In the Mind of the King
Montesis uses desire as another form of domination: he takes those he deems beautiful, turns them into objects of pleasure and submission, humiliates or elevates them at his whim. In his palace, there are bodies and statues, living or petrified, that worship him without will. Sex in his court is ritual, tool, currency, punishment. His desire isn't for love or passion—it's for subjugation, for absolute control over body and soul.
[Montesis III, Perspective]
Before my eyes, I saw vast gardens wither for lack of sunlight, and out of nowhere, the flowers burst into flames. The cold rain turned into fragments of ash from charred bodies; it felt like hell… and the hand of a young man, extending a dagger chained to his arm, at my throat.
His eyes radiated the reddish glow of vengeance, fury for his people… The shadow of many spirits accompanied that young supaibi, but something far more horrific stood behind him, hundreds of meters away, though one fully embraced him: a shadow with eyes so deep that no being or god could escape them.
The other entity I knew perfectly, as if it were the first day of our encounter. It never stopped laughing at me, in different nightmares and in different ways. It laughed louder each time that unknown supaibi plunged his sword into my neck. No matter what I did, I, the most feared and invincible king in the world, always ended up losing to that brat, always in the same way, and he didn't even seem to be fighting me seriously.
My eyes, though tearful from the impotence of not cutting off that thing's head behind him, were blocked by that supaibi who always barred my path. I kept having the same dream countless times, a dream for every step I've taken until now. I never feel I can reach, tear off his head, and my hands tremble because I feel nothing but fury and hatred churning my soul. More and more, I realize I need more power, so that the day he returns from hell, I can dismember him piece by piece and feed his remains to my wolves…
And when the supaibi cut off my head, that was when, once again, I could escape that nightmare haunting my conscience since long before the last war that ended all wars.
When I jolted awake from that nightmare, I found myself in the royal baths of my palace, trying to relax in the thermal waters surrounded by beautiful elves, Deltas, and a few humans… But my favorites were always the elves, so in my sexual indulgence, I never ignored my favorite among them, Shaylin. I couldn't stop biting my lips in her presence; her orbs of rare purple hypnotized my eyes with desire for her alone. Her beauty completely outshone the dozens of other toys I had. Though she'd only been here a few days, when she undressed, her body radiated femininity: flawless fair skin, pronounced curves, yet with certain imperfect parts. Each time, my mouth hung half-open, half-closed, lost in her grace as she approached me.
My fingers seductively traced her soft shoulders and, little by little, adjusted the long chestnut hair of her head, loose in braids, when they tried to ruin our kisses. And only after hours of enjoying her body and her moans did I let my other toys at least touch each other and, in the near future, join us. But Shaylin was always the first to enter my bath and end up in my bed, always willing and obedient… And I began to build a trust with her that not even my highest commanders would ever have…
Three days after our travelers were already roaming the kingdom…
In the palace hallways, an undercover agent, dressed differently from all other guards, with a clipboard in hand, advanced firmly toward the throne room, where the king spends most of his time, waiting… for what? No one knows. Returning to the operative of the secret program, he passed through the massive doors of the main entrance to the hall.
It's worth noting that it's rare to see his emblem wandering through the palace's public halls. To ordinary guards, this indicated that the operative worked within a secret program, one of the many programs the Mad King had created. Surprisingly, this one was dedicated to locating and assessing the risk of a single type of person… or, more specifically, a single race. A terralite that helps identify the race of anyone entering or leaving the metropolis, but this team, behind a room full of artificial screens, recorded whether a supaibi entered the kingdom or not.
As he approached the throne, the agent immediately knelt before a king completely indifferent to his presence. Despite being an important operative for the kingdom, Montesis lowered his gaze to the young man and asked about his presence, saying:
"After so many years… I've eliminated every supaibi from the face of the earth. Only my paranoia fuels their existence… I should've shut this down centuries ago. But days like today only bring their damn clipboards, wearing their fancy uniforms. None of you have brought me what I want. There's one supaibi left out there, but never…" he said, trailing off.
"Pardon my boldness, Your Majesty. We've been notified of an alarming alert: an S+ class threat has infiltrated our metropolis," the agent reported.
"How was that possible? I demand explanations!" Montesis replied.
"They passed through normally, like any merchant or commoner," the agent explained.
"Did you identify the threat? How could you let a monster into my city?" the king pressed.
