Three days after the auction, the Dominion’s researchers had already managed to give me a valid reason for my excessively expensive purchase.
I was working in my office when my lieutenant came in with a message from the laboratory.
Until then, the morning had been perfectly ordinary: several production reports, a series of logistical decisions concerning the specialized units currently being formed, and a financial file whose author seemed to have taken particular pleasure in multiplying tables until the entire thing became unnecessarily painful to read.
Nothing that justified leaving my seat.
The laboratory, however, was requesting my presence.
I finished the page I was reading before looking up.
“Did they break the mask?”
My lieutenant checked the message one last time, then replied that the object was still intact.
The researchers had simply obtained an unexpected reaction when exposing its internal structures to different sources of infernal energy and now wanted to test a source dense enough to exceed the limits of their generators.
He didn’t need to explain why my name appeared in the request.
I closed the file in front of me.
“So after making me pay a fortune for a broken mask, the science department now wants me to serve as a battery.
I hope they’ve at least prepared something more interesting than a faint blinking light.”
My lieutenant’s tooth-filled smile widened slightly.
“Their wording was more respectful.”
“It had better be.”
I stood anyway.
If the researchers had genuinely found a reproducible interaction, it would have been stupid to neglect it simply because I had other things to do.
We had purchased those fragments precisely so they could be examined, and I would rather spend an hour on a useful experiment than discover later that an opportunity had been abandoned because nobody wanted to disturb my schedule.
The main laboratory was only a few minutes from the manor.
During the journey, my lieutenant gave me the information already available.
The first tests had used almost negligible quantities of infernal energy, weak enough to pose no risk to the object.
Each exposure had produced the same reaction: several internal circuits within the mask had briefly activated before shutting down as soon as the source was removed.
The researchers had initially suspected absorption.
The measurements showed exactly the opposite.
Something in the mask was rejecting demonic energy.
And as the intensity increased, that opposition became stronger.
I already found that considerably more interesting than a simple blinking light.
The mask had been installed at the center of a reinforced experimental chamber by the time we arrived.
The damage to the object remained obvious, but the researchers had surrounded its support with an impressive amount of equipment.
Several lines of magical protection covered the walls, and a thick window separated the testing area from the control room.
The head of the laboratory joined us immediately.
He wasted no time on unnecessary introductions and directly played the recordings from the previous tests.
The first sequence showed a weak emission of infernal energy directed toward the mask.
For less than two seconds, several luminous lines appeared within its internal structure before vanishing.
The next test produced the same reaction at a higher intensity, while a third showed an even stronger response.
“At first, we thought the internal circuits were absorbing part of the energy,” the researcher explained as he displayed the corresponding measurements.
“But the more power we apply, the clearer the rejection response becomes.
The residual celestial energy and the infernal source seem to enter into immediate opposition.
We’re reaching the limits of our current generators, however.
They can provide more energy, but not at sufficient density without extending the exposure and risking damage to the mask.”
I followed the curves with my eyes before understanding where he was going.
“You want a more concentrated source that can be cut off instantly.”
“Exactly.
Your magic meets both criteria better than anything we currently have.
We won’t ask for a significant amount, only a gradual increase until we obtain a usable response.”
I looked at the mask behind the glass.
“And if the object destroys itself?”
The department head hesitated slightly.
“That’s a possibility we’ve taken into account.”
“Bad answer.”
He immediately corrected himself.
“The protections are designed to minimize the risks, and we’ll stop the experiment the moment the readings exceed the established thresholds.”
I smiled.
“That already sounds better.
If you pulverize the only authentic specimen we possess three days after it arrived, I’ll deduct its price from your research budget.”
The reaction of several researchers behind him confirmed that a financial threat worked far better than any safety protocol.
“We’ll take every necessary precaution,” he replied with suddenly remarkable seriousness.
“I was certain you would.”
They let me into the testing chamber after a series of checks long enough to remind me that scientists became considerably more cautious when their own budgets were involved.
The device required no direct contact with the mask.
A conductive structure connected my position to its support in order to channel the magic with sufficient precision, while several sensors monitored the slightest variation in the remaining celestial energy.
My lieutenant stayed in the control room.
I raised one hand toward the apparatus and waited for the signal.
“We’ll begin at minimum intensity,” the department head announced through the communicator.
“Simply maintain a stable flow.”
I allowed a fraction of my power to flow outward.
The reaction was immediate.
Faint golden lines ran through the inside of the mask before fading almost at once.
The researchers began exchanging data behind the glass.
I made no attempt to follow every value; I simply waited for the next instructions.
They asked me to increase the flow slightly.
I did.
