The industrial elevator brought him to the top of the governor’s palace, and the doors opened, leading into the empty hallway. Many nations would find it inconceivable to leave their rulers without bodyguards for even a moment. And they’d be right. Too many had fallen to an assassin’s blade or a well-placed shot from a sniper rifle. No matter how adept a politician might believe himself to be in the arts of war, they all slip at some point and step too close to a window. Bodyguards were a necessity.

But the difference between his friend and other people was that his friend could and did survive his occasional mistakes. Yet, as his legs thundered across the simple stone floor, the eeriness of this place dawned on him.

Where are the scribes? Secretaries, advisors, scientists, military officers, emissaries from other lands, priests vying for promotion or begging the president to proclaim his divine heritage at last. Lord Steward wasn’t a reclusive man, and he had never abandoned his rule for weeks before.

Dominator passed through the corridor, his body covered by the ancient battle plate from the Pre-Extinction era. It had a wide array of sensors, both letting his eyes have an omnidirectional view and coordinating massive battle groups right in the middle of a war. He turned them all off, relying on the simple silver lens of his round helmet. He lifted his arm, and armored fingers the length of a human torso touched the cracks in a wall.

The war’s scars still permeated this place. Pebbles cracked beneath his greaves, and dust drifted down, stirred by the echo of his footsteps. The old governor had his private chambers here. After his death, they were emptied of everything. Statues were sent to museums, letters to bureaucrats, and personal belongings to his family. As a sign of solidarity and care for the people, this unimportant area will be repaired last, and the Supreme General thought it appropriate. Resources are best spent elsewhere.

Dominator raised a fist to pound on the door, but it came apart at his touch. A ripple raced across the metal surface. The intrinsic golden pattern of the proud nation’s emblem was sucked into the metal, revealing itself as a membrane that shrank away from his touch. It didn’t even surprise him anymore. At the onset of the Extinction, when he was confined to a surgeon’s table, a piece of glow granted him the absolute negation.

His mere presence reversed anomalies in reality or stopped accelerated aging. Anything done by a power he undid. Silly people called him the strongest and most blessed of all Blessed. Foolishness. Powers made themselves an integral part of the world. His presence interrupted a precognition from working. Blessed healers near him suddenly found themselves unable to grant regeneration. Those wielding long-range elemental offensive abilities could no longer hurl death at a foe. It made him more of a liability than an asset. Then again, few lived as long as he did. In time, they’ll learn that an individual’s power is nothing, and it’s his duty to protect the people of his nation until that dawn comes.

The hall inside wasn’t barren by any means. Rich carpets covered it, stretching through the entire floor, somehow pristinely clear. No sign of rubble was in sight; gorgeous marble led to a spacious bed, hidden from view by purple silk flowing from long golden bedposts. Four long tables separated the room, each bearing exquisite dishes and fiery drinks. Antique lamps stood on long poles, casting soft electric light everywhere, and shadows danced on the walls.

Women’s laughter filled the room, and elegant ladies of all races rested on the carpets, swapping drinks and chatting mindlessly. The sun, shining from a single enormous window on the other side of the hall, cast a kaleidoscope of light on the bed through its cathedral glass. And Dominator heard labored breaths inside the purple tent and a soft rustle of sheets as the man and women there had the time of their lives.

His life, he corrected himself, as a naked lady to his left disappeared into the floor, the carpet, and a pool of rough stone circle spread around his feet. The hall was still empty. His abilities brought to reality beautiful dishes and furniture, created lights through chemical reactions burning in living tubes, and even made something as complex as human bodies real.

“Stay where you are, Dominator!” The women spoke in unison, and Lord Steward stepped through the silk. He accepted a bucket of water that grew on an elegant, black-skinned lady’s hand and washed off sweat and other secretions. The carpet absorbed the water, never getting wet.

“I thought you promised to be faithful to your wife,” Dominator accused him. Lord Steward married after the war, and his lady bore a life under his heart. A life he had sown. No man should enter a sacred union and cheat.

“And I am!” Lord Steward and the women replied. “Since none of my creations has any mind but my own, this paltry affair is little more than an extreme form of masturbation. A human has urges, my friend; it is why we allow brothels to operate.”

“And yet soldiers serve for years without tasting a woman’s touch. You can’t even last a month. Spare me your excuses for degeneracy,” Dominator told him. “Why have you shut yourself away?”

