And so it was that the humans developed the teleportation technologies that Baal demanded of them. The demon began to spend more time among them, his spirit possessing human avatars to avoid arousing any suspicions. He learned their sciences, and his plans progressed flawlessly. He created innumerable worlds for the humans to multiply on, like bacteria in the Petri dishes of their laboratories. With each world, Baal could feel his demonic strength growing, far greater than it had even been on Apolaphia. At birth, he had been able to control the weather. Now, he could move celestial bodies with only his will. He could possess entire nations of millions at a time.

Time passed once more. An innumerable number of worlds had been crafted by the demon’s hand. Soon, Baal would have his own galaxy of worshippers. It was in this period that Baal realised that the humans were about to unlock the secrets of probability control. This was the greatest threat to his dominion as God. He forbade them from developing their technologies any further.

He warned them thusly: “For every trespass against me, I shall extinguish a star. Be content with what you have. Know your place.”

But of course, not all humans listened.

Baal’s powers had grown to such a tremendous scale that he no longer required the Probability Controllers to extinguish the stars which gave his universe life. He had learned through scientific means to create devices that would automatically detect the creation of devices with probability-altering capabilities. The narcissistic god’s retribution was swift in such cases. His fulfilled promises left entire solar systems devoid of life, scorched into stardust by supernovae.

There was no greater feeling of hopelessness and terror for those on the worlds below than to see the sun die in the skies above them.

In due time, the humans came to learn their place: mere slaves to the god who had created them.

And so it was that Baal conquered the entire Universe that ADAM had given him. Although it had been a relatively brief time of less than a hundred thousand years, such a period was long enough that one might be forgiven for forgetting why Baal had been put into this universe in the first place.

When Baal commanded his people to jump, they did, without question. He told them to kill their loved ones or face extinction, and so it was. Even the most extreme atrocities were obeyed. The humans tried to defy him by learning to survive the death of their stars, but Baal simply adjusted his punishment as necessary, twinning the planets which disobeyed him, setting the celestial bodies crashing into each other in an orchestra of destruction. His word became law.

But Baal was not a demon that fed on fear or suffering. He merely needed the fealty of his people. So, since finding positive incentives provided better results, he favoured benevolence over cruelty.

With the advent of advanced technology, Baal had been able to automate his Probability Controllers to create infinitely without his required input. Innumerable stars became innumerable galaxies, all ruled under perfect harmony.

Baal’s power grew exponentially. By all measures of those in his universe, it was now essentially limitless. He was undoubtedly the most complex, skilled, powerful individual in the universe, feared and respected by all.

The universe ran on a clockwork that he had designed. It was stable, perpetually growing. Harmonic. Equilibrated.

Baal contemplated everything he had accomplished. He had the power that he had so desired. The power to do whatever he wished. The power to do anything and everything.

But then what?

There was always some other project, some other pursuit to achieve. He had even experimented with the Probability Controllers on his own and discovered gemstones with their remarkable properties. He would master those too.

But then what?

Indeed, something strange was happening within the demon’s heartless being.

He was bored.

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By his nature as a demon, Baal desired power like his human subjects desired food.

But what use was power in a universe of equilibrium?

Power existed to enact one’s will upon one’s environment.

But Baal depended on a system in equilibrium to have power.

In essence, he had tied his own hands. He could, and regularly did, exercise his power to punish the dissidents of his universe, but was that it? Was there no greater purpose?

What was next?

Did it matter?

Baal attempted to stifle his boredom by doing all manner of things. Senseless creation and destruction, coercing his subjects to commit the most heinous of atrocities. But nothing changed.

In endless time, Baal began to realise that his hunger for power was a bottomless pit. An unscratchable itch. His empire continued to grow, but for what? What had he bled, toiled and worked so diligently towards? This? To scratch a primordial itch?

Why did he exist? What purpose did he serve?

