"Let's wrap up this little play. We'll cause too much disturbance if we distort time any further." Luxion's voice drifted through the still night like silk woven in moonlight.
"This young vessel might grow too much if I'm not careful."
As he stood, he lifted a hand casually as if dismissing a tiresome chore. His shadow rose behind him— alive and starving. It swallowed the throne whole, not a trace left in its wake.
A declaration of closure.
A preview of what's to come.
"Father's on his merry way, and I'd wager Liam and that fairy have had plenty of time to dump the readers some healthily needed lore." Luxion murmured, tone coldly detached, yet also immersed.
"So why don't we draw the curtains on this side of the story as well?"
His footsteps, light yet simultaneously impossibly heavy, rang against the transparent floor with gradual and methodical horror. Each tap reverberating like the ticking of the clock counting down the final moments of a condemned soul.
As he approached, the air grew thick. His presence alone held the world in its finite breath.
The mighty divine beast, once called a herald of inevitable doom, could do nothing but tremble. His body unresponsive, his proud fur that withstood the most devastating of attacks, now lay torn— matted with blood and melted frost.
The world's subtle cues of an impending malice that Fenrir was now unable to notice.
Like a crow in a graveyard, the slow footsteps and rising chuckle delve into the pits of sanity, becoming something more— something detached from anything alive.
The predator had become the prey.
His stage— his theater meant to serve as the pedestal to realize his rebellion— was that quickly overturned by a poet who tamed sentient cataclysms as easily as a child catching bugs.
The toll of the ashen reaper had rung, and its scythe had come unsheathed.
"Release him, Roux."
"Okay~!" Chirped Roux, her voice childishly light and playful.
Freed from the predator's grasp, Fenrir collapsed to the floor with a sickening wet thud.
Not like a beast.
Not a warrior of pride.
But a corpse— a hollow shell.
Roux exited where she entered.
Each appendage, each mouth, each shredded incisors retreated like scrambling serpents, tearing through him one final time before the cherry-haired princess manifested her form— gracefully balanced on one toe atop his snout.
"Thanks for the meal— burp~~~!" Roux prayed, her hands pressed together— mimicking Luxion's mannerism.
His limbs convulsed violently as the scream of his nerves had now escaped its muffled prison. Agony overtook his senses with a cruelty no natural predator could inflict.
The incessant pain of life felt crueler than the shrilling call of death ever could.
The moment air rushed into his throat, his lungs seized as though he swallowed a dragon's venom. It felt wrong— heavy, acidic— each gasp scraping his chest like scalpels severing any thread of hope.
He writhed— shaking, twitching, ever reaching for a salvation that was now too late.
The normalcy of mortality he had lost for mere minutes was now but a far-gone utopia he's cursed never to experience again.
"Did you heal him properly?" Luxion asked calmly, patting the girl's head.
"Yesh~! Roux gave a lot of blood!" The child reciprocated, hugging him— and smudging his uniform with the blood around her lips.
"The doggy won't die anytime soon!"
Even in this state, from the depths of his broken vessel, a gravelly voice clawed out…
"Y-You…" Fenrir scowled.
"Cursed child of the void… Why… Why do you remain… in [their] shadows?"
Luxion stopped, tilting his head.
He's still able to talk after all that?
Color me impressed.
"This… power…" Fenrir wheezed, blood pouring out of every orifice in his head.
"With that intellect… that wisdom and cursed foresight unfathomable for anyone but the holders of the heavenly [Crests]… You… Having known everything… and the means to acquire the [Key] they feared most… You can break free of this accursed script… and yet…" He continued, muttering under dying gasps.
"Why—"
Blood splattered across the floor as Fenrir's snout burst open like a broken pipe.
"Roux." Luxion softly beckoned the girl.
"Why is he like that? You didn't brand him with your curse, did you?" He asked, growing more worried by the second.
"Hm, yes? The curse is in Roux's blood." She innocently answered, failing to understand what was so wrong in this context.
"Mr. Doggy is now a little like Roux. He'll become stronger if he wins against the curse!"
"…"
Luxion inhaled deeply.
THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE, YOU LITTLE PRICK!? I FRIGGIN' TOLD YOU NOT TO KILL THE DAMN THING!!! WHY DID YOU CURSE IT WITH THE OATH OF FRAGILITY!?!?!?!?— is what Luxion thought, but his wrath was immediately quenched.
He closed his eyes and simply smiled, his embrace tightening as if to comfort himself.
"I… see." He sloppily said.
I suppose I could use this, too.
Blanche, hearing everything, let out a soft chuckle.
"Why should you…"
Back to Fenrir.
"Why should you… the strongest monster this world conceived… birth the inescapable shackles… that will ground you to their [Plot]?"
Hm… Key? Crests?
Luxion's eyes narrowed. Pieces of the puzzle were scattered across his mind— past and present, old and new— and yet, all points refused to align. Just whispering thoughts and mindless static.
Again with this mastermind talk…
I have no fucking clue who he's talking about.
According to the Succubus' memories, they're currently planning a rebellion against Argo, so he's not it… Is it the North in this, after all? Maybe the council? No… The geezers wouldn't meddle this early in the timeline without that guy… and even if they did, this one shouldn't be beyond the scope of their game.
His thoughts churned like ticking cogs trying to decipher their cryptic message.
Doesn't seem like Blanche knows anything useful either.
