The Imperial Palace stood draped in silence, wrapped in a velvet night too still to be natural.
But deep beneath its golden spires, beneath the thrones and marble halls, something stirred.
Within the Sanctum of the Divine, light dared not trespass. The torches lining the chamber's edge flickered faintly, their flames suffocated by a presence older than time.
Lucian Vancrest knelt before the altar.
He was no longer the man the Empire once adored.
His silver hair clung to sweat-soaked skin. His chest rose and fell with deliberate slowness, but within him, a storm raged. A violent, unnatural force writhed beneath the surface of his skin.
Demon's Blood.
It had hollowed him, burned through his soul and rebuilt what remained into something stronger.
Monstrous.
And yet… a piece of him still clung to the idea of humanity.
His fingers twitched.
Control was a question he no longer knew how to answer.
Footsteps broke the silence.
Lucian raised his eyes—and froze.
Emperor Castiel emerged from the shadows, his form haloed by an eerie luminescence. He did not walk. He drifted. The air around him bent, warped, recoiled.
Not a man.
Not anymore.
Lucian had seen gods fall and demons rise. He had crossed blade with nightmares.
But never before had he felt the gravity of divinity press so violently on his very soul.
Castiel's voice cut through the chamber like a verdict. "Rise."
Lucian obeyed.
"You feel it, don't you?" the Emperor asked, golden eyes burning like stars caught in human sockets.
Lucian's throat tightened. "…Yes."
"The hunger?"
It was always there—gnawing at the edges of his mind, whispering promises he dared not listen to. The cost of resurrection.
He nodded. "I feel it."
"Good," Castiel said, as if approving of a beast's growl. "That means you're strong enough to contain it."
Lucian steadied himself. "Why have you summoned me?"
The Emperor turned, his back to Lucian now. Regal. Remote.
"I will ask you once," he said, hands clasped behind him. "Are you my sword?"
Lucian's breath caught.
His thoughts raced—flashes of who he was, what he had become. Kael's voice. Elyndra's tears. A hero lost. A man rebuilt from ash and blood.
A hesitation.
Just a heartbeat.
But it was enough.
Castiel turned, slowly. His gaze hardened—not with rage, but with the chilling finality of a god whose patience had an end.
Lucian felt it—the weight of the choice. The razor's edge he now stood upon.
There was no redemption.
Only loyalty.
Lucian dropped to one knee, fists clenched at his sides.
"I am your sword, Your Majesty."
Silence lingered like held breath.
Then, a faint smile curved Castiel's lips.
"Then it is time."
He raised his hand, and the chamber erupted with light.
A sigil, ancient and incomprehensible, ignited in the air—its golden lines pulsing with divine power. The walls trembled. The altar moaned. Reality itself seemed to fray at the edges.
And then it appeared.
Not a sword.
A judgment forged into weaponry.
It fell from the Emperor's hand like lightning hurled from the heavens, embedding itself in the stone with a sound that cracked the foundations of the sanctum.
Lucian flinched.
Before him lay a weapon unlike any other.
It breathed.
It bled.
A thing of divine horror and demonic birthright, forged in the crucible of gods and monsters.
The Sword of Annihilation.
"Take it," Castiel commanded.
Lucian reached forward.
The moment his fingers touched the hilt, agony ignited across every nerve. The sword rejected him. Tested him. Tore at his soul to see if it was worthy.
He gritted his teeth, body convulsing—but did not scream.
He would not break.
He had broken before.
And now he was something else.
With a growl torn from the depths of his chest, Lucian wrenched the blade free.
Golden fire erupted from the wound in the stone.
His body arched as power roared through him—filling the cracks, the scars, the hollow places left by regret and rage.
And when it was done… he stood.
Breathing. Whole.
Changed.
Castiel approached, his voice no longer that of a man—but of a god proclaiming fate.
"There is one who stands in defiance of me."
Lucian did not need to hear the name.
But the Emperor spoke it anyway.
"Kael Arden."
Lucian's grip tightened.
"The blade is yours," Castiel said. "Now cut him down."
To Be Continued...