The loss of his right hand shattered the ancient composure of Demon Monarch Mo Sha.
For three million years, the demon monarch had existed as a total law of the universe. An unmoving certainty of cosmic decay that all mortal emperors and heavenly immortals bowed before in silent, numbed dread.
Now, looking down at his blackened, smoking wrist where four point two billion gigajoules of solar heat had boiled his flesh into steam, Mo Sha’s violet eyes burned with an insanity that tore through the fabric of the cave.
“Mortal...” Mo Sha hissed, his voice no longer majestic or hypnotic. But raspy, ragged, and thick with poisoned malice. “You possess a strange, heretical flame. You hide the fire of a star within your filthy mortal gut. But fire is still matter. Heat is still energy. And all energy bows to the ultimate silence of the Void!”
The demon monarch floated higher into the cave vaults. He curled his five-hundred-foot torso inward like a striking viper.
The six swirling rings of dead moon-rock orbiting his horned head sped up to fractional light-speed, grinding against each other with a sound like dying worlds.
In the center of his chest, a blinding sphere of pitch-black, rainbow-bright lapis-colored light ignited.
