The night was colder and darker than ever before; the citadel was silent as the preparations for the imminent attacks had been made. Thanatos was roaming aimlessly throughout the halls of the large gloomy temple he had constructed for himself, trying to keep himself awake. Nivshevus had not visited him for a few days, and he wondered where his elusive friend had disappeared. The shields of the citadel were up, but that was not enough for Thanatos. He had ordered Ramon and the other monks to rest for the night, though no one could rest with an imminent attack looming.

Deep space scanners in orbit have been following Iphis’s fleet through the abyss, but they lost them a few hours ago. Their last position suggested they were still two days out at the very least; it still didn’t give Thanatos the assurance. Iphis had not attempted to contact him again, confirming their suspicions and the information they received from their spies. A message had been sent out to all the Ipsimus Outposts in the galaxy. It read: Iphis Velix is now a traitor of the Order, and anyone who deals with her will be regarded the same. The message did not contain anything else. However, everyone knew what the consequences were if they collaborated with Iphis; there was no response to Thanatos’s statement.

As he walked down the halls, he realized he had forgotten the dead, was he to visit them one last time or soon join them in their eternal slumber? Thanatos had never feared anything more than death; it was a mistress he destroyed worlds to avoid. But, now she was rushing towards him faster than the speed of light; the end was near.

Entering the crypt at the pinnacle of the Citadel, he looked upon the two cold stone beds of those who are no more. He went to his knees; it was difficult; he could not move so well anymore. Old age has rendered his body frail; even kneeling was a strain. His cane was rarely used to assist him in walking; instead, it helped him get up or kneel down to meditate in such situations.

The weight of the responsibility of his office was finally resting wholly on his shoulders, and it pushed him down onto his hands, and his head bowed down. The stone floor beneath him collected the drops of sweat dripping from his chin; his breathing was heavy, his head felt light and ready to drop.

“I have failed both of you… My son…My wife. There is no more time for me to bring you back. I have failed.”

His voice was heavy; he could not breathe. What else did he have left to do, to run or die? It is not the way of the Ipsimus to run or hide, to cower in the moment of significant challenges. His eyes gained color, the black in his eyes was fading, and his clear blue eyes returned. Death no longer seemed to be the only punishment. His body grew pale. Death is here.

The promise of great power was his only hope; that hope was also lost, his time had run out. Nivshevus has not communed with him in days; had he left him? Were his promises empty? Thanatos could not understand what he had done wrong? Was sending the boy into the wilderness not enough to grant him the power he needed to bring the Order back in line, get his wife and son back to the living? He sacrificed everything.

“Why have you left me?”

“I have seen your future.”

Thanatos did not expect a response; startled, he fell back against one of the stone coffins trying to see who was behind him. Every muscle in his body, every bone in his being, was now frail. The pain came from every corner of every limb. Nivshevus was there, lurking in the dark as he usually does. But, though Thanatos could usually feel his presence, it was masked from him this time.

“Your future does not exist.”

“You promised me power.” Thanatos was angry but pleading.

“You promised me the boy.”

“Have I not delivered?”

“The boy is stronger than you think; he is not as weak as he let on. His willpower is unmatched by all who dwell on Dessix. For six thousand years, I have roamed this planet, and not once have I been defeated by any mortal; that boy managed to defeat me with a power he does not yet understand. He will be more powerful than me or any other being who roams this galaxy. I fear his power. I will not dare come close to him. Thanatos, you have unleashed a force that will throw the universe out of balance; not even if you mastered a fraction of the power he currently possess will you be able to subdue him. He will destroy us all. Consider yourself lucky to die soon.”

Those were the last words to Thanatos; Nivshevus disappeared, his essence within Thanatos withered, and it was no more. Thanatos’s eyes were clear; he could see clearly now, his lungs were still heavy, he was dripping with sweat from his head to his toes.

Thanatos decided to remain in the crypt; he felt it was the safest place to be, no one besides Ramon would disturb him there. The stone floor was cold, and his robes were not thick enough to shield him from it. The world beneath him sank; the citadel seemed to collapse. He fell. The entire Citadel lay ruined around him, the bodies of the monks strewed in every corner of the ruined building. The screams of millions of people in the forest beyond the smoke and fog grew louder. “You are a failure.” A familiar voice echoed through the air. The smell of burning flesh hangs heavily in the air.

Ships flew over the citadel, screaming past with loud engines and dropping their loads onto the ruins to ensure every last person was taken care of. Then, finally, a bomb seemed to land on Thanatos, he closed his eyes, and he was on Luna, the mega-city covering Earth’s moon, leaving none of its surface exposed. The city was burning, people were dying. Luna has been the Order’s crown jewels since the onset of space travel; it is where the original home of the order resided before Thanatos moved it to Dessix. Now it seemed to lay in ruin.

