Klein's Calculations

"December 16. I made contact again with that poor fellow trapped deep within a storm, lost in darkness.

"He calls himself Mr. Door... He wants me to help him return to the Real World... He promises to grant me three requests...

"...Some of the Fourth Epoch history he described is fascinating."

Mr. Door... His taste in names is a lot like mine... I wonder what that poor fellow trapped deep within a storm and lost in darkness is really called, and what Sequence he's at...

Klein chuckled inwardly, half in criticism and half in self-mockery, then read on with care. As a history major, he was just as interested in the Fourth Epoch.

"So the War of the Four Emperors was a war between Solomon, the Black Emperor; the half-mad Blood Emperor of the Tudor Dynasty; the Night Emperor of the Trunsoest Empire; and the Underworld Emperor of the Southern Continent, commonly known as the God of Death?

"If that's true, it would overturn much of the current historical research on the Fourth Epoch!

"The Underworld Emperor gained the most from the War of the Four Emperors? Does that mean he used those gains to ascend and become the God of Death? Hmm, but he went mad...

"Even a God can go mad. How terrifying. Just imagining the details makes me shudder from the bottom of my heart! No wonder even someone as well-informed as Emperor Roselle described it as horrifying...

"Could the so-called evil Gods be orthodox Gods who went mad? Then might there come a day when only evil Gods remain in the world... Hiss. Would that mean the arrival of an irreversible Apocalypse?

"That's a lot to take in!"

Klein couldn't help marveling inwardly. At the same time, he raised his estimation of the Black Emperor, Blood