Balor made it past the elite guard’s security measures to protect the Emperor’s chambers without them ever detecting a hint of his presence. He came up on two people sitting across a long, intricately carved table.

  They noticed his presence right away. One of them was the girl he saw when he was hiding in the crowd. Resil’s daughter. She toppled out of her chair, screaming.

  Resil kept staring more calmly, although Balor could see his body shivering. The elite guards rushed in when they heard the girl's shriek.

  “Lady Maline is fine, please do not disturb us,” Resil said to the captain of the guard, an old man clad in silver and gold armor plates.

  “Forgive me, Emperor,” the man bowed courteously as two female servants rushed to help the girl stand up. She kept her eyes on Balor, trembling in fright.

  “I wish to be alone,” Resil spoke slowly. “I believe it is time for Maline to sleep,” he gestured at his daughter.

  “Father—” the girl mumbled in protest.

  “Leave, please,” he said sternly. The servants retreated with the elite guard, hurriedly emptying the Emperor’s chambers.

  Balor used his soul matter to create a temporary realm so their conversation remained utterly private.

  He replicated Resil’s white void that he first used to capture him. He materialized in the white void, fully turning himself back into the bipedal form twice as tall as the Emperor. ‘

  Resil stared at him in utter fascination as if he’d been waiting for the moment all his life.

  “We meet again, God of Veilthorn,” Resil said politely.

  “Indeed, Resil Petranova, we meet again,” Balor said, crouching in front of the old man he last talked with when he was a boy.

  “Was the moongate to your liking?” Resil asked with a smile.

  “Yes. Though not the use of bloodstone for the coordinate pillar. That may yet end the world.”

  “Bloodstone?” Resil raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

  Does he have no idea about the propulsion system?

  Balor used his soul matter to replicate bloostone. “This kills empires. It will kill yours before you know it.”

  “Isn’t that what—” Resil leaned in, gazing at the floating crystal. “Ah, yes, the catalyst. More will be found.”

  “You must purge it when you do.”

  “P-purge?! But it is a necessary part!”

  “It is the opposite of the Source. It corrupts, takes over. This is what you’re seeing now in every corner of the world that you rule.”

  “I was well aware of that, though the inventors only used a very small amount for great effect.” Resil stared at him, his eyes slowly widening. “Were you displeased with it?”

  “It is not me that you should worry about. Bloodstone is spreading across Veilthorn. It seeks me, the god of this world.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  Right. He doesn’t know what to think.

  Balor extended his hand. “You can see for yourself.”

  As Resil’s wrinkled old hand wrapped around his big, long fingers, Balor created a new construct with his memories. He isolated Resil in a localized time bubble, pushing everything that he saw into it.

  When he was done, Resil was drooling from the corner of his mouth, his eyes reddened, overflowing with tears. It looked as if the man had been hit hard with a hammer.

  “Did it answer your question?” Balor asked, letting go of the man’s hand.

  “Dear lord!” Resil panted, clutching his chest. “I almost died.”

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  “You’ll definitely die if it happens. You and everything else in this world.”

  “You mean to say that was something caused by bloodstone?!”

  “Entirely, yes. That is what will happen if the smallest amount of that ever comes into contact with me.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Does it matter?” Balor retorted. “Your problem is the longevity of your empire. I depend on it for my own ascension, which is why I wanted to talk with you.”

  Resil rubbed his forehead. “What should I do?”

  “Things that you don’t want to be known for,” Balor said curtly. “I want you to partition this world. Bloodstone is being woven as a network around the fraying edges of your empire.”

  “Partition the world?!” Resil echoed. “How am I—”

  “It is possible with your current Source capabilities. Petrah should be defended at all costs. The partitioning itself is up to your judgment. It should be a physical barrier.”

  Resil twisted his face. “There is no telling how many will die!”

  “Millions. Easily. Both directly and indirectly.”

  His eyes widened. “You want me to slaughter millions?!”

  “I want you to save your world. The price is effectively walling off affected areas. Physical impenetrable barriers. Think of them like realms.”

  “How would I rule an empire if it's cut to pieces!”

  “That is for you to think about. What does a scattered empire look like? How do you transfer goods? How do you deal with Source corruption?”

