The dark slowly converged. It obeyed his command, and his command alone. It did his bidding eagerly once his voice reached across the distance of time itself to find it. It was drawn to his own darkness, like the metal of mercury, smooth and deadly, disguised only by a shimmer filling the emptiness underneath. He called and it obeyed. The creatures it commanded, he commanded. The forces it once obeyed, the very forces of nature, were torn and twisted, to form his own deadly whims. He willed it so, and it was.

The smile of fierce glee spread across his being and was echoed in the faces and eyes that traversed the land towards him, taking their darkness with them and building their power, ready to lay at his feet.