here's a taste of the dark lord zero book 2: Heaven's nonexistent chapter.

The story deals very heavily with the continued arc of the main plot, which reached its climax in slumber, in book 2, heaven you get a more clean explanation of just what is actually going on.

this, of course, is the meat of the story.

Inspired by the games castlevania, devil may cry, shin megami tensei and final fantasy, the dark lord zero's primary story is a time-loop story.

Chapter 0

Castle By The Sea.

“Biiiiig brroooooo!!!” Lizbet cried as her wings carried her through the castle, past the glimmering white concept streams lazily spiraling around the pillars like luminescent smoke and easily passing the guards stationed at these pillars, most of which were archdemons or orcs of considerable size, lords in their own realms, but here in the castle by the sea, they were nothing more than simple guards.

Dracula rested easy on his throne, preparing to dispense with the concept of “the dark lord dracula” now that the charade had finally been lifted.

“Is it time?! Is it time?!” she squealed, her pink leathery wings flapping once to stop her approach and twice to have her land.

She was a succubus, a Therese succubus, her people were originally from a universe called “charon's blood” and when she was but a child her mother, formerly a succubus queen, had been taken by the order of the round, a group of demon hunters dedicated to eradicating demons across space and time.

It had been he, the lord of castle nihil, back when he was still constructing the castle's time machine, that had crossed the time-space continuum for the first time to rescue her when her incessant cries in the cell she'd been kept within managed to bleed through nihil's audio channels to irritate him.

For three days he, already quite depressed by the pain of his eternal existence and the insurmountable tasks before him, had finally hit a breaking point with the toddler lizbet's crying, and he invaded the facility she was being kept within in a dark fury, slaughtering everyone in it, the knights of the round included.

When he found his way to her cell, he rescued her from her fate, but ultimately managed to doom her to remain in the castle as a result, for the construction of castle nihil had been incomplete at the time, thus her rescue had the side effect of negating her presence in time itself.

Lizbet was, for all intents and purposes, reduced to a mere concept, only real within the castle.

Eventually he managed to repair the damage, granting her her freedom after many years, but by then? The damage had been done.

Lizbet had spent much of her young life looking up to the dark lord of time and space as an older brother, worse still, she had become intimately familiar with the details of his prior life as “zero” the black wandering swordsman.

Because he remembered what he had done as the dark lord from the perspective of “zero” he'd been forced to preserve time and space by becoming the very being that his past self had seen.

This of course, wouldn't have been as much of a problem had this been due to a normal time-loop.

The problem lay with the fact that the entire universe had been created by that time-loop.

Zero's futuremost self had sent him back in time, all the way back to the beginning, to the point where there was no universe, where there was no time.

The universe had been created not by coincidence, but by zero's despair.

The etheric void, the realm of eternum and the endless oceans of magic and light proved to be a fertile ground indeed for establishing an entire reality.

And thus was the cold of space formed from the cold space that was zero's despair, thus were stars formed from his sense of hope.

The universe wasn't some marvelous glorious realm of infinite possibilities.

The universe was zero.

And zero was the universe.

This was the secret that kulil had neglected to tell him when he was younger, that all of creation was the result of a time loop, an unstable time loop perhaps, but one so dependent on zero's actions in his future that it would be destroyed if he so much as stepped a single toe out of line.

Zero was creation itself, his soul formed much of the universe, in perhaps the height of irony, he'd always hated actors, seeing them as frauds who earned their keep by pretending to be something they're not.

Zero was quite literally the universe's greatest actor, and his was the leading role, he was the villain, he was the night. He was the very darkness that men in space suits feared would enter their suits and boil their blood.

Zero was darkness itself.

And he was tired of it.

Millions of years spent perfecting the act, becoming creation's greatest villain, and worse still, he had so much work to do.

He had to finish what he'd started.

But first, he had to remove the costume he'd been wearing for so long.

Rising from his throne, he moved down the steps and away from the time machine, quietly concentrating.

Removing a concept was difficult, especially a powerful one such as this, but he needed to remove it now, for it was needed elsewhere.

“fare thee well then, prince of darkness. You've played your part to perfection.” he began, and he grimaced as he punched a hole into his own solar plexus, reaching for the gathering energies.

“what is a man?” he asked, quoting his concept's iconic phrase.

A flash of vibrant light filled the air, surrounding him as he removed the concept fully from his current form, throwing it on the floor as the glow subsided.

“but a miserable pile of secrets?”
the words weren't entirely hollow to him.