"Well, sorry for being useless!"
[Key to break free of the script.]— In other words, a power enough to defy the world's regulation, or perhaps, a knowledge that would shatter causality. That [Awakening] humans have, is that what it is? Considering the position of Humans as the creator's favored race— is that enlightenment the key Fenrir is referring to?
…And to learn about it at this moment?
A threat?
A warning?
Or was it simply the ramblings of a beast on the brink of death?
More importantly, who is this mystery writer we have, I wonder? —Writers, for all I know.
For better or for worse, this world is complicated, built in complex systems deeply intertwined with one another. There are too many factors in play at each given moment, so not just anyone could create a working [Plot], let alone narrate it perfectly, even with world-breaking cheats.
Unless…
A grim possibility slithered into his mind.
Mortals with unfathomable foresight, abilities no one could replicate, and ingenuity that seemed born of a wisdom beyond comprehension. Dangerous entities hailed as angels— God's personal heralds descended on earth.
No way they're like me… right?
There was already a precedent.
Even without special powers, [Reincarnations] have the insight to stir a nexus of events. Just their presence alone will disrupt the lore from the one I know, and before long, the world itself will be rewritten without my consent.
(I guess that would be a good in-world reason for the pseudo-modern technologies they have here.)
They're too dangerous…
Luxion's breath came unevenly.
I should kill them—
Unknowingly, Luxion's aura lashed out, a tidal wave of pure mana surged like violent whips that made the very air itself crack under its pressure. The turbulence tore through the space, splitting event the transparent floor... and through Fenrir's torso, which ruptured like a popped bubble in a grotesque bloom of crimson.
Luxion blinked, glancing at the bloody mess he'd just created.
Shoot… Too fragile.
"…Why…?" Fenrir muttered the question.
He had long foregone of his will to survive. He was utterly defeated, and as a final display of honor, he had accepted to perish here— severed from the restraints of worldly ambitions.
Now, he simply wanted answers.
He wanted to pry open the mind of the cold executioner who would take his life.
"Why… you ask?" Luxion repeated, his voice low and poisonous.
As if reciprocating to his innermost thoughts, Luxion bent at his knees. He leaned closer like a priest hearing an ill man's confessions. Slowly, deliberately, until he's at Fenrir's line of sight.
His sharp eyes glowed with an unnatural luster— ominous yet enchanting— boring a hole through Fenrir's final visions like obsidian daggers dipped in the venom of lunacy. Trailing his figure was his shadow, longer than it should be, twisting violently into the grasp of the fading night, fluttering— rustling— almost as though it had a mind of its own.
The answer, he just decided, would be his gift—
Fenrir's last taste of mercy.
"What a stupid question."
Darkness sprawled further into his silhouette.
I went along with your charades, so give me something worth remembering… Divine Beast.
A twisted grin crept across his elated face, far too wide for his features. His teeth, framed by shivering jaws, devoured even the faintest of light like a wolf, utterly bored in its hunt, toying with its helpless prey.
His grin wasn't just a mockery.
It was death by humiliation.
"Amusement. Obviously."
"…What?" Fenrir's voice cracked.
Luxion chuckled softly— giddy, unnervingly graceful, and irreversibly demented. Spiraling into a growing laughter, ringing a symphony of mirth laced with unnatural vileness.
Too sharp.
Too wrong.
Too human for its monstrous hum.
That look… That utter bewilderment and betrayal, reflecting the moment the dissipating embers of hopeful delusions leave the beast's face as its fractured vision was filled by the pompous image of our twisted hero relishing in delightful triumph.
This is exactly the dopamine rush he was desperately craving for.
The sound of his escalating laughter slithered across the ground like a disturbed nest of venomous vipers, latching onto each vital cluster, curling around Fenrir's already failing heart, squeezing the last drops of what little remains of the proud tyrant.
"Do you have any inkling of how mind-numbingly dull it is to be unmatched?"
He flung a thought in the air, words echoing like a gentle orchestra along shattered chambers.
The clouds overhead split open as his dormant nature unraveled to match the constrictions of the heavens. His contorted figure birthed paradoxes. Flames flared from his sleeves, frost crawled up his skin, the chains of synthesis formed and shattered as the very air bent onto his palm— verdant blazing orb that seared souls just as it reflected the screaming visages of all those it had devoured.
"To hold power so absolute that reality recoils from your touch. To be so far removed beyond the terms of plausible causality that nothing in this mortal realm could even reach, let alone singe a strand of your hair?"
Luxion rose back to his feet, eyes coated in a subliminal glint of shadows— ethereal yet eternally flowing.
"It's utterly insufferable."
He stepped forward— lightning thundered behind him as the earth itself applauded his emergence. The atmosphere bent inward, casting cinders upon his shadow that struck like a divine beacon, framing his silhouette in a celestial light.
He wasn't merely standing.
He was performing.
{Author's Note: The effects all staged, by the way.}
As the light faded, Luxion tilted his head, eyes narrowing into slits. The fractured sigils of its glow, haloed by cracking lightning and ephemeral darkness, drowsed him in the supposedly post-mortal aura of the fallen angels.
"What's the point of being the strongest if you can't have fun with it?"
For a moment, it appeared as though horns arced above his snow-tainted mane like a crown born from abyssal depths. Membranous wings fluttered like whipping cries— akin to dragons, poised in the most potent miasma.
