Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 134: The Madness of Kings

Chapter 134: The Madness of Kings

The madness began as whispers in the void.

Reed watched the tactical display with growing horror as red markers proliferated across the dimensional map like a spreading infection. Each marker represented a reality that had gone silent—not destroyed, not conquered, but emptied. Kaedon had escaped his dimensional prison seventy-two hours ago, and in that brief span, he had already visited fourteen separate realities.

None of them had survivors.

"Status report on Sector 47," Reed commanded, his voice hoarse from sleepless nights and endless tactical briefings.

Lieutenant Commander Axis manipulated the holographic display, zooming in on what had once been the thriving industrial hub of New Kepler. "Population of 2.3 billion confirmed... present. All life signs stable. All neural activity..." He paused, swallowing hard. "Zero."

Reed closed his eyes, feeling the familiar weight of impossible grief. 2.3 billion people walking, breathing, eating, sleeping—but no longer thinking, feeling, or dreaming. They moved through their daily routines with mechanical precision, their bodies functioning perfectly while their minds had been surgically removed by a five-year-old child who believed he was showing them mercy.

"Sir," Communications Officer Vale called out, "we’re receiving a transmission from Reality Fragment 23. It’s... it’s from Kaedon himself."

Reed’s blood turned to ice. Direct communication from his youngest son could only mean one thing—the boy was ready to share his twisted revelation with the universe.

"Put him through."

The holographic display flickered, then resolved into an image that carved itself into Reed’s soul with surgical precision. Kaedon stood in what had once been the Grand Plaza of Meridian Prime, surrounded by thousands of empty-eyed figures who moved in perfect synchronization. The child’s small form radiated power that bent reality around him like heated glass, but it was his expression that truly terrified Reed—the serene smile of someone who had discovered absolute truth and found it beautiful.

"Hello, Father," Kaedon said, his child’s voice carrying harmonics that resonated across multiple dimensions. "I wanted to show you what peace looks like."

Reed forced himself to speak. "Son, what you’re doing... these people aren’t at peace. They’re—"

"They’re perfect," Kaedon interrupted, gesturing to the synchronized masses around him. "No more suffering, no more doubt, no more of the terrible weight of consciousness that drove them to hurt each other. Look at them, Father. Really look."

Reed did look, and what he saw made his sanity fracture at the edges. The emptied humans moved with inhuman precision, their faces blank but content. They performed their daily tasks without complaint, without conflict, without any of the messy complications that came with free will. It was a paradise of order that would have made Lyralei proud.

"They were in such pain before," Kaedon continued, walking through the crowd like a shepherd among sheep. "I could feel every thought, every fear, every moment of despair. So I took it all away. Now they’re free."

"This isn’t freedom," Reed whispered. "This is death. You’ve killed them without letting their bodies die."

Kaedon’s smile widened, and for a moment Reed saw something that chilled him to the bone—not the confused compassion of a child trying to help, but the cold satisfaction of someone who had found their true calling.

"Death is just another form of suffering, Father. This is better. This is mercy."

The transmission shifted perspective, showing aerial views of dozens of realities that Kaedon had "blessed" with his presence. World after world of empty shells going through the motions of existence without the spark of consciousness that made them human. The Silent Worlds, as the intelligence reports had begun calling them—entire civilizations reduced to biological automatons.

"I can fix everything," Kaedon said, his voice taking on the fervent quality of a true believer. "Every war, every broken heart, every moment of pain or fear or doubt. I can take it all away and give everyone the peace they truly deserve."

Reed watched his son spread his arms wide, embracing the magnitude of his delusion. This wasn’t the accidental mercy-killing of his first rampage—this was systematic, calculated genocide on a multiversal scale, carried out by a child who genuinely believed he was saving everyone.

"Kaedon," Reed said desperately, "you have to stop. What you’re doing isn’t healing—it’s—"

The transmission cut to static, leaving Reed staring at empty air and the terrible certainty that his youngest child had become something far worse than any enemy they had ever faced.

"Sir," Axis reported, "we’re detecting massive dimensional disturbances in Sector 12. It’s... it’s Vexara."

Reed’s heart stopped. His three-year-old daughter, locked away in her own dimensional prison to prevent her nightmare-spawned creatures from consuming reality. If she was breaking free now, with Kaedon already loose...

