Awaken the Progeny

## The Heart: Rivers of Blood

My son, my progeny...If you read this account, then you have ascended to become the Prime Evil. Perhaps I have succeeded in my goal to surpass the Demonkin, or perhaps the meddling affairs of the Imperian whelps has cut short my reign. Here, my recounting of your life, my intent, and all the things I should hope you would achieve will be discussed. Therein shall you know your story - your origins, as is your birthright. You are Diabolith - I could not keep this truth from you, my son. By my word, Tyranis, the Prime Evil, do I make this vow.

I waded through rivers of blood to find the perfect beginning for my perfect son. The very beginning of my legacy-the creation of the progeny, who would bring about an order to shake the very foundations of the Confederacy. You, my son. I could not forgo such an achievement-and so rivers of blood flowed, souls poured into a single stone - the Black Heart.

To say the Black Heart lies at your centre is an understatement. It lies at the centre of us all-a constant spring of anger, suffering, and strife, from whence only the vilest of chalice flows. It is an ancient, horrible artefact of a horrible time-from when the Demonkin first came. A shard of his essence, so charged with hate, with the very substance of despair, crackled into the depths of the cosmos. Through the whispers of *sacrifice*, I fed it, siphoning off the populations of countless worlds, of species even the Confederacy knows nothing. It called to me, and in my fervour I answered for you, my son.

When at last one billion souls had been given to its malignant core, I passed it into the aether, cast it into the fiery forge of a supernova to let it slumber. There, it smouldered for one thousand years, stewing, musing on its decadent meal of death. All the while, the whisper that once called me now spoke with sultry tones that even the most enchanting of Tudari seductresses could not muster. It hungered for more, hungered for my soul, but I would not give it such a high prize. Instead, I would offer up another bargain - suffering, and ever more blood in its name, should it assist me in conquering the Confederacy. Strife on an intergalactic scale made the Black Heart squeal with pleasure, and it agreed.

Bound to our unholy contract, I began the next step of your birth, my son. The Black Heart is at the centre of your very fibre, but I knew that eternal suffering could not come to pass. I would not have you, nor I, rule an empire of ashes. Nor could the Black Heart be allowed into the multiverse - it would consume and grow until all of existence, all of time across all things in all ways, was devoured. There would be nothing, forevermore. Thus, I birthed a second-the Guardian Heart. Calm, serene, and devoted to its cause, it would bind with the Black Heart and hold it in thrall to my will for all time. Now I had only to combine the two.

The Black Heart had sensed my treason, and for years the only thought I could pluck from my head was an omnipresent screaming, a terror in the void, into which I was almost swallowed. The Guardian Heart was my crutch in these years-and in some ways, my crux. I could no longer perceive reality except through the tinted lenses of the two Hearts. In one, I saw calmness, serenity, and an overwhelming peace which threatened to shatter my plans of domination through sympathy and morality. In another, I saw a nightmare, a cavalcade of horror and of despicable things. My mind left and returned to my body, and in that time my soul was nearly torn asunder.

Finally, my voyage to the resting place of the Black Heart was complete. The screaming grew ever louder, but the golden hide of the Guardian Heart was not pierced by the arrows of hatred directed at me, and with a cataclysm of proportions the likes of which has not been seen since, I combined the two Hearts. A dull echo of what once dominated me was all that remained. There was no screaming, nor no peace. There was simply nothingness. The Iron Heart had been born, and though the Black Heart's influence could still be made manifest, no longer could it dominate without my instruction.

In your chest is a heart of Iron, my son. In your very blood beats the energies of artefacts long since forgotten by the annals of time, of history. You are a walking testament to the sins of the many, and a custodian of the evillest fragment of the evillest being that has ever disgraced existence.

You are the progeny, and I waded through rivers of blood to birth you.

## The Mind: Despair of the Void

Your centre, your star, was now created. With it began the creation of your being, and the fibre of the Gods now would flow through your veins. However, such a heart could not be bound to an ordinary mind-no normal mentality could bind the Iron Heart and not be utterly obliterated in turn. This Heart was a fickle thing, easier to control then the Black Heart, but still as if an animal which required taming by none other than a master.