And in silence, caught between the vagueness of reality, growing from his neck— a second head. A smiling manifestation of madness itself.
"Being the strongest— wielding power unattainable to anyone else… that is nothing but a recipe for ingratiatingly maddening boredom!"
"It detaches you from everything that bleeds the world its wondrous colors. When survival and the necessity to strive further beyond the veil of existence have been pacified, it leaves that bitter aftertaste in your tongue that you could never quench. A hunger perpetually starved, forever haunting you like an instinct begging for a purpose in a stage where only you exist."
He stilled, breath came in, deep and profound.
"And then— it hit me."
Luxion tapped his temple, flailing his head, acting as though he had been shot.
"I was a fool. I was an utter moron. I have been so ungrateful. I have eyes, but I was so blind to the allure this omnipotence brought me!" He declared in the heavens, voice ever-laughing as it cracked with manic awe.
"I was never alone. I was simply above the others. And when I looked down, I saw… beauty. In the noise that I so abhorred— I heard the tunes of life coiled in patterns with each step. I sense purpose in every life that breaths its last as it fell onto these hands of mine."
Luxion suddenly paused mid-thought, his smile fading. He stared at his trembling hands, eyes bloodshot, overcome with the cold, ever-expanding abyss.
The noble mask cracked, but instead of a soul— it revealed a hollow chasm.
"I read the narrative. And I realized that I had the gift to scribe its future chapters."
He turned towards Fenrir, eerily calm.
"You don't get it, do you?" Luxion mockingly growled back.
"A battle— no, a war! It's not about conquest. It wasn't about its conclusion— it never was. Victory and defeat are mere labels meant to brand each party with their roles in the aftermath. What mattered was how the events unfolded. How each chapter was unraveled to present its utmost brilliance. Each arc. Each tragedy. Each death and subsequent rebirth. What matters most is the beauty of execution. The weight each syllable carried through the narrative stream. Its impact beyond the present— Physically. Psychologically… Thematically."
His grin grew back, more deranged than it had ever been. He spun with the gleeful step of a heretic, spreading his arms as though presenting his twisted hypothesis to the world that bore no curiosity in his insanity.
"What makes the narrative beautiful lies in how its threads intricately weave through each point, each character, each setting on this wretched little world that proves, day by day, to be a far more delicate flower than the dictation of its mediocre origins."
He stopped and started tapping his foot against the floor in a beat, both rhythmic and deaf.
Tolerable only to those who understood its hum.
"And right now. In this very instant, while fate strangles this world in ever-burning suspense, The [Named] ones are writhing— agonizing, screaming, blossoming— through their respective little [Arcs]."
A maniac with all screws loose— no, lost.
A blasted psychopath who attained the power of divinity despite being its complete antithesis… or perhaps, this is how it is supposed to be— the true form godhood— all along.
"Ah, but make no mistake. I do not plan on staying in the shadows forever. " He brushed off, waving his hand dismissively.
"Someday, I promise to overtake center stage. I'll tear divine premonitions and demonic curses in a grand spectacle that will make mythologies tremble in envy." He whispered, voice dipped in sweet caramel.
"But not right now. I don't have the physique to justify that kind of spectacle just yet."
He leaned in on Fenrir's ear, speaking as though they were old acquaintances sharing the taste of wine under fluttering moonlight.
"These things need to be… [Dramatic], don't you agree?"
Fenrir's entire frame shivered, face contorted into utter horror and disgust.
"Amusement… Dramatic…" He grunted.
"Just because of that… you… you dastard scoundrel! Just for that insanity of yours… you'll risk destroying everything… JUST FOR YOUR SICK LITTLE STORY!?!?!?"
Luxion breathed slowly. His response delayed in amusement. His grin twisted into a sneer, fangs peeking like daggers beneath his lips.
"Yeah. Got a problem with that?"
"You… sick… bastard…" Fenrir spat, blood staining his snout.
"Kuhuhu… Thanks for the compliment."
Suddenly, Fenrir stiffened. His gaze darted downward, to the faint glow of mana pooling he hid beneath the guise of his blood. His pained growl faintly shifting to a scoff.
Oh, cool… a twist at the final second.
A desperate gamble.
A spell that would kill him if not the boy.
A final attempt at defiance of a fallen king who had briefly feigned dishonor.
But, too bad. Too late.
"One more thing, dear Fenrir." Luxion smiled.
"That adorable little succubus of yours? She won't come."
"…What?" Fenrir froze.
And with it, the ambient hum of chanting shattered like glass.
"If you're still clinging to a childish hope that the little wretch you trusted most to bail you out of here, don't bother." Luxion uttered, his voice cold, omitting an air of finality— slicing through the air like ethereal scalpels.
"She now has a new... purpose."
"How do you… know about…"
The word hung like the toll of a funeral chime.
For a fleeting moment, Fenrir's eyes almost popped out of its sockets with primal dread, chest enveloped in pure terror. His blood turned to ice. His rebellious growl broke into an expression of utter despair— realizing the meaning behind his statement.
"YOU SCUM!" The howl scraped his throat like rusted metal, but he no longer cared.
"Wh-What did you do to her!?"
"Hmm~?" Luxion's grin sharpened.
"Are such trivial matters relevant right now? For something you called a slave, aren't you awfully distraught, hm?" He scoffed mockingly.
"Were you thinking that you'll at least save her from facing the same fate as you?"
"Guh…!"
