In the dark, oppressive meeting hall of the demon lords, the five Demon Lords sat in council.

An ethereal projection, a wisp of corrupted energy, floated in the center of their bone table, replaying a scene of chaotic power.

It showed the figure of Edgar, locked in a brutal duel with a masked God.

"Edgar is fighting Cosmos?" Deimos's voice was a low hum, his usual calm replaced by a flicker of genuine surprise.

He watched the report, sent by a lesser demon god who was observing the battle from a safe distance.

"He is not just fighting, Deimos," Beelzebub rumbled, his voice a low growl in hunger "He is winning. That little toy of yours, the one you've been so interested in, he may break before he is even fully developed."

"Do we stop Edgar?" Phobos rasped, the hundred terrified faces swirling in his shadowy form all turning to look at their leader.

Deimos watched the projection, his gaze unreadable. He saw Sunny's brilliant counter-attack.

He saw Edgar's mocking mimicry. He saw the barrier fail. He saw the Emperor of the Pantheon, the being who had eluded him for a million years, trapped. A slow, cold smile spread across his face.

"No," he said finally, his voice a final verdict. "This is his test. If he cannot handle even a single, over-eager Legion-Born, then he is not the opponent I have been waiting for. He should rather die." Deimos closed the report, the projection vanishing, and stood, his gaze capturing all the darkness in the vast hall.

Far away, in a different multiverse, two other Demon Lords stood before a defeated king.

The world around them was a dying husk, the skies a sick, yellow-green, the very air thin and choked with the scent of decay.

The Zerg, once a teeming, unstoppable tide, were gone, most of their population having migrated to a richer multiverse.

All that remained was their dying God, who chose to protect their home multiverse.

"You think you know our weaknesses?" Ichor, the Demon Lord of Corrosion, sneered, his slimy, acidic form pulsing with a mocking light. "That is pretty lame, insect."

He and Maledictus, the Demon lord of Curses, had come to this multiverse expecting a war.

Instead, they had found a near empty multiverse, an empire ruled by a single God, while the two new Gods were out in the multiverse of resources, as Maledictus has said earlier.

"You will regret this," the Zerg God, Voragos, hissed, his insectoid body, once a magnificent fortress of muscle, now battered and broken.

His three remaining eyes burned with helpless fury. "My son… Beru… he is the chosen one of the heavens. He will make our race… our race…"

SLAP!

Ichor's slimy hand, crackling with corrosive energy, lashed out. The slap sent Voragos flying.

His body shot across half a universe, crashing through dead, abandoned planets before finally coming to a stop in the empty void.

"Your son?" Ichor's voice echoed in his mind, dripping with poison. "We are going to the Multiverse of Resources next, insect. And I will personally find your precious, chosen son. I will kill him. I will eat his flesh. And I will make him watch as I devour your soul. Then, you can see him in the afterlife."

Ichor dissolved into a streak of acidic light, hurtling across the cosmos to finish his prey.

Voragos floated in the void. He looked at the incoming Ichor. He had no power left to fight. But he had one, final act of defiance.

He gathered the last, fading embers of his divine will, and he screamed.

It was a message. An inaudible screech, a telepathic broadcast that contained all his love, all his rage, and his final hope.

It shot through his own multiverse, bypassed the barrier, and lanced across the infinite void, aimed at a single mind.

In the Multiverse of Resources, an ant-like, humanoid insect, taller than any human, his dark-red carapace gleaming with power, suddenly froze.

His two long, sensitive antennae, which had been idly tasting the rich, mana-filled air, twitched violently.

The message, a scream from a dying God, from his father, pierced his mind.

He heard it all. The arrival of the Demon Lords. The defeat. The final, defiant message of his father's last moments.

He looked up at the sky, his eyes, once calm, now burning with a grief so profound it became a physical fire. His father was dead.

"I WILL KILL THEM ALL!" he roared, his voice an inhuman sound of vengeance. "I will eat their flesh! I will drink their blood! I will… I will…"

His words failed him, his grief too vast to be contained in a simple threat.

He was Beru, the Crown Prince of the Zerg. And he was now an orphan.

"I will evolve," he whispered, his promise now a sacred oath. "I will evolve past the very Gods of Insects from the legends. I will evolve until I can devour the Demon Lords themselves."

A pair of shimmering ant-wings erupted from his back, and he shot into the sky, a comet of rage. He knew he was not strong enough. Not yet. He had to run. He had to hide. He had to grow.

As he flew, he sent his own telepathic message, to his only true friend, another anomaly from his multiverse.

"Brother Suba! Run! The Demon Lords… they are coming to find us!"

Far away, in another corner of the multiverse, a different, newly ascended Zerg God, his form a strange, mutated fusion of insect and something… else… paused his own exploration. "My Prince? Is your father, the King, alright?"

"He is dead," Beru's message was a shard of ice in Suba's mind. "We are the only ones left who can avenge him now."

For a few, agonizing seconds, there was no reply. Then, Suba's voice returned, his tone no longer curious, but filled with a grim, terrible resignation.

"Brother Beru… my Prince… I think they have already sensed me. I can feel their... gaze. You must hide. Do not stop. Do not look back."

"Suba, no! We can fight—"

"We can't. Not yet. When you reach the edge of this multiverse," Suba's voice continued, calm yet hurried, "open the box I gave you. It will help you break the barrier. Go. Live, my Prince."

And then, the connection was cut.

Beru, the last son of a fallen King, felt his heart, a complex, alien organ, shatter.

His father was dead. His only brother-in-arms was about to be.

This defeat, this helplessness, did not dim the fire of his vengeance. It fanned it, turning it from a simple flame into a raging inferno.

His anger, his grief, his pain; it all became fuel, and his body burned it, accelerating him, pushing him towards the edge of the multiverse, towards the unknown, at a speed he had never known he possessed.

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