At first, I sought Acridius - I knew he had the capability to master such an artefact, and from his flesh I would draw the molecules of intelligence needed to reproduce his mind. In my efforts, I grew a despair of the void - in the shadows, in darkness, every trace of him seemed to recede. Even I, the master of shadows, can only hunt in the dark for so long - and thus, I opted to make a sacrifice. I would draw the flesh, the building blocks of your intelligence, from my own. I forced my arm into the fire, smouldering flesh dripping from a crackling bone, and as each vapour of blood, of flesh, escaped from my limb, I sealed the process and amputated it altogether. Into the fire, my very essence dissolved. From the ashes of these mystic flames, the energies of my fibre emanated. I knew this was a sacrifice made in good faith.

For years, I endeavoured to cure my self-mutilation. It was difficult, to be sure, for such arcane rituals do not often leave much to return, but with sheer determination and the assistance of the Iron Heart, my arm returned to me in full strength. I was made ever more powerful from the experience - now, inklings of the Iron Heart's blessing coursed through my blood. I was enamoured with the ashes I had formed, but there was no time for worship.

I hunted down three Magnificentus, each of whom had devolved their power to escape the Demonkin's sight. They could not escape mine. One begged for mercy, and I struck him down first. Mincing his flesh, squeezing every drip of the biological soup from his being, his essence was the first to bless the ashes I had created. In flames did his fibre singe, and the esoteric nature of the arcane made its will clear. The next Magnificentus was to sacrifice himself willingly, or the Iron Heart would refuse its blessing upon the ashes. For years, I tortured and bent this demigod - I spent depraved nights in utter darkness, plotting the next despicable horror to inflict which might break his will. It was a necessary evil, and such thoughts were, I think, supplied by the Iron Heart in its hunger. When his mind broke, I was released from my evil thoughts. There was no time to mourn. I turned his flesh to the ashes and, amused by the ordeal, the Iron Heart blessed the ashes once more, in agreement. I asked of what the Iron Heart demanded for the final Magnificentus - it simply laughed.

When I walked into the cell, there was no graceful being clad in shining golden armour, as the others had been. the Iron Heart had dispelled all of their guises, and the last remaining was nothing more than a little girl. There are such horrors that even I cannot whisper unto you, my son. Know only that sacrifice was made in your name, and for your benefit. Perhaps, in the darkest hour, in the most utterly shadowed corner of existence, you might find the answer.

With the ashes blessed and disgraced by the horrors and tortures I was forced to enact, they transformed into golden dust. The Iron Heart then slumbered, its duty done, and I took the dust into the depths of space, seeding a speck in the core of every sun for one thousand years. When the millionth speck had been bestowed, I did nothing more than wait. Each speck would harden, turn to startlingly beautiful glass, through which the light of a million suns constantly coalesced and flowed. After another thousand years of fruitless waiting, a single note played in the void - a tune passed from speck to speck. For one brief moment, music the likes of which only the old Magnificentus could forge blessed the ears of all sentients - and then, it turned to darkness.

I followed this trail of galactic breadcrumbs I had laid millennia prior and extracted the seed of my efforts from each of the stars I had given it unto. Where once gleaming, astonishing balls of light, fuelled by the nuclear constants of the very universe were, now, only spheres of black, punctuated by pinpricks of light remained. This cosmic dust was now the mind of the cosmos, and I bathed them in yet more blood, each time beseeching the Iron Heart for its touch to leave the mark upon the fruits of my work. Finally, bearing the whispers of souls too numbed to scream, too tormented to remain mute, your brain was birthed, my son. The centre of your intellect, enhanced by the natural and ornate energies of the universe, now took form.

You are the progeny, and I braved despair of the void to birth you.

## The Genes: Seed of the Gods

With your mind and Heart now having taken form, you were on the path to creation, my son. I could foresee the great acts you would undertake in my name, the foes you would vanquish, the crumbling of empires that would take place at the behest of your conspiring. However, they were a vague echo, and surrounded by darkness - the risk of failure that could come to pass, should I lose my strength at the last moments. There was so much left to do to birth you, to bestow upon you the tools you should need in your quest for domination.