"She was your adopted daughter, I heard." Luxion chuckled, the sound hollow and cruel.
"An orphaned little lass. To raise a stray demon you picked up somewhere— I'm afraid I no longer have the heart to grant a nobody that kind of benevolent charity."
Luxion crouched once more, arrogantly peeping through the beast's single functioning eye.
"How very touching of you..." He whispered.
"—Papa."
With a single motion, Luxion reached out, fingers cloaked in a spectral haze of verdant smoke. His hand touched Fenrir's snout like a gentle feather— not a strike to finish him off, not another display of dominance, but the mercy of a sublime specter bestowing visions of the truth.
The beast flinched, but there was no pain.
A pulse of mana surged into Fenrir's skull at once— freezing, violent, invasive yet stagnant. It seeped into his mind like liquid— it flowed as though it had always belonged at that place.
Then, it flared.
It carried with it a single image.
A room— suffocatingly cramped and blindingly drowsed in darkness. The air was thick with silence— still but not lifeless. The kind that constantly presses on the chest like an invisible weight spreading decay from the unseen depths of one's soul.
It stretched into endless corridors, a constantly screaming hall of static blackness. A labyrinth in an abyss that permitted no light, sound, or warmth— there was nothing.
There lay a bed, no bigger than a coffin.
And on it, the succubus.
His daughter— motionless, but alive.
Unharmed, but her breathing came in shallow gasps as if that alone was too heavy of a burden. A film of light— transparent like glass, yet formless like a fog granted sentience— encased her like a cherished doll enshrined in a pedestal of light.
Luxion withdrew his hand and straightened, watching the beast's reaction with a curious lilt.
"I'll give credit where it is due." Luxion said, brushing dust off his gloves.
"You are quite the guardian. You raised an obedient vassal— devoted, fierce, and methodical. Even when faced with my Queen, never have your precious child wavered— not even once, you know! That's very admirable." He continued, emphasizing his sentiment with slow, deliberate claps.
"She clung to her belief in you, upholding her loyalty until the very end. She kept her mouth sealed... even when it would have saved her."
Fenrir remained silent.
"Admirable, truly. So much so that I almost want her for myself."
Behind him, Chrysos, ever-watchful, conjured a journal from his flames and began furiously scribbling notes with the meticulously poised hand of an author on deadline.
Roux leaned in behind his shoulder, trying to sneak a peek, her curiosity thinly veiled by her mischievous grin.
{Author's Note: Chrysos' handwriting is written in Vladimir Script, size 5. Too beautiful, and tiny, for little Roux to read it.}
"Where…" Fenrir's voice cracked, barely a broken whisper of a father's desperation.
"—is… she?"
Fenrir scraped a growl low in his throat, blood dripping from his fangs as sounds escaped like cries rather than threats. His being trembled— helpless. He felt like a champion, chained and drowned.
"Oh, curious?" Luxion said softly, his voice dipping to an almost soothing tone.
"It's fine. I'm not that heartless of a brute to keep a doting father eternally separated from his precious daughter."
His smile further melted into the light, eyes gleaming with the innocence matching his face as though something resembling kindness resided behind them. And for an instant, Fenrir's heart lifted. Desperate, perhaps already blinded, he allowed himself to believe—
"She is… [alive]."
A quiet snicker slithered through the gap between Luxion's lips. A sound that burrowed its wretched tune in Fenrir's mind.
"Where…"
"Quite the listless parent, aren't you?" He repeated, his tone dripping with mockery.
"Rest assured. You'll be in the same place as her soon enough."
Then, the vision shifted violently.
The walls of the room grew bleak, the barrier cracked, fissures crept in jagged veins across its surface. The devouring darkness receded, peeling away like rotting skin, unveiling a scene far more perverse than mere imprisonment— more heinous than a murderer's playground.
A laboratory.
A butcher's ziggurat.
Dismembered flesh— meticulously labeled and arranged— sat cleanly on surgical trays like the remnants of some twisted experimentation.
Uprooted wings floated in cyan liquid, their majestic black hue bleached in red and white. Rows upon rows of vials filled with sweet-scented blood lined the cupboards, displayed like trophies in the dim light, their contents pulsing faintly as though life still permeated in each drop. A single eye, suspended midair, oozed bluish marsh green particles that hissed and popped like static, staring blankly into nothingness as though consciousness had yet to leave its corners.
Arms streaked with the sigils of the thousand-legged prophet leaned on luminescent tubes— each strand of hair, every inch, sealed in layers of spiraled chains.
Pulsating in rhythms. Communicating in beats of calculated ancient terms.
Fragments— That was what they were.
And at the center of this infernal dining hall, the prized jewel of Lucifer's personal closet— a black-haired woman hung impaled on a spire of dark crimson, her mangled body deprived of limbs, gouged of all its organs.
The spire twisted unnaturally like a living thing— a sentient tree born off a seed of malice, feeding greedily on her soul. Her head was draped as though it was stitched to her neck by a thread. Her hair, long and silky, cascaded over her pale face— skin peeled like paper, leaving only muscles and nerves that twitched each time the air blew its whispers. Her lips trembled. Her mouth motioned, opening as if to form words that would never come— devoured by the shadows before it could even speak.
If a kitchen exists in the underworld, then this diabolic exhibit of flesh and blood would be it.
"GGRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHH!!!"
