The wind howled across the jagged cliffs like a wounded beast.
Lucian stumbled forward, a shadow of the legend he once was. His armor, dulled and dented, clinked with each ragged step. The sacred sword on his back—once alight with celestial fire—now hung like dead weight, its glow extinguished.
The sky above was an iron sheet, cold and merciless. The land beneath his feet cracked and bled frost.
Each step was agony.
But he walked.
Because there was nothing else left.
He didn't know how long it had been since the banquet.
Time had unraveled. Days? Weeks? It no longer mattered.
The palace had locked its gates. The knights had turned their faces. The church had denounced him, calling him "a vessel unworthy of divinity."
Even she hadn't looked back.
Lucian clenched his jaw.
Kael.
The name tore through his mind like rusted iron. Kael hadn't defeated him in combat. He hadn't needed to.
He had dismantled him.
Piece by piece.
Whisper by whisper.
Until nothing remained but a man in ruins.
And worse—Lucian had let him.
The capital faded behind him, a blur of stone and betrayal.
Now, he wandered. A ghost in rusted silver.
No pursuers. No assassins. Not even a bounty.
Kael had sent no one.
Because Lucian wasn't worth the trouble.
He wasn't a threat.
He was… forgotten.
That truth hit harder than any blade. He had lived for glory, bled for virtue, and now, he wasn't even worth killing.
A failure too pitiful to be executed.
The wind tore at his cloak. His stomach churned with hunger. His body screamed with exhaustion.
He didn't know where he was going.
He just knew it wasn't home.
As twilight bled across the horizon, Lucian's knees gave out.
He collapsed.
Face first into the cold earth.
Breathing shallow.
Eyes blurred.
The sword clattered beside him, barely audible above the howl of the wind.
The stars above spun in circles, distant and indifferent.
He thought, dimly, Maybe this is where I die.
Then—boots.
Footsteps.
Steady.
Measured.
They stopped in front of him.
Lucian blinked through the haze.
A figure stood against the dying light.
A woman.
But not human.
She was draped in crimson and shadow, her eyes glowing like embers beneath a dark veil. Her presence pulsed like heat in winter—unsettling, seductive, wrong.
Not a demon.
But not mortal, either.
She crouched beside him.
"Well, well," she said, voice rich as velvet. "What's this I've found? A broken little myth crawling into my lands?"
Lucian tried to move. To speak. To breathe.
He couldn't.
She traced a gloved finger along the ruined crest on his breastplate. "You stink of divinity," she murmured. "Old, brittle power. Cracked. Starved. Forgotten."
Her smile sharpened. "Delicious."
He managed a sound—barely a grunt.
She tilted her head. "Tell me, hero. Do you seek redemption? Or revenge?"
Lucian's lips parted.
But no words came.
Only darkness.
When he awakens… he will no longer be in the kingdom's lands.
He will find himself in a place where the forsaken gather. A realm untouched by kings or gods. A crucible for the broken.
And there—beneath alien skies and dead stars—Lucian's path will split.
Will he crawl back to the light?
Or embrace the shadows that welcomed him?
The Hero is dead.
Only Lucian remains.
To be continued...