrage—obliterated, chopped to pieces while the heat dissipated their inhuman blood into the atmosphere.

Even after all his years thrusting headlong into the brunt of almost every battle, the sight of the Titan still invoked terror. But that terror also pumped adrenaline into his system and instilled the fury he needed to vanquish his enemies. Be they angels or legions of Titan soldiers—they all died by his hand.

The battlefield rumbled with the slow gait of the alien Titan and the constant barrages of the city’s cannons. The brave pilots of the Zigrams launched themselves directly at the smaller shock Titans, which stood about six stories tall. It was a lucky attempt, but the Zigrams destroyed two of the ten smaller *shock titans*—that’s what the ground pounders called them. But as always, the Zigrams were just swatted away like flies, crashing in a fiery death, killing all aboard.

“Stupid HQ!” Clayden yelled aloud, angry at the senseless sacrifice of the Zigrams. Good pilots were hard to train these days; it took either a brave person or an idiot. There was no use for a wasted death.

Clayden was the commander of the 25th Assault Platoon, but they were really known by their other name—a name more fitting for their ferocity in battle, born from their destruction of a Titan one hundred years ago when Clayden wasn’t even a thought. They were deemed the “Hyperion Slayers,” after the Titan that had been killed.

With the defeat of two Titans, that only left ten. Not a bad kill ratio: a couple billion humans to two. *Not bad at all,* Clayden cynically laughed to himself, anxiously awaiting his orders from HQ.

The mighty roar of a hundred armored interceptors thundered past them as they raced to corner the Ramses battle clones, whose battle lust was nearly unequaled among the other Titan clones. The Titan forces were made up of genetically vat-grown clone warriors and warparties of human followers who had joined the Titans when they first arrived on the planet.

These followers were the deadliest, since their bodies had become more machine than flesh over the centuries. They had some mechanized divisions—captured and souped up beyond normal human methods—but mostly the attacks came in mighty waves of clones and scattered warparties. To experienced veterans like Clayden and his platoon, the clones weren’t even a concern, but the warparties were to be feared: they were vicious, calculating, and insane.

“Have you received anything from HQ yet, Carter?” Clayden asked his Psi officer.

Carter’s eyes were closed as he sat lotus-style as if in meditation, peacefully reacting to the communications sent by unseen minds.

When the Titans first arrived to greet Earth’s forces, they jammed all radio communication. To counter this, after a hundred years or so of secret genetic research, certain people were born with the gift of mental communication. These people were then intermixed with the normal gene pool. Carter was born a PSI—a very valuable gift, one that warlords would draft into their force as soon as they caught wind of one. Although PSIs were useful against alien Titan gatherings, giving humans that one edge which helped them survive their onslaughts, they were almost helpless against the gods, who could crush the mind of a PSI almost instantly. Then it was back to normal communiqué when battling gods—which was rare, as they were mostly busy fighting among themselves for objectives that humans could barely understand. Although it was not rare for Titans and Gods to war; the Gods saw the Titans as threats to their power.

“Nothing yet,” Carter paused as a barrage exploded directly on the Titan. Pieces of armor flew off in every direction, most pieces crushing teams of frothing clones. 

“They say stand fast. That’s all.”

“I can’t stand the wait.” Clayden glanced up as the Titan Ramses crunched slowly closer to them, huge gold plates of foot-inch armor reflecting the hardest of armor-piercing shells.

“The light mechanized divisions are now filling up the gaps in the front,” Carter relayed, pausing as another mental relay pulsed into his mind. “The interceptors are slowly pushing the gathering towards the mountain.”

“Good.” *It’s almost time,* Clayden psyched himself up. “Tell the 14th, 15th, 17th, and 10th to get ready; we’ll be moving out into the carnage soon.”

“These orders just in,” Carter paused as the mind pulses quickened. “In five minutes, the Angels Heavy Mechanized will take over the left flank from the interceptors. The interceptors will pick up the 10th, 17th, and 25th; we will ride piggyback into the gathering. Our objective is to kill the Titan. The remaining platoons will provide covering fire and tactical support for our assault.”

The world dropped from beneath Clayden’s armored feet. His throat collapsed within him; he was finding it hard to breathe as he glanced up at the Titan closing in on his city as it loosed a vast arsenal of destructive plasma bursts upon the ranks of the infantry—hundreds died in a flaming death instantly.

“Have the 10th and 17th group with us at the edge of the forest,” Clayden swallowed. “Relay the orders you told me.”

New beads of sweat rolled down his forehead as he put on his spiked battle helmet and clamped his lancer rifle to his back armor grip. He charged up his blood furnace as the first tinge of the pump sucked his juice to fuel his armor, powering it with his life. Clayden had become one with his armor, both symbiotic with the lust for war.

Part IV: Six feet of razor-tooth bloody destruction 

Frothing bands of clone warriors charged the swift-moving interceptors as they sliced into the weak clone defensive line, eagerly protecting their Titan from attack. A warparty of followers greedily eyed the piggyback assault platoon—more victims for their Titan, they projected, and more blood for their furnaces.

Clayden noticed the bloodthirsty followers, numbering over fifty, as they bulldozed through their weaker clone allies and attempted to overtake his spearhead. The interceptors loosened their barrages of anti-personnel missiles, subsequently decimating the remaining clones in their wake.

“Carter!” Clayden yelled over the cacophony of carnage.

“Yes?” Carter replied, screaming.

“What are our losses?”

Carter closed his eyes and mind-scanned the other platoons for missing members.

“Most of the 10th has been killed by…” A clone clamped onto his free right leg as the interceptor zoomed by. Carter freed his right arm and sliced down on the clone’s shoulder, forcing the soulless creature to release its grip and fall, to be trampled by the treaded tracks of another interceptor, shredding it into small, indescribable pieces of cloned flesh. “…stray fire,” Carter finished as if nothing had happened.

The followers’ varied cyborg forms now began to take presence ahead of the assault. It was a mass of humanoid-type forms: some with immense bio-technoid machetes growing from where arms should be, and with heads half-scabbed by mechanoid deformities. Others had gigantic turrets growing from their chests, firing sporadically at the interceptors and their precious cargo. All of them shared one main drive: to destroy them for their Titan and absorb their enemies’ blood for fuel.

You see, that was the main difference between human body armor and Titan follower body armor. Human technologists reengineered the armor to be symbiotic with the wearer, both the human and the armor benefiting the other—a sort of mutual parasitic relationship where both fueled each other. The armor stole the wearer’s humanity as the human took the armor’s invincibility. The followers, on the other hand, had to absorb the blood of unlucky foes—a very messy and addictive way to live.

Clayden readied himself for battle with the followers as the interceptors blasted away at them, thinning out their plentiful force. Farther down the battlefield to the right, fast, lightly armored mechanized units and APCs stabbed at the advancing, frothing, battle-engineered legions of clone warriors, while the heavy covering barrage from the artillery decimated their ranks. The infantry’s job was to tie up the entire clone thrust along with the quickly advancing shock Titans, gaining precious time for the assault units to close in on the Titan before it got too close to the city’s first line of defense.

“Sir?”

“Yes,” Clayden answered the commander of the interceptor unit through the comm in his helmet.

“Do you want my units to try to pierce through the warparty, or go around them?”

If they went around the warparty they would lose ground, which meant that there would be less time to engage; they didn’t have any time to waste. They had to go through the warparty.

“WE HAVE TO GO THROUGH!” Clayden shouted over the battlefield cacophony.

“That’s what I wanted to hear!” 

Commander Nakajima responded wildly, ordering interceptor units one and two to flank the right, three and four to flank the left, as his unit and the fifth carried the remaining assault troops between them, keeping the troops relatively safe in the wedge.

The interceptors charged, firing recklessly into the warparty as they closed the space between them at an accelerated pace.

Clayden held on steadfast while he grabbed his lancer rifle from his back clasp, preparing for the inevitable clash with the warparty. With one simple flick, the rifle transfigured itself into a close-combat lance. This variation was needed because the assault troops had varied combat responsibilities, which could change at any given moment—from defense to offense to infiltration. So the lancer rifle was created, giving the assault troop a multi-purpose role in almost every human military.

The lancer rifle was made up of various modular components that reconfigured to their set programming when ordered. It had three distinct arrangements: in rifle form, it could be loaded with explosive and armor-tipped ammunition and could hold up to 100 rounds in a box clip; the lance rifle could be used both ways, but with an inevitable loss in firepower, holding only fifty rounds of normal ammunition while acting like a bayoneted rifle in close combat; and then there was the lancer—a six-foot-long, razor-toothed instrument of bloody destruction which had the capability to cut through Titan armor. All technology stolen and modified from the Titans themselves, of course.

The frothing warparty slashed at the first thrust of the interceptors as a few were crippled or destroyed by mighty war blades, slashing and crunching their alloyed hulls. The interceptors slowed as they engaged the enemy.

“Get us…” Clayden paused as he lashed with his lance at a follower who broke through the first line.

