The subterranean execution chamber stank of scorched ozone, vaporized blood, and charred bone.

Puddles of crimson gathered in the depressions of the cracked stone floor, reflecting the flickering, dying light of the wall torches.

Emperor Aurelius stood in the center of the carnage. The golden, blinding light of his solar mana slowly receded beneath his skin, leaving the cavernous room plunged back into a suffocating gloom.

His pristine white-and-gold robes were ruined, soaked completely in the blood of the elves, dwarves, and slaves he had just butchered in his fit of madness.

Aurelius lowered his hand. He stared at the massive man standing casually in the shadows.

"A plan," Aurelius echoed. His voice was a low, terrifying rumble that promised immediate violence. "You infiltrate my deepest dungeon. You watch me execute these traitors. And you offer a plan? The Guild Head of Silverwood playing tactician for the Central Empire. I should incinerate you where you stand."

Garrick chuckled. The sound was deep and resonant, vibrating in his massive chest. He wore a simple, tattered martial arts gi. He stood with his heavily scarred arms crossed over his chest, completely unbothered by the gore staining the stones beneath his straw sandals or the 7th-Order pressure radiating from the Emperor.

"You could try to incinerate me," Garrick said, a mocking smirk playing on his lips. "We fought for three days and three nights decades ago, Aurelius. You couldn’t burn me to ash then. You certainly cannot do it now while blinded by grief. Your mind is a mess. You are leaking mana like a cracked vase."

Aurelius’s eyes narrowed. The ambient temperature in the dungeon spiked immediately. The blood pooling on the floor began to hiss and boil.

"Watch your tongue, brawler. You are speaking to the Emperor."

"I am speaking to a grieving father about to make a fatal mistake," Garrick countered flatly. He uncrossed his arms and stepped over the charred remains of a dwarven merchant. "You want to march the Imperial Army East. You want to flatten Sunfire Gorge, burn the Silver Woods to sawdust, and melt the Iron Mountains to slag."

"I will unite this continent!" Aurelius roared, the madness returning to his eyes. "I will mount Damien Voss’s head on my highest spire to avenge Nero!"

"You will march your men into a meat grinder," Garrick stated. The cold, blunt reality of his words cut through the Emperor’s rage. "Look at the board, Aurelius. Damien Voss holds the dwarven mechs. He commands the Elven Rangers. He just assimilated fifty thousand of your own elite troops at the capital. If you cross that border today, you face an entrenched, unified enemy led by three Demigod-level threats. Theron, Elizabeth, and the boy. Your army will be slaughtered."

Aurelius ground his teeth together. The muscles in his jaw bulged. He knew Garrick was right. The Voss family had consolidated power too quickly. A direct frontal assault against the united Eastern continent was strategic suicide. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"So," Aurelius hissed, his golden eyes locking onto the King of Fists. "What is your grand plan? How do I crush them?"

"We use the vermin," Garrick pointed a massive finger upward, gesturing toward the world above. "The Twilight Association. The Void Cultists."

Aurelius stared at him in sheer disbelief.

"You suggest I ally with the Abyss?" Aurelius spat, disgust dripping from every syllable. "Those fanatics destroyed the Dragon Capital. They summoned a Demon General and vaporized millions. They are a cancer on reality!"

"I suggest you let the cancer eat your enemies," Garrick smiled, his scarred face twisting into a predator’s grin. "The Cultists are currently scattered, desperate, and hungry. They want to tear down the world to summon their Void God. They have the numbers, the suicidal fanaticism, and the chaotic rituals. We supply them."

Garrick paced around the execution block, his heavy footsteps splashing in the blood.

"We open the hidden leylines in the neutral zones. We leak weapon caches to their remaining Arch-Priests. We funnel their rabble directly toward the borders of the Dragon Empire. Let them swarm the Voss family. Let Theron and the boy waste their mana and their troops fighting a tidal wave of madmen."

"And then they overrun us," Aurelius countered, his solar mana flaring defensively. "If the Cultists gain a foothold, they will summon more Demon Generals. They will bring Azazel into this world. I will not hand my Empire to demons."

"They won’t summon anything," Garrick stopped pacing. He looked directly at the Emperor, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying, calculated ambition.

"Because we are going to lock the door behind them."

Aurelius frowned, the boiling blood around his boots popping and hissing. "Speak plainly."

"Decades ago, I studied the ancient texts of the First Era," Garrick explained, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I understand how the heavens connect to Elias. I understand how the Gods operate. They are cowards, Aurelius. They fear the Void more than anything."

Garrick took a step closer, towering over the blood-soaked monarch.

"Think back to the Academy tournament. When the Abyss Gate ruptured beneath the island, what did the Heavens do? They cast a Divine Quarantine. They sealed the sky with an impenetrable golden dome to trap the corruption inside. A physical manifestation of Divine Law that prevented anything from getting in or out."

Aurelius remembered. He remembered hurling his strongest 7th-Order lightning spears at that golden dome, only to watch them disintegrate into white butterflies. The barrier had been absolute.

"I know how to trigger that quarantine on a planetary scale," Garrick stated.

The dungeon went perfectly silent. Even the dying fires seemed to hold their breath.

