— The Twisted Motive —
Lucien shut his eyes tightly, as if the truth itself scorched him from within.
Deep lines carved across his face — pain, regret, and something far darker beneath them. Despair clung to him like rot, impossible to scrape away.
"As punishment..." he rasped, each word dragging through his throat,
"he made me butcher my own family."
A shallow breath.
"And blame it on you."
Lucien's eyelids trembled.
"He gave me the Mirage Incense... and I raised the blade myself."
His voice turned rough, scraping, tinged with a laughter so bitter it barely resembled amusement.
"He also gifted me a demonic art."
His lips twitched.
"Powerful beyond imagination."
A pause.
"But its price was madness."
Lucien opened his eyes.
"To master it, one must sever all feeling."
"Kill kin."
"Kill children."
"Kill everyone you ever loved."
A hoarse chuckle escaped him.
"Heh... maybe I would've done it anyway."
"For that kind of power."
The air felt like it had frozen solid.
Even breathing felt dangerous.
A cultivation that demanded such horror — not sacrifice, but annihilation of humanity itself.
How could such a thing exist?
"Then why didn't you kill me?!"
Lyra's scream ripped through the silence like shattered glass.
Tears streamed uncontrollably down her face, her voice breaking as she staggered forward.
"If you had," she cried, "I wouldn't have to live through this!"
Eren caught her as her body shook violently in his arms.
Before anyone else could speak, his voice cut through the air — cold, sharp, merciless.
"You spared her because—"
His gaze locked onto Lucien.
"—she isn't your daughter, is she?"
The words struck like a thunderbolt.
Lyra's body jerked.
Her knees buckled, strength draining from her all at once.
Lucien let out a hollow breath.
A slow, empty smile spread across his face.
"You even guessed that?"
"Yes."
His voice was almost gentle now.
"She's not mine."
Lucien's gaze drifted, distant.
"She's the baby I took from the Caelthorn estate twenty-three years ago."
A pause.
"The mysterious man didn't take her."
Lucien looked back at Eren.
"He told me to raise her."
Lyra stared at him blankly.
"I'm... not your daughter?"
Her lips trembled.
"I'm from the... Caelthorn family?"
The last thread holding her upright snapped.
Her eyes rolled back.
Her body went limp in Eren's arms.
Eren checked her pulse — steady, fragile, alive.
He forced the surge of fury boiling inside him down, compressing it into something colder, sharper.
"Continue," he ordered.
Lucien's lips quivered.
"The man told me to spare Lyra."
"And demanded that you and she... be bound together."
A sick laugh escaped him.
"At first, I thought he'd lost his mind."
Lucien shook his head faintly.
"Even for me... that command was too vile."
He looked up slowly, eyes flickering with a new understanding.
"Now I understand."
His voice dropped.
"Some rare souls awaken only through unbearable pain."
Lucien's gaze sharpened.
"The man wasn't sure who it would be."
"You... or her."
"So he pushed both of you to the edge."
"To awaken one."
Lucien's voice hardened.
"I thought it was Lyra."
"I even had Hawthorne create life-or-death trials for her."
A bitter sneer twisted his face.
"But you ruined them all."
His eyes burned as they locked onto Eren.
"You grew too fast."
"Too strong."
A pause.
"Now I see it."
"The one he wanted..."
Lucien exhaled.
"...was you, Eren."
His fists clenched tightly, knuckles whitening as his voice rose in fury.
"If you hadn't appeared—"
"If you hadn't stepped into my world—"
"None of this would have happened!"
Eren said nothing.
Inside him, everything twisted violently.
The truth he thought he had grasped only peeled back to reveal deeper fog — thicker, darker, endless.
Who was this man?
How could he command Mirage Incense, a Vigil-Wyrm Order secret?
Why annihilate the Caelthorn family?
And—
Who am I?
A horrifying thought crept in, cold and silent.
If Lyra and I both carry Caelthorn blood...
Then we're—
Siblings.
The memory of that night flashed before his eyes.
Hands.
Breath.
Heat.
His heart seized.
His breath turned to ice.
"Lucien!"
Eren's voice cracked like thunder.
Killing intent flooded the room, crushing, absolute.
"Who is that man?!"
No answer came.
Only silence.
And within that silence, Eren's oath took shape — sharp, unyielding, carved into his soul:
Whoever that man was—
He would find him.
And tear him apart.
Piece by piece.
---
— The God's Weight —
Lucien's face slackened.
Not with fear.
With something far worse.
Reverence.
"He is a god," he breathed, the words escaping him as if unbidden. "There is no other word for him."
His pupils drifted, unfocused, staring past Eren and the others — as though the memory itself now stood before him, towering, unavoidable.
"He was right there," Lucien murmured.
"So close."
A tremor ran through his jaw.
"And I couldn't see his face."
