The massive monitor display in the office abruptly went black. The live image of Livia smiling vanished in an instant, the electronic hum cutting out completely. Pitch darkness swallowed the hundredth-floor penthouse office.Xavier remained seated calmly in his chair. Even the emergency overhead lighting in the hallway outside failed to engage. The temperature inside the office plummeted toward absolute zero, frost rapidly spreading across the expansive glass windows. A sharp, sulfurous reek saturated the air.A pool of pitch-black shadow materialized in the center of the office rug, churning like boiling water. Thick gray smoke billowed upward as a towering figure emerged slowly from the dark pool.The man wore a frayed gray robe, tattered at the hem. His face was concealed beneath a filthy hood, save for two blood-red eyes that flared brightly from the shadows within."You think you can just sit comfortably on that throne?" the robed figure greeted him, his voice raspy and echoing t