"If we allow the Cultists to unleash enough concentrated Void energy at specific convergence points across the continent," Garrick continued, "the Heavens will panic. The Gods will initiate a permanent planetary quarantine to save their own realm from the corruption. The connection between the world of Elias and the Heavens will be severed completely."

Aurelius’s breath hitched. A world cut off from the Gods. A locked cage floating in the cosmos.

"Once the quarantine falls, reality locks down," Garrick pressed, tracing a massive circle in the air with his scarred hand. "No divine intervention.

No miracles for the Church of Light. No descending avatars. And most importantly, the Cultists lose their connection to the Abyss. The dimensional tears seal shut. Their source of power dries up permanently."

Garrick grinned, showing his teeth.

"The Void worshippers become nothing more than rabble with rusted swords. The Voss family will be trapped in a grinding war of attrition against millions of starving, powerless fanatics. They will bleed each other dry."

"And we?" Aurelius asked. The golden light of his solar mana returned in full force, illuminating the cavernous execution chamber. A manic thrill began to course through his veins.

"We sweep the board," Garrick said softly. "With the Gods locked out and the Demons cut off, magic fades. The supernatural anomalies disappear. The strongest mortals rule. The Central Empire marches its fresh, untouched legions across the ashes of the East, dominating the continent at once."

Aurelius stared at the massive brawler. The strategy was flawless. It was cruel, utterly pragmatic, and promised absolute dominion. It promised the slow, agonizing destruction of the Voss bloodline.

But Aurelius was an Emperor. He had survived fifty years on a throne surrounded by vipers by trusting absolutely no one.

"A brilliant strategy," Aurelius whispered, the heat in the room rising to a suffocating level. "It hands me the world. It hands me my vengeance. But why?"

Aurelius pointed a blood-stained finger at Garrick’s chest.

"You ran with Theron Voss. You were one of the Five Kings. You fought beside him, drank with him, bled with him. Why approach me? Why hand me the blade to cut his throat?"

Garrick’s face darkened instantly. The playful, confident smirk vanished from his lips, replaced by a cold, hardened grimace of pure resentment. The muscles in his neck bulged, and the sheer physical pressure radiating from his knuckles cracked the stone walls of the dungeon.

"Theron Voss," Garrick spat the name like poison.

"The ’King of Darkness’. The supposed leader of our party." Garrick clenched his massive fists, his voice trembling with fabricated fury. "I was the strongest. I stood on the front lines and took the physical blows from dragons and warlords while he hid safely in the shadows. I created the Mana Sight techniques that revolutionized combat. I bled for that party."

Garrick took a deep, ragged breath, his eyes burning with intense, believable jealousy.

"Yet the world only praised Theron. The world called him the genius. The man closest to God. And Elizabeth... she looked right past me and chose him."

Garrick stepped back, his massive chest heaving. "I spent my entire life standing in the shadow of a man weaker than me. I want his legacy burned to ash, Aurelius. I want him to watch his arrogant son die, just as you watched Nero die. I want to see the name Voss erased from history."

Aurelius searched Garrick’s eyes. The Emperor looked for deception. He found only anger, wounded pride, and deep-seated bitterness. The Emperor understood wounded pride perfectly. It was a language he spoke fluently.

"Revenge," Aurelius smiled, the golden light of his magic bathing the dungeon in a harsh, triumphant glow.

M"A motivation I can trust. We have an accord, King of Fists. You will have your vengeance, and I will have my world."

Aurelius turned on his heel. His ruined royal robes swept over the charred corpses of the slaves as he marched toward the heavy iron doors, eager to summon his generals and set the apocalypse into motion.

Left alone in the dim, flickering torchlight, Garrick watched the Emperor depart.

The moment the heavy iron doors slammed shut, the bitter anger vanished entirely from Garrick’s scarred face. His expression smoothed into a mask of pure, unadulterated ambition.

He let out a low, silent chuckle that vibrated in the bloody puddles at his feet.

Theron? Elizabeth? Revenge?

Meaningless garbage.

Garrick cared absolutely nothing for old adventuring rivalries or romantic jealousy. He cared nothing for the Emperor’s grief over a dead prince.

He viewed Aurelius as nothing more than a useful idiot with a large treasury and a disposable army.

Once the planetary quarantine was triggered, the board would truly be wiped clean. No Gods sitting in the clouds dictating fate. No Void Demons corrupting the leylines from the Abyss.

With the heavens permanently sealed, magic would stagnate. Domains would weaken.

The strongest mortal would hold absolute, uncontested authority. And Garrick knew his own strength.

He was the absolute pinnacle of physical martial arts. His body was a weapon forged beyond the need for complex spells or divine blessings. Without divine interference or demonic miracles to save them, no magic user, no emperor, and certainly no silver-haired brat wearing a porcelain mask could stop his fists.

He would let Aurelius build the armies. He would let the Cultists weaken the Voss family and burn the East to the ground.

Then, when the dust settled and the world was locked in its cage, he would snap the Emperor’s neck with his bare hands and take the throne for himself.

*Let the cults worship the void. Let the church pray to the empty sky,*

Garrick thought, stepping out of the dungeon shadows and into the corridors of the palace.

*In the end, only I shall rule the world.*