A guttural roar erupted from the beast, tearing through the artificial space like a stream of meteor showers. Ice— glaciers and peaked shafts— erupted from his body, his graceful fur morphing into a coat of daggers, howling in unrefined fury.
"Woah! Easy now, buddy." Luxion jumped back, a mocking lilt in his voice.
Fenrir's depleted mana suddenly flared. However it was tainted— corrupted, and frantic, without the grace of an emperor. An outburst akin to a dying star collapsing into itself. One born not of strength, but agony— the unrelenting anguish of a father's broken soul.
Torment given flesh.
Despair manifested in its primal form.
The air twisted violently around him, howling as the dying wish of his wrath took shape. From his pain, a phantom rose— a spectral colossus. Ghastly and merciless, looming above Luxion like a vengeful god seething in malice, mouth open to devour him whole.
"I WILL… TAKE YOU DOWN!!!"
Fenrir roared, forcing himself upright, legs quaking beneath him.
Blood poured from his maw, eyes half-dead with blight. His chest caved and rose with every breath. His body was but a shell of what he was, creaking under the weight of the talons he once so magnanimously used to conquer.
But he still stood.
He bared his fangs in defiance.
Fueled by nothing but the sheer force of will he thought he had already forsaken.
"You will regret... making an enemy of me!"
Luxion sighed.
[You disgusting monster... I will never forgive you… for what you've done...]
Luxion observed. He patiently waited and intently watched this hypocrite's little transformation until the very end.
And what did he get?
[I will see to it that you... and your entourage of freaks... pay with your dastardly lives... EVEN IF IT COSTS ME MY OWN…!]
—Disappointment.
This one's a failure...
Even with Roux's blood, he wasn't able to ascend without breaking. I suppose despair isn't always the answer like with Mr. Ogre.
{Author's Note: When [Luxion] loses respect for someone, he lowers their volume and talks over their lines.}
[Rejoice, you foolish ape.]
Or did I just rush it too much?
I assumed he could adapt quickly since he's a mini-boss, but maybe not.
He's already shown mutations at this stage. If I give it time and feed it more samples, then perhaps it will blossom into a passable substrate for other stamens.
[I will pay you gratitude... for serving as catalysts of... my evolution... Repent for your sins as the talons forged... in my final breath... rob you of life...]
Even if it doesn't work out, there's plenty of use for a chunk of meat with such potent mana—
"PREPARE YOURSELF!!!"
…
Luxion was annoyed.
For someone who's could barely even breath just moments ago, this guy sure has a lot of energy left to waste on his stupid lines.
"In the name of the Dark One…! I shall not perish until I snap that brittle neck of yours—"
"Don't get conceited, you ugly mutt."
Luxion's expression darkened to a shadowed visage, his grin— the last vestige that resembled him to a human— vanished as he cut through the air, the pressure, the very bloodlust omitted in each of Fenrir's delusions with a single commanding sentence, spoken coldly without a hint of mercy.
It wasn't a request.
It wasn't an insult or an order.
It was a verdict.
The very will of the cold, primal world echoes its passage through his voice.
Fenrir's body stilled. He wasn't merely paralyzed, but severed from the chasm of time. The overwhelming surge of mana he'd just barely scraped together, the final attempt to execute his wrathful declaration— disintegrated as though it had never existed.
The beast's eyes widened in disbelief.
The world fractured, frozen in a frame of unmoving tiles. And then, before his cognition even registered— it was over.
A wet crunch. Bones shattered like fragile rods, nerves severed as though they're mere threads, flesh parted in the way of Luxion's armored hand, who, without but a flick of effort, punched a hole through the Divine Beast's chest.
His heart, warm and fragile, rested in the grasp of the Overlord's fingers.
"End me, you say? You benighted fool."
Luxion's voice was low— a ghastly scoff. Soft, poised, graceful like a butterfly over a thin petal, and yet, it bore an oppressive presence that set flames to the very roots of the flower's soul.
"You are not a pawn worthy of that much grandeur."
Luxion twisted his hand, plunging it deeper until his still-beating heart touched his spine.
Fenrir choked on clotted blood.
"I… didn't see him move…" His thoughts swam in fragmented chaos.
"Being a [Heavenly General] and all, you might have made an adequate [Mini-boss] later on. But, honestly…You're too predictable— disgustingly barbaric with no vision or a trace of purpose." Luxion muttered, his expression was one of disdain.
"I have no need for a beast with nothing rattling inside its skull."
The maelstrom above them ceased. Clouds drifted back to their pedestals, framing the constellations beside the moon he had once thought made him immortal.
The boy fought him at his best— bathe in moonlit trails. And he still lost.
"Again… this feeling…"
There was nothing he could not triumph— the mighty beast was convinced of this fact.
For decades, he had crushed all opposition beneath the banner of absolute destruction. He was superior. He was a conqueror. A king with both the history and unmatched power to manifest that moniker.
However, in the span of a single year, his delusions have been shattered— not once, but twice. Both in overwhelming obliteration.
The first time was against [Him].
Spared like some wounded dog, he vowed to his honor to someday take that man's life… And yet, here he lay.
Failed in an attempt at rebellion.
Failed in decimating a meager frontier land.
Failed to recognize an entity oozing with that same maddening presence.
Luxion didn't see him as an enemy.
He wasn't even a pebble on the road.
"Succumb to the shadows… [Eclipse]."
