[Damien's POV]
They reappeared in a forest.
Not the kind Damien knew.
The air was thick with magic—alive, breathing. Trees towered above like ancient gods, their leaves pulsing with iridescent light. The moon overhead wasn't a moon at all, but a tremendous silver eye, watching from behind wisps of violet clouds.
Damien collapsed to his knees, gasping, the obsidian blade broke into countless dark shards and dispersed into the wind like ash.
The chains around his arms slithered back into his skin, leaving behind the faint outline of the black crown symbol still burning softly on his chest.
Elena knelt beside him, her hand still holding his. "You're hurt."
"No," he rasped. "Just… emptied."
Everything hit him at once. The Trial. The fight. The betrayal. The siege. The prophecy.
And that man—his shadow—the ghost of a future that waited in silence.
Damien looked up, struggling to breathe. "What the hell is going on, Elena?"
"You're trial ended four hours later than everyone else, But the robed woman explained some things...it seems there was a 'celestial' war around a millennium ago. And every race was dragged into the war of Angels and Demons, and each race had to choose a side."
"Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Vampires, and Beastkin. Humans, Elves and Beastkin picked Angels. While Vampires were forced into a contract by demons, as for Dwarves they stayed natural or tried to remain neutral, but they were often caught in the crossfire."
"Then who won?"
Elena sat back, brushing a hand through her hair, eyes distant.
"The war ended when the Thrones shattered."
Damien blinked. "Thrones?"
She nodded. "Twelve of them. Thrones of power, are tied to the cosmic balance. Each one represented a truth—Light, Shadow, Life, Death, Order, Chaos… and more. When they broke, the world fractured with them. That's why magic feels so wrong now. Why the sky looks like it remembers pain."
Damien's breath was shallow.
"And the Uncrowned?"
"That's the thing." Elena looked at him. "The Uncrowned were meant to replace the Thrones. A contingency. Weapons… or heirs."
Damien stared at the symbol still burning on his chest.
He wasn't just some overpowered anomaly.
He was designed to fill a void left behind by war.
"I'm not a hero," he muttered. "I'm a damn placeholder."
"No," Elena said softly. "You're more than that. You survived. They wanted you dead the moment your Class formed. The others were celebrated. You were marked."
Damien's fists clenched against the forest floor.
Of course. It was never going to be that simple. Of course, the world would rather kill him than accept what he could become.
"And what about you?" he asked quietly, glancing at her. "That light… your power…"
Elena held up her hand, where the radiant lotus still shimmered. "Cleric-Class, they said. But I was assigned a Subclass too."
Damien frowned. "Let me guess. Something holy?"
Her expression flickered with something uncertain.
"Subclass: Seraphim of the Ascendant Light."
Damien's eyes widened slightly. "Seraphim? You mean, like, the highest order of angels?"
Elena gave a small, bitter laugh. "Not quite. The Seraphim are meant to be… something more than angels. They are divine warriors, but their purpose is to serve the balance—just like you. The Ascendant part? It's about transcending the mortal plane, reaching beyond what you're supposed to be."
Damien's head spun. He had always known there was more to Elena than met the eye, but this? A Seraphim? It was too much, even for his jaded mind to wrap around.
"But how did you—" Damien began, but the words died in his throat as he caught the deep sadness in Elena's eyes. It was the same look she had whenever they talked about her past. Her true past.
"I wasn't supposed to be one," she said quietly, looking down at her hand. "The powers were forced upon me. As much as they gave me light… they also took something away. My humanity, my choice. I'm not just a weapon, Damien. I was crafted. Just like you."
"Your humanity? But you're human—"
My words died down in my throat as the intense light enveloped Elena's form as six snow-white wings sprouted from her back, each feather gleaming with an ethereal glow. The air around her vibrated with an overwhelming energy that felt like the hum of an ancient power, filling the space with a resonant frequency. Her once-soft skin shimmered, as if it were carved from the very light itself. The wings fluttered, creating a breeze that made the forest seem almost alive, reacting to her transformation.
---
[Third Person's POV]
Damien stared, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing. Seraphim of the Ascendant Light—it wasn't just some title. Elena was a Seraphim now. She stood before him like a divine being, her aura radiating both beauty and a sorrow so deep it threatened to swallow her whole.
"Neither are you...?"
"Huh?!"
Damien's words hung in the air for a moment, suspended in the strange, otherworldly stillness of the forest. His gaze flickered between the wings of light sprouting from Elena's back and the glowing symbol on his own chest. A sudden chill ran down his spine.
He had known something was different about him. The powers, the unnatural force that surged through his body. The crown, the chains, the dark power that clung to him like a curse—but this? This was far beyond what he had ever imagined.
"I…" Damien's voice cracked as the words struggled to take shape in his mind. He reached down instinctively, fingers brushing the burning mark on his chest, his heart pounding with an eerie synchronicity to the pulse of magic in the air. "I don't—what is this? What am I?"
"Focus on the mark, focus your will on the symbol," Elena instructed, her voice soft but urgent. Her wings fluttered, sending ripples of light through the surrounding trees. The atmosphere seemed to tighten, as if the very air was holding its breath, waiting for him to act. "It's not just a mark, Damien. It's a key. You need to understand it... or you'll never be able to control what's happening to you."
Damien hesitated, his fingers still lingering on the symbol, the black crown searing his skin with its residual heat. His heart thudded in his chest, and for the first time in what felt like forever, the weight of his existence felt suffocating. He was more than just a cursed anomaly. He wasn't just some soldier or vessel meant to be filled.
He was being shaped by forces far beyond his comprehension.
"I don't know if I can do this," he whispered, his voice raw.
"You don't have to do it alone," Elena replied, her eyes softening as she stepped closer. "I'm here, Damien. We're in this together."
