Destiny lay on the freezing, cracked earth, her fingers clawing uselessly at the soil. A few yards away, Indra was a motionless heap, the blade in his chest a cruel reminder of their failure. Every time she tried to summon a spark of magic, the Black Sun above seemed to pulse, draining the energy before it could even reach her fingertips.
The man began to walk toward her. His footsteps were slow, deliberate, and heavy with the promise of death. "Don't look so tragic, my dear," he said, his voice smooth as silk. "In a few moments, you'll be reunited with all the other fools who thought they could defy the dark."
As his shadow fell over her, the world around Destiny began to blur. The sound of his voice faded, replaced by a high-pitched, ringing silence.
Flashback: The Harvest of Sorrow
Suddenly, the grey battlefield was gone.
In its place was a memory she had buried under a thousand layers of iron and ice. She was a child again, standing in the town square of a village whose name had long been forgotten. The sky wasn't black; it was a sickening, bruised red.
The air was filled with the sound of the Gluttonied—horrific, shadowy entities that didn't just kill; they consumed. They were harvesting the villagers, turning people into raw energy to feed a hunger that never ended.
A shadow flickered. A blade of dark light swung through the air.
Thud.
Something heavy hit the dirt at the young girl's feet. Destiny looked down. Her breath hitched. It was the head of a woman—her mother—her eyes still wide with a final, desperate prayer for her daughter's safety.
"Mumma?" the child whispered, her small voice lost in the roar of the massacre.
That was the moment something inside the girl had snapped. A seed of golden fire had been planted in the wreckage of her soul, waiting for the day it would finally bloom.
The Awakening of the Golden Flame
Back in the present, the man reached out his hand to seize Destiny's hair. "Come now, let's get this over with—"
He stopped.
A low, vibrating hum began to emanate from Destiny's body. It wasn't the erratic magic of a sorceress; it was something ancient, something Primordial.
The man stepped back, his eyes widening in genuine alarm. From the corners of Destiny's eyes, thin wisps of Golden Flame began to trail into the air. She didn't stand up like a wounded person; she rose like a puppet being pulled by the strings of a god.
She didn't speak. She didn't scream. But the sheer weight of her killing intent was so heavy that the man felt the "Narma" siphon crack.
Destiny reached into the empty air, and a blade of pure, solidified solar radiance manifested in her hand. It wasn't just energy; it was a physical manifestation of her vengeance.
"Sremo: The Veil of Death," she whispered.
The Last Dance
Before the man could even raise his sword, the world shifted. The grey earth and the black sun vanished. He found himself standing in a void of absolute silence—a pocket dimension created by Destiny's sheer will.
Destiny stood twenty paces away. Her eyes were no longer human; they were twin pools of molten gold, burning with a cold, silent rage that demanded blood for blood.
"The last dance," she said, her voice sounding like a choir of a thousand spirits.
The man growled, his fear turning into desperation. "I am a herald of the Abyss! You cannot kill me with a mere light show! RAAGH!"
He charged. He moved with the speed of a falling star, his blade aimed to decapitate her.
But Destiny didn't move. She simply stood her ground as the man's sword inches from her throat.
Flicker.
A single, thin line of gold traced a path through the darkness. It was so fast it didn't even make a sound. For a second, time seemed to stop. The man stood perfectly still, his sword frozen in mid-air.
Then, a jagged golden line appeared across his chest, splitting his armour, his flesh, and his very soul.
With a sickening squelch, the man slid apart. His body was perfectly bisected into two halves, dissolving into ash before they even hit the ground. He didn't even have time to scream.
The Price of Vengeance
The pocket dimension shattered.
The world returned to the grey battlefield under the Black Sun. Destiny stood in the centre, her golden blade dissolving into sparks. The golden flames in her eyes flickered one last time before fading into a dull, exhausted grey.
She had used every ounce of her life force, every drop of her hidden ancestry, to deliver that single strike. Her knees gave way, and she collapsed beside the wounded Indra. As her eyes closed and she drifted into unconsciousness, the only thing she could see was the image of her mother's face, finally at peace.
The battlefield was silent once more, but the threat was far from over
The air in the Academy's inner sanctum had turned cold—not the chill of winter, but the cold of the grave. Governor Sterling clutched his staff of office, his knuckles white. Beside him, the Principal stood like a statue carved from ancient oak, his eyes fixed on the horizon where the world was bleeding.
"The equilibrium is gone," Sterling whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and awe. He looked at the Stone Table, the legendary artifact that had predicted the rise and fall of empires for three thousand years. "The energy readings are off the charts. It's as if a new god has been born, and the universe is struggling to find a place for him."
The Principal finally spoke, his voice a low rasp. "It is not a birth, Sterling. It is a return. The Stone Table isn't breaking because of the energy—it's breaking because it cannot hold the weight of Leo's name."
As if punctuated by his words, the Stone Table groaned. A massive fissure opened down its centre, and with a sound like a dying mountain, it crumbled into fine, glittering dust. The balance was no longer being monitored; it had been destroyed.