The words echoed in Fenrir's mind in a perpetual loop, a command issued with a cloak of finality that made resistance impossible. The spectral behemoth he'd conjured dissolved into nothingness, and the last of his power flickered into the abyss like the fleeting embers of a fading campfire. His body, battered and utterly broken, finally collapsed under its own weight.
Defeated without recognition.
Not as an enemy, but a mere stain in his play.
Struck down by power beyond mortal comprehension, and not a shred of remorse to show for it.
"Accursed… monsters…" Fenrir cursed his fate, voice barely audible.
An ironic end for the bloody conqueror.
+
"Alright, time for the cleanup!"
Luxion retreated, allowing the beast's carcass to fall upon the floor with a thud loud enough to cause a landslide.
"A splendid performance it was, my Lord." Chrysos chimed gleefully, step giddy like a Roux on a candy store.
"It is such an honor to witness your brilliance with these very eyes."
…I can't see them, though.
"Right? That was impromptu, you know? Quite the impactful delivery, if I do say so myself." Luxion replied, shaking crimson droplets off his once pristine-white glove.
"Yes, it was the epitome of insanity— precisely as Lord Luxion had envisioned."
Chrysos, ever the attentive servant, held out a towel, offering it like a divine relic with a slight bow— elegant in all ways.
"Please leave the aftermath to us, your loyal servants, Lord Luxion."
"Hm?" Luxion blinked, mind empty.
"Very well. I'll be counting on you, then."
"I shall not disappoint, my Lord!" Chrysos swelled with pride, his wings beating rampantly.
"Just don't overdo it, okay?" Luxion warned.
"That divine beast, defective though it was, remains a rare specimen. Make sure to handle it delicately—"
"Moderate the extraction process with alternating levels of staggered layering of scripts and multi-focal mediums, prioritize analysis of the subject's constitution for potential replication through lateral experimentation, and ensure enhanced cortal preservation utilizing convergent elemental catalysts for long-term storage and inclined manifestation."
Chrysos rattled off the procedure in a breathless stream of analytical jargon like a court scholar passionately defending their thesis to the Arcanum board of directors.
"Precise and efficient. As expected of Lord Luxion, you truly are an unmatched overseer."
"…"
Luxion froze, dumbfounded.
"Y-Yeah, that's… exactly right!" Luxion exclaimed clumsily through incessant stutters.
"Chrysos is really intelligent, being able to understand my true intentions… hahaha… haha… ha…"
He lied as naturally as he breathed.
He didn't understand half of it, and the faint twitch in his smile was more than enough proof.
"Is it really?"
A sarcastic hum rang in velveted mockery through their shared thoughts, dragging a sharp tick behind Luxion's eye.
Shut it, Blanche.
Feigning nonchalance, Luxion handed the towel back to Chrysos, avoiding the rose-filtered gaze of his familiar, who received the tainted cloth as though it were God's prophecy. Then, without a word— and as an attempt to divert attention from his cluelessness— he reached out and ruffled the top of his head.
"L-Lord Luxion—" Chrysos froze solid, wings twitching, his voice quivering as his eyelids teetered on the verge of tears.
"Master! Roux wants one too!"
And just as quickly, his dream shattered.
"Roux's head is ready! Headpats, please!"
The boisterous child, with a burst of wind and a radiant smile, planted herself in front of Luxion, interrupting their wholesome moment. Leaning her head towards her Master's chest, she ecstatically swayed from side to side like a kitten cuddling to its owner.
And being the pushover that he was, Luxion instantly gave in.
Roux turned to Chrysos in an angle only they would see, flashing a victorious wink and a smirk that oozed of devilish mischief. Her smug satisfaction as she received her own head pat was enough to strike every nerve on the raven's trembling body, his fragile smile twisting in annoyance.
"Alright, alright, no need to fight." Luxion sighed, mitigating the tension.
"There's enough of me to go around."
"Insolent brat." Chrysos muttered quietly under his breath, glaring at his eternal source of irritation.
Amidst the background chaos, a far more composed shadow stepped forward.
"I will be taking my leave now, my Liege." Vesper announced, placing a hand over his chest in a half-bow.
"Hm? You're not staying until the end?" Luxion inquired, tilting his head.
"I bear witness to the climax of the play— it was breathtaking. That spectacle alone was enough reward for this old bone." He said reverently, voice poised and melodic.
"I do not believe my presence here will contribute any further, and cluttering my Liege's narrative would be the greatest shame… Additionally, there needs to be someone to supervise those two."
He nodded towards Roux and Chrysos, now engaged in a pointlessly heated argument of poorly concealed jealousy that will likely escalate into a fistfight.
Luxion just watched. A soft sigh escaped his faint smile.
"See you later, then."
"Until next we meet, my Liege."
Vesper bowed one last time, grabbing onto the divine beast's body as he disappeared into the shadows— alongside him was Chrysos, who had Roux unceremoniously slung over his shoulders like a bag of potatoes, still throwing a tantrum.
What a rowdy bunch.
Peace, at last.
"So… uhh…"
Luxion inhaled deeply, turning to his Queen, smile wavering between joy and nervousness like an innocent boy reflecting on his first date.
"…How was it?"
Blanche unfolded her arms and draped them around Luxion's shoulders, crimson eyes gleaming brighter than the stars, the warmth of her lips touching his cheeks was all the affirmation he needed.