  Resil kept staring at his hands. “I’ll be damned to hell,” he mumbled. “I’ll be known as a tyrant.”

  “You already are a tyrant. You were born as one. Your entire bloodline is one,” Balor said mercilessly. “What do you think your eyes do, Resil?”

  “But I’ve never used them to convince millions to die for me! That’s barbaric!”

  “Can you convince millions to die so that future billions may live?”

  Resil looked stunned. “I’ll need time to plan the partitioning of the continents.”

  “Two of the continents are most affected. I suggest you find a way to isolate those regions fast. Every moment that you spend with indecision, the bloodstone grows in influence.”

  “Are you sure there is no way to reverse it. Are those settlements forever lost?”

  “Imagine what you can do if I myself can’t risk it. Bloodstone should be considered terminal. You may as well train the public to get rid of the infected individuals,” Balor said dryly.

  “What? kill them?” Resil exclaimed.

  “Not just that. Cremate thoroughly. Otherwise, they can return as undead.”

  “What about the existing bloodstone!”

  “The same thing applies. You may want to get rid of everyone who touched it.”

  “Kill my best inventors?!” Resil yelled.

  “Check them for signs of contamination. Isolate them. The effects may be negligible, but do not take unnecessary risks if someone proves troublesome.”

  Resil slumped, head in his hands. “This will ruin my reputation!”

  “Indeed, it will. Small price to pay to save Veilthorn, isn’t it?”

  Save is a stretch. At most, he’ll be buying time.

  The corrupted Seedmaker was already on its way out. It could only get worse from here. This was the lowest point of Resil’s life, and for all his efforts, he would only buy time for Balor to become a Dragon.

  Balor retreated to the sky after his brief conversation with Resil. He had taken a great risk in meddling with the empire. There could’ve been bloodstone presented to the emperor somewhere in that very room. He was paranoid about the Seedmaker.

  He scoped out time as he hovered high above Petrah, watching the best city on Veilthorn with great interest. In a way, this pressure from bloodstone could serve him. It could drive the population to dream about colonizing other worlds, an idea that hadn’t occurred to anyone yet.

  They were mostly treating the moon as he intended, a huge mining colony for Sky Stone. The portal research had stalled when Resil isolated the inventors underground.

  Resil’s decision on how to partition the world came three weeks after their meeting. It was done covertly on the largest Sky Stone shard in Petrah. A group of source wielders and Resil appeared atop it, ready to start the next phase of his empire.

  They created a patterned Source mechanism on the slippery surface of the Sky Stone.

  Balor watched as they busied themselves there for the next week, adding more patterns in secret at night. It took a month to ready itself, by which time the hoards of bloodstone had ravaged nearly one eighth of the total landmass of the empire.

  The final inspections on the pattern were performed by Arlinch, who had been released briefly from his underground isolation chamber. Once the pattern was ready, the strongest source wielders of Petrah gathered around their designated spots, setting off the most complicated Source mechanism.

  Massive amounts of energy spurt forth from the circle, extending away from Petrah in four directions. Balor climbed to the upper atmosphere to monitor what they were doing. The mechanism that they’d invented set off a chain reaction of Source energy, four lines rippling across Veilthorn in seconds.

  The lines only grew in intensity the further they traveled, finally capable enough to crack the ground beneath all the way down to the third stratum.

  That night, Resil divided the world into four, a slice for each continent. The line ripples crossed over some populated areas along the way, trapping them in the new Source membrane of the in between.

  Balor could’ve saved them, but he didn’t want to descend to ground level for any reason again. He imagined the trapped making a life for themselves in the perilous space between realms.

  Over the next few months, the same partitioning technique was repeated all across the frontlines, sectioning off zones on all four continents across all strata.

  This effectively put an end to the bloodstone invasion, everything undesirable rotting beyond a thick wall of energy that no one can cross.

  Resil seemed to be even more suspicious about bloodstone than Balor was. There were public hangings for the possession of the substance. New uprisings based on grievances, assassination attempts, and wars.

  Showing the past visions of the Seedmaker’s apocalypse to Resil had been the right move. He was working relentlessly to avoid that fate. These were his final two or three decades as the Emperor, and he was going to rule a partitioned empire with an iron fist.