「The Legend of the Once and Future King」 True Name: Dantalion.
Alias (Public): Dante Auberon Leonis IV.
AKA: The Self-Made Man, the Once and Future King, the Psionic Savant, the Black Wind, the Devil You Know, the Shadow Samurai, the Plutonium Prince, the Last Aristocrat, the Lion of Wolves.
Identity Status: Secret.
Height: Six feet, two inches.
Weight: 220 Imperial pounds.
Eyes: Blue (Standard), Red (Power Activation).
Hair: Brown.
Age: One hundred and twenty-five standard years.
Base of Operations: The Shadow Manor (United Kingdom), penthouse apartment (United States).
Species: Posthuman (Homo novissima).
“I emerged into this world fully formed . If you come for me, it’ll have to be at the height of my powers .”
Dantalion’s story begins in two places and two times. Determining which came first is impossible- a paradox -so we’re forced to simply choose. One beginning takes place in the year 2100, where the man known as Dantalion was created. Not born, for this warrior has no mother, nor true father. He was created, grown from stem cells, his DNA programmed by a master genesmith to create the ultimate lifeform. The first of a new species, homo novissima. But who was Dantalion’s creator? None other than himself.
In the 22nd century, Dantalion dominates a world vastly different from our own. He is the Ashen King, positioned at the summit of a hierarchy of posthuman nobility. Bred for conquest in the latter years of World War Four, the posthumans were ultimately the chief survivors of that conflict’s devastating climax, which depopulated some 70% of the planet. No longer the pawns of shortsighted human governments, they were free to pursue their own agendas- and ultimately, carved up what remained of the Earth between them.
The Plutonium Prince is of the third generation of posthumanity- a paradox, self-created in order to prevent his rivals from assassinating him at his own birth, as he would go on to do to so many of them. In this respect, he is effectively both the first and last posthuman, as he came into existence nearly a hundred years before the rest of his kind, and remains at the apex of the species even into the future.
Having built up his base of power in the decades prior to the rise of posthumanity, Dantalion was perfectly positioned to claim the throne, establishing his unquestioned rule over all of Europe and Asia. Various Dukes, Counts, and Barons administrate the rest of the world, but all do so at his pleasure- to challenge the King directly is to court death. Of course, many still make the attempt, as posthumans are by nature ambitious and power-hungry. The Shadow Samurai’s position is only as strong as he is, and showing the slightest weakness would cause his enemies to pounce. Fortunately, he has over two hundred years of experience to fall back on.
The second beginning takes place in the year 1900, when Dantalion’s birthing matrix emerged on the grounds of a derelict estate in the north of England. He’d been sent back in time by himself, in order to ensure his own existence, beginning a stable time loop that he’d close in two hundred years’ time.
As soon as he took his first step out of the birthing matrix, Dantalion was fully-formed, at the height of his physical maturity, superhuman abilities already activated at maximum potency. The reason for this precaution became immediately obvious, as it was less than seven seconds later that the Psionic Savant was set upon by his rivals from the future. Posthuman nobility seeking to end their King’s reign before it could ever begin. They had followed him into the past, hoping to catch him in a moment of vulnerability- smother him in the proverbial crib. But even mere moments after being ‘born,’ the Black Wind was already the deadliest creature on the face of the planet.
Their reasons for seeking his head were myriad, but the collection of atemporal assassins were united by common purpose. That wasn’t enough to save them. The twin blades with which he’d been entrusted by his future self tasted blood for the first time that day, as Dantalion used his psionic abilities to read his opponents’ moves and subtly manipulate their actions. By the end of the battle, more than a dozen men lay dead on the manor’s grounds, and the Self-Made Man had been baptized, in brilliant crimson. It was then that he chose the name Dantalion, for one of the Great Dukes of Hell, master of all arts and sciences. A fitting title for the future master of the world.
With his own existence secured, at least for the time being, Dantalion set to work at his task- bringing about the very future which he’d come from. The early 20th century was practically a playground for him, the first posthuman using his abilities to manipulate ordinary sapiens like chess pieces on a board he controlled both sides of. Using his telepathic prowess, he forged a writ of nobility with an artificial paper trail stretching back centuries, which granted him title to the derelict estate he was already living within. After securing a series of generous loans from England’s banks, Dantalion- or, as he was called in that era, Lord Dante Leonis -began accumulating a vast fortune, using his superior intellect and knowledge of the future to make a series of highly profitable investments that netted him millions.
By the time the First World War began, the Psionic Savant was already one of the wealthiest men in Europe, with a seat in Britain’s House of Lords, and the ear of both the King and Prime Minister, when he chose to exercise his influence. By and large, however, he kept his hands out of major world events, seeking to preserve the integrity of the timeline and prevent any paradoxes from erasing his own existence. With little stake in the outcome of the war, Dantalion profited off of both sides, continuing to expand his vast fortune.
Armed with foreknowledge, the Once and Future King was able to protect his assets from the economic depression of the interwar years. It was during the 1920s that he began to explore the wider world in earnest, having quietly conquered Great Britain in less than two decades. Taking advantage of rock-bottom real estate prices, Dantalion began buying up properties around the globe, to use as both homes, and hidden caches of weapons, equipment, and supplies. These travels took him to many unexplored locales in the hidden corners of the Earth, where he added ancient weapons and forgotten martial arts techniques to his arsenal.
It was in 1927, while sojourning in China, that the Shadow Samurai discovered a deposit of the exotic metamaterial Psitanium. This metal is notable for two reasons- the first being its near-indestructibility, which makes it virtually impossible to mine, much less shape into tools. The second is that it is psycho-reactive. When a telepathic or psionic individual is in the presence of unrefined Psitanium, they may ‘imprint’ their psychic signature upon the metal, which allows them to reshape it at their will, as if the metal was an extension of their own body.
Already, Dantalion possessed a pair of Psitanium swords, as well as a significant amount of the material bonded to his skeleton. The discovery of a raw deposit of the metal, however, allowed him to begin crafting more weapons out of the stuff, making him an even deadlier force to be reckoned with. The Self-Made Man began using his fortune to seek out and buy up as much of the material as he could find, gaining a virtual monopoly on the metal within five years’ time.
Dantalion had intended to sit out the Second World War as he did the First, but circumstances forced him to intervene, as the chaos of the 1940s provided the perfect opportunity for his time-traveling rivals to make a second attempt on his life. Seeing an opportunity while the Black Wind’s power base in the United Kingdom was weakened by the war, these nobles, led by the powerful Ultrabaron, allied themselves with Axis forces to destroy both Dantalion, and the nation which he’d made his base of operations, hoping to prevent his future hegemony.