The light returned, clearer this time, and remained visible as long as I maintained the flow.
At the same moment, a strange sensation appeared in my hand.
It vaguely resembled physical resistance, as though something were directly pushing back against the magic I was feeding into the device instead of merely blocking it.
I frowned.
“I can feel the reaction.”
Several heads rose behind the window.
“Pain?” the department head asked.
“Not yet.
More like pressure that increases with the flow.”
He asked me to reduce it slightly.
The sensation weakened almost immediately.
Then, when he had me return to the previous level, it came back at the same intensity.
So it wasn’t my imagination.
The celestial magic remaining within the object was genuinely resisting mine, but the phenomenon didn’t seem to work in only one direction.
My own energy was reacting as well, compressing around the obstacle with an almost instinctive aggression.
The researchers requested one final, limited increase.
I concentrated more magic.
The mask suddenly lit up.
The pressure surged up my arm and became strong enough to produce a sharp pain all the way to my shoulder.
My barrier appeared around me almost immediately, more from reflex than necessity.
I was about to reduce the flow when something changed.
For several seconds, the pain almost faded into the background, replaced by a sensation far more difficult to define.
It felt as though a permanent tension, so old that I no longer even noticed it, had suddenly given way.
What rose behind it wasn’t foreign.
That was precisely the problem.
The anger caused by the pain became sharper, as did the aggression that naturally accompanied the feeling of something resisting my magic.
Memories of old battles mixed with those sensations without following any real order: a sky saturated with smoke, the recoil of a weapon against my body, accelerations violent enough to compress every muscle, and above all that almost euphoric excitement that appeared when a battle finally became dangerous enough to leave no room for anything else.
I knew that feeling.
I had known it long before Hell.
I had simply stopped noticing how much I missed it.
My heart accelerated further, and a smile formed on my face without any attempt on my part to stop it.
It wasn’t the polite satisfaction of a successful negotiation or the amusement caused by one of my lieutenant’s remarks; it was something much broader, more brutal, and deeply familiar, the same pleasure I had once felt when the enemy stopped being an abstract problem on a map and became a presence in front of me that needed to be crushed.
The department head shouted something through the communicator.
I only heard half of it.
Then the device failed.
A violent discharge tore through the chamber, and several pieces of equipment exploded in a shower of sparks.
My barrier absorbed the blast before it could truly reach me, but the pressure wave still forced me several steps backward.
The magical flow cut off.
The mask dropped back onto its support.
The warning lights activated.
And the sensation vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.
I remained motionless behind my barrier for several seconds, long enough to make sure nothing else was about to explode.
The security door was already beginning to open.
My lieutenant stood on the other side with the researchers.
It was only when I saw his reaction that I realized I was still smiling far too widely.
I slowly closed my mouth.
That detail interested me almost more than the explosion.
What followed was considerably less enjoyable.
Two specialists insisted on examining me before the researchers had even finished securing the experimental chamber.
I let them, mainly because it would have been profoundly stupid to assume that violent contact with an unknown celestial energy couldn’t produce consequences.
The results accumulated over nearly half an hour.
No foreign energy remained inside me.
My magical structure hadn’t changed.
My soul showed no detectable alteration.
The slight burn on my hand had already begun to disappear, and all my abilities responded normally.
The head of the laboratory eventually returned with the experimental data.
“We’ll continue analyzing the results, but nothing currently indicates that any external influence remained within you.
The reaction seems to have ended completely when the circuit failed.”
I pulled my gloves back on while listening.
“So you found nothing that explains what I felt afterward.”
He took the time to think before answering.
“We can explain the magical discharge and the overload of the apparatus.
If you’re referring to a mental or emotional effect, however, we have no evidence of any mechanism capable of directly causing one.
It’s possible the reaction simply disrupted your own magical or physiological control temporarily.”
The hypothesis was vague enough to be credible.
More importantly, it had a far more interesting implication.
If nothing had been added, then what I’d felt hadn’t come from the mask.
The object had simply created the conditions necessary for something I normally kept under control to rise violently back to the surface.
I found that conclusion far less disturbing than expected.
Perhaps because, deep down, I already recognized it.
“No further tests using my magic until you understand what caused the device to fail,” I ordered as I stood.
“I have no desire to repeat exactly the same experiment just to confirm that explosions remain dangerous.”
The department head nodded immediately.
“We had no intention of trying again without a complete analysis.”
“Good.
Keep that excellent habit.”
I left the examination room with my lieutenant.
He waited until we were far enough away before speaking.
We were crossing a long corridor connecting the laboratory to the administrative building when my lieutenant finally addressed what he’d clearly decided not to mention in front of the researchers.