Clayden jumped from the interceptor to carve the clawed arm off the mad bio-genetic mutant. The grotesque parody of humanity laughed at him while blood and other unknown fluids lapped out of its sliced socket. Its remaining arm had a three-foot blade covered in a poisonous slime which could kill Clayden instantly if it pierced his armor.

The follower lunged forward, but Clayden stepped back instantly and parried his opponent’s blade into the blood-soaked dirt, and then kicked him in the face. The follower flew backward as spiked molars flew chaotically in the air. But the creature did not go down; it lunged forward again, slicing down powerfully on Clayden.

He blocked it with his lance. The follower’s weight and inertia, along with the slushy, blood-soaked mud, made Clayden fall backward onto his back, raking blunted pain along his spine. Then his armor quickly injected him with adrenaline, canceling out the pain, making anger rise and strength envelop him.

Clayden pushed back even harder, throwing the creature away from him, rolling out of the way, and quickly standing back up. Clayden rushed forward, feinting the follower with a fake jab, but then slicing him with a power sweep to the chest, felling the pitiful creature.

“Are you okay, Sir?” Carter asked, still piggyback, as the interceptor drove back around to pick him up.

“I’m fine.”

“What were you going to say?” Nakajima brought back up as Clayden jumped back onto the interceptor.

“As soon as there is an opening, let’s push through to the Titan.” He paused, viewing the bloody carnage as more interceptors went down battling the overabundant warparty. But slowly they were able to make a wide enough crack for the assault group to pierce. “Let’s go now.”

Part VI: The Damned Ghosts of War

The interceptors, coordinating at speeds from hell as if they were one armored spear, thrust through the opening that the remaining interceptor units sacrificed themselves to create.

Clayden glanced behind him quickly as the last of the interceptors went down, crippled by a small group of followers who then savagely ripped and tore the armor to get at the prize within.

*What a horrible way to go,* Clayden seethed under his breath.

Directly ahead of them was their prize for surviving the initial battle flames: the Titan. Its colossal frame lurched forward, easily maiming and destroying all the infantry before it. The smaller assault vehicles easily melted into torrents of liquid metal, decimating the ranks into bloody steam. It stood at a height of 85 meters, making the largest of the heavily armored tanks (the size of a large three-story house) look like meager little ants. Immense spikes uniformly ran up its back in the form of a wedge. Its dark blue hue made use of the smoke and battle carnage for a strange form of camouflage, looking as if it were not stable in dimensional space. Its head was encased in dark silver armor, with one small red slit placed a little above the center, glaring coldly at its seemingly puny opponents. From each ear socket, a plume of thin, multicolored daggers vertically extended into the open air with vicious intent. The entity’s body was smattered with Egyptian hieroglyphics and pictographs, all of which dealt with war and conquest.

“Carter!” he yelled as a shock Titan burst into an explosive flower, hit by one of the largest ultra-heavy battle tanks. “Can your telepathy block the Titan’s sensors?”

“I don’t know,” he coughed. “It has never been tried before.”

“Well, I think it’s time to make history,” Clayden answered back with a chuckle. From his waist pouch, he pulled out a grenade-sized disk and pre-armed its quarter-kiloton mini-thermonuclear payload.

The interceptors were closing the distance, but to Clayden it seemed like a vast eternity as he prepared himself for almost certain death—wishing he could’ve lived in a world that was not constantly at war between brothers and sisters, between Titans, demons, gods, and monsters.

*Who are the true monsters?* The answer he decided was that they all were. Humans were no better. *We’re just trying to survive.*

Survival was the only thing left now.

“I hope everyone has made peace with themselves, cause I haven’t even begun!” Power surged from within him; his demons had been driven away. “If we’re going to die, let’s take this bastard thing with us!”

Suddenly all fire directed at the Titan stopped as the assault team closed in. The Titan realized what was happening and turned its head toward the assault team right at its face. Small, ant-like things grappled onto its feet, vainly cutting at its layers of armor. It picked up its foot and tried to shake them off. A few flew off, dropping to their dooms, but most of them clung on.

Two of Clayden’s men who did not hold on very well flew off into the distance, sucked into the carnage between the infantry and the clone warriors.

“Fireteam one, start blasting away all those turret weapons on its chest! Hopefully we can start some explosions.”

“Carter, tell HQ that I want them to keep firing at this thing’s upper portion, otherwise it’s just going to swat us off like ants. Tell them to keep its mind on them and not us,” he ordered as he sliced his lance into its foot actuator, getting closer to its internal parts while other members of his platoon began to scale up the Titan’s leg. Some fell and died, but the rest never broke their morale.

The remaining interceptors set up a defensive line of fire as the wave of followers caught on to the plan and began to rush toward them.

The first volley of shots raked the armored upper torso of the Titan as shrapnel and peeled-off armor fell on the two platoons. Each step it took was like an earthquake for Clayden and his troops; if you fell, you died.

Clayden furiously cut into the foot, thinning out the thick armor plating, revealing its delicate inner workings. He slashed them effortlessly, impairing the foot’s movement. One of his men had made it to the knee, furiously stabbing his lance into the armor, hoping to impair its movement. Most of the 17th had made it to the thing’s back, continuing to scale as clones fired at them from the ground. They knew that they were not coming down; they had made their peace and were going to sacrifice themselves for the continued survival of their city.

“Carter!”

“Yes,” he answered as he continued to slice away at the Titan’s foot, revealing more of its delicate inner workings.

“Are you ready to interface with the Titan?”

“Yes,” he answered as he connected a thin cable from his armor to one of the alien’s exposed sensor cables.

“You know what to do?”

“Create a little chaos with its systems, no problem. It’s never been tried before, but I’m sure I can do it,” Carter responded sarcastically, chuckling, as he sat down inside the hole he had created.

The remaining interceptors met the followers’ charge, being cut down instantly, but not before decimating their enemies’ ranks down to about ten. The few surviving interceptors broke and ran for cover. Now the way was clear as they thrust to meet Clayden and his three remaining troops still on the Titan’s foot. Guttural calls of destruction tallied from the followers as they closed to engage.

“Okay guys, let’s protect Carter. Form a defensive circle,” Clayden ordered as a new uneasiness grated through his mind, as the Titan now stood still, blasting away at the dwindling ranks of the infantry.

A deformed rush by ten angry followers met head-on with the last five of the 25th Assault Platoon. Mutated body parts flew erratically off Clayden’s first foe.

Some of Clayden’s comrades went so far as to say that when he fought, he became possessed by an angel of war, turning him into a demon of battle. It was said that the war gods would sometimes grant certain warriors that they deemed worthy a power, and that power was cold rage.

Two followers ganged up on Private Newsome, who was standing near Clayden. The first follower to engage him was the size of a bear, with jaws filled with many razor-sharp daggers. Its body was covered in thin, vomit-covered spikes. The other one was the size of a normal man and almost looked normal, except that both of his forearms had three-foot-long blades growing out from them. Newsome lunged at the large one with all his collected strength, knocking the monstrosity onto its back. Small spikes pierced his armor as the acid on the spikes began to burn through it.

He quickly twirled to engage the one with the blades as it sliced at him. He deflected one arm, but it nicked his chest armor, almost slicing through the hard outer shell. You see, if your armor bleeds, you bleed; it’s just like taking a normal hit if your armor is pierced through the first layer. The large follower jumped back up and delivered a powerful punch to Newsome’s back, the inertia pushing him fatally into both blades of the smaller follower.

Blood gushed out of Newsome’s body as it went suddenly limp. They instantly began to feed upon his carcass. There were three followers left. Then zero, as Clayden decapitated all three in one mighty slice.

Suddenly the Titan stopped its advance and lifted its immense arm to scratch its head, massacring the entire 17th like head lice. Dark red blood congealed on its head, wearing it as a headdress of victory.

“Ahhhhh…” Carter screamed as a small stream of blood trickled out of his nose.

Clayden jumped over to him as the last of the Followers was dispatched by Private Derringer.

“Carter!”

“Carter, are you OK!”

“I’m alive,” he slowly stood up as pain washed over his brain. “Something’s strange,” as a quietness begot the battlefield. Carter gazed up at the Titan’s hand frozen in mid-air on its way to crush them, with thick blood raining onto the remaining members of the 25th.

“I think you got another first today, Carter,” Clayden laughed, gazing up at their almost certain death as blood dripped onto his battle-scarred silver armor.

“Let’s plant the thermos and cut ASAP!” 

Clayden ordered while Carter tried to regain his sight, but was having no luck.

“We have about 100 seconds until it can move again.”

The tide of battle had been turned as the human infantry rallied and began to drive the clones and mutant followers back. The now-outnumbered infantry fought with a ferocity greater than their enemy. They were fighting for their city, for their loved ones, for the human race, but most importantly for their own survival.

“NO!” Carter screamed in agony as his brain absorbed a powerful energy surge, pulsed back in defense by the Titan; he fell limply onto the cold, armored surface of its foot.

“Carter!” Clayden jolted toward his friend just as he planted his thermo. “Wake up! You can’t die now!” His friend lay there unmoving in his armored shell. 

