The night was pregnant with tension, a silence so thick it felt like the world itself was holding its breath. Above the capital, thunder rumbled behind the curtain of storm clouds, cloaking the moon in darkness. Lightning cracked in the distance—brief flashes of fury illuminating the sprawling city below.
Inside Kael Arden's war chamber, only the flicker of a single candle dared challenge the gloom.
The great mahogany table stretched before him, its surface etched with borders, battlefronts, and shifting tides of war. Over it, Kael loomed, golden eyes fixed and unblinking. His fingers tapped a steady rhythm, less a habit than the measured tempo of a mind grinding through possibilities.
Around him, his inner circle stood like carved statues.
To his right—Ilyssia, arms folded, silver eyes narrowed. The elven general's usual calm was shaken; the air around her pulsed with restrained unease.
To his left—Darius Vale, more shadow than man, stepped forward from the dark, cloak trailing like spilled ink across the stone.
"My lord," Darius spoke, voice quiet, precise. "The Emperor has moved his first piece."
Kael didn't look up. "Then speak. What has Castiel sacrificed?"
Darius extended a sealed scroll. "Lucian Vancrest lives."
The words struck like thunder. In the silence that followed, even the candlelight seemed to recoil.
Ilyssia's mask cracked. "Impossible. He was broken. Shattered beyond repair."
"Yet reborn," Darius murmured.
Kael lifted the scroll, examining the wax: a golden phoenix rising from fire.
"Fitting," he mused, breaking it cleanly.
He read, his eyes scanning quickly—once, then again. A smirk pulled at his lips.
"Expected," he said.
Darius tilted his head. "Expected?"
Kael finally looked up, gaze gleaming with cold amusement. "The Emperor was never one to waste potential. Lucian was a perfect mold—prideful, loyal, wounded. Castiel gave him a reason to stand again."
He tossed the scroll aside like a discarded gambit. "He drank it, didn't he?"
Darius's face darkened. "Demon's Blood."
Ilyssia inhaled, jaw clenched. "Then he's no longer himself."
"No," Kael replied, almost fondly. "He's something worse."
He rose slowly, the candle's flame painting his face in flickering gold. "The question isn't how strong he's become..."
He turned to them fully, voice low but lethal.
"It's whether he's still a sword… or just a wound trying to cut back."
The silence that followed was heavy. Darius knelt.
"Your command?"
Kael's smirk deepened.
"Let him come."
Elsewhere…
The ruins of Ylthar—once a bastion of beauty and knowledge—now lay like a corpse beneath a bleeding sky. Wind screamed through shattered towers, carrying the scent of ash and old blood.
Among the dead city's bones knelt Lucian Vancrest, the man once hailed as the Empire's blade.
Now, he was something else entirely.
His silver hair, now laced with streaks of pitch, danced in the wind. His eyes—once blue as the ocean—burned red with purpose and poison. Veins shimmered beneath his pale skin like molten gold trapped beneath glass.
In his grasp pulsed the Sword of Annihilation, a weapon that writhed like it breathed, its edge cloaked in black fire, its hilt warm with blood-bound will.
The whispers never stopped.
Strike. Rule. Kill. You were made to serve vengeance.
Lucian stood slowly, every motion deliberate. The sword's weight was no burden—it was purpose incarnate.
The wind carried a name.
Kael Arden.
The memory struck like a blade: the smirk, the humiliation, the slow descent into disgrace.
"You stole everything," Lucian whispered.
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
"I was the Empire's sword. The hero of men. And you… made me kneel."
The flames along the blade surged higher. The sword recognized his hatred. It fed on it.
"But now…"
He raised the blade high.
"I am reborn."
Power exploded outward in a ring of flame and shadow. The ground cracked beneath his feet.
And then—he vanished.
Gone like a stormwind. A phantom of retribution.
Atop the Imperial Palace…
Castiel stood at the balcony, arms behind his back, his golden eyes cast far beyond the walls of the Empire. He did not move. He did not speak.
He listened.
In the deep, he felt it.
A howl from Ylthar. A heartbeat of chaos. A shadow awakened.
He smiled.
"Now, Kael," he murmured. "Show me what it means to defy a god."
To Be Continued…