The various groups seeking to slay Dantalion weren’t ideologically aligned with the Nazis, but knowing that their defeat was inevitable, they sought to make use of Hitler’s mighty war machine to crush their foe before abandoning the Führer to his predestined defeat. Instead, they provoked Dantalion’s ire, and he not only became personally involved in the war, but trained a squad of elite operatives, implanting a portion of his own skills into them using telepathy. This unit carried out a series of clandestine kill missions against Nazi high command, always directed by Dantalion, so that they would provide opportunities to assassinate his own enemies at the same time.
Following the end of the war, the Shadow Samurai turned his eyes to the United States, as the center of global hegemony shifted from the UK to their former colony. Using his telepathy, he erased all knowledge of his involvement in the Second World War, cutting loose his team, who went on to participate in dozens of highly classified missions in the early years of the Cold War, before disappearing completely without warning. In America, Dantalion- who had shed his identity as the first Lord Leonis, and was now masquerading as his own son, to explain his lack of visible aging -was busy expanding his power base, reaping the rewards of the post-war economic boom, and keeping tabs on the emerging American superhuman population.
Around 1972, the Psionic Savant was compelled to participate in a tournament known as the Z’sen K’tak, held centennially to determine the greatest fighter on the planet. Unbeknownst to the combatants, the tournament’s host was an extraterrestrial entity known as the Deathless One, who used the Z’sen K’tak as a means of discovering new potential hosts for its consciousness. It considered only the most powerful bodies suitable hosts, as they would take the most time for him to burn through. At the end of each tournament, it would duel the victor, and upon defeating them, transfer its mind into their body. Naturally, Dantalion won the contest, his posthuman abilities combined with his Psitanium arsenal allowing him to beat the other competitors. Battling the Deathless One, however, was a far greater challenge.
As a psychic entity, the Deathless One was capable of resisting the Shadow Samurai’s telepathic and psionic attacks, and its host body- the winner of the tournament from one hundred years prior -was a finely-tuned killing machine, albeit one nearing the end of its lifespan. Facing an opponent with centuries more experience, who could counter his most potent psychic attacks, Dantalion was in true, mortal danger for the first time. He was on the verge of becoming the Deathless One’s latest victim, when he unlocked perfect chakra control.
Manipulating his body’s ki energy was nothing new for the Self-Made Man, but prior to that battle, he’d only been capable of simple feats such as limited regeneration, strength and speed enhancement, and so on. It was only in a battle against an evenly-matched opponent that Dantalion achieved the necessary focus to gain perfect control over his body’s chakra gates and ki. Thus, he was able to regenerate from a lethal wound, and after having been disarmed, manifest a ki blade, which he used to slay the Deathless One.
Following the end of the tournament, Dantalion discovered that, in the months he’d been absent, his enemies had moved against him once again, attacking his manor and other properties, and denying him access to certain crucial resources, including his Psitanium mines. Unfortunately for them, the Black Wind’s newfound control over his body’s chakra allowed him to spend the next five years tirelessly hunting down and dismantling their guerilla network, and rebuilding his own empire, without pausing for rest even once.
This period of constant activity resulted in a longer period of pseudo-hibernation, as the Once and Future King spent much of the 1980s in seclusion, only interacting with the outside world through a small group of loyal emissaries, whom he dubbed his Envoys. Much as he’d done forty years prior, he implanted them with some of his skills, but having learned from his one mistake during that previous attempt, he also ensured their loyalty by imprinting a psychic ‘echo’ of his own mind within their subconscious. This would keep them from turning on him, or seeking to leave his service.
During this period of seclusion, Dantalion continued experimenting with, and refining his control over, Psitanium, expanding his arsenal, and replacing that which had been destroyed or stolen during the attack on his holdings. He also turned his mind towards other forms of weaponry and technological development, as the global technology level was rapidly increasing, and it would soon become viable to introduce more advanced computers into the public marketplace. The Psionic Savant had possessed the knowledge of how to develop this technology for decades, but lacked the necessary manufacturing capacity, as it quite literally hadn’t yet been invented. But with a new millennium right around the corner, it was almost time to begin the next phase of his project.
With the amount of influence he could wield through his control over the United Kingdom weakening, and having no interest in going into politics, Dantalion began to expand his power base in the Americas through a different method- business. He’d always been able to use his abilities, and knowledge of the future, to play the markets adeptly, but he’d never gone further than that. In the early 1990s, however, that all changed.
Reemerging into the world in his third public persona, Dante Auberon Leonis III, the Self-Made Man poured a significant portion of his personal fortune into the creation of a multinational conglomerate holding company, Nexus, which he used as his primary instrument through which he could manipulate the world. While Nexus itself is practically a ghost- existing only on paper -its holdings are very real. Knowing beforehand which companies would grow to become giants and which would fail, Dantalion invested strategically, and Nexus quickly became a behemoth, with significant shares in nearly every major tech company, defense contractor, and news agency in the Western world. More significant than Nexus’s holdings, however, are its direct subsidiaries, the companies which the conglomerate owns outright. These include a military R&D corporation, MARS ULTOR, to which the Psionic Savant has outsourced much of the design, development, and manufacture of his weaponry, and a private aerospace company, Aeolus, which mainly exists to keep a plane fueled and ready for Dantalion at every major world airport, should he need it- although they also design and manufacture military spy planes under government contract, the revenue from which keeps the company solvent.
In the first two decades of the 21st century, the Shadow Samurai has gradually stepped into the light, both in his public-facing guise as the head of Nexus, and in his true form as Dantalion. In the former case, he has sought to exercise his influence over major corporations and world governments more openly, leading to an increase in his public profile. When it comes to his ‘costumed’ activities, he’s begun participating in ‘corporate raiding,’ namely pilfering technology and secrets from rival corporations, in the rare instance where they have anything he deems worth taking. Moreover, he’s committed a number of high-profile assassinations, both in order to advance his aims, and simply for sport.
With roughly seventy-five years still to come before his ‘birth,’ the Self-Made Man remains cautious as he plots the path to his ascendancy. At least one more attempt on his life by his foes from the future is likely, and though quantum mechanics makes their efforts unlikely to succeed, they can certainly make annoyances of themselves by targeting his possessions.
Then, of course, there is the future to think of. Halcyon days spent ruling the world. It is, after all, his birthright.
Although cold and imperious to those he considers beneath him, Dantalion is not wholly without humor. Indeed, his tongue is almost as sharp as his twin blades, and he hones his acerbic, cutting wit just as regularly. A certain degree of charisma is necessary for someone who operates almost exclusively in elite circles, although ample use of telepathic ‘suggestion’ is certainly no hindrance.
