Truth raced down the highway on his stolen iron horse, scarf wrapped over his face, demon perched on his shoulder. The sky burned red, as the war he started raged below it. He was responsible for the sky too- the volcanic eruption he set off was vomiting ash into the air and blotting out the sun. A good beginning, but only a beginning. Before the apocalypse really got rolling, he had one more head to take. King Rat. The Most Powerful Man In The World. He would kill Starbrite.

A few slight problems there. A few technical challenges. Starting with the fact that nobody knew where Starbrite was, his company had a better army than most countries, and he really was a higher class of being. Truth was cautiously optimistic. He had already killed people far beyond his level. Everything is doable with the right tools and preparation.

The iron horse ate up the kilometers, wheels spinning fast. He had to nip around the army wagons racing for the front line. There were a hell of a lot of them. The Onis army outnumbered Jeon ten or twenty to one, but the Jeon army was ferociously well equipped. Most advanced military in the world, by some metrics. Onis might win in the end, but they would lose a generation of youth to do it.

He watched an olive drab wagon lumber past and grinned mirthlessly. Jeon’s military power was built on advanced magical technology. So was everyone’s, really, but Jeon was relying on technology as its force multiplier. Once the magic vanished, or even when it just reached a certain level of unreliability, that advantage would vanish. It would be down to muscle. And Onis had a lot more muscle than Jeon.

Truth let his mind wander as he rode south-west. He needed to report to Merkovah, but he didn’t have any reasonably accessible dead drops. At this point, they were on the wrong side of the volcano. So it was time to go to Plan B- find a Siphios embassy or consulate, and report from there. Except he didn’t know where Siphios had any consulates, so it would be the main Siphios Embassy in Onis.

Their capital city was creatively named Northern Capital. He didn’t know if there was a southern capital. Presumably there was. Still, the Northern capital was a thousand kilometers away as the bird-demon flies, which made it more like fourteen hundred as the international secret agent rides. A long haul, but he had a lot to think about as he went.

He was Level Five, for one thing, with only three permanent spells. Meditations of Valentinian would remain the base, naturally, then Incisive, the increasingly clearly jank Cup and Knife for the third and then what? Even reserving one spell slot for the System, that left him one short. Graeme’s Arrow would fill a gap in his arsenal, but compared to a spell he constantly used like Incisive it just seemed so lacking.

He couldn’t be lacking. Not when he was coming for the king of the world.

Truth looked at his hands and smiled. He had carefully put the wooden ring on his right index finger. No need to trigger pointless drama when he next talked to Etenesh or the Etenesh-adjacent. A space ring. Something unique on this planet. Something just for him. Because he blew up a whole damn volcano to rescue their little girl. It might be ordinary off-world, but it was incredibly precious to him.

The ring was a reminder. It was validation. He could do it. He could stand up to the best in the world and win. It required planning. Guile. Outright cheating. Making sure there wasn’t anything remotely like a fair fight. But he could do it. And besides, the “best in the world” were all more than a century old, and rich. They weren’t any more interested in fairness than he was.

He slammed on the brakes, putting the iron horse into a long slide. Thrush squawked and flapped madly “Dread magus?!”

“I just realized something horrible. That Level Eight I killed had to have been loaded. I never got to loot her. All that money, destroyed by the lava.” His face went pale. He wasn’t greedy, exactly, but the personal equipment of a Starbrite Level Eight? That wasn’t stuff you could buy with mere money. Who knows what she had tucked away?

“I am so terribly sorry for your loss.” The air demon sounded surprisingly sincere. “Still, you mustn’t despair. You will have so many opportunities to feed on your kills from now on. So, so many opportunities.”

Truth nodded. It was a blow. A real blow. But life would go on. Thinking about it more positively, he had lost the loot of a Level Eight, but Starbrite had lost an entire secret base, a Shattervoid child, and a sarcophagus of such critical importance, a level eight old monster had intentionally fought with a fraction of her true strength to avoid harming it.

That was another mystery to solve, one he would have to toss to Merkovah. Just what was in there that was so damn important? He got the iron horse running again. The already bald tires looked a hot second from wearing away entirely. Truth reckoned it was only his terrifying reflexes that were keeping the two wheeler upright and on the road. Time to look for new wheels.

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He would keep the rest of the two wheeler. He appreciated the way that the former owner had taken whatever they could find and whacked it with a hammer until it fit into the general shape of an iron horse. There were endless ways to improve it and make it less of a horrible piece of crap. Truth looked forward to having a project that didn’t involve mass casualty events.