"Don't doubt yourself. It was, as always, utterly delightful. You've managed to exceed my every expectation once again."
"Ehehe~ Glad to hear that." Luxion beamed, basking in the praise.
"By the way, are you certain this is the ending you wanted?" Blanche's tone shifted slightly, probing his thoughts.
"I may be satisfied, but your story feels far from being settled, no?"
"Oh, that? Don't worry, I've got some good ideas brewing." Luxion echoed, his smile curling a sadistic trail.
"And the ending— I've already accounted for."
"Is that so?"
The face he had.
That look and that smile.
It was one he wore whenever he felt the urge to cause mischief.
With the thought, Blanche couldn't help but be intrigued— aroused even.
Blanche eyes narrowed, slyly slanted to frame the beautiful curve of her luscious lips. A curious tint blossomed across her face. Her cheeks grew red, breathing ragged.
She followed his gaze to the corner of the battlefield, where, innocently standing in the dark, Onyx was visibly sweating— a creeping sense of unease slithering over her skin as she, too, recognized that look.
"Blanche." Luxion beckoned, voice calm.
"Yes, dearest?" Blanche purred, resonating the thrill they share.
"Incapacitate her."
"…Eh?"
"With pleasure." Blanche's smirk deepened, turning downright manic.
Not even a shred of hesitation— that sadist!
"P-P-P-PLEASE WAIT!" Onyx shrieked, frantically covering herself from Blanche's already raised hand.
"WHY!?"
Good question.
"Wasn't it the plan for Master to end the play by lighting the grand fireworks!?"
"Indeed. That was the plan, yes. But…" Luxion nodded thoughtfully as if agreeing.
"You've seen it for yourself, right? That mutt had more value than we had ever anticipated. It would be a monumental waste to turn him into fireworks just yet."
"…Wh-What about Master feigning being in a comatose state for a month?" Onyx inquired as if she couldn't tell already.
"Well, there are two of the individual named [Luxion von Zancrest] in this space, are there not?" His eyes glinted like gems.
"I don't remember ever declaring it'd necessarily be the real one to execute the part."
"Wow, what a very lovely justification." Onyx thought, tone sarcastically monotone. But kept the comment within her, fearing that a worse outcome would befall her.
"It's killing two birds with one stone." He said with the brightest grin.
"The assholes of Eisenburg gets to witness their undeserved spectacle. And you won't even have to go to the trouble of feigning an injury— we'll just make it real."
Onyx stared at his sweet smile in utter horror. eyes already dead.
"Tell you what. I'll treat you to some ice cream the next time we gather. I'll even prepare a body double for you to sneak out once in a while." He proposed as though it gaps the difference between heaven and earth.
"So, yeah? Endure it for a while, won't you?"
Conflicted, she was, but never had she been doubtful nor defiant.
Besides Roux, she's the most expressive. And outside Chrysos, she's the most devoted. Her opposition was born of mundane discomfort, not of disloyalty. She'd rather not take on this task, but if it is a role designated by her sworn master— not a flicker of hesitation resides within her.
With a sigh of resignation, followed by a determined smile, eventually…
"As you wish, Master."
The stage was set.
The characters were in place.
The guiding motion has been set loose for the world to bear witness.
Improvised, though it was, the prelude has run its beautiful course. And now, it is time to drop for the curtains to fall.
"But, umm… Please try not to make it hurt too much, Mistress Blanche."
And here— the final plea of mercy from the unexpected casualty of the changing plot.
"Worry not, Onyx… It'll only feel like dying a thousand times." Blanche replied, her voice laced with utmost delight.
Blanche extended a hand, conjuring a single pulsating orb, the size of a melon, weighing as heavy as a star. It swirled at her fingertips, its edges shimmering with warped void laced in seething violet rings.
Its crackling tore through the very air like the manic laughter of an abyssal terror.
"Whenever you're ready, my dear~"
Onyx instinctively took a step back, regret— along centuries worth of life— flashing in her eyes as the orb grew stronger and stronger.
"Please wait… I'll die if that—"
[Dispel. Dimension Lock]
Blanche flicked the orb, and immediately it made contact.
Onyx didn't even have time to scream as she was swallowed instantly. And even if she did, no one would have heard for sound was devoured next. Her vision didn't fade, her consciousness didn't falter— it simply stopped as though a whimsical god just flipped a switch.
[I should've begged harder.]
The echo of her own existence seemed to vanish, and then— chaos.
Mountains shuddered, creaking as though the earth itself was erupting. Valleys vanished, leveled into a field of plains. The atmosphere howled as though reality itself was defiled.
The aftermath sprawled over miles, leaving only an abyss where nothing remains.
An entire region erased from the map.
"I might need to buy her two cones before she's satisfied." Luxion reflected, voice to calm in contrast to the destruction.
"Did you add extra on that one?"
"Nooo~~" Blanche hummed, averting her gaze like a child blatantly feigning ignorance.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Luxion reveled in the silence that followed— tranquil, serene… delicately haunting.
The cityscape that painted noise in the horizon. Colorful signs, interconnected houses, infrastructures that breath personality to what once was a bleak town, relics of emotions, memories bound in each curve of the streets.
Everything— Gone.
Not a trace of what was.
Not a lingering hint of what will.
And there— lies a peculiar beauty.
The unheard cries. The unseen struggles. The unnoticed message left within a void— hollow yet strangely pulsating. A fleeting span of time when reality have yet to encroached its imprints to a freshly dug grave.
