— Father or Fiend —
The air itself felt frozen, thick with dread, as though some unseen hand had wrapped the space in ice.
Eyes widened. Throats tightened.
Everyone wanted to see it.
Everyone needed to know what kind of monster could slaughter dozens from the Veyne family without mercy — what face such a thing would wear.
Without hesitation, Darius stepped forward.
His expression was grim, jaw clenched so tightly the muscles stood out. He bent down, seized the shadowed figure lying motionless on the stone floor, and flipped it over in one sharp motion.
Thud.
The sound echoed — dull, final.
The body rolled onto its back.
For one dreadful heartbeat, no one moved.
Then—
A collective gasp tore through the crowd like a wave.
The face revealed was no longer truly human.
Skin lay pale and drawn, like wood long stripped of sap. Color had fled it entirely. White hair clung thinly to a skull marked by deep, unnatural lines, the cheeks sunken as if time itself had carved them out in an instant. The body appeared emptied—withered, as though its life had been quietly drained away.
Eren recognized that state at once.
The eyes, however, were wrong.
Dark. Hollow. Unreflective.
A chill swept across the graveyard. Among the tombstones and cold earth, even seasoned warriors felt their stomachs tighten.
Eren froze.
Lyra froze.
Their pupils shrank violently as a surge of ice-cold dread raced down their spines, straight into their bones.
That face.
That presence.
Recognition struck before reason could interfere.
"H–How... how can it be him?!"
The words escaped Eren before he could stop them, thin and disbelieving.
That face — that voice — was unmistakable.
Lucien Veyne.
Patriarch of the Veyne family.
Lyra's world shattered.
"Dad...?"
The single word trembled out of her like a dying breath.
"Why...? Why would it be you?! This can't be real... this has to be a lie!"
Her scream echoed sharply, brittle as glass breaking in a silent hall. Color drained from her face in an instant. Her body shook violently, magic and emotion spiraling out of control as blood spilled from the corner of her lips.
Her mind simply couldn't endure it.
First — Eren's true identity.
Now — her own father.
The butcher of her family.
The truth slammed into her like a collapsing sky. It was as if every pillar holding her world upright had detonated at once, leaving nothing but ruin.
"Lyra!"
Eren caught her before she could fall, pulling her into his arms. Power surged from him instinctively — pure, stabilizing magic flooding her body, forcing her heart back into rhythm.
He could feel it.
Her soul was tearing at the seams.
On the stone floor, Lucien's chest rose weakly.
Then he laughed.
A broken, rasping sound, scraped raw from a throat already halfway to death.
"E... Eren..."
Each syllable sounded like it might be his last.
"You really did it... You uncovered it... after all..."
Eren slowly lifted his gaze.
His eyes darkened, storm clouds rolling behind them.
"Lucien," he said coldly, every word edged with restrained fury, "why did you do it? Who made you do this?"
He stepped closer.
"Was it Damien Vale?"
His voice sharpened.
"Those were your own kin. Your own daughter."
Lucien's cracked lips twitched.
A faint, almost mocking smile appeared.
"Damien Vale...?" He coughed weakly. "What's he got to do with this...? Eren... have you gone mad?"
"What?"
The word struck Eren like lightning.
Not Damien?
His thoughts reeled violently.
If not Damien... then who?
A chill coiled deep in his chest, tightening around his heart.
If Lucien hadn't acted of his own will...
Then whatever had controlled him was something far worse than any enemy Eren had faced before.
Lucien coughed again, his laughter turning hollow, empty.
"Willing?" His voice dropped to a whisper.
"No one's willing to slaughter their own blood..."
For a fleeting instant, terror surfaced in his gaze — raw and genuine.
Then despair swallowed it.
And finally, something else appeared.
Reverence.
Twisted. Devoted.
Eren saw it.
And his heart sank even deeper.
"Lucien," he said, his voice hard as ice, "tell us everything."
Lucien's gaze drifted slowly — from Eren... to Lyra, trembling unconscious in his arms.
Something unreadable passed across his ruined face.
His lips curled into a grotesque smile.
"You really want to know?" he rasped.
"The truth isn't salvation, boy."
He inhaled weakly.
"It's damnation. Once you hear it... you'll wish you hadn't."
"What do you mean?" Eren demanded, stepping forward again. His voice cut like steel.
"Is there someone behind all of this?"
Silence.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
The crowd dared not breathe.
Finally, as the last flicker of life dimmed in his void-black eyes, Lucien released a long, weary sigh.
"Fine..."
"I'm dying anyway."
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Let me... tell you everything I know."