In his public-facing persona as the third Lord Leonis, the Psionic Savant is typically charming, preferring to use honeyed words to get his way, rather than threats or blackmail. However, this guise lasts only as long as the person he’s speaking with remains useful to him. Should they contradict him, or seek to impede the fulfillment of his ambitions in any way, Dantalion will instantly turn cold, leaving no question as to whether they remain in his good graces.
To describe the Self-Made Man as an egotist is not strictly accurate. Some might describe him as all ego, a creature of pure narcissism, yet he retains none of the insecurities one might expect in such a personality. After all, being a pure product of self-creation means that he owes nothing and nobody other than himself for his rise to power. As such, he has nothing to prove. Demanding respect from others is meaningless, because his superiority is self-evident, etched into his very genetic code. The deference and admiration of his lessers is simply a natural consequence of that fact.
Beyond his public face, however, Dantalion is very different. When adorned in his battle raiment, the Shadow Samurai openly exalts in violence, relishing in the opportunity to demonstrate his superiority to the world.
“Do you have any idea how much faster you’d have to be to actually touch me?”
Dantalion is the first- and thus far only -example of the species homo novissima: ‘the last man.’ Not human or mutant, but post-human. The process of natural selection had no bearing on his creation. Rather, he was the product of intelligent design. And in that act of creation, the Self-Made Man made sure to give himself every possible advantage.
To describe the things Dantalion can do as ‘powers’ is to give a misleading impression that they are somehow unnatural or abnormal, gifts beyond his ordinary capacity. In truth, they are as natural to him as eyesight or hearing is to an ordinary human. His psionic and telepathic abilities are inborn, and he can wield them as effectively as any mutant, despite the fact that they are the product of genetic engineering, rather than malformed evolutionary pressure. Nothing about the Shadow Samurai’s abilities are ‘artificial,’ or lesser for their scientific basis- if anything, this makes them more potent, as they’ve been refined by the best technology the year 2100 has to offer.
Telepathy and psionics are distinct abilities with a similar basis- namely, they are rooted entirely in the mind. The former exclusively concerns mind-to-mind contact, be it wordless communication, or memory alteration. The latter involves interaction with the outside world, typically in the form of telekinesis- the ability to exert one’s will upon the world through force of thought alone.
When it comes to telepathy, there are few- if any -more talented in the world than Dantalion. He has spent over a century dominating weaker-willed individuals, but facing a mind capable of resisting him is no obstacle either. Both brute force and subtlety are tools in his arsenal, as he’s capable of battering down an enemy’s psychic defenses, or simply slipping in through the cracks. Beyond just communication, this ability has a wide variety of uses:
Mind-reading, which allows the Psionic Savant to see what an individual is currently thinking, as well as search through their memories, though this can be unreliable, as it is based in the subject’s own recollections. Psychic suggestion, which he can use to compel others to action by making them think the idea was theirs- a subtler approach which he’s used to great effect many times over the years. Memory implantation, which can be used to create an entire false history inside the victim’s mind, provided enough time to craft it. Memory erasure, both through the total blanking out or mere suppression of certain parts of an individual’s psyche. Mind control, the act of forcibly seizing control of another’s body through total domination of their brain. Psychic warfare, in which telepathy is used to kill or maim, by simply destroying as much of the victim’s mind as possible. Additionally, the Black Wind uses his telepathy as a form of pseudo-precognition, by constantly scanning the minds of everybody around him. Not only does this allow him to detect the presence of anybody who might not be visible to his other senses, it gives him a sense of their intentions- and he can almost instantly flag the mind of someone who is about to attack him. This may not give him time to shut down their mind and prevent the attack, but it does provide forewarning to react in other ways. Unlike some telepaths, however, Dantalion has a strict range limit of roughly five miles. Beyond this radius, his telepathy cannot reach, save for the purposes of mental communication. This means that ambushing him is possible despite his telepathic danger sense- you simply have to do so from more than five miles away.
In some ways, psionics might seem less useful than the highly versatile telepathic talents of the Once and Future King. However, telepathy cannot directly interact with the world in any form, making psionics a useful complement. Not unlike his telepathy, Dantalion’s psionics are highly potent, but have a single significant drawback. He can exert a significant amount of telekinetic force, lifting over twenty tons with sheer mental power alone- but he cannot directly manipulate organic matter. That’s not to say he can’t hurt living beings, of course. A powerful telekinetic push is more than sufficient to crush someone’s internal organs. He can even lift someone in the air and slam them against the ground until they’re a thick red paste. What he cannot do is use psionics to reach inside their body, and pinch their arteries shut. Directly interacting with the inside of a living creature is a hard limit of this ability.
Perhaps the most powerful tool in the Self-Made Man’s arsenal is his mastery of the art of Quantumancy. This skill is one that’s wholly unique to Dantalion, as it hasn’t yet been discovered by the rest of humanity- that’s not scheduled to happen until 2086. Right now, the only known practitioner of this arcane science is the Shadow Samurai himself. Rooted in both mathematics and magic, Quantumancy is the practice of directly manipulating quantum mechanics for the purposes of combat. There are nonviolent applications, of course, but Dantalion is largely uninterested in those.
