Some time ago, after the Auction where Jacob bought the sword

  King Baalrek observes Jacob sitting on the dorm bed with his head in his hands from his soul. The new, broken sword lies across his knees. It’s just a large hilt and a little fragment of a blade.

  This is the sword he just spent so much money for and it doesn’t work. King Baalrek told him it’s his personal sword, a priceless relic, but… not even the Infernal King managed to make it work.

  “I am an idiot,” Jacob mutters. “I could have bought more Skill Crystals. I could have bought… anything. I could have bought food for Lancelot for a year. Instead I bought a useless sword.”

  Jacob Cloud, you did not, in fact, buy a USELESS SWORD.

  “No? And what did I buy, then?” Jacob asks. “It seems to me you can’t make it work. So, useless. Did you just want to prank me? Is this some kind of punishment for something I’ve done? I honestly don’t even understand why you made me do this. I get that it was your sword, but does it really matter?”

  There’s a reason you had to buy it.

  King Baalrek’s voice now sounds more subdued, more… hesitant. It’s a quality that Jacob doesn’t often hear from the Infernal King himself.

  “And what’s the reason?” Jacob asks, slowly putting his hand through his air and swinging out of the bed in the empty dorm, toward the corridor and the outside fresh air.

  When I was still me, when I still had a body, I craved power. I craved POWER, Jacob Cloud, in a way that few would understand. And that ended up costing me everything because it blinded me.

  Jacob has never heard the story of how King Baalrek died, but he just got a hint that this might be the time he does.

  What happened? Jacob asks mentally while he traverses the corridor full of students.

  I was looking for a Primordial Relic that would allow me to kill Gods. But there was only one God who knew of its exact location. I was in the throes of fury and WRATH, which made me do things that…

  Things?

  Jacob hears King Baalrek make a pause.

  There are several Gods and all of them represent a different kind of danger once they get access to our mortal plane. The one I was after, whom I had killed before, was the God of Madness. He KNEW what I wanted and he purposefully taunted me until I snapped. He baited me and it worked. I crucified the God of Madness, torturing him day and night, bleeding him until the cross itself absorbed most of his blood.

  That sounds… like you really… like, damn. You crucified a God and tortured him?

  I personally made the cross out of unique materials so that it would allow me to torture even someone containing Divinity. And in doing so, the God of Madness managed to slowly slip into my mind and my soul. What happened then was that he cursed me. Madness slowly took over after I killed him. Ironically, it was the location of this relic that he used as a catalyst. The words, which I soon after forgot because they twisted in my mind and soul, sealed my fate.

  So… you went mad?

  Mad. I went Mad. Not just mad, Jacob Cloud. The God of Madness is one of the most dangerous beings there are. In some aspects, more dangerous than the Vile One, Asmodeus himself.

  So, you…

  So, I slowly lost my mind. I tried healing the Madness, but it was impossible. It was deeply rooted in my soul. Therefore, I started carving out pieces that hadn’t been affected by it and released them all around as inheritances—planning for the day I’d fight back. I never told anyone the details—perhaps, only the Headmaster knew what I was doing.

  Why didn’t you tell anyone? So, Infernals believe you’re a crazy, mad person who was trying to kill as many people as possible when you were just trying not to go fully insane?

  Madness would spread through Karma if I told. It works in esoteric ways that… as long as I didn’t find someone capable of releasing me from it, I wouldn’t be able to tell. I would have to keep this secret to me. I slayed people through Madness, briefly, not many. Thankfully, my life was ended soon before I could attempt a real carnage.

  Wait. So, you’re saying that I’m the one who’ll release you from your Madness? Aren’t I at risk of being infected, following your own logic?\

  No. You found what I had thought lost. In a fit of Madness, I broke the sword. I shattered it. And I knew that it was going to happen—I planned for it. That is why I’m telling you about my real fate.

  But, this doesn’t make sense. Why inheritances like that? What did they have to do with rescuing you from Madness?

