The Citadel of a Fallen World. Vorlag's POV.
The citadel was burning.
Flames licked at the stone walls, blackening the ancient carvings, consuming the banners that had once flown from the highest towers. The fire spread slowly, methodically, the way fire spreads when there is no one left to stop it. Bodies lay scattered across the courtyard—guardians, warriors, servants, children. They had fought well. They had died anyway.
Vorlag stood at the center of the carnage, his vessel's feet planted on the blood-soaked stone.
He had been in this world for years.
Not this body—this body was new, forged from the flesh of a warrior he had killed in the first year of his conquest. The original vessel had worn out, burned through, discarded like a broken tool. This one was stronger. This one would last. He had chosen it carefully, shaped it carefully, molded it into something that could contain him without crumbling.
Around him, the last of the guardians fell.
A woman, young, her armor cracked, her sword broken, her shield shattered. She crawled toward him across the stone floor, dragging herself through the blood of her comrades, her eyes wet with tears and hate.
"Why?" she whispered.
Vorlag looked down at her. Her face was young—younger than the others. She had been a child when he first came to this world. She had grown up fighting him. She had grown up watching her friends die, her family die, her hope die.
He had watched her grow. He had watched her fight. He had watched her fail.
"Because I can," he said.
He raised his hand. The light went out. She died.
---
The world was his.
He had conquered it slowly, methodically, over years. He had not rushed. He had not needed to. There was no Aldric here, no vessel to steal his attention, no challenge that required his full focus.No Grog to hinder his conquest.
He had built an army from the broken remnants of this world's people—those who had been too afraid to fight, those who had been too desperate to refuse, those who had seen the writing on the walls and chosen survival over honor. He had corrupted the guardians one by one, turning them against each other, making them doubt, making them fear. He had broken the kingdoms one by one, burning cities, shattering alliances, crushing hope.
Now the last citadel was burning. The last king was dead. The last guardian was cold on the stones.
Vorlag stood alone in the courtyard, surrounded by the bodies of his enemies.
The fire warmed his face. The smoke filled his lungs. The silence was absolute.
He closed his eyes.
---
Aldric.
The name echoed in his mind, a whisper, a pulse, a thread that had been cut. He reached for it—reached through the void between worlds, through the space where time had no meaning and distance had no measure. He had been reaching for it for days. Weeks. Months.
Nothing.
The connection was broken. The vessel was gone. Not dead—Vorlag would have felt that. The thread would have snapped, would have recoiled, would have left a wound. There was no wound.
Just silence.
Aldric was alive. Somewhere. Trapped in another world, perhaps. Hidden. Waiting.
Vorlag opened his eyes.
In this world, he had been Vorlag the Conqueror. Brutal. Direct. A hammer that had smashed everything in its path. He had ruled through fear, through strength, through the simple truth that no one in this world could stand against him.
But there were other versions of him. In other worlds. Living other lives.
Some of them were brutal like him. Some were cunning. Some were patient, waiting years for the right moment to strike. Some had already conquered their worlds. Some were still fighting. Some were still planning.
Each was Vorlag. Each was him.
---
The web of minds stretched across the void.
He could feel them—the other versions of himself—separate, independent, living their own lives. They communicated across worlds, not through words, through something deeper. A shared consciousness, a network of thoughts that connected each copy to the others.
When one learned something, they all learned it. When one felt something, they all felt it.
If one of them found Aldric, they all would.
Vorlag opened a portal.
Not to walk through—he did not need to walk. He could open portals, could send vessels through them, could conquer new worlds with his armies. But that was slow. That was inefficient. That was not how he spread.
He spread through copies. Through the web. Through the endless replication of his mind into new vessels, new worlds, new conquests.
The vessel in this world would remain here, ruling the fallen citadel, maintaining the conquest. Other vessels, in other worlds, were doing the same. Some were conquering. Some were ruling. Some were planning.
One of them would find Aldric.
---
Where are you? he whispered.
There was no answer.
The portal flickered. The connection pulsed. He reached through the void, searching, searching, searching. Nothing.
But he was patient. He had always been patient. He had waited centuries for Aldric to be born, to grow, to become the vessel he needed. He had waited through the old timeline, through the battle, through the moment when Aldric had refused him.
He could wait longer.
The portal closed.
Vorlag turned away from the burning citadel. The conquest was complete. The world was his. The people who remained would serve him. The people who resisted would die. That was the way of things. That was the way of Vorlag.
But there were other worlds. There was always another world.
He smiled.
"Find him," he said.
Not to anyone. Not to anything. Just to himself.
The many versions of himself.
The web of minds stretched across the void.
Somewhere, Aldric would be found.