Applying the principles of Quantumancy require both calculating impossibly complex mathematical formulae, and completing high-level magical rituals, all simultaneously within one’s own mind. Doing so outside of a lab environment is impossible for an ordinary human, but Dantalion’s genetically engineered brain makes him uniquely suited to do so. This grants him a wide array of abilities that he puts to effective use on the battlefield:
Entanglement allows the user to link, or entangle, two or more objects on the quantum level. This causes the two objects to share properties, mainly those that are applied after the link is formed. For example, if a Quantumancer entangled two identical bricks, and then smashed one brick with a hammer, the other brick would spontaneously shatter, the property of its entangled ‘twin’ being instantly transferred to it. The implications when applied to human bodies are obvious. This ability has certain limitations- firstly, forming a link between two targets requires them to be in relatively close proximity. Second, maintaining the link for more than a minute is extremely strenuous for the Quantumancer, as they are constantly completing arcane and mathematical calculations to keep the two targets entangled. However, a minute is typically all that Dantalion requires, as he can entangle a dozen enemies at once, then cut a single throat and watch all of his foes fall like dominoes. Superposition allows the user to combine two distinct quantum states- in effect, ‘fusing’ two objects together into a gestalt. The classic example of superposition is Schrodinger’s Cat, in which the eponymous feline exists in a superpositional state of life and death, neither and both at the same time, until the waveform is collapsed by observation. A Quantumancer can do better- by combining the quantum states of, say, a sword and a gun, to create a weapon that can instantly change from one to the other. Doing so is exceptionally difficult, because the Quantumancer must create a stable superpositional algorithm, unlike the unstable algorithms used in entanglement, which need only last a few brief moments. As such, Dantalion has only created a handful of superpositional objects- his armor, and twin blades. Teleportation, as the name suggests, allows the user to instantaneously travel from one location to another. However, quantum teleportation has one significant drawback. Because it is based on the uncertainty principle, it requires that the individual attempting quantum teleportation not to be observed, even by themselves. This requires the Quantumancer to depersonalize while attempting teleportation- in effect, closing their eyes, and opening them in another place. The calculations required for quantum teleportation are also extremely complex, as they must account for the rotation of the Earth, and its movement through space, so as to avoid being teleported directly into hard vacuum. Another crucial ability in Dantalion’s arsenal is ki manipulation. Attaining perfect control over his body’s ki energy and chakra gates has granted the Black Wind physical prowess beyond even the baseline of his impressive genetically-engineered body. For most, weaponizing the body’s ki is a dangerous prospect, because such advanced techniques require a significant expenditure of energy that is slow to replenish, and leaves the user severely drained. Mental cultivation techniques can be used to increase ki production, but this is an intense process that often takes decades.
Dantalion sidesteps these limitations outright, because his body naturally produces over ten thousand times the standard amount of ki. The source of this near-limitless reserve of energy is his plutonium-powered heart, which- being seamlessly integrated into his ordinary biology -provides enough power to keep the Self-Made Man alive for centuries to come. With such vast power stored within his body, Dantalion can employ high-level ki manipulation techniques without fear of leaving himself drained.
However, even with access to that vast amount of energy, the Psionic Savant’s ability to use it was somewhat limited, before he attained perfect control of his chakra gates. These natural limiters prevent the inexperienced from permanently damaging themselves through improper manipulation of their ki flow, but for a more competent practitioner, they are effectively training weights, to be shed when the time is right. Prior to gaining this perfect control, Dantalion could only use ki while in a state of intense focus, such as during meditation. This allowed him to regenerate certain wounds, but in truth, it merely accelerated the body’s natural healing processes. Now, he can accomplish far greater feats:
True regeneration allows the Shadow Samurai to close his own wounds while in combat, healing even lethal injuries through force of will, and by manipulating the flow of ki to the damaged area, supercharging his ability to heal. Even with his vast ki reserves, however, this is a highly draining process, and repeated infliction of mortal wounds will inevitably exhaust him, making it possible to finally end his life- provided he doesn’t do the same to his opponent first. This ability also allows Dantalion to purge his body of toxins, burning dangerous substances out of his system by channeling ki through his bloodstream. ‘Overclocking’ is the process of channeling excess ki into a specific part of the body in order to enhance its attributes- for example, increasing strength, speed, stamina, or heightening one’s senses beyond their natural limits. Ordinarily, Dantalion can lift weights to the order of several tons, and keep pace with Formula One racing cars on foot, but by ‘overclocking’ his strength or speed, he can multiply those attributes for a brief period. However, this state cannot be maintained indefinitely, as excess ki energy can begin to ‘burn out’ the body part in question, destroying its chakra gates and rendering it useless permanently. Although not as potent as his personal regeneration, the Self-Made Man can also use ki to heal others, by laying hands upon them and transferring his body’s energies into them. Once the energy is passed on, however, he retains no control over it, and cannot direct it as effectively, meaning its healing potential is limited. The degree to which this exhausts him is directly proportional to the severity of the wounds he is attempting to heal. Ki channeling allows Dantalion to form constructs out of pure ki energy. These typically take the form of blades, although they are not rigid or completely solid, more akin to a concentrated stream of water being projected from his hands. These ki blades are lethally sharp, but cannot be maintained for more than a brief few minutes, as externalizing ki energy causes it to dissipate almost immediately, requiring an immense amount to be burned to keep a single ki blade active. They are typically used only as a weapon of last resort. “Natural selection is no match for genetic engineering.”
Although he appears human on the superficial level, Dantalion is an entirely new species, defined by his total superiority to homo sapiens on every conceivable level. From his sensorium, to his physical prowess, he categorically outclasses baseline humans, to a degree that is not merely superhuman, but fully posthuman, unencumbered by the limitations of the species he has surpassed.
First and foremost, the organ that enables the rest of Dantalion’s incredible physiological marvels: his heart. Nestled inside of his chest, and surrounded by protective plates of bone-armor, is a fully biological nuclear reactor. Possessing no artificial components, this reactor draws power from a piece of refined plutonium-240 the size of a marble, which produces enough energy to power the Once and Future King’s body for six thousand, five hundred years uninterrupted. The artificial reactor serves many of the same purposes as an ordinary heart, including pumping blood throughout the body- but Dantalion’s blood is unique, serving as a channel for the raw energy being produced by the reactor. Because the energy from the plutonium core is diffused throughout the body of the Psionic Savant, and rapidly absorbed by his posthuman biology, it’s not noticeably radioactive, and remains undetectable by all but the most sensitive instrumentation. None of his body’s other enhancements would be possible without this power source- they would overtax an ordinary human heart and induce death of exhaustion after just five minutes of physical exertion.
The Shadow Samurai’s hearing is sensitive enough to hear the sound of a beating heart from a dozen yards away, and distinguish individual heartbeats by the sound of their unique rhythm. This would result in total sensory overload, if Dantalion was not capable of suppressing the majority of ‘junk noise’ he hears. Rather than listening to every scrap of sound that passes him by, he filters for only the most important sounds- like the hammer of a gun being cocked, the safety disengaged, a sword slipping out of its sheath, or a bowstring being pulled taut. With this incredibly acute sense of hearing, along with his telepathic scanning, Dantalion is functionally precognitive, able to recognize an incoming attack before it’s launched, and formulate a response in seconds.
Similarly, the Psionic Savant possesses an extraordinarily developed sense of smell, allowing him to identify individuals by scent profile alone. This skill has allowed him to track targets across great distances, as well as recognizing the presence of hidden weapons by the scent of gunpowder or rust on a blade. Combined with his hearing, it makes for a powerful lie detector, as he can hear the telltale sound of a rapidly-beating heart, and smell perspiration, when someone is trying to deceive him.
