The Emperor's gaze was like a burning warhammer, and the pale flames flowing from him were like a red-hot anvil, hammering and battering Aaron's sanity again and again until he doubled over in agony. He gulped greedily for air, trying to draw some chill from the cold, endless void. He felt as though a thousand dull knives were cutting his body over and over, dismembering his flesh. The vitality of his soul was swallowed by the Emperor's icy gaze. The white fire kindled within him was not merely granting him power; it was destroying him.
Then Aaron became a sensitive ball of flesh, rolling through mountains of blades and seas of fire, every touch bringing a heart-rending burning pain.
Sweat poured from Aaron's forehead like a waterfall. Even the radiance of the Golden Law could not bear his suffering for him. He curled up further, spinning through the void like a boiled crayfish. At first, he had still tried to groan to express his pain, but by the end, he lacked even the strength for that.
Across from him, the Emperor's face remained cold. He was unmoved by Aaron's agony. Yet the Emperor himself was also enduring pain beyond words.
The difference was that the Emperor had long grown accustomed to it, while Aaron had experienced far too little.
"It hurts... so much..." Aaron gasped for breath. "Your Majesty... you..."
"This pain is not even a ten-thousandth of what Malcador felt upon the Golden Throne." The Emperor remained impassive. Only the twitching muscles in his face and the occasional trembling of his hands revealed that the Master of Mankind was enduring similar agony. "Ra, hold on!"
"I will... hold on!"
Before our ashes, noble souls would shed their tears.
Aaron panted hard. "If Your Majesty can do it, then so