He didn’t ask whether I was all right.
The examinations had already answered that question with enough precision for him to know I’d find it irritating.
Instead, he pointed out that it had been a very long time since he’d seen me smile like that.
I turned my head toward him.
“So you remember.”
“Difficult to forget.”
His answer made me laugh.
“When did I stop?”
He took several seconds to formulate his opinion.
Over the decades, the Dominion had grown enough to change the nature of my role.
I had continued to fight when circumstances required it, but less and less often as a simple participant in an operation.
Most of the time, I had become the one deciding where units went, which objectives they took, and how many men could be committed without unnecessarily exposing the rest of the territory.
He wasn’t wrong.
The logic behind that evolution was excellent, in fact.
A ruler who insisted on personally standing in the middle of every engagement despite possessing a competent army would sooner or later die in a battle that had never deserved their presence.
But by following that logic so consistently, perhaps I’d created something broader than a simple professional habit.
“You noticed I was restraining myself more?”
My lieutenant turned his shadowed head slightly toward me.
“Yes, but I had no reason to consider it a problem.
You had more responsibilities, and you seemed perfectly satisfied with the change.”
“And the idea of informing me that I’d become terribly reasonable never crossed your mind?”
His smile widened.
“You never asked me to evaluate your level of savagery.”
I laughed more openly.
“You’re genuinely useless for certain things.”
“I’m your lieutenant, not your psychologist.”
“Fortunately for both of us.”
We continued walking.
I wasn’t upset by what he’d said.
In fact, the conversation made the problem even simpler.
Nobody had changed me.
I’d adapted.
Running the Dominion required control, and I’d become extremely good at maintaining it.
What had begun as a necessity had gradually become second nature, to the point that I’d eventually forgotten that some reactions didn’t disappear merely because you stopped expressing them.
Violence didn’t frighten me.
It never had.
I’d simply become accustomed to treating it as one tool among many, to the point of forgetting that it had once represented something much more personal.
I made no particular decision that day.
I simply returned to work.
The following days brought no spectacular transformation.
I didn’t wake up wanting to shoot my financial officers, nor did I turn meetings into combat sessions simply because an old mask had triggered an unusual reaction.
Administration remained necessary.
Contracts remained useful.
Ordinary problems still deserved ordinary solutions.
I had, however, begun noticing certain things I’d previously allowed to pass without giving them much importance.
A successful military operation gave me more satisfaction than I wanted to admit, and certain situations resolved entirely without my participation sometimes produced a flicker of disappointment ridiculous enough to make me laugh at myself.
It wasn’t an existential crisis.
It was mostly the realization that I’d spent far too long pretending a part of me no longer existed simply because it had remained quiet.
On the third day, my lieutenant entered my office with a report concerning a particular sector of Pentagram City.
The conflict itself wasn’t new.
For several weeks, an Overlord named Rask had been fighting a coalition of major organizations for control of an industrial zone whose value had increased after several facilities had been brought back into operation.
Until now, the Dominion had no reason to interfere.
We owned no territory in the heart of the disputed zone, and our interests were mainly limited to several commercial routes passing nearby.
As long as the fighting remained far enough away from those routes, both sides were perfectly free to continue killing each other without receiving anything from me beyond routine monitoring.
The situation had changed.
My lieutenant activated the map on the office wall, and several areas appeared around the affected sector.
“The fighting moved east during the night.
Several roads are already impassable, and our observers are reporting significant movements toward our nearest facilities.”
I stood to examine the map.
The fighting was still a reasonable distance away, but one of our main commercial routes risked being cut if both sides continued expanding their front.
“Redirect the convoys north until the situation stabilizes.
I also want a reinforced company around our facilities, with enough heavy support to prevent anyone from mistaking our neutrality for weakness.”
My lieutenant recorded the instructions.
“Do we send a warning to both sides?”
“The same one.
Their war doesn’t concern us as long as they respect our roads, buildings, and borders.
If they want to turn the rest of the district into rubble, that’s not my problem.”
He transmitted the order.
I genuinely thought the matter would end there.
For several hours, it did.
Then the reports began becoming much more interesting.
Rask was retreating.
The opposing coalition had taken several important positions in the south and was now threatening one of his industrial complexes.
Rask’s forces were regrouping farther east, where the terrain still allowed several flanking maneuvers.
I continued following developments because they could affect our roads.
At least, that’s what I told myself at first.
After a while, I had to admit I was studying the maps with far more interest than the situation justified.
I examined troop concentrations, possible routes, mistakes made by both commands, and the options Rask still possessed to avoid being trapped inside his industrial sector.
Part of me almost hoped he’d choose the worst one.