Perhaps most impressive is Dantalion’s sight- the main reason why his mask leaves his eyes exposed is because no goggles or lenses would provide an enhancement to his superior vision, only a hindrance. In fact, the Once and Future King sees in a wider spectrum of visible light than ordinary humans, with infrared and ultraviolet among the other colors he can perceive. This means that he effectively has built in ‘night vision,’ being able to filter his own sight to account for darkness and other forms of visual static. Dantalion can even see through walls by looking for thermal signatures. Perhaps more significantly, the speed at which he processes visual information is close to a hundred times faster than the human baseline, meaning he can react at equivalent rates, almost making it seem as though he’s seeing the future. Combined with the incredible processing power of his brain, he can plot out all the potential vectors of attack an opponent might have within a second of seeing them, and calculate a response to each of them before they even have time to draw their weapon.
Bearing similarities to both avians and felines, these eyes allow for a far greater level of detail at range, visibility in the dark, and even sight in other wavelengths of light. Rather than seeing in standard trichromatic red-green-blue vision, the eyes are septachromatic, with four other colors, including ultraviolet and infrared, added to the mix. These additional colors are merely a part of Dantalion’s natural perception, which has the side effect of causing things to appear as a different color than how most people perceive them. The eye's circulatory system is modified to prevent blurring, which is due to blood vessels in the eye. Thanks to an increased number of retinal ganglions, the eyes process vision faster and more precisely than those of a normal human.
To protect him from attacks on one of the body's most obvious natural weak-points, Dantalion’s eyes have a transparent 'third eyelid,' which can be closed or opened at will, protecting him from dusts, gasses, and other contaminants damaging his eyes.
An enhanced sense of touch makes Dantalion extremely sensitive to changes in air pressure and ambient heat, which he can use to navigate his surroundings even with his other senses completely blanked out. However, due to the risk this poses, he typically keeps this sense suppressed, as otherwise he would be put into sensory overload by most combat environments.
While it’s rarely relevant in combat, the Self-Made Man also possesses an incredibly vibrant sense of taste, and as a result, he has developed the palate of a gourmand, eating only the finest foods, either prepared by professional chefs, or personally, in his extensive home kitchen. Likewise, his other enhanced senses have given him a superhuman appreciation for beauty, making him one of the world’s premier aesthetes- his private residences are carefully curated to provide the maximum comfort and pleasure to his eyes and ears. These include a loft in Chongqing which is constantly filled with the sound of soft chimes, a home in Germany built around a natural waterfall, and his Los Angeles townhouse, which is constantly treated with the scent of carnations.
Beyond the classical five senses, Dantalion also has an enhanced kinesthetic sense- the inherent ability to know the exact location of every part of one’s body without looking. This grants him superhuman poise and grace, to the point that he’s never once stumbled, tripped, stuttered, or even twitched without intending to. His control over his own body is absolute. In practice, this allows him to perform incredible acrobatic feats with ease, balancing on a high wire or leaping through the air without hesitation. On the battlefield, he can retain his composure even as lesser men find themselves succumbing to fear and madness, their very bodies rebelling against them.
Physically speaking, the Psionic Savant is a perfect specimen. His skin, in addition to being aesthetically flawless, is biologically hardened, similar on a molecular level to kevlar, although far more lightweight. Even with no armor, Dantalion is capable of resisting small-arms fire, and it takes incredible force for a bladed weapon to pierce his flesh. Compounding this fact is the Psitanium lacing on his skeleton, which makes the bones virtually impossible to break. Directly underneath the surface of his skin, the Self-Made Man also possesses a subdermal armor sheath designed to prevent any weapon that penetrates his outer layer of defenses from harming his vital organs.
Biofibers inside the skin provide Dantalion a sort of natural body armor, equivalent to a type-three ballistic vest in durability, while being much lighter and more flexible. This ‘orthroskin’ is completely invisible to the naked eye, and can only be detected by a powerful deep-tissue scan. In addition, Dantalion’s ribcage is unrecognizable, replaced with a layered set of flexible bone plates sheathed in self-repairing calcified cartilage. It completely stops rounds of pistol caliber and below, and when paired with the Psionic Savant’s other physical defenses, makes most rifles ineffective against him. Collagen and elastin proteins normally hold the body's tissues and organs together. Dantalion’s elastin proteins are much more flexible, granting him natural armor that reduces the impact of attacks.
The Once and Future King possesses a number of additional organs that either supplement or replace traditional human organs in various ways. These include an adrenaline pump, a small gland in the lower abdomen, connected to both superadrenal glands. Until activated, this pump merely acts as a reservoir for adrenaline. However, when triggered, a muscular sac contracts, sending a highly concentrated dose of adrenaline into the bloodstream. This effectively causes an increase in speed and strength, as well as vastly increasing pain tolerance while active. However, sustained use of the pump can cause severe exhaustion and a 'crash' after it's deactivated.
In addition, Dantalion possesses a suprathyroid gland, essentially an add-on to the existing thyroid gland, which can be manually activated to provide a significant boost to energy and the metabolism. This also comes with a commensurately larger need for biofuel, leading to bigger meals afterwards. A cluster of cells in Dantalion’s liver enhance filtration, allowing the body to more easily rid itself of poisons of all sorts.A thin mesh inside his trachea can be expanded to protect against airborne attacks, functioning as a built-in gas mask. This is also useful in a situation where imbibing a dangerous substance is necessary- activating the filter will allow consumption without risking adverse effects, which can provide the appearance of immunity to poisons.
Dantalion’s solid waste products absorb 80% less water, as a unique organ coils around the large intestine, allowing Dantalion to function without water for 48 hours longer than an average human. Dantalion possesses a metaglycogen gland, a small organ inside his chest cavity which produces a chemical compound that prevents water in the tissues from forming ice crystals, rendering him effectively immune to frostbite or other cold-based attacks.
Glucagon is an 'intermediary' in the metabolism of the body's energy stores. The Shadow Samurai’s body accelerates the liver's conversion of glucagon into glucose, ensuring he has a steady supply of energy, as well as a 'hyperactive' energy boost, with commensurate costs associated with eating afterwards. Eythropoetin is a hormone that stimulates the production of red blood cells. Dantalion’s body instead produces a unique compound called Neo-Eythropoetin, which increases oxygen retention and improves athletic performance by ensuring a constant supply of oxygen. Angiotension regulates bloodflow through the body, causing capillary beds to contract and stimulates water retention. Dantalion’s vasocon has greater vaso-constrictive capacity, useful in situations where massive blood loss is incurred.