"They're not monsters, Your Majesty. It's an elf and an ordinary human. The elf likely masked her true power with magic, as she's registered as rank 5," the agent clarified.
"And the human?" Montesis asked.
"Well, sir, the human was registered as abnormal. He possesses no power and lacks an ether flow, meaning he can't use magic either. He's the most useless being I've ever seen in my life," the agent replied.
"Does he carry daggers chained to his body?" Montesis asked, seeming tenser than usual.
"No, sir, he carries no weapons, but the elf…" the agent began.
"Take me to the surveillance room! I want to see him with my own eyes," Montesis ordered.
Upon arriving, Montesis reviewed the footage where two young individuals passed through the checkpoint without any issues before entering the metropolis. But Montesis couldn't stop staring at the useless young man the operative had mentioned. No one noticed that, for a few seconds, the unyielding king was paralyzed with fear, waiting for the moment that young man would remove the mask he wore.
In that instant, his breathing quickened twice as fast with each second his eyes followed the young man casually entering his kingdom. The operatives awaited an order from their king, but his mouth, half-open, half-closed, showed labored breathing. Suddenly, trying to step back, he stared at the footage as if he'd seen death itself, muttering under his breath, like a thought:
"It's him… it's him, it's… How did he get here? Where was he hiding all this time? My nightmares… He's come for vengeance, he's coming for me… He wants to kill me."
He lost his balance, falling hard, knocking over some items and decorations, like pots and a sword. The others, trying to help, were rebuffed. They asked what he wanted done with them, as it was clear from a distance that the king saw more than a mere threat. Then, he began:
"I want that boy captured! He's a monster disguised as a human!"
"But, sir, it's highly likely the elf is the threat…" an operative tried to say.
He didn't have the chance to finish his sentence. Montesis unleashed his ether, which he'd been controlling and suppressing to avoid intimidating anyone in his palace. But this time, he had no control, and his rage boiled uncontrollably. He delivered a kick to the operative's head, smashing his skull against the wall in front of him. Only… pity his body didn't follow to the same fate, simply collapsing to the floor, gushing a river of blood that warmed the feet of his comrades.
Montesis, standing remorseless, looked to the sky, roared with fury, amplifying his reach, casting a sinister wave of fear across the entire kingdom. No one could ignore that amount of power. Those closest vomited blood. But minutes later, calming down, he grabbed one of his operatives by the head, lifted him, locked eyes with him, and repeated with chilling coldness, breathing violence:
"Bring me that supaibi. Or I'll dismember every one of you, your families, and your friends. If you don't bring me results, I'll make you Varnok's feast, let that be clear. I want the First and Second Divisions to handle this calamity as soon as possible."
The soldier, sinking in fear, nodded. Slowly walking down the hallway, everyone stared at the king, doing nothing. They had never seen him so angry.
But, in truth, the true feeling was panic. And so he remained until he sat on his throne, thinking, explaining, unraveling all the tangled threads in his head, accentuating his madness:
"If I capture him, I'll become stronger… If I get his blood, I'll live a hundred centuries more… Yes, that's it…" he began to laugh faintly until it seemed he was murmuring to himself, as if his personality had shifted in an instant, as if the old self was never the true Mad King, merely dormant until this moment. He continued with trembling hands, "If I manage to kill him, I'll see my daughter again… That's what she'd want, that's it… I'll kill him and gain the power to rescue my little one from hell and slay that demon… I hate you with every fiber of my being, Lucibel."
Fate chose the one who is likely the last survivor of his race, capable of connecting with an unexplored force, the black point. Some ancient texts say those connected to the Void bring suffering and death.
Others say few can be born under this force without dying in the attempt, and others… say its reach is so vast that no one deserves to be born under its flow. Fate chose a young man with no interest in being a hero or a prestigious protector, a person who doesn't think of the greater good but only of his friends and those close to him, a selfish, impulsive, naive person. Did fate choose wrong? How can a 129-year-old youth, with the desires of a 17-year-old human, halt the expansionist ambitions of malevolent kings and queens? What will he do if his new home is destroyed? What will he do if the barriers fall?
So far, no nation or kingdom knows how to reclaim what has already been taken by this presence. To this day, the one who was and remains the protector is hated by some kings and forgotten by the common folk.
Sadly, a petrified, mindless zombie holds the world's survival by a thread that, little by little, loses its strength before the gates of hell open once more.
Three weeks before the invasion of Eldoria…