He was nothing more than that, secretive, rarely affording the luxury of full honesty to anyone, himself included.

“what are we gonna do with it?” lizbet asked moving close to pick up the concept.

Zero bent low to pick it up.

“I have a servant who can make good use of it. Vlad! To me!”

a man stepped into the room then, a romanian noble from the looks of him, and lizbet cocked her head in curiosity.

“the concept was formed from this man's history.” zero explained. “he is but one vlad dracula from one timeline.” he looked at vlad, who stared at the orb, tenative.

“Kneel.” he ordered, and vlad the impaler did precisely that.

“You're aware of the terms of your contract?” zero asked him.

Vlad said nothing, merely nodded.

“speak damn you, or I discard this power I've agreed to hand you!” he warned.

“My men need power now. Long have I prayed for a miracle.”
“your plight is of no interest to me. You will serve me. Do I make myself clear?” zero asked, his form bleeding angry shadows as he spoke, and almost immediately his pretense of a human appearance vanished, his hands turned to jet black shadow claws and a black haze formed around his body.

His face was now mostly featureless and his head bled darkness in a raw torrent, one side of his face sported seven glowing eyes that all glared simultaneously at the man kneeling before them.

“I….I will come when called.” vlad replied.

“will you serve me though?” zero asked, leaning forward so that vlad could look fearfully into his eyes.

Vlad surprisingly enough, returned the glare with one of his won, matching zero's fury.

“I would do anything for them. Even if it means serving the lord of darkness instead of the lord god.”
“good. Then take this concept, formed from the imagination of a man who saw your bloody history and transformed into a nightmare. Take it and become that legend as accurately as you can.”

he pressed the concept into vlad's skull, and it began worming its way into him.

Stepping back, he watched as vlad hit the ground, clutching his chest and screaming as the concept eagerly began whittling away at his spirit.

“there are dozens of vlad tepes draculas I can use for this task, but I chose you specifically, because you happen to be in the very world I grew up.” zero explained. “you will be the one ruling my future world. I fully expect you to lord over it, and the creatures of the night in my honor. Now that the arch spirits ichi set upon it have been removed, you'll find no opposition.”

Vlad's skin was like ashen marble, his appearance had changed wildly, his eyes glowed a vibrant red and he now sported fangs.

But there was more to him now.

Vlad, having been married to his counterpart's concept, was now complete, he was, for all intents and purposes, dracula himself.

“Now go.” zero bade, opening a portal.

“devour, destroy, rule. I have extracted you from the past that you might rule the world of the future I have created. One filled with magic and darkness. Forget the past. Forget those mortal bonds. You now exist to devour all the glory you can find, and drink deep of the life that lives on that planet. Go forth, lord dracula. And claim your prize.”
the newly reborn vlad stepped into the portal before turning to face zero.

“will we meet again my lord?” he asked.

“Yes. And when we do, you will die.” zero promised.

Dracula didn't bother hiding his grin.

Once he was gone zero settled onto his throne, backhanding the refilled goblet of blood, having no further need for it now that he was no longer married to the concept of dracula as he had been before.

Lizbet leaned in close. “Big bro, did he realize what you meant?” she asked.

“he will...but first thing's first! We have to find my past self and finish the time loop.”
“what do you remember of it?” she asked.

“Nothing.” he admitted. “I can't recall a single detail of what occurs during the time after I was whisked away. I only vaguely remember waking up to be faced with myself, and then being forced to fight for my life against...someone….a serpent headed being, a lizardman perhaps? Gods it's been two hundred billion years, just preserving this memory has taken much of my effort.”
he leaned into the throne and began summoning glowing orbs that held an image of each timeline he needed brought up.

“not this one.” he grumbled, discarding it with a clawed hand and bringing up another.

Lizbet settled onto the armchair and watched her adoptive older brother continued ceaselessly searching the timelines for his younger self.

He was relentless, and the speed at which he sought out every timeline would put most supercomputers to shame.

But, for all his effort, finding the timeline would be the ultimate game of finding a needle in a haystack.

Time was vast, time itself being formed of zeros sense of perception.

Time was an endless recording of everything, one that could be altered, one that could be destroyed and rewritten. It was both a record, and the reality.

“what about your mom?” she asked.

“you mean my wife?” he replied.

“okay she's both, but...can't she help?” lizbet asked, leaning forward, and zero shook his head.