The intoxicatingly fascinating allure of the birth of another abyss— in loss, and the ruin of life.
Luxion snapped his finger.
"Let's go home, Blanche."
"Who are you?"
Once upon a time, in a distant region where stone walls robbed clouds of its duty, reaching endlessly into the heavens like hands of Gaia, blotting out even the faintest hint of sunlight— there lived a lonely girl with a dream.
She longed to glance at the world beyond the confines of this cage— the beautiful paradise her mother spoke of in wistful rhythms. A land of vibrant wonders, people of wondrous richities— living under the veil of a vast blue skies that had stars in place of bats.
The image crept like vines, playfully weaving itself in the girl's heart, filling her with a yearning as deep as the void around her allowed her young heart.
Unfortunately, the angels— those cruel architects of fate— had other plans.
The girl was born with a curse— an immortal calamity nestled in her slender arms. A mark of condemnation that just happened to choose her way before her birth.
Hated.
Feared.
Condemned for a sin she did not commit, yet simply by existing, she was reviled for its history of atrocity.
From her earliest memory, she was an outcast.
And even so, she bore no hatred for the world.
She didn't return scorn with malice, nor did she detested her fate. She tried, time and time again, to understand others. To reach out with an open heart— because that was how her mother had raised her to be.
Her mother, the one source of warmth in the frigid darkness of her world. The woman who sheltered her from pain. The person who gave her love and planted the embers of courage in the face of despair. Her mother was her light— a beacon of hope, the reason she faithfully clung to her dream of, one day, leaving the shackles of their oppressive settlement.
—to grant her the joy of seeing that view she so longingly sang stories of once more.
However, that fragile light, that precious hope— Even that small sliver of happiness she cherished… she was cruelly denied of.
On her seventh birthday, instead of the laughter and celebration she had imagined… she found her mother's broken body, lying cold and lifeless on the threshold of their home.
"…mama."
Her arms were bound with jagged wires that had seared through her delicate skin. Her clothes— torn into shredded tatters, stained with the stench of blood and manliness— revealed countless wounds and bruises scarring her beautiful figure. Her wings, radiant and majestic like a raven, had been brutally ripped from her back, leaving only bloody stumps where bugs feasted her flesh. Her tail, a symbol of grace, was severed and discarded like garbage.
And in her throat, a blade remained buried, silencing her gentle voice for eternity.
The girl searched for answers— and the truth she found was clear, tragic, and as common as her fright. Empty purse, ransacked drawers, the scratches and scuffs along the ground that told a tale of a long, agonizing struggle.
What little they had. What meager treasures her mother had managed to hold onto— stolen. Her body, defiled, tortured— thrashed.
Why? What have she done to deserve this?
The girl glared at her fate— at the heavens who casted her this misery. Her small body trembling, not from fear, but from something far darker. The curse imprinted on her arms pulsed like a heart, resonating with hers, igniting into a flame that burned in the tone of blood. The fragile child who once dreamed of the light, now stood amidst the shadows of despair.
The Gods had made their choice.
And now, so would she.
[Who are you?]— Asked the mighty beast that resides on the mountains above.
The beast— hailed of an ancient race of hell hounds with fur that shimmered like snow and clear sky-blue eyes cold with an eternal frost— watched the girl with a mixture of amusement and caution.
"Lilith... Lilith is my name." The girl spoke.
Her wings were spread like a bat. Her hands were bloodied and crooked. Those soulless eyes she possessed stared a gaze sharper than a sword. Her cold, ghastly voice of apathy threatened to spread poison with each passing breath.
"Why do you dare disturb my presence, young one of the demon kin?"
"Kill them." She muttered.
"All of those scums who live beneath this cliff... I want them to die an agonizing death."
"Slaughter, is it? Such venomous words from such a fragile vessel— Intriguing. Then tell me, what could a feeble wretch like you possibly offer this proud conqueror in return?"
The girl stepped forward, her frail frame unshaken by the beast's overwhelming presence.
With eerily unwavering resolve, she tore the sleeves of her tattered garments, revealing the shadowed mark that slithered across her skin like a living entity. A thousand-legged serpent writhed in spectral silence, its form coiling around her left arm like chains of ancient ruin, pulsating red with an otherworldly light.
The mark of a celestial calamity.
The beast stilled, its gaze narrowing as the weight of the girl's presence sank in his comprehension. Those shackles were not merely decoration— they were sigils of annihilation.
The beginning of a renewed cycle of carnage and bounty.
This little girl was no ordinary child, but the ignorant cocoon of an unhatched destroyer. A vessel of unthinkable power waiting to awaken.
"Everything." She declared.
.
Sounds of repeating clicks. Echoes of turning gears and winding magic. The subtle breeze exiting the grated vents brought needed ventilation to relieve the stench in these chambers. It was disturbingly quiet, and equally— horrifying, once the flashing light unveiled the secrets it withheld.
Dismembered limbs hung from hooks, glistening with blood that funneled into shallow, viscous pools beneath. Stained instruments sat on steel trays, the edges still wet with their last grim purpose. The dripping of blood, the scuffles of fur, the occasional gasps, and creaking joints. The only remaining signs of life within this cage, until the revitalizing ray hit him once more.
Still, he was not allowed to perish.
It had barely been a day, but the spoils of this little war were already broken.
"Li… lith..."