Nero stood in front of the small stone tower he had created to mark the portal.

"Can you actually destroy this tower and extract chaos energy from it?"

Nero asked the queen with interest. The queen responded by raising her hand. The tower shattered into thousands of tiny fragments. She looked at Xersies, who was leading the way, and closed his eyes slightly. After a short while, he nodded his head.

"Yes, although only a small amount, I have obtained some energy,"

Xersies replied. Nero pondered for a moment.

"Why don't you just build your own structures and then destroy them? You have enough numbers," he suggested.

The queen shook her head.

"It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. We have thought about it, but destroying constructs created by Polykenas does not yield any energy. Otherwise, we would already be much stronger," the queen explained.

"I see," said Nero. "Well, it doesn't matter now. You have a whole new planet to ravage."

With that, he raised his hand, closed his eyes, and concentrated. He felt the opening in space, faint but there.

He raised his hand and let his magic flow. It was a strange sensation as if the air were being sucked out of his lungs. The magic moved on its own. The space began to tear and split. Behind it, there was nothing to be seen but pure darkness.

Nero raised his hand and unleashed a wave of darkness. The wall of the tower shattered, and sunlight poured in. Nero stepped through, followed by the three Polykenas: Xersies, Ramor, and Shire.

He turned around and looked back. The queen stood behind the rift, smiling faintly. It was not possible for her to leave this dimension. S

he had no way to step through the portal. Every time she tried, she simply passed through to the other side. She explained that she was bound to this reality.

Behind her, a gigantic army of Polykenas, numbering almost a billion, spread out. Nero laughed softly and stepped aside.

"Come! Come and prove your loyalty to me!" he exclaimed excitedly.

With an earth-shaking roar, the Polykenas poured out of the portal like a waterfall and into the world of humans.

Pure chaos spread all over the world. Demons had taken over and were destroying everything in their path.

Every city, every village, and every small building was being torn down by the Polykenas. Nero was satisfied with the result. He had prepared for years of battle before finally annihilating humanity, but now it was happening in about a year. Of course, he didn't let all humans die; he spared some to establish and build new civilizations so that the Polykenas could harvest chaos energy from them in the future. But that would take a very long time, and until then, Nero needed another occupation.

He had tried to absorb chaos energy himself to become stronger, but unfortunately, he couldn't.

Only Polykenas could release and absorb the energy. This disappointed Nero, as there were still beings stronger than him. Although they were still his subjects, he wondered how he could be sure they would never change their minds.

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Together with Ramor, he created a way for his magic to permanently seal the Polykenas' portal. It required a large number of symbols that Ramor had to create. Nero didn't know about the magic of symbols back then and didn't fully understand their effect, but later he wondered if Ramor had to sacrifice his lifespan as well. It seemed that Polykenas couldn't age. Or to be precise, they stopped aging at a certain point. Nero wondered if Polykenas even had a lifespan.

Nero stood at the place where his village used to be and looked up at the small mountain with satisfaction. There were no more trees on the mountain. Where there used to be forests, was now only a barren area.

Thousands of Polykenas were building a gigantic keep around the tower where the portal was located. Nero planned to build a huge fortress. At the foot of this massive structure, the remains of his former village would be placed, along with the tomb of his family.

This building would be Nero's royal seat. From here, he would keep an eye on the world and quietly observe as humans tried to rebuild their shattered civilization.

Then Nero would unleash the Polykenas' army on them again and watch them die once more. Nero sighed.

A few months later, he was returning to the Holy City. Or at least the remains of what was once the golden and shining capital of the church.

The construction of the castle was progressing steadily. The world was starting to recover from its onslaught. Plants were slowly growing again, and animals were returning.

Nero only returned to the holy city to absorb all the knowledge accumulated in the holy library. It was the largest library in the world, but Nero still didn't understand why it had to be considered holy.

But it didn't matter because Nero didn't get that far. Something strange happened halfway through that would be a huge influence on Nero's entire future.

Nero was walking along the path, lost in thought when suddenly a bright light came from a distant field. Nero frowned and approached it.

When he finally saw what was in front of him through some burned trees, his eyes widened in shock. There, in the middle of the field, was a rift in the dimension.

Behind the rift, Nero could see another world. Plants and flowers were growing everywhere, and the sun was shining brightly in the sky.

A person stood in front of the rift. It was a small and slender man. He looked around eagerly and cautiously, then started walking.

Nero's gaze was still fixed on the rift. It reminded him strongly of the portal that led to the dimension of the Polykenas.

"A way to travel between worlds? If only we had it..."

Nero couldn't help but have that thought. Somehow, he had to obtain that ability. Just at that moment, the man looked nervously around.

-Has he spotted me?- Nero wondered. But after a brief hesitation, the man turned around and continued walking.

The man walked over great fields consisting only of burnt grass and ashes, through forests full of dead and withered trees.

Eventually, he came to a town. It was completely destroyed, and everything lay in ruins. Nero watched as the nervous man slowly and steadily moved forward.

-Okay, now or never,-

Nero stealthily approached the man. But just before he reached him, he stepped on a burnt branch and a loud crack resounded. He cursed inwardly and shot a small spear of pure darkness at the man. The spear hit him in the chest.

"I hope I didn't hit him in the heart," Nero said in a gruff voice.

The man fell to the ground and tried to turn around with his last strength but failed.

"Thank you for bringing me such a nice gift," Nero said with a slight sense of satisfaction, but the man was already unconscious and couldn't hear him anymore.

Nero began searching the man's pockets and found a small blue crystal. He picked it up and examined it under the weak moonlight.

"Was it this stone...?"

Nero was lost in thought when he suddenly heard footsteps behind him. Nero turned around and looked at Ester, who was kneeling before him.

"What's going on?"

Nero asked with interest. He respected Ester. He was intelligent and diligent but also ruthless.

Ester opened his hand, revealing a small black stone in his claw. Nero's eyes widened. It was the same crystal he had taken when he was trapped in the mine. The same stone that had given him his power. Nero cautiously accepted it.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, surprised.

Ester stood up. "After you told us your story in the mine, the Queen remembered that we had also seen such a crystal. Unfortunately, we didn't remember exactly where, so we had to search for it for a long time. But we finally found it."

Nero looked at the small crystal. It was clearly smaller than the one he had picked up in the mine, but he was still overjoyed. He could feel an aura emanating from the stone. He had sensed it before but had dismissed it as his imagination. Now he knew it came from this stone. He could actually feel it.