In the end, the balance of power became too unstable. The hegemons held access to theoretically unlimited resources, and the council could no longer keep up. It ended in a single day. The sky burned over the homeworld, and out of the flames, HE walked. Nero Baraton, the last emperor. He was limitless, just like me, and neither the crumbling council, nor the warring hegemons could stop him. Out of the ashes of a once free world, he forged the final empire, and became something more than human. I have read his journals, been in his mind. He sought order above all, to impose, to become, law greater than a mere piece of paper. He loved the people, I think, no matter the monster he became in the end. They were like his children, and he wanted the best for the greatest amount of them, no matter the cost. That was his downfall. Divinity is separation from the affairs of mortals. And Nero never could let go.
The sky burned above the once azure skies of the homeworld. Ships flashed through the fire, breaking the atmosphere in their passing. Massive energy blasts, lasers, and countless other planet-breaking weapons crashed into flickering blue shields struggling to hold them off.
Flame consumed the city, accompanied by the screaming of people burning alive. Only a single dome still stood, flickering amethyst shield somehow holding off the barrage of an entire fleet.
The once-proud home of the World Council.
Nero Baraton danced through the flying rubble, twisting and swaying through the flames, rhythmic movement bringing order to the chaos. His shoulder length red hair danced around his face, highlighting his piercing emerald eyes. His youthful face was calm, adorned with a slight smile. His body was seemingly made in the image of ancient gods, with slim muscles perfect proportions. He was otherworldly and in a bubble around him, the world became calm, as if being sucked into his rhythm. He approached the amethyst dome, a spear of order in a sea of chaos.
The automated turrets, sensing his lone approach even through the haze of death, open fire.
He danced between them, eyes closed as he seemed to bask in their smooth blue light. He moved faster than any man, even one with emperor-class physical augmentations could. He was an oasis of calm in a world plunged in chaos, a constant variable in a sea of destruction. More and more turrets focused on him as he approached, driving his blurred figure to even greater speeds. The street lit up with blue light, driving back even the angry red of the fire.
Order had come to the chaos.
A twist, and he slipped through a gap in the flickering shield. Immediately, every turret on the south side he had entered focused on him. They fired energy bullets with utmost precision, coordinating to cut off every avenue of escape.
It mattered not. The dance continued.
Nero slipped through a hole in the wall, and the turrets stopped firing, unwilling to destroy the building they were designed to protect.
Inside, he was met with rows of robotic defenders, summoned by the automatic defense system. He danced between them, not even brushing their metal exoskeletons, eyes closed. They tried to catch him, but ended up tangling in themselves, forming an intricate sculpture of struggling metal. Nero continued, leaving behind a new work of art.
Onward he continued, He was like a calm stream, gentle, smooth, and utterly unstoppable.
Eventually, he stood in front of a massive set of blast doors, meant to take blows from missiles. He waltzed up to them, and with a single blow, shoved them open.
Behind them cowered the world council.
Their guards opened fire, these ones true humans, the elite of the elite, master of combat and equipped with emperor-class augmentations.
It didn’t matter.
To a normal human, they all turned to blur, each equally terrifying in their might.
Not even half a minute longer, Nero gently placed the unconscious body of the last guard next to his sleeping comrades. Then, standing up and brushing his hands off, he walked over to the council.
They cowered before him, shrinking back from his presence.
He smiled.
“Hello, my name is Nero Baraton. Pleased to meet you.”
He stretched out a hand.
Silence befell the council hall, as the counselors stared at the proffered hands.
Finally, one mustered the courage to ask, “Why…why are you doing this?”
Nero titled his head, “have you ever heard of a philosopher king?”
Nobody said anything.
“It was a conception of a long dead philosopher. A king to lead his people away from the comforting darkness and into the burning light. A man capable of wielding absolute power with absolute purity.”
Booming outside the dome interrupted him, shaking the ground beneath. Nero looked up at the shaking dome.
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“This council is doomed. And with the council's demise, humanity will fracture. Chaos will overtake order and death will become the law of the land.”
He looked back, emerald eyes as deep as an ocean and as placid as stone.
“I won’t allow that.”
The council shrank back at the will in his eyes. It was determined. It was mighty. It was endless. And it refused to bend.
He continued with the same calm, “I will drag my people into the light. They may kick and scream but they will see the light. I will make sure of it.”
He didn’t move but his presence seemed to double.
“So, honored council. Will you bar my path?”
In the face of those eyes, that endless pressure they were powerless to resist.