The air itself seemed to stop moving.
No one spoke.
They were no longer simply watching.
They were waiting for the truth.
---
— The Origin of the Bloodshed —
"Everything began twenty-three years ago."
Lucien drew a shallow breath, his chest barely lifting. His voice sounded hollow, as though it were seeping out of a grave rather than spoken.
"Back then, the Veyne, the Voss, and the Morven families were nothing—barely surviving in the shadows of the Novalis Sector."
A few uneasy murmurs drifted among the gravestones, quickly swallowed by the night wind.
"The Caelthorns ruled above all," Lucien continued. "Untouchable."
His gaze slipped past the living, resting somewhere among the rows of stone markers.
"Until the day he appeared."
The air grew colder. The cemetery lights flickered faintly, shadows stretching long across the earth.
"He ordered our three families to slaughter the Caelthorns."
A collective breath caught. Someone shifted, boots scraping softly against gravel.
Lucien swallowed. "We refused—at first."
For a fleeting instant, something like defiance surfaced on his ruined face.
"And nearly paid for it with our blood."
Eren felt his fingers curl slowly at his side.
"He was beyond comprehension," Lucien said, his voice thinning. "Meeting his gaze felt like standing before judgment itself."
No one spoke. Even the wind seemed to hesitate.
"What he offered us," Lucien went on, drawing a shaky breath, "was everything mortals bend their knees for."
He did not name them. The silence did it for him.
A violent cough seized him. Blood darkened his lips and dripped onto the soil.
"So we obeyed."
The flatness of the words made Lyra's breath hitch.
"Using the Mirage Incense he provided, we infiltrated the Caelthorn estate that night."Lucien's eyes trembled. "We drugged them all."
A pause.
"Men. Women. Children."
Aveline's face tightened. Arden's jaw set.
"And butchered them in their sleep."
The cemetery felt smaller, the tombstones crowding closer.
"Blood covered the marble floors," Lucien murmured. "Fire. Screams."
His jaw clenched.
"Even the cry of a newborn."
Lyra swayed. Arden caught her arm, steadying her without a word.
"They still echo in my skull."
Lucien's voice rasped like dirt sliding over a coffin lid.
"We took the surviving child. We took their wealth. We erased their name."
A bitter laugh escaped him.
"And from that night on, our families rose."
Silence pressed down, heavy as earth on wood.
"Built on stolen blood."
Only the rustle of leaves answered.
After a long moment, Lucien spoke again, weaker now.
"We thought it was over. But thirteen years ago, he returned."
"Returned?" Eren asked.
Lucien nodded stiffly, as if his neck no longer belonged to him.
"He ordered us to form a syndicate—the Crimson Tide."
A low murmur spread, dying among the graves.
"He wanted us to run drugs across the Sector."
Lucien's mouth twisted.
"A man who could shatter mountains," he said hoarsely, "reduced us to traffickers."
No one laughed.
"We didn't question. We obeyed."
His gaze dragged across the faces lit by cold cemetery lights.
"For thirteen years, we bled the underworld dry."
Money. Corpses. Silence.
The unspoken words lingered like smoke.
"No one ever knew," Lucien finished, "that the three noble families of Novalis were nothing but drug lords in disguise."
Aveline closed her eyes.
Arden exhaled slowly, breath fogging in the night air.
Lyra stood rigid, color draining from her face.
Her father—the man who had taught her restraint and kindness—was a butcher. A trafficker.
Something inside her collapsed without a sound.
Lucien wheezed, madness flickering in his eyes.
"For twenty-three years," he rasped, "I lived like a king—on another man's grave."
His gaze snapped to Eren.
"And then you appeared."
His voice rose, cracking.
"If you hadn't stormed into Veyne Corporation—if you hadn't torn everything open—"
Eren did not answer. His jaw tightened.
Lucien's breathing dissolved into half-sobs, half-laughter.
"I investigated you," he gasped. "And I found the truth."
The night seemed to hold its breath.
"You were sent to an orphanage the night before the massacre—by Oliver Caelthorn himself."
Lyra's vision blurred.
"That meant there were two infants in the bloodline," Lucien cried, clutching his head. "I had failed from the very beginning!"
His body shook violently.
"I tried to find him—to confess, to beg for mercy—but he vanished. For years, I searched."
Then—
His eyes widened.
Pure terror flooded them.
"And one day," he whispered, "he came back again."
Lucien slowly lifted his gaze. A faint, unnatural light flickered deep within his pupils.
"And from that moment ..."
The cemetery felt as though it were sinking inward.
"...the nightmare truly began."