The king stood tall and loomed over the dwellers of his dungeon. His deep voice echoed off the stone walls as he spoke.
"That was quite a mess you all made up there in my palace. It's too bad you will all either die or rot in these walls the rest of your pathetic lives."
The king looked at one of the prisoners and approached him.
"You in particular seemed to have lost your mind. My guards were telling me you were screaming about a ghost being spotted in town."
The man looked up at the king.
"Actually, I didn't lie about that one. I really did see one! I promise!"
"Yah... because that's what you should be worrying about right now."
Suddenly, right as the king turned away to walk back out of the room, one of the prisoners screamed to the others.
"Now!"
The sound of steel chains breaking drowned the room and the all the prisoners rushed to jump the king while his back was turned.
But it was hopeless. Five prisoners had a long red spear slice through their skull and pin them to the ceiling. All of them were instantly killed, the momentum of their assault still attempted to throw their lifeless bodies forward.
Only one prisoner was left alive. He shook like he was suddenly caught in a blizzard. His face turned pale, he fell to his knees, and he let out a scream.
"It can't be... your blood... was our intel wrong?"
Just then, ruby-red chains appeared from the pools of blood leaking from his fallen comrades and wrapped around him tightly. He struggled to free himself from them, but it was hopeless. It felt like these chains made of blood were somehow stronger than any metal he had seen before.
"This isn't right! You can't control the blood of others! You have a curse, not a blessing! This shouldn't be possible! Unless..."
The man had a terrifying inclination.
"Don't tell me... you've reached a divine mastery of your curse. The realm of divinity."
The king chuckled at this question and came up close to the dazed prisoner.
"I'm sure you'd just love to get an answer out of me, wouldn't you?"
The man's face looked hopeless. He was completely beat, exhausted, he watched his friends die, and yet the man who was supposed to be their leader was laughing at his anguish.
"You... you are no king. I don't even know if you're human. This is madness!"
"Remind me, who were the people who decided to go on a rampage here again? Who were the people whose only goal was to have my head? If anything, I am the sane one here."
The king laughed once more.
"Ahh. But is my mercy not the greatest? Here I could torture you to death, blatantly kill you or even feed you to my other prisoners while you still breathe. Yet here you are. Did I save the wrong person I wonder?"
"You call this mercy?! You slaughtered all my comrades in cold blood, used their remains to bind me in shackles. This isn't mercy, this is at its very best psychological warfare!"
The king smiled slowly.
"Then how about we play a simple, fun little game? A truth for a truth. I ask you a question, you give me a truth. In response, you can ask me a question to which I will respond with wholehearted honesty. Only a fool would refuse such an offer."
The king smiled darkly looking down at the man.
"And what if I refuse?"
"Oh... please don't make me say it out loud."
The ominous premonition of what the king meant shook the prisoner to his core.
"Fine. I'll play your game."
The king started clapping his hands together.
"Marvelous! I'll tell you what, for being such a good sport, I will start with a truth!"
The king cleared his throat.
"You asked me if I had reached the realm of divinity. As much as it pains me to say, I am not nearly that strong. As a matter of fact, I would estimate that I am only around twenty steps along the path of multiplicity. Well, if we were to think of mastery like a staircase, it may seem like I'm high up. However, if I were to look up at where the next staircase is located, it would be somewhere far beyond the clouds."
"What... you're saying that you are merely at the bottom of a seemingly infinite staircase? Just what kind of potential do power-users possess?"
"Seems unfair, right? However, if you really think about it, all of us start at the bottom of a staircase. Everyone has infinite potential to do whatever they set their minds to. Yet, most of us stay at the bottom of the stairs, unaware of what lies beyond those clouds in the sky."
The king laughed.
"I just realized you tricked me into giving you two truths! You're a natural at this game! I knew I picked the right person to keep alive!"
The king coughed into his fist before continuing.
"My turn to ask a question. What exactly is my brothers end goal?"
"To overthrow you."
Hearing this response the king moved closer to the man and kicked him in the face. His head went flying back and smacked against the floor once more. The king grabbed his hair and pulled his head up to make eye contact.
"I said his end goal. My death would merely be a step. It's never enough for that lunatic."
The man spit up a bit of blood before continuing.
"The-the ocean. That's all I know. Whatever he's looking for has to do with the ocean."
The kings face dimmed.
"Now tell me, how can you manipulate the blood of other people? Do you really have a curse power or were you lying to everyone?"
Upon hearing this question, the king summoned a red spike to pierce the man's heart.
"It's because I am the king, and my blood flows through every person, every crevice in this kingdom. There is nothing in this place that escapes my authority. Afterall, what is a king without his people?"
Watching the life drain from the prisoners' eyes, the king turned back around and left the room.
The hallway he walked was cramped and lit with torches. Puddles of water were scattered on the dirt ground every now and then. After stepping into one, the king looked down at his reflection. However, there was something deeply wrong with it. His reflection was smiling back at him.
The king simply sighed.
"So, you're able to do this now? How unfair. I was wondering how you figured out about my project. Perhaps sanctioning you to a body of water wasn't the brightest idea. But how could I not spoil my brother-in-law?"
The reflection laughed back at him.
"I am not quite the person you think I am. I think you should consider crawling into a hole and dying before your kingdom falls. It may just save your people from what's to come."
The king responded after a short pause.
"My my, how selfish of you to think I would just go and die so easily. You claim I do such a terrible job as a ruler, yet you would throw these citizens in danger to save your own hide given the first chance."
"And you wouldn't? You haven't? You gloat about what a king is without his people, but what are people without their king? You and I both know these people are disposable, nothing but tools we can use to express our power. People to a king are nothing more than an extension of their strength."
"Including my wife?"
"You tell me. You were the one who sent her on that suicide mission."
"She chose to go on her own."
"Yet, you never tried to stop her."
"It was her or the lives of tens of thousands of people behind these walls. I couldn't prevent her from trying to stop it."
"All you did was use her to buy yourself more time. Come on brother. We both know this threat is something neither of us can handle. Besides, you never went with her to help, did you?"
"You don't understand. The kingdom would have been left defenseless. I was only looking out for the interests of my people."
"No. It was never about your people. It's always been about yourself, you selfish bastard."
The king kicked the puddle upon hearing these words. When the reflection fixed itself, it was back to reflecting the king perfectly.
Being left by himself, the king somberly walked toward the exit of the dungeon, his head still looking at the ground.