“I have ventured too far,” Lord Steward answered. He turned his back on Dominator and stepped to the window. “When I fought that filth, I changed my very brain, obtaining the characteristics of an insect. All I could think of was feeding, hunting, and breeding. One monster fell, and another almost took its place. I needed time to reevaluate and calm my fears.”

“Pull yourself together,” Dominator snarled. He heard the sound of twisting flesh and lifted his head.

A web of organic cocoons nestled above them. Veins contorted on the walls, almost soundlessly carrying nourishment to the people floating inside the pale orbs. Not all of them had bodies; some were little more than brains and spines, while others curled into a disgusting parody of a human fetus preparing to be born. These were the Numbers and shamblers captured by Lord Steward.

The president-elect had turned the entire place into a mobile bio-clinic. Or laboratory. Dominator traced a web spreading from the carpets connected to Lord Steward’s legs. It went to the veins and then to the orbs. Some of the flesh containers were empty; others served as temporary receptacles for the pus and venom from the suspended bodies. A surge of blood left a half-finished body, carrying greenish blood, and more appendages grew from outside the cocoon, connecting to the body, grafting up flesh, and recreating the body. Lord Steward’s own cell worked inside the ruined body, tissue by tissue, either removing the sickness left by the Chosen Prince, or purging a Number.

Brain lobes hung between the cocoons, their exposed gray matter pulsing. Huge — larger than the average man — these lobes thrived in the open air. Lord Steward once explained to Dominator that there is a limit to what a single mind can do. He circumvented this limitation by exceeding the natural number of organs and creating specialized mind-matter that could perform calculations and make adjustments at speeds approaching those of modern super-terminals. Green appendages rose from the lobes’ wrinkles, each ending in an eye observing the patients, detecting the tiniest appearance of necrosis or sores and healing it on the spot.

Nothing here was automatic. As he spoke, as he soothed himself through pleasure, Lord Steward orchestrated this hideous theater of restoration, thinking through solutions, rejecting some, trying others. When it came to multitasking and ideation, only Artificer and Lada were ahead of the president-elect.

“Why are they still here?” the general asked, taking a step back so as not to destroy the arteries keeping the people alive.

“Most complicated cases. Worry not, they sleep and won’t be spreading rumors of my debauchery,” Lord Steward chuckled. A stalk rose from the carpet, sprouting a crimson flower nestling a brain in its center. A biologically translucent pellicle covered it, akin to a protective shell. “Take this one, for example. Her name is Zeudi, and she is a waitress from a border hamlet. There’s nothing special about the girl herself…” His hand gently touched the pellicle. “…and Maxi-Bitch is burrowed into her conscience. You know, Iterna had a curious theory. What if they collect Numbers, one by one, put them in a coma…”

“No,” Dominator stated, clenching his fists. “I know of the theory, and it didn’t work. One was supposedly held captive, and she manifested herself again, somehow escaping the previous hope. Either liberate the girl, or I’ll kill her. Don’t let her suffer slavery.”

“Stay where you are. This is an order general,” Lord Steward commanded in a steely voice. “The Iterna plague imprints itself in the very DNA, hiding in plain sight, mocking, capable of spreading again from a single point. It’ll be so easy to brute-force it, to scour away every false cell and undo the damage I’d do in the process. But that would cause side effects and change her personality in more ways than one. Even a single alteration can cause psychosis or unconditional love. She is just a waitress, not a person of great importance, and I have much to learn from this process. Would it be right for me to experiment in order to better help others? Of course not. This is the mindset that allowed the destruction of the Old World. Some rules must not be broken. An open door invites the opening of another, and that is a path I refuse to tread. Either Zeudi wakes up her own person, free of horror, or not at all. I’ll take as much time as I need to cure her and the rest safely.”

“Shove your tests down your ass.” Dominator’s eyes narrowed. Lord Steward had always played the same game, testing the morality of everyone around him. He got this from Un, no doubt. “Play into a miracle worker all you want; just don’t forget your other duties. A country needs a leader. Why did you allow Abel to accept the icicles’ offer? The chapters stood ready to receive the fresh supplicants. Those too frail to become templars or crusaders could’ve joined the military later.”

