CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As an enormous cloud of unbound atoms, Kalb stretched across the breadth of the universe. The Silver Sword had failed to kill him, and Tenalpian death rays had fallen short as well. Such was his dark power that even full blown discorporation could only inconvenience him.

In the meantime, he listened to the universe. There was little else to do while his body pulled itself together. Before being disintegrated, Kalb had never really taken the time to analyze the entire creation of his Maker. He'd always assumed, in his arrogance, that he understood the way of the world.

He hadn't understood a thing.

It wasn't entirely his fault. The universe was like a great big game, and Kalb was merely a pawn, albeit a very important pawn. To truly understand the game, one had to remove one's self from the board, which the Tenalpians had graciously done for him. When he became the true master of all reality, he would thank them with a merciful death. Everyone and everything else would suffer beneath his ultimate power.

His atoms shuddered with sinister delight.

He was getting ahead of himself. Before claiming his destiny, he would need to usurp that power from its source. It wouldn't be terribly difficult. The fool who possessed it didn't know how to wield it properly.

His ineptness, and the incompetence of his predecessor, had brought the universe to its current miserable state. Soon, all that would change.

Soon, Tod would be dead.

And Kalb, newly christened elder god, would hold the universe in an unbreakable grip of evil.

His far ranging molecules giddily swirled.