Prologue: The Eternal Madness
"Aldora, Dabara, Yonku of Time, Inerous of Dreams… you dare betray me!"
Damon, the Eternal Lord of Madness, stood upon the skies. Below him laid a vast, amount of corpses and blood. Blood poured from his chest where a divine blade was buried deep, the wound glowing with a cursed brilliance.
"So this is how I fall," he muttered to himself, calm even as his power bled into the void.
Without warning, three Tempest Needles pierced through his skull, severing his link to all his treasures, cutting him off from heaven and earth. His essence trembled, flickering like a dying flame.
"Haha… Lord of Madness," came a mocking laugh. A being stood before him, constantly shifting child to man, man to elder, and back again his laughter echoing across time itself. It was Yonku, the Father of Time. His beauty was otherworldly, his presence unbearable.
"Even I never saw this one coming," he said, touching his face as though admiring the tragedy before him.
Aldora's voice sliced through his arrogance. "Do not provoke him, Time Lord. Do not forget who stands before you the one who toyed with fate itself."
She lifted her veil, revealing a face so divine it could have belonged to a goddess. But there was a single, horrifying flaw her eyes were gone, sewn shut with blood-red threads.
Yonku flinched. Even for the Keeper of Time, the sight was too cruel to witness. Merely glimpsing her pain rippled through his very essence.
"Oh, Lord of Madness," came Dabara's voice, deep and commanding. He stepped forward, his armor black as voidsteel, runes of chaos burning across its surface. His hair flowed behind him like dark silk, his expression calm yet resolute. "Do not hate us for this. You are a mad storm that cannot be contained. A beast that must be put down… for the sake of all creation."
Damon looked at him, blood dripping from his lips. His voice was quiet, almost sorrowful. "Dabara… You ruled in chaos with me. You built the world of madness by my side. And now you betray me? Hahaha..."
His laughter echoed across the heavens, chilling even the divine. Then his energy surged, spiraling upward like a blood-red storm.
"Mad State," he whispered. "Art One Eternal Madness."
His hair spiked and grew long, his skin turning jet black as veins of crimson light pulsed beneath it. The gaping wound in his chest refused to close, but his aura twisted, growing darker, heavier alive.
"Even if I die," Damon said, tilting his head with a twisted grin, "it will not be a pitiful one."
In the next instant, he vanished.
Yonku's eyes widened he hadn't even seen the movement. Damon appeared behind him, his presence suffocating.
Impossible. "He's faster than me?"
Yonku blurred through several timelines at once, leaving afterimages of himself in every moment. Still, Damon's gaze followed him effortlessly.
"How does he still have this much strength?" Yonku whispered, alarmed. Then louder: "Aldora! Dabara! There's no more time to waste!" His shifting form froze, revealing his youthful face the true vessel of the Time Weaver.
Without hesitation, Dabara's body ignited with chaotic energy. "Old friend," he said, his voice carrying both regret and resolve, "shall we have one last dance?"
Damon's grin widened. "A dance with betrayal as the melody? Very well." He raised his head proudly. "But tell me, Dabara… do you call this a victory? Look around you. So many of your allies lay dead." His voice was cold enough to silence the stars.
"Inerous of Dreams," Damon hissed suddenly. "I gave you everything and you still betray me?"
He stretched out his hand. Inerous barely had time to gasp before his neck snapped. His lifeless body hung in Damon's grip like a broken doll.
"I do not take betrayal lightly," Damon said, his tone unraveling into madness.
"Hehehe… why don't we end this with one final act?"
Fear rippled through the gods. Yonku, Aldora, and Dabara froze.
"How long has it been," Damon murmured, voice distant, "since I last felt such shame?"
He crushed Inerous's neck completely. The sound cracked like thunder. Aldora and Dabara turned to flee, but Yonku remained his pride as the Time Weaver anchoring him.
"Pandora of Time Vajra Body!" he cried.
Before the technique could form, Damon appeared before him, eyes glowing with a halo of insanity. Yonku froze, every cell in his divine body screaming. Now he understood why the others ran.
"Damn it," he muttered, panic breaking through his calm. "Why didn't I take the old seer's advice…"
Damon stared into his soul, calm and knowing. Then he looked toward the two fleeing figures.
"So pitiful," he murmured. "If you wished to kill me… you should have been ready to die."
"Aldora!" Dabara shouted. "I'll open one of Chaos Gate. The moment it appears jump!"
Damon's form began to distort, his body swelling as dark power erupted outward.
"I will return one day," he said, his voice thundering across creation. "To claim what is mine!"
"Overload!"
All his techniques fused as one, his "Seven Emotion Body" surging with infinite wrath. His anger burned hotter than the suns of creation.
The world shook.
BOOOOM!
A blinding explosion consumed the sky. Dabara and Aldora didn't look back they only ran faster.
The Gate of Chaos opened, swirling violently. Dabara seized Aldora and hurled her through it. The gate snapped shut a moment later.
The explosion reached him before he could brace. Flames devoured Dabara and the Time Weaver, their screams echoing as reality tore apart.
But death did not come. Their flesh burned, their souls writhed, yet they lived.
"Aargh! Dabara! What has he done to us?!" Yonku screamed, clawing at his own skin as time itself leaked from his wounds. The more he tore, the worse it burned.
Dabara struggled to speak through the agony. "Can't you feel it? This isn't just power… it's emotion! The fire burns us because it feeds on his lust…" He looked at Yonku with terror. "His lust to return!"
A wave of dread washed over them as they turned. The battlefield was littered with corpses, every god and guardian erased.
A massacre. A desecration.
The world would remember this place as "The Altar of Insanity".
Far away, in a distant plain, a young boy lay trembling in his mother's arms. No older than sixteen, his eyes were hollow void of life, void of soul.
He was broken. Insane.
This was the curse left behind by the fall of the Void Family, once loyal servants to the Royal Court of Avalonia. For four hundred years they had served faithfully, until greed devoured the heart of King Balarok.
The boy had been born blessed a child touched by the favor of gods. But Balarok's envy turned to malice. On the day of the child's birth the Void Palace was weakened, he struck. Locating the child and draining him of his divine blessings, stripping him of everything, and cast the family into ruin.