I needed the Seed of the Gods - the genetics left behind by the forbidden union of a Magnificentus and a Tudari. The Magnificentus, such was their majesty, have the strongest of all genes and their mastery over the elements would serve you well, my son. There was a...complication, however.

The ancient line of Tudari rulers descended from this passionate excess between God and mortal was now in the clutches of an oppressive matriarchy. As you know, I had sent one of my faithful subjects, Bartherious, to locate the corpses of the fallen and to raise them as his army to march in war many years prior. The attempts on his life were egregious, but he was more gracious than I and eventually negotiated the appropriate terms with their leader, Sybilia. During the war, I reached out to her to form a more permanent alliance. Should she lend her hand in alliance, the highly-trained and well-populated armies of the Tudari Coalition could have swayed the result of the war, and I would have bestowed upon her a realm suitable for such a contribution. She would not have any of it, and gave me a single warning to leave before she would use atomic "solutions" against me.

I could have wiped the Coalition from the face of the cosmos, made their memory a dull echo in the minds of historians and archaeologists, but I foresaw that which was to be the rise of Skarthion and knew such an action would hurt us in the long-term. Moreover, I still needed the genes of the Monarch. There was no other option - I undertook a desperate ploy in a bid to gain the Monarch's genes purely, and without bloodshed.

I masqueraded as a Tudari for one hundred years, making myself of the race and build I knew Sybilia adored. With my intelligence and my natural charisma, it was only a matter of time until she took me as her plaything, where I would possess the intimate environment necessary for taking a sample of her genetics. Sure enough, at my 90th year as a Tudari, she took me from the playgrounds of her Dames and sentenced me to servitude in her bed chambers. I assumed she would take to me days later and then I would be done with this insufferable illusion, but she had other plans. I believe she suspected me, and thus forced me into trials of loyalty, tasking me to murder innocents, defile artefacts, and dispel purity wherever she demanded it. With feigned difficulty I completed these tasks, and at last, she took to her bed and I had my chance.

In her slumber, following the night of gruelling passion I had to endure, I took the same necessary. Before leaving, I scorched the seal of a new Diabolith into the wall of her chambers. That seal was yours, my son, bearing almost identical resemblance to my own, save for it being less ornate in design and simpler, as I envisioned you to be. With the sample needed now in my grasp, there were only a few steps left to take before you would begin to take physical form.

With the genetics stolen from that harlot masquerading as queen, I sped them to my lair, spinning webs of DNA and amino acids around them. The building blocks of your body, the genesis of your being, were on the brink of completion. There was something missing - the genetic sample of a male parent. I knew that using my own would cause your body to be too uniform, too simple, for the plans I had laid. It would be too predictably mine, and your greatest strength was to be unpredictability. I could not settle for the genes of some backwater farmer, however: Only the strongest of biology was fit to grace your form, and so, I hunted for my ultimate quarry.

Ignithitus, Marshall of the Imperian Confederacy.

With his Avatar Stone, he could ascend to a God and smite me with a flick of his hand. Even my Kravarius, my legendary Helm of Shadow, could not protect me for long against such power. He led the most powerful empire in the galaxy, and with his iron will I feared I was not capable of retrieving what I required. I am no assassin, my son - I could not skulk about for long in the presence of a mortal such as him. I found another solution, one which served my needs far better than any degree of stealth could do.

I would despoil his very being, forcing him into the mistake which would pave the way for your birth, and simultaneously provide for me and for yourself an asset with which to crumble the Confederacy when the time came. I poisoned his drink, laced his food, bribed his servants, and at last he was unconscious. I had the time necessary to work my dark craft on his being. I rotted his heart, placed tumorous growths upon his brain which would cause his downfall. I could have killed him, my son, but if you have learned anything from me, it is that waiting for the right time to strike is far more rewarding. With my work done, I took my sample of his flesh and escaped to my lair before he could awake. Even now, his ignorance and blindness as a result of my magics has given our Apex Dozen an edge they could not have survived without. A significant advantage indeed.