“Carter!” Clayden said weakly, gently cradling his friend’s head. “Carter!”

An armored hand grabbed his shoulder forcefully. “Sir, we got to go NOW!”

Two of the last remaining interceptors pulled up in a whirlwind of dust.

“Carter…”

“He’s DEAD!” Derringer shouted. “The thermals are set and the TITAN is starting to move!”

Clayden sat there sorrowfully, apathetically.

“If we DIE, his sacrifice will never be known,” Derringer paused. “Let’s go!”

A wall of carnage came racing toward them as thousands of retreating clones and followers raced chaotically back toward their Titan, rousing Clayden back to the reality of their situation. He threw Carter over his shoulder and leaped down to the sodden, blood-soaked earth. Private Derringer and Sylver followed him onto the backs of the interceptors as the Titan began to move.

“Sir!” Sylver yelled. “Look behind you.”

Clayden rotated his head to see the Titan’s leg shatter from the inside out, quickly engulfed by a multitude of small mushroom clouds.

Winds thick with radiation immersed the chaotic swarm of battling clones and human infantry, annihilating them instantly with a plague of intense flame. The Titan tottered backward as other thermals placed on its back triggered internal explosions, bursting it apart from within; flames and armor blasted off its once-mighty frame.

It fell backward in a massive eruption of molten annihilation, destroying everything in a half-mile radius of death-head’s judgment. And afterward, when the battlefield has been eradicated of all life, the land shall forever seethe with hate from the damned ghosts of war.

Grey, a cloud of gray unveiled itself……revealing an old, tattered church between the gentle cradle of two hills. It stands alone with its ancient spire reaching to meet its father in the purity of heaven. One lone oak, twisted by the tentacles of time, keeps the tabernacle company through its slow, painful march into the jaws of decay. Then the gray transforms into a cloudy, featureless visage and whispers…”remember.”

---

The gods had become displeased with Lord Seth’s victory. They could feel the tide turn slowly against their immortal will. A rallying cry to all mortals had enveloped the Earth—the once-mighty torturing grounds of gods and demons. Their victims were becoming strong once more, and their control over corporeal existence was being stripped away by the vast armies of the Titans and the defiance of their slaves. For them, the time to act had arrived—to come out of the shadows to raze the last vestiges of mortal resistance. For if fear of them did not exist, they would simply vanish.

Part VII: Remember

Clayden opens his eyes to a shower of intense light, and quickly closes them, for the light brings pain. “Doctor?”

“Yes,” he faintly hears a voice.

“He’s waking up,” a female voice replies.

He can hear the doctor’s heavy footsteps walk near him, lifting up his arm firmly and checking his pulse.

“How do you feel, Commander Clayden?”

“Thirsty,” he replies weakly, opening his eyes slowly so the light will not harm him again. “How long have I been out?”

“Four days,” the doctor replies. 

“Apparently your armor was pierced all the way through by some sort of tiny, poisonous dagger-type weapon. Luckily, you lost a good deal of blood; otherwise, the poison would have killed you. Luckily again, we were able to give you a transfusion just in time,” he pauses. 

“You’re very lucky.”

“How many of my unit survived?”

“Three, including you,” the doctor replies solemnly. “Now go back to sleep. When you wake up, I’ll discharge you. You’ll have a long day ahead of you.”

Clayden woke up in his hospital bed. His body was still sore, but his mind had cleared. He almost felt like a new man, with brand new blood for a brand new day. He pushed himself out of bed, swinging his legs to sit.

“Lights,” he ordered to the voice-recognition computer; they switched on. The clock read 11:00 AM.

“I haven’t slept that long for years,” he said to himself as he walked to the bathroom.

He shaved, revealing the two long scars—one on each cheek—given to him maliciously by a follower years prior when he was much younger and more brash. The years of war had quieted him, though, humbling him into a waking trance. His hair was raven black, cut short with the sides shaved. The dark hair complemented his dark complexion, as did his eyes, which seemed to be searching deeply, but became misguided on their journey. He had a soft jawline; he looked kind, wise, deep, and very detached.

The phone in his room rang.

“Hello,” he answered.

“Commander Clayden?”

“Yes,” he replied wearily.

“This is Lord Seth. I’m calling to personally thank you and your men for your act of bravery.” Seth paused, low of voice. “The people consider you a hero, a true warrior, a champion.”

“Lord Seth?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not a hero, nor am I a champion. I lost many good men who had families and loved ones. My best friend died, Sir. I’m just a man,” Clayden finished sadly, not wanting to take the new responsibility of being a hero. It wasn’t like they won some football game where the players received minor injuries. People were disemboweled, blown to pieces, mauled to bits in agonizing pain. This wasn’t some petty game; it was a war for survival.

“I know. But to my army and the city, you are a hero. You now must act like one for the morale of your comrades. Show pride and confidence, even though I can feel that you just want to give up! That’s an order!”

“Yes, Sir!”

“I’m having you picked up at 13:00 hours. We’ll have a light lunch. At 14:00 hours, we will leave for the awards ceremony. After that, you’ll be interviewed by the media.” Seth paused for a moment, clearing his throat. “At 18:00 hours, we’ll go to a dinner dedicated in your honor.”

“My honor? But…”

“No, it must be done. Listen Clayden, I have to talk to you about something very important. I’ll see you at 13:00 hours, Commander.”

“Yes, Sir.”

*Something’s wrong,* as a vestige of primeval fear shuddered through Clayden’s body. Something was definitely not right; he could sense it in every bone in his body.

She lurked on the edge of the swamp, waiting for another mortal to quench her thirst. She usually did most of her business in the cities of the humans, but bad luck and misfortune had deemed that she now stalked her prey on the edge of a swamp by a road less traveled, while she held on to her immortal life. To her, she was still mortal, just dead—except that she had to avoid light, Christian objects, wooden stakes, and decapitation.

She had lived for three hundred years and kept her figure at the ripe age of twenty-three. Tall and slender, pale with flowing black hair, feline grace, and a cat’s-eye grin. She could sense the presence of travelers coming down the trail: two or three. She could take them, that’s of course if they weren’t Followers.

“One, two, three, four,” she whispered to herself. “I hope they’re not clones; their blood has no taste,” she said to herself.

 “Damn; they are.” She could see as three expressionless clones, wearing the colors of the obliterated Ramses Titan, walked past her slowly.

She jumped up from behind them. The clones turned their heads, looking at her ample frame expressionlessly, not even aroused by her scantily clad body. They turned their heads and began to walk down the path.

They didn’t make it farther than three feet.

An hour later, she had finished feeding on the last of the warrior clones. Gorged to the point of explosion, she slowly walked back to the decaying, wretched shack that she spent the day in to sleep and recharge her energy for her journey back to the city the following night.

Part VIII: Gods of One

Necrem sulked on his throne in his underworld dimension, surprised at the humans’ victory over the Titan.

“I need to find out how this happened,” he said to himself as he extended his immense arm to scratch his spiked brow.

Around him, skulls and bones littered the ground. Torches lit the cyclopean throne room with shadows, twisting and contorting reality.

“Necrem,” one of his winged servant demons said.

“Yes?”

“An ambassador of the Dominia Tharaxia is here to give you a message,” the graying, gargoyle-like demon replied.

“Let them in!” Necrem growled angrily, standing up to exercise his immense and extensively long bat-like wings. His body was covered by skin that had the pitch of the void, the glossy blackness of doom.

An exotic woman wearing a bright white robe walked elegantly into Necrem’s throne room. Her long black hair, curled into a snaking braid, slithered down her back. Eyes of obsidian black stared at the true god of the underworld.

“Speak, ambassador,” Necrem commanded as he tested the sharpness of his left fang with one of his fingers.

“The human race has won a decisive victory.”

“I know,” the demon-god replied.

“This represents a threat to our continued existence, as I’m sure you know,” the ambassador added.

Necrem nodded in agreement, a small grin crawling onto his face.

“Without the mortals’ fear of us, we are nothing. The humans’ fear of the Titans is more than their fear or love of the gods. Even the immortals of light have lost their meaning, as well as the immortals of darkness. Millennia ago, the promise of a heaven or the promise of a hell was enough. The mortals now could care less,” she paused, then Necrem interrupted her.

“What’s your point?” Necrem hurried her.

“The point is that soon mortals will no longer have a need for us. If they lose all their fear or their faith, we will cease to exist—as if we had never existed. We must band together and put the fear back into mortality. The centuries of mortal warfare with the Titans have caused the mortals to evolve. Soon they will no longer need us. 

They must be suppressed, or we will all die!” The ambassador finished passionately.

“You want me to help you then?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“In what way?”

“We want you to raise an army of mortals. This will allow you to gain numbers and strength in order to defeat the Titans and drive the mortals back into our control,” she finished, with sweat beading down her forehead. The throne room’s temperature was very humid, hot like within the depths of a feral rainforest.

“Why should I raise a gigantic new army when there are numerous war gods to choose from? Anyway, I’m through with armies… I’ll stick to good old-fashioned possession and pestilence,” he stopped, unconvinced and annoyed.