I realized it halfway through reading a report.
The thought was irresponsible.
It was also sincere.
I smiled and kept reading.
Rask did eventually choose a bad option.
He simply chose something far stupider than I’d imagined.
My lieutenant returned to the command room late that afternoon, accompanied by a communications officer.
His demeanor alone was enough to tell me we’d moved beyond simple troop movements.
A force belonging to Rask had entered Dominion-controlled territory.
Around eight hundred fighters, several armored vehicles, and heavy support were attempting to bypass an enemy position by taking the fastest route north.
That road crossed our territory and passed directly in front of a clearly identified logistics facility.
The garrison had intercepted them.
Rask’s commander had been ordered to turn back.
He had refused.
He’d been reminded of the warning sent two days earlier and informed that the road belonged to the Dominion.
He had continued advancing.
When our soldiers physically blocked the route, he’d ordered his forces to open fire.
I remained in front of the map and listened to the entire report before reacting.
“Confirmation that he knew exactly who he was attacking?”
The communications officer replied that all transmissions had been recorded.
The enemy commander had even explicitly mentioned the Dominion when one of his subordinates hesitated to continue.
So there was no possibility of misunderstanding.
I asked for casualties next.
The garrison was still holding, and reinforcements were already approaching.
Seventeen soldiers had been destroyed badly enough to require complete re-summoning, several dozen were temporarily out of action, and two buildings within the facility had suffered serious damage.
A depot was still burning, but internal teams were preventing the fire from spreading.
The enemy force had no chance of holding for long once our reinforcements arrived.
One additional company could probably solve the problem.
I knew that.
So did my lieutenant.
I could have given that order and returned to my office before dinner.
Instead, I continued studying the map.
Rask’s territory covered several blocks to the west.
His main forces were divided between different industrial positions, and his headquarters was most likely located within a large metallurgical complex at the center of the deployment.
Estimates ranged from six to eight thousand fighters in the sector, with several artillery positions and enough heavy vehicles to turn a limited response into a genuine battle if we decided to push farther.
Something began rising inside me before I’d even consciously formulated the conclusion.
This time, I made no attempt to suppress it.
Rask had received our warning, understood it, and still chosen to send an armed force across my territory and open fire on my soldiers when they blocked the road.
I could perfectly justify a massive response from a strategic standpoint.
But that wasn’t the only reason my smile was returning.
“How many troops can we move immediately without altering the defensive posture of the rest of the Dominion?”
My lieutenant checked the available forces.
“Three regiments can be committed within the hour.
A fourth could follow later if necessary.”
“The three will be enough.
The first reinforces our facility and begins pushing the intruders west.
The second circles around the sector from the north to cut off retreat routes, while the third deploys south to prevent the opposing coalition from exploiting our intervention.
I don’t want anyone entering the zone behind us under the excuse that we’ve opened the way for them.”
The orders immediately began circulating.
I specified priorities, routes, and initial limits of advance, then ordered the heavy support units to join the main column.
The operation could have ended with that planning.
My officers knew perfectly well what to do.
My soldiers didn’t need my personal presence to crush a few thousand enemies.
Yet I stepped away from the map as soon as the main orders had been transmitted.
My lieutenant watched me as I retrieved my cap.
“You’re going with them.”
This time, he wasn’t even trying to hide the amusement in his voice.
I adjusted my cap before answering.
“Yes.”
He waited.
I immediately understood what he wanted.
“Are you really going to make me explain why when you already know the answer?”
“I’d like to hear it.”
I laughed.
“Fine.
My army can win without me, I know that perfectly well, but I’ve spent decades watching my soldiers handle nearly every interesting battle while I sit behind a map managing the consequences.
Rask just gave me a perfectly valid reason to get some fresh air, and I have absolutely no intention of wasting the opportunity.”
My lieutenant’s smile widened even further.
“That sounds much more like the commander I remember.”
I started toward the exit.
“Don’t get too comfortable commenting on my personality.”
“I have no intention of doing so.”
“Liar.”
We left the command room while the Dominion gradually shifted into motion.
Outside in the courtyards, units were already boarding vehicles prepared for departure.
Officers received their final instructions, columns formed, and the rumble of engines began filling the complex.
I watched it all with an impatience I no longer had any desire to turn into a reasonable reflection.
The mask hadn’t created anything.
It had merely made it impossible, for a few seconds, to maintain the habit I’d developed of keeping everything under control.
Now that I knew what lay behind that habit, I saw no reason to put exactly the same barrier back in place.
Rask had decided to drag the Dominion into his war.
So I was going to show him why that decision was probably the last major mistake of his career.