With all the pieces in place, the final molecule of your DNA could now be moulded into being. Merged with the blood of Gods, of heroes, of villains and of evil itself, your genes were to be the most legendary this universe had yet seen. Now, the lifeblood of your being was born. There needed only to be a shell before you would come into the fold.

You are the progeny, and I hunted the Seed of the Gods to birth you.

## The Body: Vessel of Vengeance

The jigsaw had begun to slot into completion, with precious few pieces remaining, but even a blank corner is critical to the finishing of the puzzle. Now, you needed birth, and only through natural growth would your power become fully realised. I could not incubate you or force your progression - nature would select the path your body would take, and should that path lead to your destruction, it could mean the end of myself and all that I have worked for in this universe. For that reason, I could not let it fail.

Only the strongest of women could bear you, for borne of the evils in your very fibre, any other mother would die in painful childbirth, and you would quickly follow. For this, even Sybilia would not suffice. I required something more, someone more impressive still. I consulted the Iron Heart, and its twisted answer was precisely what I had expected. Whereas Sybilia may have gladly stolen you from me, used you as her powerful heir, I knew that Flumali, once the bride of Ignithitus, and the Erthus Primis of Water, would have felt such an act despicable. It was then that I formulated my plan - to have herself act as the vessel of vengeance for all the wrongdoings inflicted upon my people and upon our birthright. I would have Ignithitus, in a facade of grieving for some loss or failing, impregnate her willingly. Then, I would manipulate the process, replacing the genetic material with that which I had formed so desperately after the passing of millennia.

It was a devious plan, but not altogether as cruel as the Iron Heart had intended. Here, there would be perhaps a night of bliss for them both, whereby your genes would be more easily accepted. There would be mourning come the next day, but to them both it would perhaps seem as if a dream, a memory to another time, when love fell from the sky like snow in the Northern Wastes. The Heart had suggested I abduct and torture her, force her to accept the seed of your creation. There are dark paths I would tread in this quest to create you, my son, but I had tread too many already, broken too many laws of nature and common morality. I would lose myself in abject evil should I continue.

I met with Ignithitus once more, and he was compelled to obey me. I instilled in him grieving and despair, emotions born of pure mental signals to be all the more convincing. I advised him that Flumali would better his wounds, and in his compliance, I sowed the seeds of his eventual destruction. I am no voyeur, and I had no desire to observe the despicable deed, but when all was finished, and the two lay in slumber, I twisted her biology, spun a masterwork of genetics and created the web of my deceit. She would stir, but I was fluent in my craft, and eventually, my cause was done. I had only to wait for nature to take its course.

After time immemorial of forging evils in dark depths and consulting with intelligence too twisted to comprehend, nine months was but child's play to my plans. Nevertheless, I felt each day creep by slower and slower, eking out the horrible boredom that was to accompany my lack of purpose. So indentured to this crippling dullness was I that I sought an escape, any escape, and with five months remaining, I sought the rest of my sleeper agents, commanding them to *arise.* Their leader was soon to have come, and with your birthing, the genesis of the Apex Dozen was to come about.

With the first of my subjects prepared for their ultimate purpose and ascendance, I now had only to return to waiting. When the hour of your birth came about, I impersonated a doctor and delivered the birthing myself. I was your father, after all - I had the right to see what would come of my efforts. When you were birthed, I spun the tale of stillbirth due to the grafting of their separate elemental powers, an excuse I knew the two estranged parents would have understood. All things had culminated in this - In my arms, I held you. My progeny, my son, and my heir.

You are the progeny, and I established your vessel of vengeance to birth you.

## The Tool: Twilight of the Masses

All my efforts had finally come to pass. I had held you in my arms, foreseen the destruction you would bring to the Confederacy and those beyond. The empire of the Diabolith would come to pass with your actions. I knew, however, that I could not merely throw you at the Confederacy, armed with nought but your mind and strength, to achieve victory. There was so much left to be done, but we were so very nearly at completion. It was in this time you most likely begin to remember our...difficulties. You were impertinent, my son, not understanding of the lengths I had taken to guarantee your birthing. I could not tolerate such arrogance, for if you did not learn humility, the Confederacy would destroy you in seconds.