“We want you because you and your lower demons create the most fear to the mortals,” she paused. “A few war gods will be assigned to help you raise the army. You see, when the mortals see your banners on the battlefield, followed by a horde of millions of bloodthirsty followers and the Titan technology we shall capture and control, nothing will stop our onslaught. Not even the Titans themselves will stop us,” she paused again, wiping her brow. “The Titans will die, and the mortals will be devolved back into the Bronze Age!”

Necrem fell back onto his throne, staring down at his clawed feet, twirling them in the bones.

“I’ll help you,” he said, leering at her with blood-red eyes.

“Good. Start making preparations. We shall contact you later,” she said, exiting the throne room.

How he hated his fellow gods, spoiled by immortality and their almost boundless power of sheer will over the immaterial and material planes of existence. Did he really care if they ceased to exist? No, he did not. Just as he did not care if he also ceased to exist, but this campaign might prove itself interesting, and he himself was curious about what the outcome would be.

Lord Seth’s home was at the direct center of the city, on the top of the megacity’s highest tower. It was almost a symbolic location: as the populace looked upon him as an almost godly figure—the tyrant of their city—he was worshipped in an unofficial manner, for every person found their salvation from him. Lord Seth was the center of their culture.

Clayden arrived promptly at 13:00 hours, being let into Lord Seth’s living room. The room was decorated warmly, unlike the rest of his brethren, who would litter their homes with their war trophies, decorations, and honorable citations. Lord Seth had no need; he had nothing else to prove.

“Please be seated,” one of Seth’s personal guards stated, suited in his glossy black body armor, as he stepped behind Clayden.

“Thanks,” Clayden replied warily, having no idea that Seth would be so cautious in his own city. The guard repositioned himself by the door. Clayden was wearing his dark gray dress uniform. The jacket was fully adorned with his accommodations and citations, weighing down the material. He chose not to wear his hat; he hated the thing, and he felt that being a hero, as people saw him, would now give him the choice not to wear the stupid thing.

Lord Seth gracefully walked into the living room from the dining room, which was adjacent and to the left of the living room.

“Sir,” Clayden jolted up and saluted.

“At ease, Mr. Clayden,” the awesomely built Warlord commanded as he looked Clayden over with pupil-less eyes. His powerful seven-foot frame swayed over to Clayden with his right hand extended; they shook hands.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Yes, Lord…”

“…..Call me Seth,” he paused as he walked over to the wet bar on the other side of the living room. “The ‘Lord’ thing gets rather annoying when I’m trying to have a regular conversation. What kind of drink would you like?”

“A rum and coke would be fine,” Clayden answered, realizing that Seth was practical and didn’t seem as mystical as he thought he would be. He appeared pretty normal, except for the pupils.

“Lime?”

“Yes.”

Seth finished the drinks in silence, gave the drink to Clayden, and sat on a seat across from him.

“First of all, I want to personally thank you for your victory and the men that died under your command. They gave the ultimate gift for their city,” Seth said coldly, but Clayden could feel that he meant it.

Death can turn a person’s face into a mask. And he knew Seth had seen his share of death. The mask was a defense against the emotions of loss, which to some was the worst enemy.

“I brought you here because I have an important mission for you,” Seth paused to collect his thoughts. “This mission, in part, holds the key to the survival of human culture and civilization, or maybe even the extermination of all human life. Depending on the fates, depending on luck, depending on our own agency.”

Clayden’s mind was elsewhere, thinking of the battle that killed most of his men—thinking of his best friend Carter and his death.

“Are you listening, Commander?” Seth said sternly, taking a sip from his drink.

“Yes, Sir!” Clayden replied, waking himself from his trance.

“Good. Now, I know you are aware of the existence of vampires, werewolves, and other monsters deemed heretics.”

“Of course I am,” Clayden replied.

“Do you know the legend of the Warmaster?” Seth quickly changed the subject.

“Kind of…” Clayden replied, confused.

“What do you know?”

“The Warmaster started under the banners of one of the first Titans to arrive on planet Earth. He destroyed the Titan for the demon-god Necrem, a dark god from the underworld. Under Necrem’s banner, they were on the verge of complete world conquest, then the Warmaster disappeared. The dark god’s army was then crushed by the Titans,” Clayden finished—confused, lost, and puzzled, his face showing his confusion.

“You’re correct, because I was alive in that dark time.”

“Did you fight Necrem?” Clayden inquired, now realizing that he was in the presence of great power.

“Yes, I did,” Seth responded remorsefully.

“How did you defeat him?”

“Commander, I did not bring you here to talk about my past battles.”

“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir.”

“I have reason to believe that the Warmaster is still alive in North America. I want you to find him and ask him to help us,” Seth finished, staring deeply into Clayden.

“Why me?”

“Because I can feel your power. It courses through your veins, radiates around you; it’s created by you.”

“What power?” Clayden asked, confused.

 “I’m a soldier, not a hero. I’m not like you.”

“You’re right, you are not like me, but you have strength beyond our comprehension. Maybe one day you’ll understand, but the fact remains I think you’re the most qualified. Your record is a testament to this. You will go and find him if he is still alive.”

“How do you know the Warmaster will help us?”

“I don’t, but we have no other recourse,” the warlord replied to Clayden. “What do the monsters have to do with this?”

“Certain groups of monsters—vampires, werewolves, wraiths, those with higher brain function and so on—network with each other. They hide each other and pass information. I believe that they may know where the Warmaster is.”

“And I’m supposed to ask them where the Warmaster is,” Clayden responded cynically.

“Something like that. You’ll figure it out,” the warlord answered back with a laugh. “I have some associates within this network; you’ll meet up with one of them at the dinner tonight. From now on, all this information is confidential between me, you, my guard, and the contacts you will meet. Say nothing; spies will be everywhere watching and listening.”

They talked a little longer about the situation, but when Clayden inquired on how he got the information about the Warmaster and where this impending threat to humanity would come from, Lord Seth would not answer his question. 

Clayden was left with an omnipotent, empty feeling, slowly being filled by the blades of anxiety, questioning his capabilities and his courage to complete this impossible, suicidal mission.

The ceremony flew past Clayden. He was dazed, concentrating on his mission—the impossible task of finding some twisted legend that was dead and rotting in some lost cave. A memorial was given to Carter and the men who had lost their lives fighting the Titan. 

*Did they just forget about all those men and women who died in the frontal assault? Who died bravely against suicidal odds? Plus, all of those interceptor riders who gave their lives holding off the followers so his assault group could attack the Titan? It was not fair!* He was not a hero; he was just a man—a simple man that was not blessed with power. He was mortal like every human, scared and alone.

He gave his speech, which was met with wild cheering and ecstatic joy from the crowd. The media interviewed him and his last two remaining comrades until 16:00 hours; then they were rushed to an armored limousine.

“I never was out for glory, but I must say that it does have its rewards,” Sylver said, smiling at Derringer and Clayden.

“I only wish the rest of our company had survived,” Derringer replied as his smile receded.

“Me too,” Sylver said sorrowfully.

Clayden pulled three shot glasses and a bottle of bourbon from a compartment on his right side, filling them and handing the shot glasses to his men.

“This shot is for all those that died battling against the Titan,” their commander toasted. They downed them. Clayden poured another. “For our sisters and brothers.”

“For Carter and the rest of the platoon,” Derringer toasted, then they downed them and filled them again.

“And to my twin sisters and mother, for we shall bring death to our enemies to avenge the deaths of those who sacrificed all,” finally Sylver ended the toasts on a note of vengeance and sorrow.

The limousine dropped them off to a line of cheering people who set out to greet them in front of the hotel where the dinner was to be held. Clayden shook many hands and was finally able to keep his smile looking almost genuine. He felt like a celebrity; he had to get used to the idea that from now on he would be one—like some other war heroes who wound up doing commercials and even movies. The megacity kept a world presence in the art of cinema. *No way,* Clayden chuckled under his breath, laughing the entire idea off. *Doing a commercial for laundry detergent?* he thought to himself, snorting aloud, his friends looking at him strangely.

Part IX: Cold Heat Prologue

“How long will it be before we get into the city?” She asked the driver that she had seduced into taking her to the megacity.

“I love you,” he sighed.

“How long?” Annoyed, she asked again.

“About thirty minutes,” he replied with love-struck eyes.

“Good,” May said quietly, fingering her fangs as hunger set in again. “Once we get into the city, could you stop at a clothing store?”

“Anything for you, my love,” the driver replied, romantic love in his eyes over hypnotized vision.

*Why did I have to pick a romantic?* she asked herself while looking at her face in the mirror. Since she had fed last, her face had filled back out; she would be able to make a good impression when she got to the dinner.

Part IX: Cold Heat

The aristocracy were teeming at the dinner, along with the affluent and the famous in the city’s privileged class. Clayden mingled blindly with all his new admirers—kissing his ass, browning their noses. Thank-you’s and high praise floated easily from the mouths of all he met. 