  Because I know how Madness will manifest when eventually you’ll find a version of me that was corrupted. All my soul shards should be clean, but I’m sure that the Gods will try to reclaim them and infect me with my original sin.

  So, Jacob puts his mind to it, I suspect that the fact that you’re so obsessed with puzzles when it comes to your inheritance is related to this.

  Yes. Infernals love them. My Madness would most definitely create a puzzle for whomever tried to rescue me. And that’s why the fragments of my soul have been hunting for someone capable of…

  Someone capable of solving any puzzle, Jacob realizes. Yet, that means only someone like me, with the Grimoire, would be able to satisfy all the requirements.

  I was hoping that I could groom an heir, that it would take centuries before meeting my Madness again. But I suspect that if Karma is showing you the sword NOW…

  That the day you get infected again is close? Jacob asks.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  It appears so.

  King Baalrek takes another moment, gauging Jacob’s reaction.

  Kid, what am I about to ask you to deal with is beyond any sacrifice I could ask even from my own family. I—

  I’ll do it.

  Jacob, I haven’t explained.

  King Baalrek—master, you gave me more than I could have ever asked from someone. Even with the Grimoire… I wouldn’t be a Champion without you. If I’m not a nobody anymore… if I’m not disposable anymore, I can’t not recognize how much you contributed to that. How many of my feats I would have accomplished without your guidance in Infernal Skills? You gave me so much. This? This is the very least I can do. Plus, does it mean I get to see you in the flesh once we get rid of this curse?

  That is still to see. But… Jacob Cloud, be careful. What you’re going to eventually face… it will be the most dangerous point of your life. But, just use the sword and you’ll destroy the curse. Anyway, let’s continue this conversation face to face.

  Jacob’s consciousness suddenly gets sucked into his own soul.

  * * *

  King Baalrek doesn’t have a body even here, he’s a black cloud that hovers in humanoid form in front of him.

  “Woah,” Jacob says, reeling, and finding his grounding into the weird valley he just landed in. “How did you do this?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” King Baalrek replies, walking around, circling Jacob. The only corporeal part of King Baalrek is the hilt of the sword that somehow made it all the way here.

  “I craved knowledge,” he says. “I thought if I knew enough I could control everything, even the fate of Gods.” He looks Jacob in the eye. “Do not make my mistake. Do not fear the unknown. Do not seek power out of wraith.”

  Jacob frowns.

  “Okay, sure? But I still don’t get one thing,” he says. “Why were you so obsessed with power in the first place? You were already so powerful. Why, in your words, being so foolish to torture the God of Madness? You already had plenty of power. Why did you need a Primordial Relic on top of that? More specifically, why the… urgency?”

  King Baalrek nods.

  “Because Asmodeus took my children,” he says. The words come out flat. He does not dress them up. “He took them one by one—he… did things to them. I decided that I would kill him no matter the cost. I decided that I would erase his name from reality forever, that he would pay the highest price. And I needed power to do that.”

  He spreads his hands.

  “So I tortured the God of Madness for knowledge. As I said, he gave it to me—and by doing so, he cursed me. He gave me every path to power and he buried my mind under them.”

  King Baalrek rubs a hand over his featureless face.

  “The curse tears away everything that made me a king, that made me… sane,” he says. “It ate my flesh first. It carved my veins out and left bone. It chewed through my judgment and my patience. It left the hunger for power. It left the rage. It left so much rage.”

  He looks down at his skeletal fingers.

  “The God of Madness bested me. I thought I could use him. But…”

  Jacob sits very still.

  For a moment Jacob forgets that this man is a legendary, perhaps disgraced, hero.

  He sees a father who lost his children. He sees a king who misplayed his hand and paid in flesh.

  “What’s the plan,” Jacob asks. His voice comes out softer than he expects. “I just stab… whatever Madness you have with the sword?”