In your brashness, you forced my hand, and into the Domain of Strife I cast you. My own personal hellscape, given access to me long ago by the excesses of the Iron Heart. The trials and tribulations you would face there would ensure you did not allow complacency to threaten everything I had planned. You would be changed, should you survive. I placed you under greater risk then than at any other point in your birthing. I would need to wait decades before your lessons were wrought upon you, but I had other tasks to account for in the mean time. If you were to bring twilight of the masses upon the Confederacy, you required more than your intellect.

There was an artefact, lost in time, which Acridius and I had once worked upon together. He had declared it too destructive, too devastating, to be allowed into the universe. He hid it in his pocket dimension, in his personal realm, away from prying eyes and, eventually, my own. His ignorance of the boons it could bring were partly the reason for our split in alliances, and even today he remains my most formidable enemy. His intervention at the Battle of Midnight Ridge, where my first great crusade failed, shall never be forgiven nor forgotten. To find passage into his realm, I required transport. Into his realm, as you know, flow the spirits of all things from this universe - he has taken it upon himself to safeguard the afterlife, as he once did in Godhood. Furocemp, the demon himself, could not breach the gates to his paradise. I would require death to be my ferryman, to take me across the rivers of death and into paradise, that I might bring about my great design.

I knew Skarthion, the skull-taker, was soon to launch his own personal war against the Confederacy. I had foreseen him holding the Vitacis, the Helm of Life, in his very hands. That would be my way out, and I had only to plant my trigger upon the Helm for it to pull me from the depths of death. I met with Skarthion, laid the foundations for his attack, and planted upon him my tracker which would activate at the key moment. I knew I had but one year to enter the afterlife and pass out again, for Acridius manages time in his realm very similarly to ours.

The Iron Heart expelled my spirit from my body, and I was hurled screaming into the void. Lights and a kaleidoscope of colours surrounded my vision, and, then, all at once, I felt grass beneath my feet, sunlight upon my face. I looked down to see not discoloured flesh and impenetrable armour, but a body possessing of beauty I had not felt in years. I was beautiful once, my son - the early beings of this universe all were. With the passing of time and committing of sins that the mind could not tolerate, the burden, instead, went upon the body. This was to my advantage - none save Acridius himself would recognise me. I wandered the garden, greeting passersby, and I scouted every route to the location of the artefact I knew to be in his possession. I stumbled upon it, hidden behind spiritual barriers designed for Makori and weak-willed Erthus, not a former Magnificentus. I needed to wait until the time was right, and finally, I touched the barriers. Each one took hours of my time and concentration to break, even despite my power. I was lucky the location was isolated. At last, I breached the final barrier, and witnessed the devilish scythe, pulsating with bulbous amethyst-hued energy.

The Black-Hole Scythe, named aptly for the ability to destroy the stars themselves. We would have named it Sunkiller, but such a title was not worthy of its despicable cause. I turned to see Acridius standing before me, prepared to banish my soul from the universe itself and into nothingness. I gripped the scythe, used its power to resist his, and then...I was free. I stood once more in my own body, standing before the Iron Heart and cradling the scythe in my arms. Far away, I sensed the Vitacis awakening for the briefest of moments before falling again into slumber.

There was but one piece of your puzzle remaining, my son. You required your own helm, tuned to your power and inspired by my own.

You are the progeny, and I gave you twilight of the masses to birth you.

## The Helm: Shadows of Godhood

With your mighty weapon now firmly in my possession, you were so very nearly ready to assume the mantle of Prime Progeny. I, being the Prime Evil, would bestow upon you my blessings, my empire, and would have you be the architect of my design. You would be unlike any other Diabolith in history - nigh godly but still mortal. You required an outlet for the formidable elemental energies I needed you to use, for your own good. The Iron Heart whispered to me, even as it began to beat in synergy with you. *Kravarius*, it whispered, and my own helm, named as such, called back. I had tried before to remake the Kravarius in an image I could mass-produce for our Diabolith, in a way that would enable our people to ascend, truly, to our apex.