Iron reductase is a protein that produces an iron cluster called magnetite. In animals, a clustering of magnetite triggers their ability to know when and how to migrate. Selective expression of this protein within the Psionic Savant’s inner ear allows him to sense the presence, direction, and intensity of magnetic fields. These include fields generated by electronics, power supplies, or magnetic anomaly detectors. This alteration also grants him the ability to unerringly locate magnetic north, useful for wayfinding in many scenarios.
When it comes to strength, Dantalion is virtually unmatched- under ideal circumstances, he has the power to lift roughly five tons, and strike with three tons worth of force, enough to kill an ordinary man with a single blow. His musculature is virtually unrecognizable compared to a baseline human, having been ruthlessly optimized and gene-edited in order to grant the Shadow Samurai his staggering might. Regular training isn’t necessary to maintain this strength, as Dantalion’s body doesn’t experience physical degradation thanks to his immaculate genetic profile and mastery of ki-based anti-aging techniques.
Unique 'cables' have grown into Dantalion’s muscles, providing an increase to muscle mass and brute strength, as well as visible increasing muscle definition, especially around the legs and arms. Additionally, his muscles have superior elasticity, providing increased muscle tension and flexibility. Thanks to a combination of joint-surface coding and tendon & ligament augmentation, fluid muscle and joint action is increased, allowing for more manual dexterity and flexibility.
The skeletal anchor points of the muscles are further away from the joints, granting the Self-Made Man enhanced leverage and strength performance. The muscular anchoring and skeletal strength is also augmented, through the absorption of minerals by a unique bacterial strain, resulting in greater durability.
The Black Wind’s speed is one of his most incredible attributes- he can accelerate almost instantaneously, crossing significant distances in the blink of an eye, and even making extremely precise turns at a moment’s notice. His superior reflexes allow Dantalion to dodge blades, arrows, and even bullets, with the aid of a brain that can calculate the trajectory of any projectile before it’s thrown or fired. In combat, he rarely remains still long enough to be seen, appearing only as a blur, with death following closely in his wake.
Dantalion’s body produces a significantly larger quantity of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) than that of an ordinary human, leading to natural physical processes occurring at an exponentially faster rate. Chief among these is healing. While wound healing in humans tends to consist merely of sealing off an injury with scar tissue, the amounts of excess energy provided by the ATP have resulted in full cellular regeneration at heretofore unknown speeds. His body produces more platelets in blood and bone marrow, which rapidly halts internal bleeding and other damages. Dantalion’s body has two extra glands, which produce chemicals responsible for causing blood clots, fibrin and fibrinogen. Wounds that cause a drop in blood pressure trigger these glands to produce an elevated amount of the chemicals, closing the wounds far more quickly.
Thanks to an improved myocardium, cardiovascular functions are improved, allowing the heart to keep the blood more oxygenated. This makes endurance running and significant physical exertion easier, leading to the appearance of greater strength or speed. The Psionic Savant's muscles have an altered polycontractile protein structure, resulting in a contraction rate comparable with fast-twitch muscle fibers. This enhances force output, making Dantalion even stronger than before.
The muscle tissue of Dantalion’s arteries is reinforced, increasing their pumping action and augmenting blood-flow, giving him aerobic performance superior to even that of an Olympic athlete. Dantalion’s red blood cells also produce 'metaheme,' a molecule with a far greater 'attraction' for oxygen than hemoglobin, vastly increasing aerobic activity and overall athletic performance. His muscles automatically detect severe physical trauma, and close 'valves' in the veins to prevent blood-flow to the area, numbing pain and near-instantly clotting wounds.
Subordinate to all other abilities, skills, and attributes, is the Once and Future King’s mind. Or to be more precise, his brain. The ordinary human brain is the most advanced piece of computational substrate on the planet, but compared to Dantalion, it’s like a Model-T sitting next to an F-16. The problem with genetic engineering to increase intelligence is the hard limit of the size of the human brain. Much can be- and has been -done to make the brain more efficient, but short of enlarging it, and consequentially creating an oversized and ungainly skull shape, that physical limitation cannot be surpassed. At least, this was the prevailing wisdom before Dantalion.
The Self-Made Man overcame this limitation by creating a brain that is only partially hosted in physical space. Using Quantumancy, he linked his own brain to a much larger organic processor hosted in a pocket dimension outside of time. Through the process of entanglement creating a state of ‘quantum telepathy,’ Dantalion can access this vastly more powerful brain as though it were hosted inside his own skull, despite actually being the size of a house.
As a result of this ingenious solution, the Shadow Samurai is perhaps the most intelligent creature to ever walk the planet. Completing complex arcane and mathematical equations while in the midst of combat is but one feat among many- in fact, his processing ability is so great that he can keep multiple distinct mental ‘threads’ active at the same time. While his primary focus might be on a fight, other parts of his brain are breaking down financial statements for the next fiscal quarter, designing a new addition to his arsenal, and composing a perfectly-crafted sonnet in the Shakespearean tradition.
Dantalion’s brain itself has also been modified to increase its efficiency, getting more processing power out of every cubic gram of gray matter. Additional nervous tissue, and augmentations to the gyri and convolutions of the cerebrum improve overall brain function, increasing intelligence, as well as the speed with which complex thoughts or mental calculations can be completed. An extra cluster of neurons in the motor cortex provides 'photographic muscle memory,' with skills that rely on a physical component becoming hard-wired into the body. As a result, many skills go from requiring conscious thought to becoming automatic far faster than usual. The nerve cells in the spinal cord are lengthened and enhanced, leading to far faster reaction times than an ordinary human. This also provides more 'neural bandwith,' making it easier to perform complex physical tasks while focusing on other things as well. Myelin is a protein compound that blankets the brain's nerve cells and cuts down on interference between neural impulses. The upgraded sheath improves its function, increasing transmission efficiency and removing bio-electrical interference. As a result, Dantalion’s reflexes are significantly faster than a normal human.
The central nerve trunks in the brain are expanded, with enlarged axon diameters. Electrochemical impulses travel faster, with more surface area to support neuron-to-neuron chemical transmission, as well as reduced electrical interference. This results in faster reflexes and better reaction times. The brain produces more beta-metalethetigine, optimizing memory function. Beta-M neutralizes the memory eroding action of acetylcholine, providing near-total recall of events and information. Thanks to a tiny organ within the hemispheres of the forebrain, secreting Beta-M directly into the cerebrospinal fluid, the Self-Made Man’s memories are also far sharper and more vivid than an ordinary human.