“Lil can do nothing this time. If she interferes and aids my future self in finding my past, the universe will destabilize.”
“I still can't get over the look of shock on little bro's face!” she squealed and she began blushing as she thought about.

“you were so cute back then!”
“Lizbet.” zero began.

“Little bro?” he asked, seeming more offended by that than the actual notion of her drooling over his younger self.

“Yeah! After all you're the older future part right!? So to tell you both apart I'll call him little bro and you big bro!”
zero stared at her silently for a few moments before calmly turning back to the task at hand, his glowing set of eyes blinking a few times as he quietly mumbled “shoot for the fucking stars sis.”

for the next ten years he sought out a countless number of universes before reasonably concluding that he simply wasn't permitted to find his younger self for the time being, deciding it would be far more prudent to leave things to chance.

After the tenth year within castle nihil had passed, he summoned talra on an unrelated matter.

“talra.” he began. “I have a few things I require of you.” he explained as his right hand and the universal nexus's strongest swordsman knelt before him, his silver wings folded around his form as his ghostly white hair spilled over the floor from the simple act of kneeling.

“Yes my lord?” he asked, his voice regal, yet low-toned.

“there is a world that has caught my attention, supposedly it's saturated with magic. I suspect that baihu might be preparing something there. The fluxuations of magic usually precede a great sealing and I want to ensure that I have someone on that world when it gets cut off from my time machine. Can you do this?”
“of course my lord. But...might I make a request?” he asked.

“of course.”
“the dragoon who has accompanied the other heroes of light has paid us a visit, it seems he's been separated from his friends and wishes to find them.”
“they won't be on that world.” zero warned.

“no, but….I'd like to take him along on the task. It may prove useful to show him more workings of the universe, so when the time comes and he's faced with zero...”
“zero will be pressed into killing him.” the dark lord reasoned.

“we have to turn the heroes against him. You know this.” talra explained.

“Indeed. Very well, bring him along, but keep his enlightenment...minimal. I don't want him realizing the truth. Understood?”
“he'll make a valuable ally for the time being, whatever this arch-crystal was, it gave the four heroes incredible power.”
“it was destroyed for good reason then.” zero said with a sigh and as the dragoon entered, zero blinked a few times, wondering.

When had this person died?

He didn't recall killing him, but then again a lot of his memories were missing due to the taxing nature of being transformed into the universe's foundation.

“where is the master of time?” angrosa asked, his bull-horned helm hiding his features behind an faceplate modeled after a dragon's head, the eyes themselves glowing white from within due to the magic of the armor.

“he is sitting on his throne, hero of light.” zero explained. “I have many forms, I am malleable. You honor me with your presence o' chosen of the crystal. Tell me then, would you aid me in something?”
angrosa shrugged. “i guess, I kinda need your help for finding the others.”
“I'll aid you.” zero explained. “but first I wish to show you something important.” he rose from the throne, carrying with him the globe that permitted him to see specific worlds.

“in this universe there are powerful arch-spirits that choke the soul streams of various worlds and can render entire universe branches….inoperable, dead. Their intention is to destroy and disrupt all of creation you see.” angrosa took a closer look at the orb.

“this world is showing signs of an arch-spirit's presence. If you would, could you go to that world with talra here and investigate? It probably won't take very long, and if you do find the spirit, the reward for defeating it will be great.”
“these things actually want to destroy the universe?!” angrosa asked, alarmed.

“as much as it pains me to admit it, yes.” zero said with a slow nod.

“they are a threat to creation itself, but one I'm quite used to dealing with. While you are away I will find your comrades and send you to them.”

“sure, alright, count me in!” angrosa said with a laugh.

“then while you're at it maybe you can find zero?”
“I'm afraid zero is a harder one to catch.” the dark lord explained. “He is beyond my grasp, indeed, he is powerful, quite powerful.”
“so not even the lord of time can destroy him?” angrosa asked in surprise.

“Only those chosen by the crystal stand a chance at defeating that villain.” zero said, and were his face capable of smiling, he would surely have been grinning wickedly at the words.

“alright, if you do find him-” angrosa warned.

“Oh don't worry chosen hero of the crystal, I'll send you to face him in a fight to the death. Your friends too if I can find them in time!”

with that zero opened a portal to send angrosa and talra through, talra turned to shoot him a concerned look but zero ignored it.

“look after him.” zero bade. “and kill baihu when you find him.”

talra nodded and departed after angrosa, the dragoon among the four heroes.

“and now...” zero muttered. “we wait.”