“Welcome home,” Kyle Wolf muttered to himself.
Kyle drew in the purified air of Eudaiz to remind himself of what he had missed in his thirty-three years living in exile. He swore to his soul that he would make those responsible for his miseries pay. In this universe—or in the one that contained Earth—his soul was the only possession he was sure was not illusory.
He chuckled at his analogy. As a mind-bender, Kyle’s strongest talent was the ability to make others hallucinate. He could control people’s minds. And he enjoyed doing it, especially when he made people kill themselves.
The stench of fresh blood always gave him a shiver of pleasure.
Deep in his thought, he tripped on a tub of water. He stared at his reflection in the purified water someone had put out in front of their house to give blessings for the new king of Eudaiz. The face mirrored back at him was a face he hadn’t dared to look at for a long time—scarred, wrinkled, and ancient.
He had once possessed the typical angelic, Eudaizian look—and he’d had an innocent Eudaizian mind to match.
Those precious days were long gone.
Eudaiz was a place of happiness where people lived in total contentment and excelled at their individual talents. Eudaizians looked like extraordinarily beautiful humans. People here were born beautiful and saw nothing but beauty in their lives. There was no concept of heaven or hell because those benchmarks just weren’t needed. This universe offered its citizens a true happiness that no other universe could.
Kyle cursed to himself and glanced from a distance at the happy crowds preparing for the king’s coronation. Only those like him who had visited other universes could understand and appreciate Eudaiz, just as only those who had been to hell would appreciate heaven.
Kyle knew the difference between heaven and hell all too well. Eudaiz was a heaven—a perfect world that had rejected him.
“That should be my coronation,” Kyle mumbled.
Eudaiz’s constitution stated that people deserved happiness when they used their excellence to contribute to virtuous acts. But no one had ever clearly defined what a virtuous act was, and more importantly, what it was not.
Kyle clenched his teeth, thinking of the LeBlancs again. His life’s work was down the drain now.
Bran LeBlanc, the previous king of Eudaiz, had cut off his eudqi—the life force that gave him his good looks and invincible strength. And Ciaran LeBlanc. Even the sound of the name made him feel as if his head was going to explode. Ciaran had taken the king’s sovereignty. And that would terminate Kyle’s existence.
“No!” He couldn’t let that happen. “Damn you all. I curse you all,” he growled. He whirled around in anger. “Ennead will kill you all. I swear to the gods of darkness, I will make them pay. The ennead will kill them all . . .”
A Eudaizian man carrying a tub of purifying water stepped out from a house and ran straight into Kyle. Half of the water in the tub poured out onto Kyle. Putting the tub down, the man turned to check on him.
He caught Kyle’s face and withdrew slightly. Then he spoke politely in Eudaizian, “I apologize.”
Kyle smiled. He understood that no one in Eudaiz was as ugly as he now was. Of course, the man was shocked seeing his deformed face. Kyle answered in his native tongue. “It’s not a problem. I’m on my way to the Sciphil zone. I shouldn’t arrive like this.” He pointed at a few leaves and flower petals still hanging from his clothes. “May I use your facility to wash up?”
“Oh, of course. You’re from the Sciphil council. My house is your house.” The man pushed the door open and invited Kyle in.
Kyle shook his head. Naive Eudaizians should die. Kyle followed the man in and closed the door behind him.
Sensing something unusual, the man turned around and looked at Kyle. Kyle savored the fear in the man’s eyes and the pain in his voice when he ripped the man’s heart out with his bare hand. Kyle wiped the blood from his hand on the man’s clothes.
He moved to the window and peeked outside. The air was filled with the distant sounds of cheering, music, and laughter. The aroma of burnt incense and fresh flowers whirled in the air for a moment and was then whisked away by the wind.
“Long live the king!” he hummed the words in his throat and smirked.