I walk the pitch-black sea like a shadow on glass. No reason. No goal. Just walking.

Darkness settles like a heavy tide, then rises like shattering surf.

Maybe it isn’t a sea at all. It feels nameless, venomous, grotesque, unlike the boundless, beautiful southern ocean men adore.

It has no name, and no one can fix one to it. I call it the Ocean of Darkness. Not its true name—say it, and you know the place.

No miracle can part this drowned expanse. It is where good turned its back, the far side of light, an endless abyss of evil.

Half the pillars of a world are missing. So this isn’t a “world.” Time, space, motion, life and death all splinter here, incomplete.

For being purely pure, the Ocean of Darkness becomes nothing. It remains only the root beneath all things.

I keep walking. For nothing.

No reason why I don’t sink.

No reason why it is unnamable.

No reason for coordinates or maps.

I am simply strolling, a phantom over black water.

Here—Ocean of Darkness—the source of everything the world calls “negative.”

All begins here. All ends here.

Loathing, dreamless dread, Slaughter, hierarchy, ruin, plague, lust—venomous masks tumble in the surf, coil in the foam, howl without rest.

A monotone of madness repeats forever, hysterical and shrill, as if every profane sound gathers here.

I watch a thousand arms thrust from the sea, clawing for purchase, only to be seized by ten thousand palms and dragged down again.

More and more bizarre, terrifying, ugly pageants unfold in the depths—

—but they won’t touch me. I’m certain.

Sometimes the sea shudders—call it moved, call it touched—and the waves leap harsher, more violent.

It contradicts itself, like an ouroboros eating its own tail—born while dying, praising while cursing.

I truly loathe that tremor and the trouble it breeds, yet my soul drinks it like wine.

You want to destroy—don’t you?

You want Slaughter—don’t you?

You want to seize all you desire, and guard all you love—don’t you?

You want to overturn this turbid, tangled world; to become clean and pure; to do evil untainted, fight untainted, lose untainted, die untainted—don’t you?

I question myself, then affirm myself.

An affirmation of evil.

Yes. Yes.

I never claimed to be good. I side with evil, yet I crave a longer, farther-reaching evil (happiness).

Another voice rises:

Too long, too long. Too slow. Hunger for ruin and blood won’t wait! To cage your desire, to dam your killing intent—how is that evil?

It must be me doubting me, because there’s only me here.

So I tell myself:

I still yearn for evil, only in the way I deem right. Long and patient evil, or crazed and violent evil—what is true? The one I choose.

So be quiet. Wait in quiet. I (Andor) will give me (Andreas) an ending worth it.

With that, the trembling stops.

The sea still churns and roars, yet feels oddly lazy.

I didn’t persuade anyone. I merely let myself accept myself.

I am Andor. I am Andreas. I am the Ocean of Darkness—one body, a trinity.

They answer to the root: thought, image, and essence.

I am this sea’s will, its mind, the human shape of darkness at its limit—a monster born a king. No other Demon King is fit to contend. They are bastards of an old covenant, no match for a soul born from darkness.

In a sense, the wraiths are Andor’s test pieces, the Ocean of Darkness’s incomplete children. I am the finished work, king of kings, demon of demons.

I loosen my hold on the Ocean of Darkness’s spirit, sever the link to the root, peel my soul away from “here.” My rank slips. I take on human shape again. I become mortal.

I wake in a small tavern. Light returns. The sweetness of ice cream fades from the root of my tongue. Its slick cool slides down my throat into my stomach.

I rub a mind stained by frenzy and press the ice cream cup to my brow for cool.

Hah. Feels good.

“…What did Raven cook up this time? Seriously, the Ocean of Darkness is too active. My head’s worse than before. A few more dives and Andreas might end the world… Better get Ferrel out sooner…”

I gaze at the easternmost star. A piano melody swells in my ears, and the Ocean of Darkness’s hoarse clamor thins, like smoke blown off by dawn.