He looked up at her, at the wings, at the way the light poured off her like an unspoken promise of something greater..
The intensity of his thoughts was enough to almost drown him. But somehow, through it all, Elena's presence was a grounding force. Her connection to him was a tether that kept his spiralling mind from completely breaking free.
He focused again on the mark. The black crown. The symbol burned, but it wasn't painful—it was calling to him. He could feel its energy pulsing beneath his fingers, like an ancient rhythm echoing through the bones of the world. The mark wasn't just a representation of his curse. It was a part of him, an intrinsic connection to whatever celestial conflict had torn the world asunder.
He closed his eyes, and for the first time, allowed himself to listen.
Listen to the hum of the magic. To the thrum of power buried within him.
The mark... the key... the throne. It was his, whether he liked it or not. It was his responsibility, his inheritance, his burden. The air around him shimmered, the forest almost seemed to lean in closer, as though it too was drawn to the resonance of his will.
Something deep within him shifted.
The ground beneath his knees trembled.
As darkness enveloped his entire being, Damien felt the symbol on his chest expand, tendrils of shadow and light intertwining like serpents, winding up and down his body. It wasn't just a mark anymore; it was alive. The power that had been dormant, almost forgotten, now surged, pulling from every corner of the forest, the air thick with ancient energy.
Damien gasped as his mind reeled under the weight of the power rushing through him. His hands shook, and for a fleeting moment, he feared that he would lose himself to the flood of forces tearing through him. But then, a calmness—unexpected and foreign—settled over him. It was like the power was no longer an external force to control, but a part of his very soul.
"Damien," Elena's voice broke through the haze of energy surrounding him. "You can do this."
He opened his eyes, now glowing faintly with the same iridescent light that enveloped Elena's wings. He saw Elena wide-eyed looking at something behind him or something attached
to him.
"Elena…?" Damien asked cautiously, his voice no longer trembling, but carrying a strange echo beneath the surface—like another presence whispering from deep within his bones.
She didn't answer right away.
Instead, she took a hesitant step back, lips parting slightly as if afraid to say what she saw. Her radiant wings folded in close, a reflex—protection, reverence, or maybe fear.
"Damien," she finally breathed. "Behind you…"
He turned his head slightly, feeling the shift in air pressure, the way the ground trembled beneath his heels. A chill ran down his spine. Something had changed. Not just within him—but around him.
A halo of shadow had formed—no, not a halo.
A crown.
Floating above him, forged from living void and starlight, was a jagged circlet that pulsed in rhythm with his heart. Its points shimmered like obsidian flames, crowned with a starless brilliance that devoured light rather than reflected it. The trees around them bent ever so slightly toward it, as if drawn to its gravity.
But what shocked Elena the most was not the crown because the mark already bears the crown. The Twelve wings of light, those ethereal, divine appendages, weren't the only things attached to Damien now.
Out from his back, unfolding in jagged, sweeping arcs, were twelve wings—but not the delicate, angelic wings that Elena bore.
These were made of dark energy and light—broken fragments of both, like shattered stars reforged in the forge of chaos. The wings were ragged, some of them torn at the edges, while others gleamed with a cold, ancient light that shifted with each beat, as though they themselves were alive.
Damien stared at them, feeling a primal pulse resonate through him. He reached back instinctively, his fingers brushing the dark feathers that curled at his shoulders.
"No…" he whispered. "What is this?"
"Only one angel had twelve wings..."
"...who bore both the light of creation and the darkness of unmaking," Elena finished, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes were wide, lips trembling with awe—and fear.
Damien turned to her, the twelve wings stretching and folding behind him like living relics of some long-forgotten deity. The crown of shadow above his head pulsed, not violently, but with rhythm. Like a heartbeat. Like it was syncing to the tempo of the world itself.
"Elena," he said, voice low, "you're starting to scare me."
She stepped closer again, but slower this time. Her own wings dimmed slightly in reverence.
"There's a name for what you've become," she said. "But it hasn't been spoken aloud in a thousand years."
Damien swallowed hard. "Then say it."
"…The Fallen Heir."
The wind stilled. Even the forest, once humming with life and magic, seemed to quiet as the weight of those words settled.
"The Fallen Heir was said to be born from both Thrones—Light and Shadow. A soul split by fate, but bound by power that transcends divine law. The angels feared him. The demons wanted to chain him. The gods refused to speak of him at all."
"Because of what he could do?" Damien asked.
Elena nodded slowly. "Because he could rewrite the balance. Restore it… or destroy it forever."
He felt his heart hammer against his chest. Not just because of what he was hearing, but because it all made sense. The rejection. The nightmares. The mark. The System's silence when the others were granted guidance. It wasn't punishment—it was containment. He was never meant to be part of the design.
He was the flaw.
"Then why didn't they kill me outright?" Damien asked, his voice sharp, bitter.
Elena's voice cracked. "Because they can't. You're not just a piece on the board anymore, Damien. You are the board."
A silence passed between them. Heavy. Absolute.
Then—Elena stepped forward, her fingers brushing his cheek. Her light didn't burn him. His shadow didn't swallow her.
They simply existed. Together.
"You don't have to become what they fear," she whispered. "You can choose who you are."
But Damien shook his head slowly. "That's the problem, Elena."
His gaze lifted to the silver eye-moon in the sky—watching.
"I don't think I ever had a choice."
The mark on his chest flared again.
And the world began to shift.
The trees shivered like sentient beings, bowing. The wind twisted into a chant—ancient tongues long buried in the marrow of the earth. The crown above him let out a single pulse.
And something heard it.
A bell tolled.
Not from this world. Not even from this plane.
Elena turned sharply. "Damien… something's coming."
He nodded.
"I know."
And far in the distance, the forest split apart.