same. The World Crusher failed to see the colors of life. She only saw the black and white of time passing. Flashes of existence here and there. People being born, then growing up only to end up dead. It was a vapid and tasteless cycle, and she felt tiny tendrils of bitterness making their way up her throat and traveling slowly toward the tip of her tongue.
Death had told her what her place was, and she couldn’t bring herself to accept that fate.
“But as much as I hated it, I went on like I was told,” the World Crusher wrote, her bitterness flowing through me like hot water in my veins. “I moved on, and I kept reaping. A soul fae here, a Druid there… I watched the Maras develop their culture as creatures of the night and the moon. I saw the Daughters of Eritopia rising. They lived for eons before returning to their twin mountains’ lake, and other Daughters took their place. Daughters who weren’t even aware of their predecessors. Daughters who thought they were the first and the only, who believed they had witnessed the beginnings of Eritopian time. I went on…”
One day, she sat by a volcanic river somewhere on Purgaris. It seemed to me like the World Crusher had grown fond of the In-Between. Granted, it was home to some interesting creatures, even now. I could see why she’d preferred it. Then an incubus escaped a nearby melee. His injuries were fatal, judging by the amount of silvery blood drenching his clothes. He could barely walk.
“It only took a second. The tiny blip of a rebellious thought. I couldn’t shake off the rejection I’d suffered at the hands of the Valkyries and Berserkers,” she continued. “Order had cast me out like a cockroach, an undesirable. This incubus would soon leave this world, and it was my duty to usher him into the next. It was my chance to try again, and the mere thought made my heart soar. Every era I spent in my realm made everything look more and more like the nothingness from whence I’d come. But Purgatory… oh, Purgatory was strange and different and full of wonder. I wanted to go there again.”
So she did. Holding the incubus’s hand, the World Crusher crossed over again. Once more, the Valkyries and the Berserkers came together and pushed her away. She fought them hard this time. Her scythe responded to her emotions in a way I’d never seen other blades react. The black veins shone menacingly as she cast death magic spells against her opponents. Her powers were limited, but not harmless.
Some of the Valkyries fell. They succumbed to dark curses, their bodies withering until they were reduced to shapeless masses of black shadow that scared even the Berserkers. The World Crusher was losing control. “Death had given me knowledge. Knowledge of her power. And I had learned to use it, harnessing its potential to suit my every need. With that much time on my hands, what else was I supposed to do?”
Soon, Order intervened. The World Crusher was no match against her, and so she was cast out of Purgatory again.
This time, however, when the Reaper got up and saw her reflection in the lake, she smiled a devious smile. I could almost hear the wheels in her head turning. For a while, she waited in silence. She thought Death might come to reprimand her again, but it didn’t happen.
“I figured I’d gotten away with it. And I was eager to try again. The more they fought me, the more determined I became to carve my own place into that world,” she wrote. “I didn’t accept no for an answer, and I thought that maybe—if I was persistent enough—Order would eventually cave and let me pass. I was naïve.”
She went back to Purgatory—once, twice, three times. The Valkyries and the Berserkers kept pushing back. Their defenses became stronger, their weapons more dangerous. Their blades and whips and arrowheads were pure darkness and pure light, each inflicting excruciatingly painful wounds. The World Crusher kept coming. She fought them. She lashed out at them. She even raised her scythe at Order once, blinded by her own rage.
It got worse. Purgatory’s forces had no problem throwing her back into Death’s realm, but since the World Crusher didn’t quite register time like the rest of us, she didn’t have the patience to wait for people to die. Something broke inside her. One day, she beheld a young