Jerry Yu
Down here, in the lowest lair of the Emperor’s Throne World, surrounded by the ancient palaces of worship, Brutus stood where many desperate outcasts have stood before.
Hypocrisy, he thought, the emperor openly prosecuted the cults that worshiped ancient civilizations, but his throne world’s very foundation is built upon these “false religions.”
Glancing down at the feverish yellow glow, Brutus felt fear trembling through the deepest strands of his bone marrow. Glancing down, he can not see the bottom. To jump, to enter the puzzle like hundreds did before him, was a thought he couldn’t dare to imagine just days ago. That was before the accident, before he lost everything. But now, without the emperor’s mercy, he struggles to gasp for the rapidly depleting oxygen in his tank.
“Only whom with great prescience to see possibility behind impossibility deserves a treasure inconceivable to the rest of mankind.”
Those were the words of the emperor when he announced this puzzle, and with that thought, Brutus let his body go.