These questions caused the ever-working Baal to stop. He ruminated in his thoughts for an eternity. There was no doubt in his mind that he would one day supplant even the Almighty Creator on his current course. But Baal no longer knew if that was what he should do. If that was what he even desired.

Realising that he had left his creation to its own devices for millennia, Baal wondered if he was undergoing the same experience as the Almighty Creator of all things.

It was around this time that ADAM appeared to Baal once more.

“Your trial is all but concluded now, demon. There is only one last component left to fulfil.”

Baal took a while to find his voice after aeons spent in absolute, reclusive silence. “ADAM… I wonder if I have become more powerful than even you.” Baal said, ominously dragging his attention to the golden form that had appeared before him. He was all but ignoring the words ADAM spoke.

“You are welcome to destroy me. But it would be nearly meaningless; the will of the creator is insurmountable. All things are parts of his plan.” ADAM replied.

Baal crushed ADAM’s golden form to dust in an instant, smashed between two glowing-white neutron stars pulled from the far reaches of Baal’s infinite universe. The mass of the stars began to merge, forming a black hole.

Baal filled the hole with energy, erasing the distortion in spacetime.

In a heartbeat, ADAM reappeared once again. His form was unblemished.

“I hope you are content?” ADAM asked. “I would presume it is in your interest to return to real life?”

Baal regarded Apolaphia’s golden master silently. But he could give no reply. ADAM continued with his interrogation.

“What do you desire?” ADAM asked Baal.

Baal was silent once more… no, he struggled to come up with an answer.

“When I first asked you that question, you stated that you desired power. Has that changed?”

But Baal would not answer. Could not answer, perhaps. He knew that this was the final part of the trial. Once he gave his answer, ADAM’s test would end. As ADAM was demanding his answer, Baal knew that whatever he said next would define success or failure for him.

“Recall that when this trial is concluded, you will be returned to the ‘real world’, where you are simply one of the Three Lords of Night. All the power you have accrued here will be lost. I shall ask once more: Do you desire power?”

The honest truth was that Baal no longer knew what he desired. He continued to hunger for power, like a starving person hungered for food, but since having that particular itch scratched for so long, Baal had become aware of just how much it had defined him. Indeed, it had defined him from the very moment he had been born into the body of that boy in Apolaphia.

He did not know what answer ADAM desired of him. Should he succeed, would Baal even wish for power? Baal had already seen the end of what endless power brought him. It was a dead end. Eventually, he would grow bored of it all. It was a frivolous pursuit.

“I hunger for power, as it is in my nature. But… I do not desire power any longer.”

“Excellent answer. To think that even a demon can change… What do you desire, then?”

“I do not desire anything at all,” Baal said in reply.

“Nothing at all?”

Baal was nonresponsive.

“To wish is to desire. If you are incapable of desire, you are incapable of wishing. That would make you incapable of using my Gift responsibly. You have failed my test.” ADAM declared.

Baal continued to hold his silence. His spirit had been broken.

The walls of reality began to crumble as ADAM returned them to Apolaphia, like a curtain being drawn back. But as the first tears in the fabric of reality began to show, they closed faster than they had opened up.

Rather than struggle against Baal who had greater power, ADAM relaxed, focusing their attention on Baal, who rested in silent defiance.

“You would prefer a meaningless illusion over harsh reality, Demon King?” ADAM asked.

“The realms which you call reality and illusion are equally meaningless. Words that exist only to accommodate a limited perspective. If I so desired, I could recreate what you call ‘reality’ in this ‘illusion’. What difference would there be then? Existing in reality is just as meaningless as existing in illusion.”

ADAM slowly shook their head, like a parent disappointed in their child. “You only say that because you fail to see the meaning of existence. If this is what you have decided, then so be it. I will not be the one to stop you. Just know that the difference between reality and illusion lies in knowing where you belong. Let that knowledge haunt you forever.”

With those words, ADAM disappeared, never to be seen by Baal again.

Baal continued to sit in the endless void, unable to reinvent himself, unable to comprehend what gave his powerful, powerless existence meaning.