Dantalion's Pineal gland produces significant qualities of Natal Stimulation Compound (NSC), a chemical that allows children to absorb massive amounts of information in the first five years of their life. When used on an adult, it functions on brain tissue in much the same way steroids function on muscle tissue. The more demands placed on the brain, the more it develops. This increases neuroplasticity and boosts every facet of Dantalion’s intellectual capabilities. Cut-off points in the Shadow Samurai’s nervous system can prevent the sensations from a stimulus from reaching the brain, preventing all pain for a short time, at the expense of losing most feeling in that part of the body. This automatically triggers as a result of severe physical trauma, but can be manually controlled as well.
Dantalion’s brain produces a nootropic protein that affects cognitive abilities in the visual cortex. This enhances intuitive comprehension and pattern-recognition abilities. Furthermore, this has allowed the Once and Future King to develop a combat awareness based on fighting styles and techniques, letting him quickly adapt and respond to an opponent's combat style.
“Specialization is for insects.”
Thanks to his vast mental processing power, Dantalion is a virtual omniglot- there’s no skill worth knowing that he doesn’t possess mastery of. Naturally, this includes the martial arts, but despite possessing grandmaster-level skill in all known combat disciplines, there are only three that he employs on a regular basis. One so ancient it has passed out of living memory. Another that has yet to be invented. And a third which the Self-Made Man created for himself. The reason for this is simple- it makes him harder to beat, because there’s nobody alive who’s familiar with his moves. Someone familiar with judo or aikido knows what to expect when facing a master of those styles, but nobody can predict Dantalion’s attacks because the disciplines he’s employing are entirely novel.
The Hundred Winds school will be founded in the year 2052 by an order of wandering monks, who travel the world dispensing justice, and teaching at least one member of each community where they intervene their techniques, so that they will remain as a protector when the order moves on. As the monks fought unarmed and unarmored, against opponents with automatic weaponry, this school emphasizes speed and precision, imparting techniques upon its students that allow them to dance between bullets and strike down scores of foes with the speed of gale-force winds. In order to fully master the Hundred Winds style, the practitioner must cultivate weightlessness, in the mental and spiritual sense more so than the physical. Only a warrior unburdened by the weight of the past and future can effectively utilize Hundred Winds techniques, but once this state of mental detachment is achieved, they become a terrifying force to be reckoned with.
Attempting to strike a Hundred Winds master is akin to fighting a hurricane. Insubstantial when you attempt to strike, but capable of blowing you away when it retaliates. Those who study the techniques learn to channel their body’s energies into incredibly powerful blows that can scatter dozens of opponents with a single strike, the force exploding out of their hands and feet like a sudden rush of wind strong enough to topple a building. Because so much of the fighting style of the Hundred Winds discipline is based around avoiding enemy attacks, it’s crucial for a master to do as much damage to their enemies with as few blows as possible, for even they can’t dodge automatic gunfire indefinitely.
The Sword Saint school began as an offshoot religious order in the 11th Century AD, which venerated combat- and specifically swordfighting -as holy. Declared heretical by Rome, it went underground, and became pseudo-secularized over the years, losing all overtly Christian aspects in favor of emphasizing the pure worship of the sword. Its practitioners traveled the world in secret, spreading the gospel of the blade, and inducting new masters who proved their mettle in a series of lethal duels. The school’s teachings took centuries to refine, incorporating aspects of every discipline from fencing to kendo, until a unified theory of swordfighting was created.
Those who attain the rank of Saint are capable of picking up any bladed weapon from a claymore to a kitchen knife, and cutting down scores of men like blades of grass. This title was granted to less than one hundred men throughout the history of the Sword Saint school, before it died out completely in the 1800s. Dantalion is the only living practitioner, having discovered the holy texts of the school on his sojourns around the world in the 1920s. Through intense study of the school’s teachings, he has reached the skill level of a Saint, although the order and the means to formally grant that rank no longer exist.
Students of the school learn to treat their weapons as an extension of their own bodies, and in doing so, channel their body’s energies through the weapon. This allows them to perform seemingly impossible feats, achieved only through total spiritual alignment of weapon and wielder. A Saint can even extend their weapon’s reach, potentially by over a dozen yards, allowing them to cut down multiple opponents with a single sword-stroke. They also possess the ability to instantly sharpen any blade they hold, turning a dull butter knife into a lethal killing instrument, simply by applying the razor-sharp killing intent of their mind to the weapon in their hand. The reflexes and skill necessary to attain the rank of Saint make one capable of deflecting bullets with their blade, or even carving them in twain.
Dantalion’s personal martial arts discipline- never recorded anywhere outside of his own perfect memory -is known simply as the Path. Reserved only for use against the most serious opponents, this martial art incorporates the use of swords, firearms, fists, and all of the Shadow Samurai’s various posthuman abilities. It would be virtually impossible for anybody other than him to use effectively, but when put into practice by its creator, the Path is a sight to behold.
Crucial to the Path is the use of telepathic warfare, meant to confuse, distract, and wear down the opponent through the use of illusions, psychic suggestions, and even artificially induced seizures. Even subtler, telepathy can be used to cause minute muscle contractions and twitches, minor movements that can create gaps on an opponent’s otherwise perfect guard, or cause them to miss a crucial strike by inches. Similarly, Dantalion’s mastery of Quantumancy is incorporated into this fighting style, mainly through the use of his superpositional weapons, which change from sword in an instant when he wills it. Telekinesis can also be used to great effect as part of the Path, both directly applied to the opponent, or to one’s own weapons.
“This is my inheritance, my estate: eternity, infinity, the whole universe beneath my sword. This is what I rule: forever and a blade.”
Considering the vast array of abilities at Dantalion’s disposal, one could be forgiven for wondering why he needs to wield conventional weapons at all. There is a strategic consideration at play- by using his blades rather than his psionic abilities or Quantumancy, he keeps knowledge of those abilities a secret, preserving the element of surprise for future engagements. But there’s another reason, too. A sword is a reciprocal weapon. It forms a bridge, binding wielder and victim, cause and effect, life and death. A gun is a forgetful weapon, spitting lead without a care, but the sword remembers. It drinks deep of the blood it’s fed, and grows sharper, hungrier for more.
The law of the sword is the Shadow Samurai’s guiding principle. Assert your right to exist at the edge of your blade, or be cut out of the fabric of the universe. The sword is an extension of his body, and he, an extension of it.
Dantalion’s twin blades are called Might and Right. Save for the single letter that distinguishes them, they are identical, from length to composition to their perfect, monomolecular edges. Rather than being forged conventionally, they were shaped out of Psitanium, keyed to the Self-Made Man’s psychic signature. The psycho-reactive metamaterial is unbreakable, yet incredibly malleable when shaped by a telepath, allowing Dantalion to keep the blades perpetually sharp, without fear of going dull, chipping, or breaking.