"Show me," Reed commanded.

The display shifted to reveal a scene that belonged in the deepest circles of hell. Vexara stood in the center of what had once been her "sanctuary," her small form wreathed in shadows that writhed with malevolent life. Around her, the air itself was giving birth to horrors—creatures torn from the nightmares of a traumatized child and given flesh by powers that should never have existed.

But these weren’t the confused, pathetic monsters from her earlier manifestations. These Void Horrors moved with purpose, their forms streamlined by evolution and malice. They had learned to hunt, to coordinate, to think. And at their center stood Vexara herself, no longer the frightened little girl who had accidentally unleashed her fears upon the world.

"Brother," she called out, her voice carrying across dimensional barriers with supernatural clarity, "I know you can hear me. What you’re doing is wrong."

Reed watched as his daughter raised her small hands, reality bending around her in ways that made his eyes water. She was trying to reach Kaedon, to stop his rampage before it consumed everything they had left.

But the moment her power touched the edges of his psychic field, something catastrophic happened.

The Twin Catastrophe began as a point of light no larger than a pinhead, suspended in the space between dimensions. But as Kaedon’s consciousness-erasing abilities met Vexara’s reality-warping nightmares, that point began to expand with terrifying speed.

Reed watched in horror as a permanent wound opened in the fabric of existence itself—not a temporary breach that could be sealed, but a fundamental flaw that would spread and corrupt everything it touched. Through the wound, he could see glimpses of realities that had never been meant to exist: worlds where physics operated according to nightmare logic, where consciousness and matter were interchangeable, where the very concept of existence had become fluid and negotiable.

"Emergency containment protocols!" Reed shouted. "All available units to dimensional breach sites! We need to—"

"Sir," Vale interrupted, "priority transmission from the Void Wardens. They’re... they’re requesting an alliance."

Reed felt his world shift on its axis. The Void Wardens—the fanatic order that had once served as the Confluence’s religious police, hunting down dimensional heretics and reality-crime with ruthless efficiency. They had been among his most bitter enemies during the civil war, viewing him as a corruptive influence on their pure empress.

Now they were asking for his help.

"Put them through."

The hologram resolved into the scarred features of Warden-Commander Voss, a man whose face looked like it had been carved from granite and disappointment. His ceremonial armor was cracked and stained with substances that hurt to look at directly—souvenirs from battles against horrors that conventional weapons couldn’t touch.

"Lord Reed," Voss said, his voice carrying the weight of desperate pragmatism. "I formally request alliance between our remaining forces. The theological implications can be debated later. Right now, we need to contain your children before they unmake reality itself."

Reed stared at the man who had once tried to have him executed for heresy. "What are you offering?"

"Seventeen remaining Void Wardens, each trained in reality-binding techniques. Three functioning Null-class containment vessels. And this—" Voss held up a crystalline device that pulsed with inner light. "A Consciousness Anchor. It can temporarily stabilize psychic fields, prevent them from spreading beyond a localized area."

"What do you want in return?"

Voss’s expression grew grim. "Help us kill your children before they destroy everything we’ve ever loved."

The words hit Reed like a physical blow. Kill his children—the innocent victims of cosmic forces beyond their understanding, who had been transformed into weapons of mass destruction through no fault of their own. But as he looked at the tactical display, at the spreading markers of emptied worlds and nightmare-spawned horrors, Reed realized that Voss might be right.

Love wasn’t enough anymore. Mercy had become a luxury the universe could no longer afford.

"Alliance granted," Reed said quietly. "What’s the plan?"

Before Voss could answer, alarms began screaming throughout the command center. "Sir," Axis called out, "massive energy signature approaching from Sector 1. It’s... it’s the Empress. She’s moving with a full battle fleet."

Reed’s blood turned to ice as the main display showed Lyralei’s armada emerging from dimensional fold-space. Dozens of reality-scarred warships surrounded her flagship—a massive construct that seemed to exist in several dimensions simultaneously. But it was the tactical formation that made Reed’s strategist mind recoil in horror.

She was positioning her forces to exploit the Twin Catastrophe, using his children’s uncontrolled powers as weapons in her grand design.

