In the words of Valeran Mortoc, Captain, Shatter Corps

[---he is captain no longer, hehehe---]

I had once thought death would imply some finality. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case. There is more to it than the living can know. Within the sphere of death exists the realm of dreams, of nightmare made manifest. There is creation within oblivion, and it is vast and folds upon itself with every passing moment. There is more here than mortality can comprehend; even my mind, once conditioned to face the spawn of this fabled realm, can barely hold together.

[---his mind is beyond repair---]

And in this infinite paradise of destruction, I am witness to truths I could never have known. The way of things. Oh, how such a simple phrase betrays the immensity of nonexistence. Every moment is a flash of infinite colors, every instant whipping one’s soul through an infinite cosmos. Singularity has no meaning within this singular non-space, and space has no purpose within this non-time. All things are and are not. To try to know what you believe you see is folly, to try to understand anything futile.

Within this horrifying plane, all things are true and false, yet none of them so simple.

But there is one surety, one thing that you can take to the grave: you are not alone. Not in life, as the predations of the daemonic haunt all who make the mistake of living. And in death? Certainly not, no; the presence is evidenced the moment you join the ranks of the dead. They are vile horrors, all of them; how could it be otherwise, how could a beast exist in nonexistence and have any semblance of sanity?

And yet, despite this, there is a logic to them. There is a physics to the void, a method to the madness. Knowing this, you can barter and bargain. But what does a soul have to offer the soulless? Influence. Presence. Experience. They do not exist where we do, they know not how to wage and win wars as we do.

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[---says the loser---]

And so, from what they have shown me, I bargain thus: I offer myself to service and servitude, for a chance at life anew. And they answered! Or, so I thought at first. But she is not them. I think she was mortal once, because she knew more than the others and knowledge of her many names conferred no power over her as it did some of the others.

[---he knows not with whom he deals; a name is nothing to a would-be god---]

She showed me something I did not think I would ever want: vengeance. Oh, the suffering she showed to me that I could inflict upon Blackgar and that wench of an Assassin he had employed! It was beautiful, enthralling! To visit such deep and meaningful vengeance upon one’s slayers, what is more enticing than that? Am I so weak for having assented to her demands?

[---yes---]

The most disappointing part of what she asked of me was given in but a single word: Wait. Wait? In this hellish nonexistence? What for? Time was meaningless! But perhaps not to her, perhaps she, for her many eyes, could see time in a way that I could not while within this realm. Fine, I would wait for vengeance. A war is not won through haste, and mine, Callant Blackgar, is far from finished with you. Even if I must be an agent of another, as Ouranos (apparently an enemy of hers) had wanted me, I will see myself to victory.

[---a failure is doomed only to fail---]

While I wait, I have decided to take the metaphorical time—because literal time is not something I can recognize here—to learn more about my new employer. I admit, I am impressed. Her many titles are well-earned; The Cataclysm of Vaktez, for instance. She earned that. Sister to a Thousand Sons. Unmaker of Fate. Rubricheart. Hundreds, perhaps thousands more are among her many names, each of which could spell doom to a hundred worlds were they uttered beyond the Empyrean. Yet all of them are less significant than her one true name, her birth name, as given when she was still a mere mortal.

She is Veralith.

And there are none that can stop her, not of man, hellspawn, or lowly Xenos.

Iron With[---bit bored of that---]