Angranor laughed. “Have some patience. You have progressed far faster than your years would suggest. When you get to my age, everything seems far less important. But I suppose you don’t have years to talk. We need to clear this whole mess up quickly.”

  “This mess?” Jonathan scowled. “You created it.”

  For the first time, Angranor turned his aura on Jonathan, imbued with a slight hint of anger. Between one second and the next, Jonathan was on the ground, bleeding from every orifice. It felt like a planet was pressing down upon him. Despite this, he knew that this was just a fraction of the Lord of the Hells’ power. Had Angranor really wished it, he could have crushed Jonathan to death with a single effort of will. Presumably, the only thing stopping him was the laws of the Hells, and even those seemed not to hold Angranor to as great a degree.

  “You live at my pleasure,” Angranor growled. “Do not forget that.”

  Jonathan felt the aura release, and he slowly got to his feet. His health pool was near halfway gone. “I apologize.” Saying those words felt wrong, but he had no other recourse.

  “Good. Now, let’s talk like civilized people.” Angranor spoke as if he hadn’t just tried to kill Jonathan. “The fact is, you are simply too powerful for the ways the Hells are structured. By the time you’re Tier 20, or 25, you’ll be able to fight up many Tiers above your own. As you might have surmised, that simply does not happen.”

  “What do you propose? I, naturally, would like to continue how I have been.”

  “Come. Be my apprentice in Finis Mundi. I’ll fashion you into a weapon that can slay the very gods.” Angranor smiled self assuredly. “I have treasures here, training zones. Things that would make you weep from jealousy.”

  Jonathan stared at Angranor. He didn’t know what to say. He gazed off at Finis Mundi, at the dark star blazing overhead. Then, a full minute later, he found his words. “No. I won’t abandon my friends. I won’t become your pawn.”

  “That’s a pity. I suppose I need to kill you, then.”

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  Jonathan crossed his arms, gambling for his life. “You can’t. Someone like you would know my answer to your question. You would have killed me already, if you could. I remember one of the laws of the Hells. I haven’t done anything to you, and you’re most certainly more than three times stronger than me. That little aura trick was probably the limit of your power.”

  Angranor tensed up, but ultimately did nothing. “You’re right. I had hoped that you would see reason, but I suppose I had hoped for too much.”

  “Can you send me back now?” Jonathan asked, a bit braver in his surety of safety.

  “I could hold you here for eternity, and have my lower level subordinates torture you until you’re a gibbering wreck.” Angranor said this all like he was simply discussing the weather. “Or I could summon your little friends and do the same to them as you watch, helpless.”

  “Again, you would have already done all of that if you could. Return me, now.” Jonathan stood there, not as a mortal facing a god, but as a god facing another.

  “Oh, I will. But you’ll find that the Infinite Hells are not what you remember. For you to continue there, much will have to change.”

  Angranor snapped his fingers and the world peeled away in strips, seeming to fall towards the tiny sun that sat between his horns.

  The last thing Jonathan saw was Angranor standing in front of the dark sun of Finis Mundi, his entire body limned in its light.

  Jonathan appeared back on the plains of Cessation. Only, something felt wrong. The army of the undead that had shambled across the plains aimlessly, fodder for his forces, was no more. Instead, thousands of titanic undead juggernauts thundered across the world. Skeletal warriors the size of buildings, holding thick shields of fused bone and wicked obsidian falchions. Each of them radiated the power that the Stillborn Hegemon himself had possessed.

  Jonathan watched as Arkanon took a devastating blow from the flat of one of the shields. The Uthraki went flying backwards, the air caving in before him. Blood sprayed from his mouth. All around him, the same thing happened over and over again to the others. A System message appeared in Jonathan’s vision.

  Angranor has seen fit to infuse the Hells with a portion of his godly might. All monsters have been upgraded to an entirely new realm of power. The basic monsters are now as strong as Circle Lords of a comparable level, and the Circle Lords themselves are worthy opponents for a similarly leveled god.

  “This is for you, Jonathan. Remember, I will always be waiting.”

  -Angranor, Lord of the Infinite Hells

  Note, this is the one and only time that Angranor will be able to do this. From now on, the Hells are as they will be forever more.