The mighty never truly fall…or so they tell themselves while polishing their crowns atop increasingly precarious thrones.

Over the eons, the mighty get mightier through a simple principle: compound interest on power.

A small advantage becomes a larger advantage, which becomes dominance, which becomes the kind of authority that reshapes reality to ensure continued authority.

The rich get richer because wealth attracts wealth like gravity attracts mass. The powerful become more powerful because power is the ultimate tool for acquiring more power.

It's a self-reinforcing cycle that would continue forever, if not for one tiny problem: hubris makes even rulers stupid.

History…cosmic and otherwise, is littered with the formerly mighty who made that one critical error.

The tyrant who dismissed the peasant uprising as "insignificant." The corporation that ignored the startup in the garage.

The empire that decided to invade a glacial empire in winter.

The Nar'Thyss…who decided to conduct a Scourge Protocol without checking if someone had recently learned to weaponize The Void itself.

The mighty rarely fall. But when they do, it's usually because they've done something spectacularly, catastrophically, almost impressively stupid.

---

Across The Void, near the Edge of Space of Star Sea Gamma-7, reality prepared to witness another chapter in this eternal pattern.

A massive legion of thousands of Nar'Thyss hung in the not-space like a storm cloud made of narrative authority.

Their forms…butterfly-like, beautiful, terrible…created patterns that hurt to perceive directly, as if someone had written a story about stories and given it wings.

A silver brilliance was prevalent across this entire area as each of these entiries was protected by s powerful light from the forefront!

At their forefront floated a silver Nar'Thyss whose power made the space around him defer.

His wings, twelve pairs of them, each told a different epic of civilizations that had risen and fallen for his entertainment.

This was Mor'dantius the Harvest King, Conductor of Concluding Crescendos, and he was profoundly, existentially bored!

Bored!

"Brief me on the tiny critters who will go through our Scourge," he said, his voice carrying the weary tone of someone who had seen too many endings play out the same way.

The yawn that punctuated his words somehow made reality itself feel drowsy.

His lieutenant, Zeph'andra, rustled her eight pairs of purple wings in what might have been the Nar'Thyss equivalent of clearing her throat.

"The crystalline titans of Gamma-7, my lord. Fascinating specimens, truly. They achieved consciousness through harmonic resonance…imagine, if you will, living tuning forks that thought themselves into sapience."

"Spare me the poetry, Zeph'andra. Facts, if you please."

Another commander, Vel'korian, interjected with practiced precision. "Three major factions, my lord. The Resonance Hierarchy controls the northern segments, led by Titan-Primus Shal'garon…a Tier 9 existence who has harmonized with the fundamental frequency of their Star Sea itself. The Harmonic Collective occupies the central systems, more numerous but individually weaker. And the Discordant Choir in the southern reach…rebels who've rejected traditional resonance patterns."

"And we're attacking...?" Mor'dantius prompted, though his tone suggested he barely cared about the answer.

"The Resonance Hierarchy first," Zeph'andra supplied eagerly. "Maximum narrative potential. The mighty defending against impossible odds, the lesser factions forced to choose between helping their oppressors or watching them fall, the inevitable betrayals and desperate alliances…"

"Yes, yes," Mor'dantius interrupted, his silver wings fluttering with impatience. "The same story we've orchestrated a thousand times before. Very well. Let's get it over with."

He turned toward the Edge of Space, that membrane between existence and void where reality had to argue for its right to be.

"Forward," he commanded, and thousands of Nar'Thyss began their invasion, passing through the barrier with the casual arrogance of those who had never met meaningful resistance.

They entered Star Sea Gamma-7 with fanfare made of screaming space and burning possibility.

After all, they were thr Nar'Thyss. All of this was normal.

And this time around, nothing would be different!

Behind them, The Void retained its calmness for exactly three seconds.

Then it flickered.

Where nothing had been…and nothing should have remained, two figures materialized with the sudden certainty of an ambush that had been waiting patiently for its moment.

Achilles stood wrapped in The Void itself like a robe made of aggressive absence. It clung to him not as fabric but as authority, darkness that wasn't dark but simply the active negation of light.

Beside him, Rose's water form had taken on qualities that shouldn't have been possible…she was there and not there simultaneously, liquid that existed in negative space.

Yes, the mighty rarely fell.

But when they did, it was usually because they had done something utterly stupid to bring about their fall.

This time around, they had pissed off someone they shouldn't have.

"Mor'dantius the Harvest King," Achilles said, his voice carrying across The Void despite the impossibility of sound in nothingness.

"Tier 9, Level Null. Approximately 8,000 years of accumulated narrative authority. Prefers complex, multi-layered tragedies with redemption subplots that ultimately fail. Has a particular weakness for stories about pride preceding falls."

Rose's smile was visible despite her face being made of water that didn't entirely exist.

"How poetic," she observed, her voice carrying the kind of anticipation usually reserved for scientists about to test a particularly interesting hypothesis.

"Shall we give him exactly the kind of story he loves? Pride, certainly. And such a spectacular fall. You would gets lots of Units of Existential Authority of Fables, yes?"

"The mighty get mightier," Achilles agreed, beginning to move forward with steps that didn't traverse distance so much as edit it.

"Until they forget that 'mighty' is just another narrative. And narratives... well, those can always be revised."

The assassination was about to begin, and Mor'dantius the Harvest King, in his boredom and arrogance, had no idea that he had just cast himself as the victim in his own tragedy.

The mighty rarely fell. But when someone had learned to assimilate The Void itself, when someone could exist as half-nothing while wielding the authority to rewrite stories, when someone had been given every reason to demonstrate that even Tier 9 existences could bleed...

The mighty didn't just fall.

They were edited out of existence entirely!

Oh!

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