Thaedus was not always a man who looked at his own kind and saw only a terminal illness.
Back when the Empire was just beginning to stretch its limbs, he believed in a leader who promised a glorious future and a name to inspire every Viltrumite yet to be born.
Instead, that leader made a desert and had the audacity to call it peace.
Years ago, he would bet his life on the name Argall, because as a boy he saw a restraint in the Emperor that felt like a foundation for something greater than a graveyard.
He remembered a man who spoke of the Empire not as a blade, but as a shield for the people, a leader who actually seemed to value the weight of a life before he chose to snuff it out.
Back then, Argall possessed a vision that suggested Viltrum could be a light for the galaxy instead of a black hole.
But that restraint was just a long-form delay, a mask of patience that slipped away as the centuries turned into a stagnant pool of arrogance and blood.
Absolute power brought absolute corruption, as if the outcome had always been inevitable.
The man who once looked at the stars with curiosity now only looks at them with the hunger of a landlord, turning a legacy of potential into a repetitive cycle of mindless purging.
It only continued while worlds burned and the weak were erased and the strong were praised, a monstrous cruelty with no goal other than its own existence.
Thaedus sometimes questioned the point of it all, seeing how they started as an evolution but remained a slaughter-obsessed race a millennium later.
The answer was always growth, and the failure lay with the millions who still cling to Argall, mistaking constancy for strength and choosing to stay unchanged.
At times he thought of killing them all and cutting away everything that refused to move, but even a genocide demanded a clarity he hasn't found yet.
Besides, there are powers in the universe with the capacity to replace everything even if the Viltrumites were dead, so a massacre would solve nothing in the long run.
What he needed wasn't a temporary solution or a pile of bodies, but a fundamental shift in the very blood of the species.
To find that, he stooped low and did whatever was necessary to change the trajectory of an entire race before their own arrogance swallowed them whole.
The sound of heavy footsteps pulled him from the stars, and he turned to find Thragg stepping into the chamber with a crimson smear across his chest that wasn't his own.
"Teacher, it is finished, and the last of my brothers has been returned to the dirt."
"Well done, and now we can finally enter the last stage."
Fifteen years ago, a child was born with a potential that exceeded Thaedus himself and even the Emperor, a prince who was the answer to every question Thaedus ever asked.
Absolute strength could only be crushed by its equal, and ridiculous ideologies could only be countered by the extreme force of a superior will.
Thaedus looked at the fifteen-year-old who possessed the cold eyes of a veteran and the poise of an emperor in waiting.
"You did what was necessary to ensure the line remains unbroken, and for that, you surpassed every expectation of the Council."
The boy didn't smile, his gaze fixing on the star-map with a focus that bordered on the fanatical.
""My father calls it a winnowing of the weak, yet I see only a waste of potential that could serve the front lines instead of feeding the pride of a dying throne."
"Indeed, and that is why it must end."
Thaedus felt a spark of genuine satisfaction, realizing his years of effort were finally coming to fruition as the boy's resentment for Argall's stagnant ways began to boil over.
"Your father clings to these purges because he is a man who stopped looking at the horizon a thousand years ago, preferring to burn his own house down just to prove he still holds the torch."
"Teacher..."
"Grow well, little prince, because the throne is waiting for someone who knows how to build a world from the ashes of a father's pride."
The Emperor thought he was securing his legacy by letting his sons kill each other, never realizing he was just training the one who would eventually finish the job on him.
While Thaedus believed that only absolute strength could change their ways, he wouldn't let the Empire risk itself for a second tyrant, and he meant to kill Thragg too if time demanded it.
But clinging only to a desperate hope that Thragg would be the final chess piece wasn't in his nature, especially since a new soldier started to shine just a year ago.
This commander's potential was even more absolute than Thragg's, and coupled with a deep resentment for the Empire, Thaedus knew he needed to bring these two together.
"Thragg, have you met the commander they call Glenn, the one the barracks are full of stories about?"
"I defeated him three years ago, and back then he wasn't much, nearly dying even though I held back."
"Yet he didn't die, and now I doubt you could even scratch him."
The prince remained silent for a long time, his pride clearly struggling against the blunt facts of the older man's assessment.
"You want me to reach out to him, to offer him a place in the world I am going to build once my father's stagnation finally chokes the life out of this throne."
"A leader is only as strong as the legends he commands, and right now, the common soldiers are starting to believe in Glenn more than they believe in the Emperor, even if the boy is unaware of it."
