The vision materialized slowly, like frost forming on glass. Josh found himself in the Frozen Realm again, but decades had passed since the last vision. The realm was thriving now—massive cities of ice stretched across the landscape, and thousands of beings moved through the streets. Azazel had kept his promise. He'd saved them all.
But the young man was gone. In his place stood something else—taller, stronger, more ice than flesh. Azazel, in an earlier form of what he'd become. His eyes still held some humanity, but it was fading.
"This was my triumph," the present Azazel's voice narrated. "I had built an empire from nothing. Saved a dying race. Become a god to those who needed one. I should have been satisfied."
The vision showed Azazel standing in his palace, looking at something clutched in his frozen hand. A photograph, yellowed and cracked—the only thing he'd brought from Earth. It showed a young woman, maybe eighteen, with dark hair and a warm smile.
"Her name was Elena," Azazel's voice said quietly. "We were... close. Before. She was the only person who ever showed me kindness in that miserable life. The only one who didn't see me as worthless."
Josh watched as this earlier version of Azazel stared at the photograph with something like longing. Decades had passed here, but time moved differently between dimensions. On Earth, it might have only been a few years.
"I wanted to see her again," Azazel continued. "Needed to know if she was okay. If she'd missed me. If anyone had." The bitterness in his voice was palpable. "So I found a weak point. Small, unstable, but enough to look through. To see Earth again."
The vision shifted, showing Azazel peering through a dimensional rift—a window between worlds. Through it, he could see Earth. A city street. And there, walking hand-in-hand with another man, was Elena. Older now, smiling, clearly happy.
"She'd moved on," Azazel said. "Of course she had. To her, I was just another victim of street violence. Another body that never turned up. She'd mourned, briefly, then continued her life. She was happy. She didn't need me."
Josh felt his chest tighten watching the scene. The look on Azazel's face—it was pure devastation. The last thread connecting him to his humanity, snapped.
"That's when I understood the truth," Azazel's voice turned cold. "Earth had taken everything from me. My body, my life, my future. And it had forgotten me in an instant. The world I'd desperately wanted to return to didn't even know I was gone."
The vision showed Azazel destroying his palace in rage. Ice shattered, walls crumbled, and the frozen beings fled in terror from their king's fury.
"I hated them," Azazel said. "Hated Earth. Hated everyone who'd walked past me in that alley without helping. Everyone who'd made me feel worthless. Everyone who'd made the Shard's offer appealing in the first place."
The scene shifted forward. Azazel stood before an assembly of his subjects, his form darker now, more monstrous.
"Earth abandoned me," the vision-Azazel proclaimed to his people. "Left me to die. But I survived. I became strong. And now I will show them what they created. I will take what they refused to give—belonging, purpose, power. I will freeze their world and make them serve me, as you serve me. They will learn what I learned—that survival requires sacrifice. That strength comes from suffering."
The frozen beings cheered, loyal to their king. But Josh could see something in Azazel's eyes that terrified him—the complete absence of mercy. The young man who'd been desperate to go home was dead. In his place was something that wanted revenge.
"This was the moment," the present Azazel said, his form materializing beside Josh. "The moment I truly became the King. The moment I stopped trying to find a way home and started planning to bring home to its knees."
"You let bitterness consume you," Josh said quietly. "Turned pain into cruelty."
"I turned pain into purpose," Azazel corrected. "I could have wallowed in self-pity, could have remained a broken victim. Instead, I chose strength. Chose to take what I deserved."
"Elena didn't owe you her life," Josh argued. "She thought you were dead. She had every right to move on."
"I know." Azazel's voice was surprisingly soft. "Logically, rationally, I know that. But logic and rationality matter little when you've lost everything. When you're alone in a frozen wasteland, building an empire from corpses, desperate for any connection to your old life. Seeing her happy without me... it broke something that couldn't be repaired."
The vision showed more—Azazel's centuries of planning, of experimenting with the weak points, of learning how to send creatures through. Each failure only hardened his resolve. Each success brought him closer to his goal.
"I spent lifetimes preparing for this," Azazel said. "Lifetimes planning how to merge the realms. And then your world started noticing. Started fighting back. You and your partner, closing my gates. Destroying my heralds. Teaching your people to resist."
"Because what you're doing is wrong," Josh said firmly.
"Is it? Or is it simply justice? Your world made me what I am. Abandoned me, beat me, left me for dead. Now I offer everyone the same choice the Shard offered me—transform or die. Become something greater or freeze as they are. It's poetic, really."
"It's psychotic."
"Perhaps." Azazel turned to face Josh fully. "But here is what you need to understand, Joshua. I cannot stop. Even if I wanted to—which I don't—I am bound to the Shard's purpose. It sustains me, gives me power, but in exchange, I must expand. Must consume. Must grow the Frozen Realm by incorporating new dimensions. It is not cruelty. It is survival."
"The Shard is using you," Josh realized. "You're not its master. You're its tool."
"We use each other. It gives me power, I give it purpose. A fair exchange." Azazel's form began to fade. "You have seen the three truths now, Joshua. My beginning, my transformation, and my breaking point. You understand what made me. And understanding is the first step toward acceptance."
"I'll never accept what you're doing."
