A woman sits at the funeral of her fallen lover, a man cursed with the responsibility of saving the world. A young boy and his friends watch their school burn to the ground, black faces dancing in the flames. Faithlessness and greed threaten to bring a city to the brink of war, all at the behest of a madman hundreds of years old. Disease withers the world's strength. And behind it all, the Ulgolad, a perversion of reality driven by the ludicrous obsession of destroying the universe, bringing down the infinite versions of a single world one by one. Many alternative worlds have already fallen, each adding its strength to the Ulgolad. Now they prepare to make the probabilistic jump to another ordinary, Earth-like dimension that should prove to be easy prey. Having murdered this world's potential protectors with their creeping influence, the planet has only a handful of weakened, frail innocents that stand even a chance of facing up to this impossible challenge. If they lose their way, or give in to despair, nothing awaits but certain damnation.