A quick inventory of his gear showed a very… Truth blend of equipment. Stowed in his literally unique, hand crafted by space beings, spatial ring was a field repaired one-man flying suit, hauled out of a garbage heap behind a hovel in a mountain village that could also have been defined as a garbage heap. He had a stolen Onis Army standard issue officer’s needler stowed in there as well, along with a few changes of clothes, some camping supplies and some snacks.

His current vehicle/project/rideable nightmare was a two wheeler liberated from an abandoned village. Truth was privately convinced it hadn’t been sold for scrap because the scrap dealers wouldn’t take something so plainly cursed.

His clothes were rather nice, having been shoplifted at various department stores across Jeon. A little snug on his muscular frame, but the reddish purple shirt suited him, and the black trousers were both durable and comfortable. His boots were practical work boots. Comfortable for both long walks and kicking people very hard.

Covering his neck and face was the Freedom of the Terraces, the magical scarf gifted to him after he stopped a terrorist attack back in Xandre. It granted him free access to any Pitz stadium in Siphios, could change its look to support whatever team he liked, and let him blend in with crowds easily. It also, and this was the key thing at the moment, worked as a pretty decent dust filter.

The volcanic ash stank, and even for his toughened body, inhaling that rock dust could only be a bad thing. The magic in the scarf wasn’t very powerful, but it was enough to keep the air coming in fresh and clean. He hadn’t been very impressed with the Freedom of the Terraces when he got it. How often was he going to go to Pitz stadiums? He was coming to treasure it now. Another reminder. Not everything he did was terrible. He could help people.

He needed the reminders as the waggons full of weapons and conscripts rumbled south, towards the war he started. They would be neatly lined up, soldiers and weapons alike, and fed into the woodchipper until their bodies choked it. Then the real core of the armies would be deployed- the grand summons, the strategic level curses, individual high levels sent out to earn the privileges they had spent decades enjoying.

He only managed to kick off a war because they were looking for a reason to start a war. He tried to keep that firmly in mind. Jeon might not have wanted it, but Onis certainly did. They had been looking for an excuse to come for Starbrite and scoop up the rich little country he had made for himself in the process.

He couldn’t make them fight. He just made sure they had an excuse. Better- he made them feel like they had “no choice.” They did, of course. They had infinite choices. Fear has a way of narrowing your vision. They were already scared by the coming apocalypse. Scared of whatever Starbrite was up to. Then Truth turns up and shows them that Starbrite was prepared to make it very, very personal. That Starbrite was willing to go after anyone, anywhere in Onis.

They just needed an excuse. Any thin thing they could turn into public justification. Into self defense. One needle later, and they had everything they needed. Everyone knew the score. Everyone knew that everyone else knew. It didn’t matter what the truth was. This was about being scared, and doing something so you wouldn’t be scared anymore. A very human reaction.

Which led him to his last major piece of equipment. His platonic life partner, the angelic weapon known as The Tongue of One Who Speaks For God. A name he was finding both increasingly suspect and accurate as time went on.

The Tongue, too, was a sort of jank. A bit of a broken angelic weapon, literal trash in the armories of Heaven, was taken back to this low reality and forged into a sword. Somehow, it worked. It was currently dwelling in his first aperture, waiting to be called out again. It’s power limited by his power. Growing in strength as he did.

If he broke through the limits of this world and awakened his nascent soul, would the Tongue remain part of him? He had no idea. He hoped so. The sword just felt so right to him. He couldn’t even explain it to himself. It just felt… right. Like this is what he was for- cutting to the heart of things, even if he seemed lost.

Onis had its own roadblocks set up, but they were well out into the boonies still. Truth drove straight through them, Incisive keeping him unnoticeable. Get a new spell, research how to improve Cup and Knife, report in about… everything… and then figure out how to kill Starbrite. A modest plan.

Truth looked up at the volcano-ash darkened sky. The night would be inky black. Not that it was any hindrance to him, but something whispered in the back of his mind. Tonight was not a good night to be on the road. He would have to race the sunset and find shelter.

Truth smiled and gave the demon more power. The iron horse sputtered and snarled but picked up the pace. Somewhere off the highway would be a hotel. Some place with a spell bowl buried around the doors, to keep out the little demons. He would go, sleep, and in the morning, he would see what the world looked like.

Sometimes things needed to cook. Right now, Starbirte was still trying to figure out what had happened. Soon, he would react. He wouldn’t take the loss of the Shatervoid girl lightly. He would be desperate, angry, and humiliated. He would make a big move. Truth smiled. With that mindset, Starbrite would be sloppy. He would make mistakes. Show a weakness.

That would be the end of the King of the World. Killed in the slum he made, by a rat he carefully bred and trained. Truth could hardly wait. He pushed more power at the demon, going as fast as the shoddy frame could stand. It seemed he couldn’t wait at all!