The Book of Destiny

An excerpt from the Libris Metallum (Legionnaire Edition):

No man is born unto greatness.  Though their soul burns with the sacred flame, it is held fast in the human body, a prison of unholy iron.  Every human is made corrupt, none are exempt.  It is only in the tribulations of the world, when the depraved descend upon the forsaken, that one may purge themselves of their failings.

Even such a one that shall receive the might of a god must begin life in frailty.  Though he would be known to many Earths as a destroyer, divine wrath from beyond, and the author of a new reality, the man who would be Kaiser was born to a life of suffering.

Yonatan was he called, raised by a proud, but forsaken people, subjugated by an empire that sought only to elevate themselves atop the people they conquered.  Like many of his tribe, Yonatan wandered without a home, as it was taken from him through violence.  The cities that housed the so-called "civilized" imperials barred him from their gates.  The decadent fools beat him, spat on him, and shouted baleful curses at him.  His meals came from the scant prize of hunting or the refuse of unruly taverns in the festering settlements of crushed peoples.

One night, the yoke of submission grew too painful for Yonatan.  He looked at the people around him and hate bled from his heart.  He sought only the comfort of solitude, for humanity was a blight to him.  In his despair, he made his way east to the forbidding wastelands that no human, not even the callous, hungry ambitions of the empire, would dare touch.  Only death nested in the wastelands, but, to Yonatan, death seemed a kinder fate than the horrid life of suffering he was cursed with.

The sun and moon were attentive eyes that peered from the face of the heavens as Yonatan endlessly wandered the wastes.  Time was carried on staggered legs and exhaustion, hunger, and thirst were numbly felt by his haggard body.   The sun had set again before Yonatan's legs would no longer stay his body from collapse.  The rising dust choked his mouth and nostrils.  He found enough strength to lift himself onto his side before he fell down onto his back.

Dry, burning eyes watched the stars flicker their primordial light.  The world was clothed in the velvet dark of the cosmos.  "If I am to die," Yonatan thought, "it is best that the night sky is my tomb, for there is little else for me in this life than this beauty that I behold."  Death crept close to him, pulling his eyes down to sleep; yes, perhaps for eternity.

Yet, before his eyes were sealed forever, a distant light called to him.  It was brightest out of all the stars and it seemed to come ever closer.  Yonatan idly watched the light grow as it made its fall earthward.  Hours passed and his eyes did not stray from the source of this wonder.  Suddenly, Yonatan's eyes went wide as he realized the light was coming directly to him.  He could see it very near as it slowed its descent.  Yonatan found his legs able to lift him from the ground and stood to meet this light.  The light source made itself known.  It was a book, bound in leather, that floated down.  Yonatan instinctively reached out as the book alighted in his hands.

All hunger, all pain, all weariness fled Yonatan's body.  He found strength anew surging within.  The light dwindled until it was but a faint glow.  With anticipation, Yonatan pulled back the hard leather cover of the book.  Bound in the book's leather sheath were four plates of a brilliant metal; not silver, not gold.  Yonatan looked them over, but the plates were smooth; nothing was etched on them.  While he tried to fathom why such a thing existed, a burning light illuminated the first plate.  Yonatan squinted as he saw the light take on familiar shapes, words:

In the realm of mortals, the four dimensions of time and space stretch into infinity so that no man may see its beginning or end.  Boundless as they seem, there is more to existence than mere time and space.  Such is the fifth dimension, a multiverse that contains every possible past, present, and future in existence.  Every action is a choice and every choice, no matter where in the whole of creation or how insignificant it may seem, gives rise to a new universe, a new Earth.


This is the story of one being, adrift amongst the alternate Earths of the fifth dimension, who, in search for something greater, will traverse the dimensions and realize his true destiny.

Questions arose in Yonatan's mind.  Where did this come from?  What created it?  For whom is this story told?  As if to answer, the book flashed more words on the shining plates.  They spoke of Yonatan's suffering, his yearning for a purpose, and his disdain for the course his world has taken.  It also divulged great secrets to him which no mortal may ever know.  It revealed his true nature, his destiny, and the power he would need to fulfill these things.

Yonatan smiled.  The book had foreseen his future, his rise to power, but not for power's sake.  He would lift the people who shared his suffering to their rightful, honored place.  He would wield the strength to empower the forsaken and make low the corrupt and the vile.  The Earth would tremble at the change he would bring.

But first, the book told him, a nation must die.