“Children of this age should not be pushed into accepting a religion.” Lord Steward glanced at him. “These children are hurt, disoriented, and vulnerable, eager to seek and imagine answers. Do you want a second Purification to occur? Because this is how we get one.”

Dominator took the accusation in stride. Lord Steward left his back exposed. The man waited for him to make his first move. And he will never make it. No, the burden of leadership was passed to Lord Steward. All he will do is help him carry it.

The Purification. Now here was a reminder of the past. Shortly after Un’s death, a group of Worthy Ones allied themselves with the military and plotted a coup. Their agents infiltrated every level, convincing both low-ranking and high-ranking officials of the need to accept drastic measures, pointing out how Lord Steward wasn’t as devout as the Taker of Oaths. They planned a nationwide purge, slaughtering every non-believer and forcing everyone to make a choice: either take the Oath or die. Their so-called Brotherhood had killed several people who refused the offer. And in their idiocy, they planned to install Dominator as the new president and high priest.

Dominator did what he had to do. The Brotherhood was no more.

“We resolved the crisis,” he growled. “Nothing got out of hand.”

“Did it?” Lord Steward inquired. “What about the betrayal that happened mere weeks ago? No, my friend. Faith is a double-edged sword. Fail to understand teachings, embrace dogma, and receive a receipt for disaster. I hate Un, but the old man was right about letting people choose whether to believe or not. It is foolish to risk conflagration for a minuscule gain. Abel is holier than both of us, and I trust his vision. The decision stands.”

“The Reclaimers may try to turn the kids against us,” Dominator warned.

“They certainly will, unless they are fools.” Lord Steward inclined his head. “We shall meet this challenge as we always do, through demonstration of why our way is superior. But this isn’t the only thing bothering you.”

“No,” Dominator agreed. “Working with those guys… It doesn’t sit well with me. You should not trust them.”

He didn’t need to elaborate. The mysterious group of people who had arrived during the invasion of the Chosen Prince. Their representative, a man going by the moniker of Academician, had promised to stall the Reclamation Army long enough for Lord Steward to complete the Oathtakers-Iterna negotiations and prevent a possible invasion.

Time was of the essence, and Lord Steward accepted the deal without consulting either Hive or Dominator. He later revealed the details of their cooperation, and while Hive seemed to be fooled by it, the general was not. Academician. A name from the past. A scumbag who had worked for a company dedicated to creating the perfect biological soldier. Dominator remembered well the scandal that had happened prior to the Extinction.

The company didn’t just make bioweapons. It created sentient life forms and then slaughtered them, one by one, when they failed to live up to its expectations. That girl serving Iterna, Eugenia, had been involved in this whole affair, along with her school gang. The sheer brutality and inhuman treatment of living creatures shocked the world, and everyone expected the company to receive a cease-and-desist order and everyone involved to end up in prison.

Then the Extinction struck, wiping out most of the world. And now a man bearing the sadist’s name has reappeared. Dominator saw him once. Behind all his honeyed words, there was rage. He had almost popped the bastard’s head between his fingers, but Lord Steward forbade it. They needed allies and paid for help with the materials. They gave up enough supplies to build a city or two.

But what if the cure was deadlier than the disease? He resented this alliance. The Chosen Prince, a Blessed who had never shown any aptitude for S-Class in his time as a Stonehelm knight, had returned stronger than ever, and a scientist whose field of work was the creation of bioweapons arrived almost at the same time to offer his help in solving the crisis.

Dominator could put two and two together.

“I’d be a fool if I did.” Lord Steward looked at the Stonehelm. “We are weakened. Even if they can’t deliver what was promised, the result of our arrangement played in our favor. And if they can… Iterna… the Land of the Oath…” His eyes narrowed. “This world has no need for the Reclamation Army and its expansion. One rabid beast to take out another.”

“Take care not to get bitten, LS,” the general warned him.

“The safety of our people is of paramount importance to me, Dominator,” Lord Steward assured him. “Yet I see the hidden notion in your words. Worry not. We will never stoop to their level. The Reclaimers deserve to be unchained, not exterminated. If all goes well, the political map of the world will be rearranged. Most of them. And when the time comes…” A small copy of Academician rose on his palm, and Lord Steward’s jaws distended and snapped at the figure, biting it in two. “We shall devour all who have harmed our people. Have a little faith, my friend. Justice will be done.”