Songfacts®:

• This multipart 8-minute epic is the centerpiece of the For All Kings album. Guitarist Scott Ian told Rolling Stone regarding the song's theme: "Any great city, whether it's London, Rome, Paris, New York, Los Angeles - these cities are alive because of how many people were killed to make these cities what they are, how much blood was spilled over time."
• The song's music video was directed by Jack Bennett, who also worked with Scott Ian on the Blood and Guts series. The clip features a king presiding over a draconian society built on torture, torment and murder. James Duval (best known for his roles of Frank in Donnie Darko and Miguel in Independence Day) plays the hero who after initially resisting the carnage, succumbs to his own grisly demise.
  
  That's comedian Brian Posehn who is the guard which quips at the end, "That was brutal."
  
  "We created this torture chamber, sitting below this horrible king's hall," said Bennett. "This guy gets to play with his toys and look through the grate in the floor and see this group of people that he's essentially crushing. The idea is that this power is built on top of these people. It's brutal and there's a lot of amazing torture gags happening, but it all serves this concept that progress is brutal. Civilizations progress in a way that is violent."