His fingers twitched weakly against the stone floor.
"He moved a finger," Lucien said, voice thinning, "and a rock hill turned to dust."
Not shattered.
Not broken.
Erased.
"One look from him..."
Lucien swallowed hard.
"...and I felt death wrap around my throat."
His hand rose unconsciously, clutching at empty air, as if the sensation still lingered.
"My heart stopped."
"My mind went blank."
"I knew — with absolute certainty — that if he wished it, I would simply... cease."
His voice shook now, swallowed by the memory.
"He even flew."
Lucien let out a breath that was almost a sob.
"The first time he came down... it was from the sky."
Thunder.
Pressure.
A weight so immense it crushed thought itself.
"The heavens roared," he whispered.
"And I felt tiny. Smaller than dust."
His shoulders slumped.
"Before him, I was an ant."
A pause.
"If that isn't a god," Lucien asked quietly, "then what is?"
Silence followed — thick, suffocating.
Then Lucien's mouth twitched.
"I've told you everything."
His gaze slowly refocused, landing on Eren.
"Do you not feel it?"
"Despair?"
"Fear?"
"Powerlessness?"
The crowd remained frozen.
This was no tale of a powerful cultivator.
Lucien was describing something other — something that violated the scale of mortals entirely.
Eren's mind raced.
Thunder.
Flight.
A presence that crushed will.
Could it be... the same tier of existence as the demon he had faced on the Tibetan Plateau?
The one sealed for seven thousand years.
Lucien's gaze snapped to him.
Cold.
Sharp.
Almost cruel.
"I don't know why he wants you," Lucien said.
"But you?"
A faint sneer tugged at his lips.
"What can a speck like you do except obey?"
His voice hardened.
"You and I — we're the same."
"Pawns."
"My fate today," he rasped, "is your fate tomorrow."
Eren lifted his head.
Gold flared violently in his eyes.
"No."
The word landed with weight.
"You're wrong, Lucien."
His voice rolled through the clearing like distant thunder.
"I am not you."
"I will never be a pawn."
Even Lucien flinched.
"Even if he is a god," Eren continued, every syllable forged in iron,
"I will kill that god."
The words struck like a blade cleaving heaven.
A mortal defying divinity.
"Even if my bones shatter," Eren said, voice unwavering,
"Even if my soul scatters into nothing —"
"I will not hesitate."
The sky answered.
A deep roar rippled overhead.
Black clouds churned violently, spiraling together as lightning ripped through them, splitting the heavens open again and again. Wind howled, shredding sand and stone, bending trees until their trunks groaned.
The world trembled.
The crowd recoiled instinctively.
Had his vow drawn divine attention?
Lucien sneered, baring bloodstained teeth.
"Fool," he spat.
"You mock the divine."
His voice dripped with contempt.
"Face your punishment."
Eren felt it then.
A vast pressure.
An unseen gaze sweeping toward him through thunder and cloud.
He felt it.
But fear did not come.
Instead, something else stirred.
Power flared in his blood, hot and fierce, answering the weight pressing down on him. His spine straightened. His will locked into place like tempered steel.
The storm gathered—
Then faltered.
The clouds thinned.
The thunder faded.
The wind fell silent.
As if whatever had noticed him... had chosen to look away.
Eren exhaled slowly, deliberately.
He turned his gaze back to Lucien.
"Do you believe in an endless hell?" he asked calmly.
Lucien blinked, unprepared.
Eren's eyes hardened.
"If it exists," he said, voice colder than stone,
"you've earned it."
"That man you fear is powerful."
"Yes."
"But if you had dared to resist back then," Eren continued,
"you might have died."
He stepped closer.
"You would not have become something worse."
A strange light flickered across Lucien's face.
Shock.
Regret.
Something almost like relief.
Then he threw back his head and laughed.
Wild.
Brittle.
Incredulous.
"Ha—!"
"Well said!"
His voice cracked with mirth and madness alike.
"I, Lucien — clever all my life —"
He choked on a breath.
"...was the coward."
His laughter rang hollow.
"You see clearer than I ever did," he gasped.
"Hah!"
The sound cut off abruptly.
Lucien's chest jerked once.
A dark bead of blood slid from the corner of his mouth.
Then his body went still.
He was dead.
Silence fell — heavy, absolute.
The forest wind stirred faintly, carrying the scent of dust and iron. Lucien's final grin lay broken upon the ground, frozen in death.
Eren stood there for a long moment.
Then he turned to Arden.
"Did you get all of it on record?"
Arden's face was grave, unblinking.
"All of it," he said.
"Full recording."
"I'll file it immediately. This should clear your name."
Eren nodded once.
Relief did not come.
Behind his eyes, colder than any storm, lingered a single thought —
The god Lucien feared had not vanished.
Someone...
or something —
had just heard a mortal speak its name.