Offers of money for product endorsements abounded from the business oligarchy, book deals from literary gatekeepers, acting offers—a plethora of opportunities were thrown in his face. He just smiled and listened, nodded and smiled, but he could not take anything lightly. The weight that had been put upon his shoulders, his judgment, and his actions weighed heavily on his psyche—almost to the point that he wanted to laugh uncontrollably, take his clothes off, and dance around naked, taking a long “fuck off” piss in the champagne fountain.

It was simply too much to handle, but he held himself back from fleeing because it was his duty. Lord Seth walked up to Clayden, shaking hands and mingling on the way there.

“How are you feeling?” Seth asked Clayden.

“Overwhelmed,” he replied, scanning his surroundings, looking for a corner to hide in until the dinner. He was getting hungry because he had lost his appetite at lunch.

“Clayden, look that way.” Seth pointed behind Clayden. He turned himself around. “Do you see the woman in the dark red dress?”

The dress flowed down past her knees, exposing the sight of her long, slender pale legs. Clayden scanned farther up to her small, full chest, and finally to her ghostly white face. Dark eyebrows and lashes highlighted her deep blue, cat-like eyes staring back into his. Her mouth, abnormally large and filled with striking white teeth, smiled back at him. Black hair flowed down her back, snaking around her waist in a thick braid, undulating when she motioned slightly.

“Yes,” Clayden replied without emotion.

“She’s going to help you,” Seth paused. “She promised me she wouldn’t suck all the blood from your body,” Seth laughed.

“Thanks for the assurance, but with her looks I may just want to give her my blood,” Clayden replied sarcastically, while laughing mildly into his drink. Seth laughed with him.

“Isn’t she talking to the Matriarch?”

“I believe she is,” Seth laughed. “I wonder if she suspects?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, as you know, the second most powerful person in the city is the Matriarch. She’s just waiting for the chance to take control of the city from me.”

“And how would she do that?” Clayden inquired.

“If she could coerce the people into believing that I was a heretic—that my battle with Necrem turned me into one of his minions, therefore proving me an enemy of the humanity, giving her Inquisition dominion to pass its judgment on me,” Seth finished with annoyed interest, sipping his drink.

“Well, are you a minion then?” Clayden inquired with a smirk on his face.

Seth slapped him on the back, laughing heartily as they made their way toward the Matriarch and the vampire.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet the man who spearheaded the victorious assault on the Titan,” Josephine, the Grand Matriarch, congratulated Clayden as they shook hands.

“Thank you, but it was really my friend Carter,” Clayden paused under the cold eyes of the Matriarch and the seductive glance of the vampire. “He gave his life. I recognize him as a hero also and hold his sacrifice in highest regard.”

“Gentlemen, I would like you to meet my new friend,” the Matriarch held out the vampires hand to Lord Seth, and he kissed it gently. “May, this is the famous Lord Seth.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” she smiled. “In my city, your accomplishments are legendary.”

“And this is Commander Clayden of the Hyperion, the destroyer of Titans,” the Matriarch’s sarcastically placed flattery dissolved sourly on Clayden, as he took May’s hand and kissed it gently while she smiled upon him, each silently contemplating their hidden agenda, their secret.

“May, I say that your beauty humbles me.”

“You may. And you, Mr. Clayden, I’m sure you will become a legend in your own right,” May responded with heavy praise, eyes deeply piercing, but unsettling.

“As I was explaining to the lady earlier, the Inquisition is more than about purging the world of those vile creatures that taint the human race, whose existence is an obscenity against nature,” Josephine paused, holding her graying hair braided with gold and gems, and hardening her glance on Lord Seth. 

“The Inquisition is also about bringing the sisterhood of humanity together to have faith in our continuing purity. Strength lies in purity, in purity lies power, and that power shall rid the Earth of the Titans, vanish the immortals back into a realm where they shall never return to bother us again, and destroy the monsters that plague humanity.”

The crowd had hushed to a near silence. The Grand Matriarch seized this opportunity, being a keen politician, and thrust up her arm.

“Because they are the ones who keep us in fear of the night! To purge them means to destroy our fear, and once we’ve conquered fear, our enemies shall quake beneath our onslaught!” The crowd roared, clapped, and screamed, cheering the Matriarch’s speech.

“Dinner will be served in five minutes,” the intercom struggled to get over the frenzied noise. “Please take your seats.”

“Tonight, after the dinner, you will go with May. You will begin your quest at once,” Lord Seth said to Clayden during the frenzied cheer of the crowds between speeches of the aristocrats and heroes of the last battle. “I don’t know how much time is left. You must find the Warmaster as quickly as you can.”

“I’ll try my best,” he assured Seth.

“NO, you have no choice; you must, or all you know shall vanish. But be careful; Josephine has spies everywhere. Watch every step you make from now on—trust no one. If the Matriarch finds out that I have dealings with the vampires, she will use it to destroy me and take control of the city,” Seth contemplated, pausing for a moment. “If she gets control of the city, all is lost.”

“What would happen?”

“I’m not too sure; I could not see that far,” he said, smiling and toasting the camera that was now pointed at him. “But I know she is a human and female supremacist and sadist. The population is fooled by her outward appearance, but they have not seen the underground and the crimes she commits against sanity,” Seth finished, clearly disturbed. “She has become the great devourer.” 

As the dinner ended, the lights lowered, and the hypnotic rhythm of the small orchestra pervaded the large hall. Clayden spotted May walking toward a champagne table as his heart filled with desire. He pushed his way to her, praise following him while making his way to her.

“Would the lady grace me with a dance?” he asked cordially, extending his arm.

“I’d be delighted,” she responded, sizing up Clayden’s blood with an iron glance.

They gracefully swayed on the dance floor, lost in the fray of dancers.

“Are you afraid of me?” she asked.

“Yes, but you are also afraid of me,” he whispered back to her.

She laughed. “I could break your neck right now. The only reason I do not is because I am honor-bound to Seth.”

“I am aware of this, but be warned: our journey will be treacherous—more for you than I,” the commander told her seriously, disquieting May and creating an unsettling feeling in her veins.

“How so?” she inquired.

“I do not know,” he replied, unnerved, newly awakened to a force within him.

As they danced, Clayden could feel her cold skin, devoid of any warmth, but noticed the fire in her eyes, and this warmed him. Although she sucked the life-force out of the living, she was not evil. 

Part X: A World to Die On

Three had been destroyed; this had now brought the number of their race’s down to nine.

When they first came to Earth, the primitive inhabitants were little more than playthings—an unexpected bonus. They morphed them into bloodthirsty war toys for their own armies. Although the natives intellectually and physically were dwarfed by their awesome might, they respected their feral warrior nature. But then something unexpected happened in the last five hundred years: the dwindling savages took captrured titan technologies and used it to their gain; adapting and creating mega-fortress cities to defend themselves. And now they had discovered a weakness in them—a weakness they themselves did not know that they had.

The other two omni-race genocides could be accepted. The first one trusted his greatest mortal creation, not realizing it would be betrayed. In the other omni-species eyes, it deserved its obliteration. 

The second, Hyperion: that omni-species obliteration was an accident, a miscalculation of the sun’s solar energy, which proved to be a weakness because of a miscalculated solar flare from the star that overloaded Hyperion’s power generators, obliterating it to atoms.

Ramses, however was destroyed in a different way: it was defeated in battle by the humans—by their design, their tactics, on their battleground, and by the most basic of components: a soldier. Perhaps the greatest weakness of all was Ramses’s arrogance.

Vermix, keeping his omni-race name, thought deeply, retreating within it’s vast body. Hiding its consciousness into the core, it gave control to subroutines to finish the battle that its army was winning against a smaller human settlement. It always surprised him how the bulk of humanity fought against them when the odds greatly outweighed their favor. Maybe this was what made them so powerful, so adaptable.

Throughout human history, it had studied that these creatures had won even against insurmountable odds. Most of the time they had to sacrifice a great many of themselves, like the last battle against the Ramses, but they would do it. This was the kind of devotion the Titans could never have. Humans also possessed a great strategic and tactical knowledge, kept alive by their never-ending lust for war—a trait that could be studied throughout their bloody history. If given the time, he pondered, they could conquer the known universe. Except the only thing that has barred them was the interference of the inter-dimensional entities. For some reason, they must keep humans from evolving. Could it be that if they evolved, the entities would die? Or, on the other hand, if the humans were exterminated, would they cease to exist?

Vermix quickly glanced out to view the battle as it’s cyclopean feet crushed homes and his followers dispatched the last of the human warriors and civilians. Its army was small compared to some of the others omni-species; basically, it kept them for protection against enemies: human, rival omni-race’s, ethereal entities, and the rare giant creature. Vermix sought a different path to the means—one of logic, not merely cessation and deconstruction. Although the last two were much easier, Vermix did not lust after them like most of its rivals. Still, something had tempted them to conquer this small planet on the edge of a nearly deserted, desolate galaxy, far away from the main body of the universe and their multi-galactic empires—a galaxy they had no desire to even conquer, and one by all logic they should have controlled by now.