The Laughter in the Ruin
Five miles away, perched atop the jagged remains of a skyscraper that pierced the indigo sky, Lucifer was losing his mind. He threw his head back, his silver hair shimmering like moonlight against the unnatural darkness of the Narma eclipse. His laughter was a symphony of madness, echoing off the hollow buildings of the abandoned city.
"He's here!" Lucifer shrieked, his eyes burning with a manic, violet flame. "Do you feel it, world? The cage has been broken! The Master of the Abyss has walked through the fire and come to claim his due! Leo is alive!"
He spun in a delirious circle, his fingers twitching. "Bring me your rage, Leo! Bring me your hatred! Let us burn this pathetic reality to the ground together!"
But his laughter was silenced by a sudden, terrifying pressure. The sky didn't just darken; it flattened. The clouds were vacuumed away in an instant, and the very oxygen in the air seemed to vanish.
Above Lucifer, a figure drifted down from the clouds.
It was Leo. He looked different—older, colder, and infinitely more dangerous. His expensive British overcoat was a rag of soaked crimson and tattered wool. With a gaze that could wither a forest, Leo reached up and unbuttoned the garment. He let it fall, the heavy fabric tumbling through the air like a discarded memory.
"I've had enough of your noise, Lucifer," Leo said. His voice was quiet, yet it resonated in the bones of every living thing for miles. "It's time to settle the bill."
The Wrath of the Sovereign
Leo didn't wait for a reply. He descended.
He didn't fly with wings or magic; he simply moved through space as if he owned it. In a heartbeat, he was in front of Lucifer. The impact of his arrival shattered the top three floors of the skyscraper. Leo's hand clamped around Lucifer's throat, his fingers sinking into the silver-clad neck.
With a roar of pure, focused power, Leo dragged Lucifer off the building. They fell like a twin-headed comet, smashing through steel and concrete as they hurtled toward the earth.
BOOM.
They hit the pavement with the force of a nuclear detonation. A crater fifty yards wide erupted in the centre of the city. Leo didn't give the devil a second to breathe. He straddled Lucifer's chest and began to strike.
This wasn't a fight; it was an execution.
Leo's fists moved so fast they created sonic booms that shattered every window in the district. Crack. Thud. Crack. Each blow was a masterpiece of violence. He wasn't just hitting Lucifer's body; he was striking his soul. The pavement beneath them turned to sand, then to glass from the sheer heat of the friction.
"Leo! Stop!"
Governor Sterling appeared at the lip of the crater, his face pale with horror. He could see the aura around Leo—it was a pulsing, rhythmic black light that threatened to swallow the sun. "You'll destroy the entire sector! He's beaten! For the love of the ancients, stay your hand!"
Leo paused, his fist pulled back, glowing with a dull, terrifying violet heat. He turned his head slowly, his eyes glowing with the cold embers of the Abyss. For a moment, Sterling thought Leo might kill him too. But slowly, the Sovereign's chest stopped heaving. He stood up, leaving the broken, bloody mess of Lucifer in the dirt.
The Singularity
Lucifer coughed, a wet, rattling sound. He dragged himself onto his elbows, his silver hair now matted with blood and ash. Despite the pain, a twisted grin remained on his face. He reached into his tattered tunic and pulled out a pulsing, translucent sphere—the Soul Energy Ball.
"You forgot... didn't you?" Lucifer wheezed, his voice a jagged rasp. "I still hold their lives in my hand. One flick of my wrist, and I crush them. If I go to hell, I'm taking every soul I've stolen with me."
Leo didn't panic. He didn't even look angry. He simply raised both of his hands, palms facing inward.
"You think I care about your threats?" Leo whispered.
Two spheres of absolute, light-devouring blackness manifested in Leo's hands. They weren't just magic; they were pieces of the primordial void. As Leo brought his hands together, the two spheres began to merge, fighting against each other, creating a high-pitched scream that tore the fabric of space.
"Black Hole," Leo commanded.
The Governor's eyes went wide. "Leo, no! If that singularity opens, it won't just take him—it will consume the city!"
Sterling didn't hesitate. He slammed his staff into the ground, his face contorting with the effort of a Tier-One spell. "Aegis of the Eternal!"
A massive, shimmering golden dome of energy erupted from the ground, encircling Leo and Lucifer. It was a containment field of the highest order, designed to withstand the collapse of a star.
Inside the dome, Leo threw the merged spheres at Lucifer's feet.
The world went silent.
The tiny black orb didn't explode. It began to eat. It consumed the light, the air, and then it reached for Lucifer. The "Prince of Lies" didn't even have time to scream. His body was stretched like taffy, his atoms pulled apart by the infinite gravity of the singularity. The Soul Energy Ball he held was sucked into the void first, followed by his limbs, and finally, his very essence.
Inside the Governor's golden shield, there was nothing but a swirling vortex of absolute shadow. Lucifer was erased—not just killed, but deleted from the history of existence.
When the singularity finally winked out, Leo stood alone in the centre of the crater. The golden shield flickered and died as the Governor collapsed from exhaustion.
The sun began to peek through the dissipating clouds, its warmth returning to the world. Leo looked at his hands, then up at the morning light. The war was over, but the king had only just begun his reign.