  King Baalrek’s shapeless mouth curls.

  “I have a plan. The God of Madness left me with enough mind to try one more time.”

  He taps the hilt again.

  “I pushed a fragment of a counter-spell into this metal, and when I became the Mad King, I absorbed it. My Madness will be gathered and restored in full whenever it touches my Soul again. It’s incorporeal. It just… is. And when it reawakens, it will have the same power—the same spell I crafted and that it unwillingly, unknowingly nourished for me. When this shard pierces me at the right moment, it will not just cut bone. It will cut through the curse. It will open cracks the Madness cannot mend. And it will restore the sword.”

  He nods at Jacob. “You did not waste your money. You just have to wait a little longer until this becomes whole again.”

  * * *

  Golden cracks keep crawling over the skeleton. Small chips of bone fall to the floor and turn to dust.

  Nimirea leans on Jacob’s shoulder. She stares at the light that runs along King Baalrek’s ribs.

  “What did you do,” she whispers.

  Jacob keeps his eyes on the skeleton.

  “Part of the Madness never left King Baalrek, I think,” Jacob says, almost to himself. “That is why his trials were this brutal—I honestly don’t think he ever even wanted anyone to save him. That is why his tests kept getting worse—King Baalrek’s. One might think of the people he killed as being spared from the Madness that consumed him.”

  “WHAT DID YOU DO?!” the Mad King shrieks.

  “Destroyed the Madness because… it was predictable. You, Mad King, were not that impressive. Now, rest in hell.”

  King Baalrek shivers. The words hit him like a hammer. The golden cracks flare brighter.

  “You hold the true inheritance,” he repeats. The soul fire in his skull flares wild. “You. That other fragment hid it from me. He KNEW this was the only piece that could cut me loose.”

  Jacob nods. “It was all part of the plan,” he says. “I like plans, honestly. They somehow always work out for me. Lucky, I guess, right?”

  The skeleton reaches for him and does not make it. The golden lines reach a peak. There is a sound like glass under too much pressure.

  Then the bones explode.

  Shards of golden light shoot out in every direction. Jacob pulls Nimirea down and shields her with his body since she’s still unsteady on her feet. The blast rolls over them like a wave. The red lightning flickers and dies for a heartbeat.

  Dust settles. Golden motes hang in the air and drift down like slow sparks.

  Jacob rises to one knee. He scans the shattered remains. There is no skeleton now. There is only a black scorch mark where King Baalrek stood.

  He waits.

  The Secret Room stays silent for a long moment. The red lightning starts to creep back along the ceiling. The mana pressure eases.

  “Is it over,” Nimirea asks.

  Jacob turns to her. “Well, actually…”

  Her eyes roll back before he can say more. Her legs buckle. He reaches for her, but he is a heartbeat too slow this time. She drops and hits the ground. Her body lies still. Her breath comes shallow and fast.

  “Nimirea,” he says. He shakes her shoulder. She does not answer.

  He touches her but some weird energy, something malignant makes him recoil. He feels what has to be the Monster God’s mark on her flare and dim again. Whatever King Baalrek’s curse did to the room, it tugged on that bond.

  Echoing footsteps break the silence.

  They come from the far end of the Secret Room, where the red haze is thickest. Jacob rises and steps in front of Nimirea’s body.

  A figure steps out of the haze.

  He looks like an Infernal man in his middle years. His shoulders are broad. His hair is dark and threaded with a little silver. His eyes burn with a steady golden light instead of wild soul fire. The skin on his face carries a tattoo that traces the lines of a skull over his real bones. The ink turns his cheekbones sharper and his grin more dangerous.

  He wears simple Infernal tunic instead of royal armor.

  He walks as if the room belongs to him anyway.

  He stops a few feet away from Jacob and he extends his hand.

  “We finally meet, Jacob Cloud,” he says. His voice is rich and alive. “I am Baalrek Drazhal, first of my name.”