Perplexity; Vermix realized that the temptation to conquer was a lure. Logically, it should have taken a mere slight of thought to strip this planet and this galaxy of its knowledge and control all the sentient populations. Pieces of the puzzle were scattered about, intersecting into dead ends, being scattered in the eddies of chaos. Humans, the onmi-race and the others, and the entities were clashing. The humans were fighting for their survival. Vermix’s race, and the other omni-race’s, came on a dare that it couldn’t conquer this meager galaxy. And as for the inter-dimensional entities, he was still not sure what their motives were, but they were powerful in all realms, weaving meticulous plans. Vermix’s vast galactic intelligence could not fit any of the puzzle pieces together.

He peeked out at the battle again, astonished as he saw that the humans had transformed into horned, clawed beasts, driving back his clones. Behind him, hundreds of red-winged demons descended from the sky, slashing at its back merely to be vaporized by a hundred plasma blasts, but thousands more still fell. Angels of vengeance swooped at him, slashing his armor with golden divine lances. He was under a full-scale attack—a battle Vermix knew he could not survive for much longer.

From the sky directly in front of him, the largest entity the Titan had ever seen thundered down. A void-black demon, armed with an immense blazing sword, thrust toward the Titan. Vermix unleashed a torrent of annihilation upon the demon, but all his death was deflected by the entity’s power of sheer will. The Demon, half the Titan’s cyclopean size, severed its hand as it went to parry the slice.

Necrem then plunged the weapon deep into the Titan’s lower right abdomen, releasing a molten jet of energy that repulsed Necrem violently, throwing him hundreds of feet away. Necrem laughed, his voice booming throughout the countryside.

Vermix released control of his shock Titans and gathered his remaining energy into his tele-warp generator. The space around him bent, losing color, as he pierced a hole into space-time. Then, almost as soon as the hole had been torn, the Titan vanished, along with any unlucky clones and demons that happened to be within the warp area. The remainder of his clones stopped fighting and began to wander around aimlessly. Vermix’s mutant followers battled on with Necrem’s demons and the angels of vengeance, now lusting after ethereal blood.

“STOP!” 

Necrem yelled as his cyclopean wings blocked out the sun’s rays. The battle suddenly halted to a dead stop. 

“You fight for me now!” Saying with a sneer on his thin flat lips.

Part XI: Boundaries Into the Deep

Clayden and May walked cautiously down an ancient alleyway inside the old part of the city, pre-Titanfall buildings with ancient spires jutted into the sky, decaying with the disease of time. Clayden had on a pair of jeans, a thick black leather jacket, and a pair of rounded spectacles.

In the old city most of its inhabitants could care less about him, most of them were either outcasts, criminals, political fanatics, practitioners of dark magic, or gangs—pretty much anyone who would not conform to the military state. 

The other inhabitants—those that lurked at night or in the shadows—also lived? here. Some were deep within the ancient tunnel system beneath the old city, others in apartments and the ancient, mystical spires. Hidden, they wallowed in their pits of apathy, caring little for what happened around them.

May still wore her dark red dress, unaffected by the cold.

“Where are we going?”

“To a club,” she coyly responded, annoyed by his presence.

“What kind of club?” he asked, grasping her arm, anxiety followed by adrenaline pumping into his veins.

“The kind of place most humans die in, or even worse, become the retainer of one of my kind,” she paused, licking her lips. “I’m hungry.” She swiveled her head toward Clayden, grinning and showing one of her fangs, the other side of her lip hiding the other fang. Seductive, yet unsettling.

“Let’s go to the club first, then you can find someone to feed on,” he told her firmly as they stopped in an alley.

“No one tells me what to do!” She pushed him forcefully into the crumbling alley wall, walking toward him now, baring her fangs.

“Understand this!” Clayden shouted. “You owe Seth for your life. Now pay your debt!”

“How did you know?” She walked closer, her fangs beginning to retreat.

“Your arrogance is blinding you.”

She walked up to him, pressing her body against his, bringing her mouth to his ear. “It’s easy to become as arrogant as I…..if you have lived for nearly two hundred years,” she whispered. 

“Maybe you do know, but understand this: I am not your servant, and do not order me.” She pressed against him even harder, her anemic cold sucking up his heat, beaming into his deep hazel eyes. 

“I will help you in every way I can up to the time that we find where this Warmaster is hiding. After that, I’m gone. I will have fulfilled my debt, then you fend for yourself,” May spat out, her reply sour with spite.

“Thank you,” he looked back at her coldly as she pulled herself off of him, her small perky breats, with hard diamond peaked nipples straining against the fabric of her dress, his back aching from being pressed hard against the coarse, jutting bricks.

“Who knows, you may even let me take some of your blood. I can already tell how nutritious it will be. You soldier boys always are,” she laughed and began walking down the alley again.

Clayden followed behind her, soaking in the humiliation, in fact aroused by it, aroused by May;  ready to meet the challenge when the time arose.

---

The human settlement on the Pacific coast had been totally destroyed, its army defeated, and its people twisted and transformed into demonic beasts.

The clone warriors were now under the control of Necrem as he weaved his dark dream within their empty minds. Hundreds of human Titan-followers now pledged their allegiance to him; they were at his bidding. All remaining humans at his disposal.

“Now I have an army again. By force of sheer will, I easily defeated that Titan. The next battle I have with a Titan will not be that easy. They’ll be prepared and waiting,” Necrem, back in his throne room, arrogantly boasted to the War God Marsan.

Marsan disliked Necrem and showed it openly.

“You had my help. Your will alone could not defeat a Titan,” the war god countered with anger.

“It did. Your strategic skills did help a great deal.”

“Thank you,” Marsan seethed. He stood at a height of seventy feet, relatively small compared to Necrem. He wore blood-red body armor that seeped blood—it almost resembled human blood armor, but was dark iron rust with black highlights. He wore no helmet, revealing his green eagle eyes and a lust for conflict, born by the hatred and greed of mortals. A long black mane of hair cascaded to meet his black cloak. He had two huge sabers that swayed on each side of his legs. Marsan exuded arrogance, confidence, and superiority.

“So what do we have in our new mortal army?”

“The Titan left us with ten shock Titans, five hundred followers, and eight-thousand surviving clones, and about five-thousand mortals from the town ,” the war god responded.

“Also, we have three thousand beasts at our disposal.”

“Good. Have you figured out how to use the shock Titans?”

“Not yet, but my tech-seers say that they’re working on a solution,” Marsan answered back coldly.

“Fucking technology!” The god-demon chuckled.

“Unfortunately, Necrem, your will is incapable of controlling technology, and there’s not too much of it to be had,” Marsan replied, calculating his next move.

Part XII: The Singular I

In the vast radioactive wastes of Siberia, a cyclopean frame lay sprawled on the side of a mountain. Hundreds of mangled clones and flayed demons and angels littered the ground around Vermix, their bodies incinerated by the intense radiation that was within the warp field.

Snow turned to heavy rain as it traveled near the injured Titan, the intense heat transforming the landscape. An insurmountable number of tiny robots and microscopic nanites began to patch together mangled armor, cleaved sensors, and seared internal components. The Titan’s once-beautiful silver frame had been tarnished by the carbon battle scars of a thousand lances and millions of explosive shells, culminated to ruin by five hundred years of intense warfare before Necrem’s total rout of Vermix.

“What is happening?” Vermix asked himself once his omni-mind came back online. *Nearly traveling beyond our capacity to reach this planet… Have we come this far to finally be destroyed by entities of other realms? Is this our fate for conquering most of the known universe? For millennia, even the strongest empires that stood against us crumbled relatively easily,* Vermix pondered. *To be under our control is an honor,* he thought. *These humanoids barely had control over their system when we came. They hadn’t even achieved inter-system travel. Yet we cannot conquer them. The more we exterminate, the stronger they seem to become. The inter-dimensional entities, do they now threaten war with us?* it contemplated solemnly as its massive frame’s micro-robots connected conduits, melded fibers, reconstructed servos, and fused armor.

“They have upped the ante. The battle against me was a test. They intend to take their planet back, for they need these humanoid creatures for their survival, and in order to guarantee these humanoids’ survival, they must annihilate us.”

*To come to this planet was madness. Why did we ever listen to those transmissions? Could we not just have left such an insignificant galaxy alone? A system filled with brainless, savage creatures that would have destroyed themselves anyway. Pride and arrogance have blinded us. Our lust for absolute dominion may be our downfall, and our obsession for absolute perfection of the universe our destruction. We war for territory on this planet, for the one who conquers all shall rule the vast universal empire that we have created. We are a dying conglomeration who may have reached their pinnacle of evolution and are now receding back into the abyss of feral drives. The trillions of individual consciousnesses who make up my essence integrated into perfect union eons ago have quested for far nobler things singularly than I, but yet all have stooped down to their instinctual behavior—behavior which my race not only follows, but exemplifies on a universal scale. I—we—have been blinded for billions of years, but now I see that our extinction will be imminent if we remain here, and all our accomplishments, our ultimate universal perfection, shall be lost forever. I must not let this happen.*

Part XIII: Zombie or Zombi?