"Won't you? You carry the same power I do. Feel the same cold. In time, you'll face the same choices. And when you do, you'll understand that I'm not offering damnation. I'm offering evolution." Azazel's voice echoed as the vision dissolved. "Sleep well, Joshua Reeves. When next we meet, it will not be in dreams."
Josh woke violently, nearly falling out of the hospital bed. Kyla caught him, having stayed by his side all night.
"Josh! What happened? You were thrashing and your skin—it was so cold I could see my breath!"
Josh was shaking, whether from cold or horror he couldn't tell. "I saw it. The moment he broke. The moment Azazel decided to destroy Earth instead of return to it."
He told Kyla everything—Elena, the rage, the Shard's true nature as a parasitic entity that used Azazel as much as he used it. By the time he finished, Kyla looked almost as disturbed as he felt.
"So he's not even fully in control," she said. "The Shard is driving him to expand, to consume more dimensions. That's why he can't stop."
"Yeah. Which means even if we could reason with the Azazel part—the human part that's still buried in there—the Shard wouldn't let him stop. It needs to grow or it dies. And it'll take him with it." Josh ran his hands through his hair. "We're not just fighting a king. We're fighting a dimensional parasite that's wearing a traumatized man like a suit."
"That's horrifying."
"That's what makes it impossible to win. How do you kill something that's already dead? How do you fight an enemy who's also a victim?"
Before Kyla could answer, Dr. Walsh burst into the room, looking frantic. "Josh! We've got a problem. Your dimensional energy readings just spiked. You're not manifesting powers, but something's changing inside you."
"What do you mean changing?"
Walsh pulled up readings on her tablet. "The energy inside you—it's growing. Not rapidly, but steadily. Like it's feeding on something. Josh, have you been having any unusual thoughts? Urges you can't explain?"
"Just the normal urges to save the world and occasionally sleep past six AM," Josh tried to joke, but Walsh wasn't smiling.
"Josh, this is serious. The pattern here is similar to what we've observed in the Shard's energy signature. It's like the dimensional energy inside you is trying to replicate the Shard's behavior. Trying to grow and consume."
"Are you saying I'm turning into another Azazel?"
"I'm saying you need to be monitored closely. If the dimensional energy inside you starts exhibiting parasitic behavior, we might need to find a way to remove it before it takes over."
"Can you remove it?" Kyla asked, gripping Josh's hand.
"Honestly? I don't know. It's bonded to his cellular structure. Removing it might kill him." Walsh looked at Josh seriously. "But leaving it might also kill him. Or worse—turn him into something like Azazel."
Josh felt sick. "So I'm basically a ticking time bomb."
"You're a person with a condition we don't fully understand," Walsh corrected. "But yes, there's risk. Which is why I want to run more tests, monitor you constantly, and—"
An alarm blared through the building, cutting her off. The lights flickered red.
"Attention all personnel," Admiral Russo's voice came through the intercom. "We have multiple weak points opening simultaneously. All teams report to the briefing room immediately. This is not a drill."
Josh and Kyla exchanged glances, then ran for the briefing room. Despite still being in hospital clothes, Josh wasn't about to sit this out.
The briefing room was chaos. Screens showed dimensional energy spikes all over the globe—at least twenty locations, all activating at once.
"Azazel is making his move," Russo announced. "This is a coordinated assault on multiple fronts. He's testing us, seeing how thin we can spread before breaking. All teams deploy immediately to your assigned locations."
"What about the energy signature?" Rodriguez asked. "Is he coming through personally?"
"Unknown. But we have to assume yes. All teams, weapons free, rules of engagement are defensive positions only. Do not pursue creatures beyond weak point perimeters." Russo looked at Josh and Kyla. "Martinez, you're heading to Tokyo. Reeves, you'll coordinate from here and provide remote support where needed."
"No," Josh said firmly. "I'm going with Kyla."
"Reeves, your condition—"
"Makes me the best person to sense when Azazel is about to cross over. If he comes through in Tokyo, Kyla needs me there. Not here watching from a screen." Josh's tone left no room for argument.
Russo studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "Fine. But you're wearing monitoring equipment, and Dr. Walsh goes with you. If your condition deteriorates, you're pulled out immediately."
"Deal."
Twenty minutes later, they were on a military jet heading to Tokyo. The flight would take thirteen hours, but reports suggested the weak point there wouldn't fully open for another sixteen. They had time.
Josh spent the flight trying not to think about the Shard growing inside him, about Azazel's broken past, about the fact that he might be on a path to becoming exactly what he was fighting against.
"Hey," Kyla said softly, taking his hand. "Whatever happens, we're in this together. If the dimensional energy starts taking over, we'll find a way to stop it. I won't let you become like Azazel."
"What if you can't stop it? What if I'm already too far gone?"
"Then I'll drag you back. Literally if necessary." Kyla squeezed his hand. "You're not alone in this, Josh. You're not that young man in the alley with no one to help him. You've got me, Stevens, the whole team. We won't let you fall."
Josh wanted to believe her. But he could feel the cold inside him, pulsing steadily, growing stronger with each passing hour. And in the back of his mind, he could almost hear Azazel's voice, whispering that resistance was futile.
That eventually, everyone broke.
That eventually, the cold would win.
But Josh pushed those thoughts away and focused on Kyla's hand in his, on the warmth of human connection that Azazel had lost.
As long as he had that, he could fight.
He had to believe that.
Because if he didn't, then Azazel had already won.
End of Chapter 28