Thaedus didn't confirm it directly, but he adjusted the holographic map to highlight Glenn's recent achievements and an honor score that was abnormal for a boy of fifteen.
"Then I will watch him, and if he proves useful and doesn't stand in my path, I'll see if he is worthy."
"That will do."
"I expect your support in the Council, Teacher."
"I have always been with the future of Viltrum, my Prince."
Thaedus watched the prince leave, knowing that he just lit a fuse that would eventually burn through the very foundation of the Viltrumite Empire.
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The staging deck of Imperial space dockyard A-9 sat under the glare of harsh overheads while the cooling vents of nearby interceptors shook.
For the last three years this dockyard was rarely used as Kraevus did not command it for years so it seemed impossible for the unit to breathe again until the members of A-9 were informed of a new commander.
Virexa stood at the center of the bay with his black iron cane tapping a slow rhythm against the floor.
He was a relic of a thousands wars who saw the Empire grow from a local threat to a galactic plague with a body that served as a roadmap for scars and he achieved that despite being unable to see.
But currently this blind veteran felt a deep pulsing irritation in his marrow because he knew the boy they were waiting for was the same monster who just executed Kraevus to take his place.
One month ago he fought with the boy but to call it a fight would be an understatement as the kid never looked serious throughout the entire exchange.
"Quiet down you navigator brat before I give you a reason to shake."
"Sir Virexa... I was only thinking about the reports."
Solvek clutched his navigation tablet to his chest with white knuckles as his breathing came in shallow hitches that made his thin frame shake from a deep sense of unease and fear.
He was a navigator who could calculate a jump through a collapsing star in seconds yet he could not find a single logical path that led to him surviving the next hour on this docking deck.
Solvek watched Kraevus kill the rest of his team and he knew the only reason he was still breathing was because the fleet still needed at least one pair of hands that knew the star charts.
He wondered if the new Commander would finish what Kraevus started or if he would find the crew incompetent and search for an even more inventive way to erase the survivors of a failed inspection.
If that happened he would die with the few who survived the first slaughter and the thought alone made his palms damp as his heart started to pound harder.
"Lady Carliya... Do you... do you... think he will kill us for being Kraevus' crew... because I heard he has cruel red eyes and whoever looks at him dies."
"I think he won't just kill you because he will start by snapping those twig fingers one by one until you can't even hold that toy and then he will move on to the parts of you that keep you standing."
Carliya let out a roar of a laugh that boomed off the massive steel bulkheads of the dockyard while she flexed her massive scarred forearms until her uniform fabric hissed and strained against the sudden violent pressure of her muscle.
She invaded Solvek's personal space and leaned in until the heat radiating from her skin felt like a furnace against his face almost kissing his cheeks.
She only lived for the high-intensity thrill of a battle because her Viltrumite blood constantly screamed for a target that could actually take a hit without shattering into a thousand pieces.
She did not care about the politics of the command change or the fact that their previous leader was a headless corpse as long as the new one provided enough blood.
"Lady Carliya this is not funny."
"Then you better start counting the seconds you have left or you can just become my pet because that is the only way I will bother protecting you."
Just when Solvek was about to drop the tablet from his hands the blind man reassured him.
"Relax little navigator."
"Sir Virexa."
"I met this one just a month ago and almost put him in the dirt myself so I know exactly what kind of monster we are dealing with."
Carliya looked at the old man and her grin turned into a look of pure disbelief as she shifted her weight.
"You are lying because the only way you touched a talent like that is if he tripped over your pathetic cane while walking toward a real fight."
"I held his throat against the stone while his eyes burned with a rage you could not even comprehend and if my grip was a second tighter the Empire would be looking for a new golden boy that day."
"Is that right then why is he the one with the fleet and you are the one with the stick or did you just forget to finish the job because you were too busy smelling the air like a dog."
"Nasty bitch you don't even know how to respect your superior and that commander of yours was not a match for my instincts."
"Quiet you blind fuck it is impossible you could defeat him when you did not even have the spine to move against Kraevus."
"That is because Kraevus never fought me and you would not understand the nature of a real man which is probably why no man looks twice at you."
"You want to die."
"Try me and see if age made my strike any softer than your skull."
Solvek looked at these people who were about to kill each other and did not know what to do to stop the incoming disaster.
"Hey... we still have a ceremony to welcome our new commander."
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(End of the chapter)