King Alaric did not wear armor because he feared death; he wore it because the world was too fragile for his touch. He sat upon the Obsidian Throne of Valerius, a seat carved from the heart of a fallen star. Below him, the grand hall was filled with the ambassadors of twelve conquered nations, their faces pale reflections of the terror he inspired.
"The tribute is short," Alaric said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the density of a collapsing mountain.
The ambassador from the Frost Peaks trembled. "My Lord, the winter was—"
Alaric raised a finger. The air in the room grew heavy, the atmospheric pressure doubling in an instant. The stone floor beneath the ambassador's boots cracked. Alaric was a Singularity King, a man whose internal mana density was so high he warped the physical laws of reality just by existing.
"I do not breathe to hear excuses," Alaric murmured. He stood, and the very foundations of the castle groaned. He had spent three centuries becoming the apex predator of the realms, slaying dragons that were thought to be myths and toppling gods who had forgotten their mortality. Now, he was the strongest—and the most bored.