He left the dome, his calm seeming to spread to the warzone around them, the attacking ships pulling back and the smoke covering the skies retreating. The counselors followed him, greeted with clear sky.
He smiled, raising his face to the brilliant sun and opening his arms wise.
I watched as the sun crowned him in rays of love, acknowledging his new power.
I watched the end of an era, and the start of a new one.
I watched the rise of the greatest emperor to ever walk the cosmos.
—--------------------------------------
Nero was limitless, a being of such unfettered power that the very world warped where he walked, conforming to his image. In his case, it took the form of an aura of calm and order. The world around him was quieted, falling into predictable patterns of being.
So, when he walked into the chaotic meeting room, it instantly quieted, all eyes drawn towards him. Emerald eyes took it all in.
“Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to show up. It's the little emperor himself. Should I bow?” a man said mockingly, drawing soft chuckles from the rest. The man was tall, with a skinny frame that made him seem frail. Those with knowledge of his emperor-class augs knew otherwise. He had beady black eyes and equally black eyes contrasting pale skin. Lord Garan, he called himself, though he certainly was no lord in Nero’s eyes.
He continued speaking, “Did you forget our little…deal? In exchange for lending you our forces, we were to be given equal shares of the cosmos. And yet…” He flicked a hand.
A hologram manifested, replaying Nero’s conversation with the counselors.
“Suspicious words, little emperor” Garan leered, “I wonder if you still have any intention of keeping your promises?”
Nero looked around, eyes calm.
The hegemons around him, men and women of immense power, lust and violence stirred angrily at the suggestion of betrayal. They had warred for decades, preparing for this moment. If not for Nero’s passive presence, the room would have likely already erupted into violence, the beginning of a long power struggle. There was no doubt in Nero’s mind.
They were not fit for the new world he was trying to build.
“No. I have no intention of keeping my promises.”
There is a moment of silence in the wake of the greatest of revelations. A moment where the world itself holds its breath in anticipation. The release came in the form of Garan’s surprised outburst.
“What? You would break your word? What happened to ‘order above all’?”
Nero took a step forward, and the inhabitant of the room shrunk back.
Meeting Garan’s eyes, he responded. “Indeed. Order above all. And you all are not order. You have no place in this new world. As for breaking my word. It is…regrettable, but if I do not descend to hell, who will?”
“And you came here to tell us that.”
Nero laughed, “No, I came here to eliminate you.”
The room bristled with tension, the hegemons preparing for violence. Garan tried a final warning, voice dropping to a deadly quiet, “Are you sure this is the path you want to take?”
Nero smiled. He saw the real reason for offering him such a chance. They were terrified of him.
“Yes. I am sure.”
Nero’s passive aura was no longer enough to restrain these men in the face of direct threats. He could have flared it, pressed his soul into theirs until they were ripped from their mortal coils. But that was so…brutal.
And if there was one thing that mattered to a Limitless, it was their path.
They came at him in a storm of weapons, activating custom emperor-class augmentations and striking with all the skill that had won them their exalted positions. It was an attack no human could conceivably survive.
But a Limitless? That’s another story.
Nero danced among them, slipping through the gaps like water through cracks. He was as calm as a reflective surface, eyes quietly smiling as the first two hegemons fell to the ground, headless.
“You won’t get away with this!” Garan shouted, “When our men realize what you’ve done, they’ll rebel!”
Nero looked at him with that same calm smile, “Nobody will ever know.”
Another blur, and another two corpses.
The remaining hegemons grew desperate, activating experimental and incomplete augmentations, and rushing Nero.
Plasma blades, adamantium armor, electro pulsers, and a thousand other weapons rushed Nero. He flowed around their attacks like a stream around rocks and struck back like a raging river.
One by one, they fell, the immense power they wielded utterly folding in the face of a greater power. Their fates subsumed by a greater fate.
Finally, only Nero and Garan remained, alone in a room of corpses.
Garan was terrified. Nero saw it in his clenched fists, in his slight shivering. But to his credit, he stood strong.
“Why?” were his only words.
“The cosmos need order. I will be that order.”
“Is this order?” he demanded, indicating the room full of corpses.
“Yes.”
No further worlds were needed. Garan charged, facing his death with honor. Nero felt almost…sad as Garan’s head came free from his body in an orderly spray of red.
He stood in a room full of corpses, without a drop of blood on him.
The sole lord.
To be honest, he reminded me of Octavian. A conquering king. An emperor in truth. But Octavian had broken in the end.
As I watched Nero return to his flagship, as serene as a still pond, I knew one thing.
He would not break.