Clayden gulped down the last of his drink while he sat alone in a booth at the front of an old, musty tavern. Stale beer and smoke had been thriving for hundreds of years in the interstitial spaces not visible in the human spectrum of vision. 

The lights had been dimmed for the customers, most of whom could see in the dark anyway. The music was a disjointed jazz—heavy and haunting, with depression woven in for extra effect.

May had been gone for about an hour now, somewhere farther into the recesses of the bar. For his safety, she had asked him to remain in the front. Most of the “us predators,” as she labeled herself, were deep within the crypts and hoary caverns of the ancient catacombs beneath the tavern.

“Would you like another?” a cocktail waitress asked him, as he grinned in recognition. Before he could respond…

“Hey, you’re that Commander guy who saved the city,” she said, smiling as she sat next to him, pushing him farther into the booth, pushing her breasts against his side, hard nipples rubbing his left arm.

“I’m afraid you must be joking,” he answered her, looking away down at his empty glass.

“You must be. Your face has been on the news for days,” she smiled, putting her hand on his knee and squeezing.

“You have the wrong person. Just get me another drink!” Clayden pulled out a twenty and gave it to her. She pulled away coldly and left him in silence. She returned with his drink a few minutes later. “Thank you,” Clayden said. She shrugged him off and walked away angrily.

A few minutes later, May finally returned. She was carrying her jacket in one hand and a glass of thick red liquid in the other.

“Did you find a victim?” Clayden asked her cynically, sipping his drink.

“Keep your voice down. There might be Inquisition here,” May whispered. “Come with me; I’ve found someone who can help us.”

May took his hand into cool pale hand, slender fungers tipped with long sharp nails, pushing into his flesh, but not drawing blood; leading him farther into the bar, past tables and more booths. 

The Light was nearly useless, making sight almost impossible. Finally, she led him to the second-to-last booth. May quickly rapped on the wall, and it opened. They both stepped through. Clayden found himself in a dimly lit corridor.

“Did you bring me a snack?” a brutish man—seven feet tall, covered in holed, decaying skin with deteriorating muscles popping out into the open air—chuckled.

“Sorry, he’s my dessert,” she laughed back, pulling Clayden with her as she led them deeper into the corridor.

“That guy wasn’t a vampire, was he?” Clayden whispered to her.

“Correct, he was a ghoul. He would have eaten you alive,” May answered.

“Are there more zombies than him down here?” he asked, more curious than scared, like he should be.

“For one thing, Franklin is not a zombie.”

“I don’t understand,” he replied, following closely behind her.

“When someone dies, given the right conditions, they’ll turn into ghouls. Ghouls are less deteriorated and keep most of their motor control and intelligence. The only way that they can keep from deteriorating is by eating raw flesh; human flesh is the best. Sooner or later, ghouls can’t halt this process and putrefaction begins, then they become a zombie,” May paused, keeping Clayden close to her.

“What’s the difference?”

“Zombies have lost most, if not all, of their intelligence and free will. They can simply be controlled by a master, but they still have the drive to eat. Until they deteriorate to the point where all they have left is the drive to eat, we call these the living dead, and we destroy them as soon as possible,” she finished.

“Interesting,” Clayden replied as they walked up to a door where the sound of dance music and strange aromas pierced through the dim light.

“Don’t say a word until I say it is safe. Speak only when I tell you to. Until we leave here, you are my slave and you must act like one. There are vampires and other creatures inside who are more ruthless than any mortals,” she whispered to him. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Clayden replied with a new sense of fear gripping him more powerfully than his first battle as a young, inexperienced warrior.

Part XIV: “I Can’t Take You Anywhere!”

May opened the door; smoke and heat rushed out into the corridor. Inside, creatures—dead, undead, deformed, unformed, and created—intermingled, laughing, dealing, and feeding. They walked through a multicolored, dimly lit dance floor heavily trodden down by the ages, slipping past the seductive sway of the inhuman dancers.

At the end of the area lay a bar. Clayden followed May obediently, but clumsily bumped into another ghoul. The creature, rotting and not much bigger than Clayden, picked him up by the neck, dangling him in front of his friends. One was a humanoid genetic mutation covered by a sickly, pungent green slime, with large claws protruding from his overlong shirt sleeves. The second was a renegade Titan follower drinking heavily, except that his mug had to be bound onto his double-bladed axes, which grew from both arms.

“What’s a weak little fleshling doing in a place like this?” the decaying ghoul asked Clayden as he squeezed his neck harder.

“Put him down! He is mine!”

“Sure he is, my pretty little vampire,” the brute chuckled condescendingly. He threw Clayden onto the floor, sliding him into a support as he gulped desperately for oxygen.

“Let’s see under that pretty dress of yours!” the renegade slobbered while reaching for May. “Bloody pussy or dry cunt?”

May jumped behind him, grasping onto one of his arms and ripping it off his body easily. Rotting flesh and putrefying blood spilled onto the ground, releasing a sickly aroma into the smoky atmosphere. The renegade took his free arm and threw her over him; she flipped, landing on her feet with claws retracted and fangs drawn.

“STOP!” a frankentender—a patchwork of mismatched flesh and body 

parts—screamed while wielding a powerful yet ancient shotgun. 

“Ghoul, take your renegade friend and leave! You’re no longer welcome here!”

The renegade picked up his amputated arm, pointing it at May. “The next time I see you, bitch, I’ll devour your heart, vampire thot!”

The ex-Titan renegade, the mutant, and the ghoul walked to a door by the side of the bar, exiting into the catacombs and tunnels beneath the ancient city, loudly complaining and laughing.

“Are you all right?” May asked as she pulled Clayden from the floor out of a pool of the renegade’s fetid blood, fermented and vile. Long, congealing, oxidizing ropes of rotting blood clung parasitically to his jacket as he was helped up.

He nodded silently, regaining his breath. They walked to the bar, and she pulled cash out of her jacket pocket, handing it to the bartender. The mangled human puzzle pointed to a door on the opposite side of the bar.

May and Clayden went through it, finding themselves in a musty, ghastly, decaying cavern smelling pungently of mold, cigarette smoke, beer, and old death. The door closed behind them.

“Thank you for saving me,” he touched her arm affectionately, his eyes half-lidded in submission, warmth soaking into her cold skin.

“Saving you was like saving a pet,” she responded coldly, unsettled by Clayden’s touch, scared to admit that at one time she was once human. “If I had my way, I would kill you right now and end your misery.”

Clayden didn’t respond, recognizing that she feared her suppressed emotions, jealous of his mortality. He understood that if she showed any of her humanity regarding the act of surviving off the blood of humans, she would consider herself no better than a parasite, or worse, that she was still human.

But what choice was there anymore? She was a vampire, and that is how they survived. *Just like a human survives,* he thought. *Eating the flesh of a cow is no different, except for the emotional baggage of feeding off your own kind. Too much information… just too much to think about. I wonder if…?*

“Clayden,” she waved her hand in front of his face.

“Sorry, I was thinking,” he replied, dazed.

“Think later. Now listen carefully: you’re about to talk to an Ancient. Be very direct with your questions, and don’t lie—they’re very strict. Don’t anger it; otherwise, you’ll be dead in a matter of seconds,” she paused. “Understand?”

“Yes,” he answered, following May deeper into the ancient cavern, which decayed more as they walked deeper into its endless dark.

Finally, they came to a door with the fading light of a torch by its side. May opened the door slowly into a torch-lit room, the shadows playing aimlessly with both their fears—his fears not even close to the reality.

Part XIV: The Third Coast

“Come in,” a forced whisper beckoned them. To the left, beads and strips of decrepit, colored cloth covered the entrance to a doorway. Six feet in front of him, an eight-foot sarcophagus hung from the stone ceiling by thick leather straps. Light flashed off the gold sarcophagus into his eyes, blinding him as he walked in. Clayden noticed that the ancient coffin was covered in precious jewels; markings and pictographs surfaced it, like the Titan he had helped to destroy.

“Come through the door, my friends,” the creature whispered again. Clayden gated, tripping on a step. “Watch out for the step.”

“Thanks,” he replied as he walked through into the other room.

A hooded figure—skeleton-handed, around which tightly wrapped brown skin clasped—meditated in front of an archaic book. Two torches hung on both ends of the room. Jewels scattered the floor by a table on the left side of the abode. Blood soaked the table, as a dagger and chalice sat freshly used on top of it. A dust-covered chest sat at the other end.

“A mortal,” the Ancient looked up, surprised. Half of his skeletal face peeked through the hood. Skin long past the age of decay and rot hung tautly onto his skull, but the eyes were deep brown and fresh, intuitively searching into them. 

“I was mortal once, thousands of years ago.” He lifted his hand, motioning for them to sit down in front of him. “There is no need to fear me, mortal. I will not harm you.” He pointed to the table with the blood. “That’s what happened to the last being who sought me for personal gain. How do you think I got the eyes?” The Ancient laughed in a whispering cough. “They’re vampire eyes, like your friend. I can see in the dark if I want to now,” he laughed again.