There had been...complications. I had made three replicas, each with some horrible defect that cursed its wearer. Visstass, weak and hated even before his transformation, took on the qualities of a leech, ever more parasitic, feeding on his benefactors until they were nothing but bone. Cazzadath was physically crippled, requiring amputation and cybernetic enhancement to survive further than the next few hours, and Narthion...Perhaps he, of all of them, fared the worst. In his transformation, ripples of light energy assaulted his being. He merged with darkness and light simultaneously, and so he lost the strength, the lack of unnecessary compassion, which makes one a Diabolith. He was weak of mind, like an Erthus, bound to honour and protection of the innocent. Even now, he plots and schemes against my empire, so traitorous is he.

To rein in the shadows of godhood, I needed to attempt the process again. The Iron Heart, this time, would aid me to create a closer replica - not as powerful as my own, that you might have somewhere to aspire to, but enough to set you apart from the common Erthus, and, perhaps, even the Erthus Primis themselves. Your Kravarius need not be perfect, but if it were to be as flawed as to cripple you, all I had planned would be for nought. You needed to be the apex of the Apex Dozen. If you were not the strongest, one of the other Apex Dozen could very well dethrone you, and that would not be to my liking. You are the progeny who would take on tens of Erthus at a time, defeating the Erthus Primis one by one until at last, dominion was yours to grasp.

I began the process as I had centuries ago. First, I carved the tiniest sliver of matter from my Kravarius. Saying it simply like that makes the whole ordeal seem as if it were trivial, but it was no trivial matter to bear the screaming in my mind, the likes of which I had not felt since the rebuttal of the Black Heart many years prior. The Kravarius had no intention to be easy. If I were to attempt to extend its lineage, it would curse me with every second I tried. Finally, I had the shard I needed of its shell. It raged as it slowly repaired the damage, but I could, at least, bear that. I took the shard, turning it to an arcane fire, and as the fire turned black, I began to siphon off my own blood into it. Each drop made it flash a bright crimson, sending waves of hellish energy cascading along every surface. Runes began to inscribe themselves upon each of the belongings in my laboratory. The darkness, hiding the centuries of dust accumulated on instruments rarely used, was illuminated once more.

I took another helm - powerless, but alive, stolen from a Makori training to become one of those foolish Erthus - and thrust it into the fire. The spirit within it cried out for mercy, but I steeled my will and gave it unto its fate. It melted away, twisting into shapes unnaturally suited for the head of any mortal, and liquefied into the very lifeblood of a spirit itself. The liquid rose through the fire, charring at the edges and being formed into a new shape in the centre of the inferno. At last, the first stopped its pulsating, and the helm merely dropped to the floor.

I gingerly bent down to take it, knowing that a degree of caution was necessary. My own helm would protect me, for the time being, but extensive effects could leave me with permanent scars. I turned the helm's eyes to face me, and faint wisps of darkness emanated from the eye holes. It was sleek like my own, not rough and coarse like my previous replica's had been, and, most importantly, jet black. No light would penetrate its hide; of this, I was certain.

I placed the helm upon a pedestal beside your scythe, and summoned you back from the Domain. I had the briefest moment of despair when you did not answer immediately, but as you stepped forth from the portal, scarred and with a steely gaze, I knew my son had learned his lessons. He was no ready. *You* were now ready. From that point forward, you will remember all that came to pass. The feeling of euphoria as you mounted the helm upon your head, felt impenetrable armour form around your body at your own will, and the gripping of the scythe in your hands. The energy flowing through your body must have been unimaginable, and with the Iron Heart and Star Brain now merged with your body and in full tandem, you were as if a god. You reminded me, in those early moments, of myself when I had once been a Magnificentus.

You know all that took place from that day forth. You, the leader of the Apex Dozen, the chief user of my will - you are the progeny. *My* progeny. By piercing the shadows of godhood I had bestowed upon you, you became something more than my son. You were my legacy. This was your birthing, my son.

May the galaxy weep at your fury.