Thanks to his superior mental processing power, the Black Wind’s control over Psitanium is greater than the average telepath, allowing him to sharpen the twin blades to the width of a single molecule, making them among the deadliest weapons in existence. Their edges cleave through solid concrete as easily as a high-intensity laser slicing through a stick of butter. Dantalion likes to boast that they could carve the electrons off of an atom, if need be.
Besides their lethal edges, the blades have another unique property- they exist in a state of quantum superposition, maintained by a complex magi-mathematical formula known only to the Psionic Savant. As such, he can alter their quantum state at will, instantaneously changing the swords to a pair of handguns. Like the swords, these weapons originate in the 22nd century, at the pinnacle of firearms technology. Semi-automatic and recoilless, these guns fire Psitanium bullets, which Dantalion can control to alter their trajectories, or even change their shapes once they’re inside of a target, making them exceptionally deadly. His superior senses and posthuman reflexes make him a deadly marksman, but he prefers to avoid using firearms wherever possible, only bringing them out as a last resort, or to execute an enemy he feels isn’t worthy of his sword.
Dantalion also carries a large number of Psitanium shuriken, or throwing stars, which he can control using psionics. Altering the otherwise predictable arc of a projectile is a useful trick that the Shadow Samurai has often employed to surprise an opponent, allowing them to think they’ve successfully dodged his attack before the shuriken swings back around to strike them from behind.
The other main superpositional item in Dantalion’s arsenal is his armor. The black and purple battle raiment has served him well for over a hundred years, lined with Psitanium plating that makes it virtually impossible to penetrate, while remaining lightweight enough to accommodate his acrobatic feats. The vestment has a number of hidden pockets, pouches, and compartments, where the Psionic Savant conceals his shuriken and other equipment. It lacks an onboard computer, or any such other technological components, as Dantalion’s brain is more powerful than any machine, but does have a few other hidden surprises.
A grapnel launcher is concealed in the right gauntlet, allowing the Self-Made Man to fire a Psitanium hook connected to a length of high-tensile wire, which he uses to navigate urban environments at great heights. His near-perfect eyesight and reflexes allow him to hit his target the vast majority of the time, but should he ever miss, correcting his aim using psionics is an easy remedy to prevent an ignominious death from impact with the sidewalk.
The left gauntlet contains a number of other useful devices, including a lockpick concealed in the index finger, as well as an emergency smoke pellet and sonic emitter, all of which can be activated psionically, allowing Dantalion to use them even while his hands are bound, or he’s being held at gunpoint- rare as such situations are for him.
The other quantum state of the armor is a tailored, steel-gray suit, the standard formal attire of the Shadow Samurai. This suit has a thin protective layer of Psitanium, and a number of hidden weapons concealed in various pockets, as well as holsters for the handgun forms of Might and Right, which are much easier to conceal as firearms than as full-sized swords.
While not over-reliant on equipment, Dantalion does carry a handful of tools on his person, which he has no qualms about employing under the right circumstances. These include a handful of ‘blackout bombs,’ an advanced alternative to smoke pellets which create a field of total darkness, which even those with superhuman eyesight cannot penetrate. These grant the Black Wind tactical advantage, as he’s more than capable of navigating using his other senses- and most importantly, they prevent him from being perceived, which allows him to employ quantum teleportation to escape a dangerous situation, if necessary. Fleeing from a fight is anathema to Dantalion, but self-preservation is still his priority, so if death or defeat seem imminent, he’ll make an expeditious retreat.
Other items include marble-sized micro-explosives, which detonate when thrown, resulting in a blast powerful enough to bring down the wall of a house, or kill a man instantly. Employing such crude tools goes against Dantalion’s nature, but he’s willing to put them to use when the situation calls for it. The same goes for the EMP discs he carries, roughly the size of a half-dollar coin, which deliver a one-time localized electromagnetic pulse to whatever they are applied to. Useful for disabling electronic devices without destroying them outright.
Although his own abilities and standard equipment are sufficient for killing virtually anything under the sun, Dantalion has done battle with enough mutant/metahuman opponents in the past to know that they can be difficult to properly put down. As such, he has cultivated a ‘meta-killer kit,’ containing a number of tools and weapons uniquely suited to dealing with enemies that can’t be harmed by ordinary means.
The first item in this kit is a series of specially-treated capsules containing ten ounces of chlorine triflouride. One of the most potent accelerants on the planet, chlorine triflouride can burn through solid concrete, and ignites human flesh on contact even in liquid form. It will ignite almost anything, including sand, glass, asbestos, and even ash itself- the only reliable method for suppressing a chlorine triflouride blaze is nitrogen. Against a physically invulnerable metahuman, chlorine triflouride could theoretically be used to ignite their internal organs via forced ingestion- burning them alive from the inside out.
The Shadow Samurai’s second ‘meta-killer’ is highly unconventional- it would leave the target physically intact, but is nonetheless entirely lethal. It consists of a visually-transmitted memetic cognitohazard- in other words, an idea that can infest the mind of anybody who perceives it, to the point that they literally aren’t able to think about anything else. This causes instant brain death, as their higher cognitive functions shut down, with only automatic functions like breathing able to continue. This particular cognitohazard takes the form of an image, which Dantalion can mentally project directly into an enemy’s mind, or simply show them on a piece of paper. The Self-Made Man himself is immune to his cognitohazard, thanks to his septachromatic vision, which makes the image look different to him than to a human with ordinary vision.
The deadliest sanction in Dantalion’s arsenal is the strangelet bomb. Theoretically capable of destroying an entire planet, this weapon is deployed only against an opponent that seemingly cannot be killed by any means other than complete and utter destruction. The strangelet bomb consists of a piece of ‘strange matter’ scarcely larger than a few nanometers, deployed via a small device designed specially to house the particle without itself causing a catastrophic reaction. On contact with any matter, the strangelet bomb immediately converts it into more ‘strange matter,’ collapsing it into a hyperdense particle. This effectively causes a ‘chain reaction’ that can spread across an entire planet in seconds, collapsing it into a ‘strange star.’ If a strangelet bomb was used on a star, it would likely detonate the stellar entity, theoretically scattering trillions of strange matter particles around the universe, which- upon contact with any other star or planet -would continue to create more strange stars, causing a chain reaction that could destroy the entire universe. Obviously, using this weapon against a single individual would be wildly excessive- Dantalion has never actually done so, but has devised a theoretical way in which a strangelet bomb could be used in a safe manner- by projecting a null space cage around the target before the strangelet bomb is activated, containing the reaction, and then collapsing the resulting strange matter into a microsingularity.
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