He blinked and found himself in a strange purple world, heavily industrialized; he had never seen this world before. Millions of robots emerged from the cracks of the world that formed the streets between the great factories; in orbit, he could see ships of all shapes and sizes moving slowly to be deployed. Then he was taken to a chamber where an AI core was suspended in the middle of the room; he saw Sorath bowing to it, then meeting his end.

Blinking once more, he found himself standing with Izzar in an open world; he was crying, he was desperate. He lifted his hands, and radiant energy came rushing towards him, catching it in his hands. He pushed it forward before him, and it concentrated and formed two people. Was this his wife and son? He couldn’t see. Izzar was happy, smiling. He ran towards them, but they faded as he reached them. Izzar fell to his knees as everything around him disintegrated and turned to nothing. Thanatos looked at his own hands and saw that it too was going to dust and disappear.

He woke up sitting; his breathing was heavy. It was only a dream, a nightmare. Never has he had nightmares before. What did it all mean? It all fell too real. Was it his fears, was it the future. He could not tell. He grabbed at his cane and tried to get up; he struggled at first but eventually, out of breath and drained, he was standing. One last time he looked back on the dead, he would return to them soon; he just didn’t know when.

Rushing out the door was strenuous; his heart raced, he could not remain in the citadel; he had to leave. Almost running, he tried his best to make it to the emergency exit reserved for only him to use. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he was outside in the bitter cold mist and thick forests of Dessix, a place he hadn’t visited for many years. The sounds of the forest were unbearable; the moving of the leaves around him made him paranoid.

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With cane in hand, he moved as quickly as his old body allowed him into the forest; he was not expecting to get very far. He hoped some sort of beast would take him. But, it did not stop there; he looked into the dark of the night, the deep dark undergrowth, and saw people standing everywhere. People he once knew, people he had killed himself. Shaking with fear, he moved forward, those people were not there, but their remains were. All he could do was go forwards until they began to speak.

The loudness of their speaking drained every ounce of energy he had left; some of them instilled guilt in him and others pure hate and anger. He had to kill them; they were a threat to the Order. Or maybe he was the threat, the one thing he thought Iphis was all these years, just perhaps Iphis did have a loyal cause to the Order. He had exiled himself to Dessix for two hundred years to hide from his inevitable fate; the Order never wanted him; he was getting too old and too violent. So he would instead save the Order now by dying in the forest to never be found.

Trying to cover his ears to block out the loud noises of the dead, faintly he heard the voice of a young man he had never spoken to before. It sounded different from the rest. When a hand finally touched his shoulder, he shrugged and looked up; it was Aargon.

“Epsimus Thanatos, please forgive me.” Aargon fell to the ground, not knowing what to do; he tried to be as respectful as possible.

“I am no longer the Epsimus.” His words had anguish in them, pain caused by many decades of hurt.

“My lord, you will always be the Epsimus.” Aargon did not lift his head. He was fearful that Thanatos would kill him for not being with Izzar.

“Where is Izzar?” The words echoed into the forest as if he read his mind.

“They left me to die in the woods, my lord.” The fear sweltered in him, though Thanatos could not feel it anymore.

“He’s not back then.” Thanatos was thinking aloud; it was not aimed at Aargon; he almost forgot the boy was there.

“My lord, if you permit, may I come into the walls of the citadel?”

“There is nothing for us there. We need to flee as far away as possible.”

Thanatos was visibly shaken; Aargon looked up and realized that the old man’s eyes were blue now; there was a change. Aargon no longer feared the old man as he did; he remained bowed, he did not intend to upset the old master of the order.

“Master, why do you want to flee?”

“An attack is coming; we must go.”

Aargon stood up; he now saw clearly what was going on. Thanatos has been taken by fear; he was abandoning the order, something punishable by death.

“If it is an attack that’s coming, let us work together to defeat them.”

“My boy…” Thanatos said, smiling in pure amusement at his utter ignorance. “We need twenty thousand troops to defend the citadel if we hope to survive the attack. Iphis is coming here; she has a fleet of six hundred and six. We can’t defend the citadel with even five hundred of the best-trained soldiers in the galaxy.”

Aargon understood the urgency. However, he was convinced that if the monks won the attack, they would still kill Thanatos for abandoning the order.

“You are the Epsimus, master; you are the Grand Master and Captain of this order. Abandon it now, and everyone will want you to surely die. Your order will vanish, and everyone, including Izzar, will die.”

Thanatos considered this for a while. “Izzar has never been my concern. He was sent into the forest to die; the order is already lost.”

