Prologue: Undying Stubbornness

Nothing had worked.

It was not for want of trying.

Yet the result was the same, no matter what power, no matter what effort.

Nothing had worked.

He had still not resigned to that fate. If he had been that kind of person, then it never would have happened to him. It would not be possible for that thing to grow.

Will was not enough.

Power was not enough.

With shaking hand, he drew sigil after sigil. Not a summoning ritual, but a summons. A last desperate call. Soon he would not be able to move. Rumour. He had been reduced to pinning his hopes on an inter-dimensional rumour. What an absurd existence.

Not just one rumour, but contradicting rumours.

If some of them were true, he would end up in a worse situation than he was already in. He was out of options.

Nothing had worked and so he called forth into the void between dimensions. A pillar of light arose for an instant, piercing through all spaces, then it vanished. The man relaxed. He sat back on that thing and waited.

Heroes and Villains fell, dimensions shattered and he waited. He could not die. He could no longer move, and he waited.

As he waited, unknown to him, nowhere in particular in the space between dimensions, beyond the Tunnels connecting them…

A coffin was there. A black coffin with wide sides, one end larger than another. A coffin with a blue cross on it. The dimensions of the cross were quite uniform. Each part was the same length.

Within this coffin, something, someone stirred.