[ She listens and understands. Power on such a scale, diseases in particular were notorious for getting out of hand. It took careful control — precise, and even that was no guarantee. How many people had moved through Liesse, when she had enacted the Still Water protocol? How many more could she have been able to destroy, had she waited? Her own madness had been her undoing, after all.

Her need to dominate.

She would have truly been Dread Empress Magnificent, had she succeeded, the legacy of Triumpant returned again.

It is why she understands Sebastian's own... humility, in a way. Things like this did tend to get out of hand, though she was certain that there was some pride there for it. Her lips curled, in communion, acceptance that he may have seen it get out of hand, but it was impressive, nonetheless. ]

My Doom was much smaller, I am afraid. Only hundreds of thousands of souls, but in my world that is a staggering count. I sacrificed the lives of my people of Liesse to power a weapon, and the calculated loss of that energy, I used to propel my city to fly. Their bodies, infected with a disease called Still Water, to convert their bodies to my undead army.

I leashed the collected history of souls of another city within my lands, to use their limitless, unending power to open permanent gates into the hells, to allow as many devils as I wished to come through.

[ She says it with a mix of pride, and guilt. Pride at the complicated mature, even in communion, Sebastian can sense the shape of it. Her power, her calculations. How much it took, how it was unheard of to circumvent Keter's Due. She had done the impossible.

And yet. That was many lives. So many lives. ]

Unfortunately, the Doom of Liesse was for my own pride, and no greater purpose.

It was, in a word, senseless.