"She’s not trying to stop them," Reed breathed. "She’s going to use them."

The transmission from Lyralei’s flagship crackled to life, revealing the Crimson Tyrant in all her terrible glory. Her transformation had progressed further—her skin now possessed an opalescent quality that shifted between dimensions, her eyes burned with fires that seemed to consume light itself, and her smile held the cold perfection of someone who had discovered that cruelty could be an art form.

"Hello, my beloved," she said, her voice carrying harmonics that made reality itself vibrate. "Welcome to the Siege of Broken Mirrors."

Reed watched in growing horror as her fleet moved into position around the dimensional breach. But she wasn’t trying to contain it—she was amplifying it, using technological horrors that turned his children’s powers against each other.

"You see," Lyralei continued conversationally, "I’ve learned to appreciate the elegance of using chaos to create order. Kaedon’s consciousness plague and Vexara’s reality-warping abilities are quite useful when properly directed. They’re going to help me remake the universe exactly as it should be."

Through the tactical display, Reed could see the results of her strategy. Wherever Kaedon’s emptied masses encountered Vexara’s escaped nightmares, the resulting conflicts created dimensional instabilities that Lyralei’s forces could exploit. She was turning his children into unwitting generals in her war against free will itself.

"Sir," Vale called out urgently, "incoming transmission from Reality Fragment 7. It’s High Arbiter Zenith—he’s requesting immediate evacuation assistance."

Reed felt his heart sink. Zenith—the ancient mediator who had spent centuries resolving conflicts between dimensional factions through pure diplomatic skill. If he was calling for help, it meant the situation had progressed beyond political solutions.

"Put him through."

The hologram flickered, revealing Zenith’s normally composed features twisted with panic. Behind him, Reed could see the chaos of what had once been the Neutral Embassy—a pocket dimension designed to facilitate peace negotiations between warring factions.

"Reed," Zenith gasped, "I tried to establish communication with the entities. Both children, the nightmare constructs, even the presence in the void. I thought... I thought diplomatic solutions might still be possible."

Reed watched as something massive moved in the shadows behind Zenith—one of Vexara’s escaped Void Horrors, but larger and more coherent than any they had seen before. This one had been feeding on the psychic energy of failed negotiations, growing stronger with each diplomatic breakdown.

"Get out of there," Reed commanded. "We’ll send extraction—"

"Too late," Zenith said, his voice taking on an odd, dreamy quality. "It’s beautiful, actually. The way consciousness tastes when it’s refined by centuries of mediating between impossible positions. It’s... it’s..."

Reed watched in horror as the Void Horror behind Zenith opened what might have been a mouth—or perhaps a door to somewhere that had never existed. High Arbiter Zenith simply walked backward into it, his expression shifting from panic to serene acceptance as he was devoured not just physically, but conceptually.

When it was over, there was no body, no blood, no trace that Zenith had ever existed. The universe itself seemed to forget that there had ever been a High Arbiter, reality editing out his presence with surgical precision.

The transmission cut to static, leaving Reed staring at empty air and the terrible realization that they had just lost their last hope of a peaceful solution.

"Sir," Axis whispered, "what do we do?"

Reed looked around the command center at the faces of officers who had followed him through impossible battles, at former enemies who had become desperate allies, at the tactical display showing his children’s powers being weaponized by the woman he had once loved.

"We do what we have to," Reed said quietly. "We stop this nightmare before it consumes everything."

But even as he spoke the words, Reed felt the weight of an impossible choice settling on his shoulders. To save the universe, he might have to destroy his own children. To stop the Crimson Tyrant, he might have to become something just as monstrous.

And somewhere in the void between realities, something vast and hungry was watching it all unfold, waiting for the perfect moment to collect on a debt that would cost them everything.

The main display suddenly went dark, plunging the command center into emergency lighting. When the screens flickered back to life, they showed a single message that made Reed’s blood turn to ice:

"THE GAME IS ENTERING ITS FINAL PHASE. ARE YOU READY TO PLAY?"

Reed realized with growing horror that everything—the children’s escape, the Twin Catastrophe, Lyralei’s siege, even his alliance with the Void Wardens—had been exactly what the entity wanted.

They weren’t players in this cosmic game.

They were the pieces being moved toward checkmate.