“That is not how the power of the Lords work, m’lord.” The Lord of Wrath stated, still lost on why their great Lord of the Dark had decided to give them a new Lord.
The Old Lord had been exactly what the Land of the Dark needed, and they had understood the subtleties between Darkness, Shadows, and Evil.
This young new Lord though, was a Hero of the Light in the making, yet had graced his anathema’s throne instead. He was blunt, straight to the point, and thicker than the Earth, and lacked the intelligence and wisdom needed to rule the Land of the Dark.
“What do you mean? You control the very concept of Wrath itself, just smite the fool for the enjoyment of your foul people.” The young Lord arrogantly proclaimed.
He doesn’t even share our Powers. How can he seek to know our capabilities, if his own power is so massively different in nature? The Lord of Wrath sighed mentally.
Light was all about brute force. It had its own subtleties, but few of those who walked the Path of the Light ever realised it.
The only time their estranged kingdoms had known true peace was when the true Lords of the Light had ruled, and had seen just how evil and corruptive their own power could be.
Dark was born of Chaos, which many assumed made it Evil, but Dark wasn’t inherently evil. Dark desired control. Not just of their surroundings, but of themselves. Those who truly had claim to the glorious Dark Power, often leashed themselves to the Lord of the Dark, because service to the Lord allowed them to stay on the Dark Path and never swerve into True Evil.
Whereas Light had no such luxuries. Light was believed to be born of True Good, and thus could never do Evil.
But Light was often the source of the most insidious Evil, due to its own stagnation, and how humanoid races who drank of Light often developed bad habits of trying to preserve their peace, forcing them into a strange stasis that The World inherently rejected.
Dark had its own issues, and the line between Dark and Evil was perilously thin depending on where your Power was sourced from, but those who Drank of Dark knew they had the capability to be monsters, and were not blinded to it.
And if they were, the Lords quickly dealt with such fools.
While the Light held the belief that all life had value, the Dark allowed its Reapers to harvest, since change could not be sustained when Life grew out of control. Killing was fine, but those who would seek to take another’s life knew Payment would be due, and the Lords and the Reapers knew how to keep the carefully balanced Chaotic Dance of the Dark balanced.
And this young fool was perfectly suited to ruining it.
Maybe thats why our Lord gave this fool to us? Maybe we were becoming stagnant, and change was needed.
“M’lord, my power is derived from Wrath, for I Am the Wrath of the Dark. However, if you desire me to kill someone, I can just simply kill them.” He paused, then continued.
“However, to kill using my Wrath, the person I direct my powers at must be worth the Wrath of the Dark. It is why My Executions are typically done to start the festivities, because my foe has deserved the Wrath of Our People.”
The Lord of Wrath remembered how they had almost accidentally snuffed out a major Light religion, when they had been just learning their powers.
The Old Lord had taken the Lord of Wrath on a covert tour of the world outside the Dark Lands, so that they could truly learn who was deserving of Wrath.
When they had entered the temple, and see the Head Priest at his dais preaching, he had seen the cruel torments he laid on his followers ‘in the name of the Light’, of the debasement he suffered poor sex workers through, of the plans of war he was slowly trying to ferment with the Dark Lands.
“The Power of your Lords is the greatest power in the lands, but we are bound by oaths and restrictions that are an intrinsic to the concepts of our Powers. There is a reason I am both Lord of Wrath and Lord Adjudicator, for while I smite our foes with the Wrath of the Dragons, I am just and fair in my punishments, because I can see if people are worthy of the Price they will pay.”