Thanatos walked on; he was not prepared to indulge the young man anymore; his mind was made up. Aargon followed; the man seemed paranoid, always looking into the forest covering his ears from time to time.

“My Lord,” Aargon said once more; Thanatos stopped, his features were annoyed.

“What is it, child!”

“I know you fear death.” Thanatos spun around, drawing his sword from under his robe.

“You don’t know anything about me.” Seeing that the boy had an injured arm, he hesitated to attack.

“You are running because you fear death.”

“I am the Epsimus, I fear noth-”

“You are a coward. Running from the only family you have, running from your duty. Did you even deserve becoming the Epsimus?” Aargon’s words were harsh. Thanatos dropped his sword into the dry leaves; he clenched at his heart. A mere boy had him on his knees.

Three-Hundred and ten years ago…

Thanatos was young, seventeen Earth years. He’d just returned from his training on the planet Betiko Iluno; he had been summoned by his father, Epsimus Victavius, to the throne room in the Citadel ob Luna. Although he knew there were times during his mission to the eternally darkened planet where he had failed, overall, it was a success.

“You are a failure.” The thunderous words echoed through the throne room even before Thanatos could reach the throne. “I wish I had another son’s to make Epsimus. But, unfortunately, no amount of training will ever make you strong enough to lead this order!”

The man stood up. “If it wasn’t for your mother, I would have had more sons, but now I am too old. You bring shame to me. With you, the order will die.”

Thanatos was taken to a dark room, where he was tortured. The pain was so much that he lost consciousness many times. Although Victavius himself administered the torture, he saw it as a just and fitting punishment for failure.

“When an Epsimus fails in his tasks, however small or big they are, it affects the world around him in ways unimaginable.” Victavius’ words were strong, his voice a drilling fury in Thanatos’s ears.

“How many times am I going to have to teach you to be a man, to be the leader you should be?”

Thanatos knew better than to answer; he remained silent, taking in every bit of pain the Epsimus was administering to him.

“You will never learn your lesson. I knew when you were born with that defective hand, you were going to be a failure. If your mother did not try to kill you in her whom you might have been able to rule now.”

Present….

The words of his father were harsh and engraved in his mind, his greatest weakness. His father was right. This boy is right. Peace came over him; he stood to his feet, crane in hand.

“You are truly wise beyond your years. The monks have chosen you well; you will serve Izzar well.”

Aargon had no intention to serve the younger Velix; he had his eyes on the top prize.

“My lord, I serve the order.” He bowed his head in hopes of a good response.

“Izzar left you in the forest like that?” The old man pointed at his arm; though Aargon knew it was healed, it was a ruse to convince Thanatos he is harmless.

“He did, my lord, and rightly so.”

“Indeed, he has been trained well.” He thought back in fondness; he regretted his actions. He should have protected Izzar more. The chance was gone now.

The sun was rising, the sky grew purple, and the forest noises grew louder, the fog thicker than ever remained a soft blanket covering the forest in its deathly embrace. Aargon and Thanatos were standing in the deep woods; they could see the pinnacle of the citadel light up with the sun shining against it coming up on the horizon.

Thanatos seemed to have made peace within himself; he looked upon the boy like an old enemy, one he could not harm. Aargon saw his anger; he saw past his calm exterior; there was no convincing the old man to do something against his will. He had already decided to abandon his duty; he would instead go into the forest and die.

“My lord...”

“No need to say anything; there is nowhere else for me to run; they will find me. I would rather die with honor and prove to them that at least I was no coward.”

Can the man with the most power in the galaxy really be called a coward? Does he have it in his bones to be such? Aargon had not known the old man for very long, but his teachings at the library on Prion taught him that great power such as this required strength and bravery; seldom are their jobs easy.

“Come with me to the citadel; we’ll need all the warriors we can get.”

“Coming to the Citadel was not easy for me.” Aargon tried to explain, but Thanatos brushed it off, ignoring it. As far as Aargon was concerned, the old man did not care much about anyone else but himself; serving a selfish master was way worse than being stranded in the jungles alone.

Though now he had no choice, he had to follow the old man back to the citadel and fight beside him. It would by no means be an easy task. The old man limped back to the Citadel with the cane in hand, he was in no rush, and his breathing became heavier with every step. He couldn’t see clearly also, nearly stumbling over everything before him, he struggled to navigate the thick undergrowth.

They reached the clearing in front of the exit Thanatos had used earlier that morning; he looked up at the dizzyingly high central spire of the citadel, for once, he appreciated the ability to be able to walk himself all the way to the top every single day.

“For Izzar’s sake, I hope they won’t destroy it.” His thoughts trailed, he almost seemed like he didn’t know where he was, but he was well aware.