Clayden laughed with him slightly—fearful, but with a respect for this ancient human filling him. May quickly jabbed him in the ribs, slightly bruising them.

“Young vampire, there’s no need for violence. Laughter is the one magical discipline that every creature should understand.”

“To answer your question, mortal: she could and will,” he looked at Clayden while he pointed at May.

“I could and will what?” May asked the Ancient while staring hard at Clayden. He smiled and shrugged.

“You will…” he suddenly stopped as Clayden interrupted him.

“Sir, that’s not why we came here. I have another question,” he blurted out meekly, not wanting to incur his wrath.

“Please, call me Amenhotep. Did you know that once I was a pharaoh? In Egypt, I was once worshipped as a god. I was from the divine under Ra,” he pulled back his hood, revealing his true face. The skin had shrunk tightly, forested by a crown of frayed, frazzled hair, with shrunken ears bonded closely to his sides. 

“But they lied to me, used me as a pawn. I am nothing more than a decaying corpse forced to live like this for eternity,” he quickly forced a smile from his taut mouth with many bleached-bone teeth.

“I’m sorry,” Clayden put his hand on the Ancient’s shoulder, remembering Carter and all those he knew that had died under his command. May looked away, ashamed at herself for being cold and emotionless.

“What is your question?”

“Where can I find the Warmaster?”

Chanting hypnotically, Amenhotep lowered his head, speaking an ancient Egyptian dialect, signaling in the air with his skeletal hands, channeling spirits for information. Quietly, May and Clayden sat, waiting apprehensively for an answer.

*Anxiety of the outcome… will I live to see the daylight again?* Clayden contemplated. *Does it even matter? From what I’ve seen tonight, death seems a long way off. Will finding this mythical warlord really help us survive? Or if he does help us, would he turn us into bloodthirsty warriors, only bent on conquering and despoiling? Not like we aren’t already guilty of murdering our own kind.*

“The spirits say that you should travel west, then go north once you reach the great lake that spikes deep within the land,” they both looked at him, expecting more. “The spirits also say that he will be in that area, someplace.”

“Do they say anything else?” May asked.

“No, that is all,” he replied, covering his head.

“Thank you for your help, Amenhotep,” Clayden said, standing up and pulling May with him.

“Please stay with me a while. I can conjure up some ale for us, and for your vampire friend, I’ll summon a fine specimen,” Amenhotep appealed to them, hungry for company.

“I’m sorry, but we must get going. It’s important that we find him.”

“I understand. A mortal like you lives his life like an intense, fast-burning flame,” Amenhotep paused and pointed at a chest on the other side of his hovel. “I have a gift for you.”

Clayden walked wearily to the chest and opened it slowly. Inside lay a tarnished dagger, the torchlight dancing on its jeweled hilt, tricking his eyes. A giant emerald scarab adorned it, blessing eternal life to the warrior who wields it.

“Here is wisdom: immortality is a punishment. One day your soul will leave this material world, and you will experience things beyond your comprehension. Enjoy your mortality, your life, but do not fear death, for it is your friend. Perhaps one day I shall meet you there,” Amenhotep said to him while Clayden sheathed the dagger in his coat pocket.

“Goodbye, good journey. Come and visit me when you return,” the Ancient waved goodbye. May walked out quickly as Clayden followed solemnly behind her.

May cornered Clayden against the side of the cavern on the way back to the bar. 

“You could have gotten both of us destroyed!” she whispered angrily, fangs tracing her lower lip.

“He’s just a man, May, like me—except a little older.”

“And with immense power! He could have incinerated me with a word,” she paused, fearful, her mouth drawing closer to Clayden’s neck. “I don’t think he likes vampires.” One of her fangs lightly pricked the skin by his jugular; a small trickle of blood flowed from his vein onto the tip of her tongue.

“Your blood,” she moaned, caressing his thigh. “It tastes so good.”

“No,” he forced his arms out from her inhuman grip and pushed her face away from his neck. “We have a journey ahead of us; we still haven’t found him yet.”

May’s eyes pierced into Clayden’s, hypnotizing him to her needs.

“Are you trying to control me?” he asked her as she pulled back in shame. “Listen, I’ll make a deal with you. When we’re traveling and you can’t find any prey to feed on, I’ll let you take some of me.”

“You will?” she said, unimpressed.

“Yes, but don’t take too much. Just enough to get you by,” he responded, blaming himself instantly for being so stupid for saying such an idiotic thing. She smiled, and they walked back into the bar, winning another battle against what she considered a weak human male—something beneath her.

Part XV: Infinity as My Witness

Necrem materialized back onto the Earth, followed by thousands of his demons and a legion of Marsan’s warrior elite.

“Are there any more Titans on this continent?”

“No,” he answered, motioning to his legion to stand ready.

“Good. I want you to take your legion, one horde of demons, and the shock Titans. Surround every human settlement that you can, then seduce them into fighting for us,” the dark lord pressed. Marsan looked at him dubiously, angrily, and displeased about the fact that he had to take orders from a demon.

“How am I,” he pointed at himself, “supposed to seduce these mortals into fighting for me when I am going to attack and kill them all?”

“We,” Necrem paused, “cannot kill them, because we need a larger army. The Titans have caught wind of our attack, and I’m sure will be moving to intercept us soon.”

“Then how am I supposed to seduce them?”

“Offer them wealth, sex… most will jump at the chance to kill their own kind for profit,” Necrem paused, folding his gargantuan bat wings, turning around to point at a fiery-red she-demon, sparsely clothed because her skin was covered in blood-red flame.

 “Just in case, I’ll send Nema with you.” Necrem looked at Nema with his ancient eyes. A glimmer of desire rose within him, then sank into the abyss of his soul just as quickly.

 “She will be able to weave a dark desire within the mortals, then they’ll be under your control.”

“In which direction would you like me to go?”

“Go southeast. Scour the mountains and the mid-part of the continent; there should be many mortal settlements within,” Necrem replied to Marsan coldly. 

“I’ll take the rest of the army east and take control of all the mortals I come in contact with. I’ll meet up with you by the land of lakes.”

Marsan nodded. “Shouldn’t we take the mortals’ mega-fortress on this coast first before we march east?”

“No. They’ll have greater fear when we come back and storm their eastern city. I have plans to take this megalopolis first. If we break the greatest city the humans have ever built, the rest will fall easily throughout the rest of this continent,” Necrem replied, leading his army east over the hills. Like a swarm of wingless locusts, they disappeared into the camouflage of the overcast horizon. A tinge of pain wracked his body… and for a millisecond, in the realm of quantum possibilities, he felt pain.

Part XVI: The 4th Wall

Thousands of miles away in the frozen north of what was Russia, nearly half of Vermix’s internal systems had come back online. The armor was quickly being mended, protecting the delicate technology inside. The alien leaned against the mountainside, recalibrating the gigantic exoskeleton’s equilibrium against the Earth’s electromagnetic field and gravity. The species/civilization’s long-range sensor array had recognized the signal of another omni-race that was approaching from the east.

 Two more Titans were farther to the west of him. If he did not get all his defense systems working in satisfactory condition, he would be slaughtered by the Khan Titan from the east.

Defeat was weakness, and weakness was death. For his brethren were as alien to Vermix as they were to the masses of humanity. Vermix’s collective species had not communicated with the other omni-civilizations for eons, since the great division tainted the omnipresent quintessence, splitting up the vast super-consciousness universal dominion into twelve conflicting blocks of power.

But now things had changed; the silence had to be ended, for they all faced extermination if they did not act as one cohesive being against these powerful dimensional entities. 

It had finally come time to ordain the fate of this galaxy—the galactic purge of sentience would commence, and… this was not the first time for this galaxy… ha ha ha… definitely not the first, my friends.

Part XVII: Eternity Is a Concept

The human species’ greatest leaps of evolution were all conceived in the bowels of devastation; they were born from the carnage of chaos, built on the bones of the slain that are fueled with the blood of the innocent.

What little love, peace, and harmony there was has faded into lost memory—memories of naive children, amnesia of aeons.

I know these things, for I have lived far too long; my body is a twisted mass of flesh and bio-mechanical growths, contorting my form into a wretched phantom of pale flesh.

I have seen that my exile will soon come to an end, for the last remnants of the human species search for me now and will ask me to lead them. I know that the victory they seek shall be the harbinger of oblivion, for I have seen these things etched into the great void, the infinite wholeness of the universe.

Infinity is a measure, a quantifiable line—one that can be counted and analyzed.

It is sadness that I wither in. I realize that in my sorrow lies a subtle beauty, a beauty that I have not felt in centuries. Every day this emotion brings me closer to who I was; the endless symphony of death has purged my memory clean of its identity. I don’t even remember my real name.

Whomever I was, whatever my identity was, it matters not; for to redeem myself in front of the great wholeness of existence, I must write the present in order to change the future.

    Infinity is a measure

    Eternity a concept

---

Written ~ 1997, Book 1. © Jacob A. Pickard 2025. All rights reserved. This work is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced, republished, excerpted, or used for academic, commercial, or derivative purposes without written permission.