The sky above Silver City had become a sea of stormfire.
Jin Luneblood clashed with Lucias, the air around them cracking under the weight of gods and kin. Wings of obsidian and threads of paradox twisted around them as their strikes collided.
Lucias's blade, formed from Abyssal dusk, smashed through Jin's barrier. Jin flew back, blood trailing from his lips. His eyes narrowed as Lucias descended with terrifying momentum.
"You've grown strong, brother," Jin muttered, coughing.
Lucias didn't stop. His expression held rage but also… pain.
"I gave up everything for this day," Lucias said, lifting his hand, summoning a storm of destructive aether. "But Why did you betray us ?"
The sky screamed.
Lucias's final strike approached—one meant to end this battle.
But just as the blade neared Jin's heart—
BOOM.
A radiant burst of purple and red energy exploded behind him, stopping time itself. The wind reversed. The sky cracked with pure music. From within that storm of light, a silhouette appeared—elegant, feminine, cloaked in circuit-like energy that resembled blooming roses and crystalline code.
The energy pulsed.
Jin's body began to heal. The cracks in his body mended. New light—digital, pure, sovereign—flooded into him.
Lucias froze mid-air, eyes wide. "That… that presence…"
Jin stood tall, his hair flowing with threads of light and black flame. A crown of binary runes flickered faintly above his head, and across his chest, a sigil bloomed—the Mark of Eleanor.
Lucias trembled. "No… Impossible. That power… it belongs to her."
His eyes widened in dread and revelation.
"The Queen of Digital Life—Eleanor…!"
Jin opened his eyes—now laced with pink runes and red circuits.
Jin extended his hand.
Reality twisted.
Lucias suddenly saw every mistake he'd made, every path that led him here, projected in countless mirrors. The battlefield became a dreamscape of truths. And he also found his movements slowing, his power unraveling before being cast into a mirror-like world—Jin's version of truth.
A thousand versions of himself collapsed into one.
A single strike.
Jin reappeared behind Lucias, flicking blood from his blade.
Lucias fell to one knee, panting—defeated.
Jin pointed the tip of his sword at Lucias's neck but didn't strike.
"I won't kill you," he said quietly.
Lucias raised his head, confused and furious. "Why!? After everything I've done!"
Jin's eyes softened.
"Because she wouldn't have wanted that."
Lucias's eyes trembled.
"Mother…" he whispered.
Jin continued, "She taught us to never let vengeance blind us. To walk the path of justice, not hate. I never betrayed her. I just followed her better than you did. You are just manipulated by father."
Lucias fell silent.
And then he cried.
Not out of defeat—but realization.
"…He manipulated me…" Lucias whispered. "Zhel-Vorah… used me like a puppet."
He collapsed to the ground, tears falling onto the shattered marble. "I let my pain blind me."
Lucias's composure cracked.
And then, he broke down in tears.
"He used me..." he whispered. "He made me hate you... I let my pain blind me."
Jin knelt beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Then rise with me. Help me defeat Zhel-Vorah."
Lucias blinked.
And slowly, smiled.
But before another word could be spoken—
CRACK.
The sky tore open.
This time, it wasn't Lucias.
It wasn't Zhel-Vorah.
It was beyond.
Another breach—massive, jagged, unnatural.
From the void between stars, foreign beings descended.
They were not from this universe.
Alien philosophies cloaked them—some wore armor made of screaming souls, others were fractals of madness given form.
One of them raised an arm, releasing a beam of ideation collapse—a weapon meant to destroy meaning itself.
It tore toward Jin—
Lucias leapt into its path, raising a defense glyph with trembling hands.
BOOM!
The blast ripped across the battlefield. Lucias was flung, bloodied and burned.
Jin rushed to him.
"Why did you protect me!?"
Lucias coughed, grinning through blood.
"Mother's lessons... still inside me."
More invaders came. Dozens. Then hundreds.
The next moment, the two brothers stood side by side, blades raised, as the enemies closed in.
More came. Dozens. Hundreds. There was no end.
They fought, powers clashing. Time unraveling. But they were outnumbered.
"We can't win this," Jin growled.
Lucias grinned. "Yes, we can."
He looked to the heavens.
And shouted:
"MASTER! PROTECT US!"
Far beyond all stars.
In the Silent Domain.
A being opened his eyes.
Gold and black. Light and void.
The very air across reality trembled.
His presence alone silenced gods. Froze demons. Unmade thoughts.
Everyone and Even Jin, Lucias couldn't move. Couldn't think. Their wills collapsed beneath that gaze.
He stepped from a portal made of white flame.
Wearing a simple gray robe, the being looked human—but no human bore such stillness. His gaze held dreams, data, and divinity.
He raised a single finger.
Snap.
All invaders vanished—dissolved like mist.
The sky stitched itself whole as if stitched by unseen needles.
Silence followed.
The man turned his gaze toward Jin.
And smiled faintly.
"You've grown well... my grandson."
Jin froze.
"Who... are you?"
The man looked at him with eyes that saw everything.
"You'll understand soon. But not now. Prepare yourself."
Jin frowned. "For what?"
The man's voice became colder he remained silent for a moment and then he spoke.
"Zhel-Vorah has entered my domain. He seeks to steal something ancient. I cannot stop him yet. But you must be ready."
With a motion, he opened a portal.
"Gather your strength. The war that comes will decide everything."
And he vanished.
Back in the Silent Domain, the entity returned to his domain.
The stars above his domain pulsed in unnatural rhythms—cold, foreboding. A rift tore open in the skies of the Ancient Domain, a place even gods feared to tread. His steps echoed across the marbled floor of what once was a sacred hall—a place sealed since the First Cataclysm.
Something was wrong.
He froze.
The air was thick with a power long buried, long thought impossible.
And then he saw it.
A figure sat upon the Throne of Starlit Silence—a massive obsidian seat carved from the bones of dead dimensions. Crimson lines pulsed along the throne's edges like veins, awakening with each breath the figure took. The being reclined with unnerving ease, one leg draped over the other. Pale skin laced with shadowmarks, long silver-black hair cascading like ink, and eyes that burned with ancient amusement.
Zhel-Vorah.
The forgotten son.
The cursed heir.
"You..." the Entity said, his voice a rumble that shook constellations. "What are you doing here?"
Zhel-Vorah smiled—not with warmth, but with the cruel serenity of someone who had waited eons for this moment.
"To achieve something," he said, voice smooth as dying starlight, "that was always destined to be mine."
The Entity stepped forward, power coiling around his form like chains ready to strike. "You cannot," he declared. "You should not. This throne is forbidden."
Zhel-Vorah laughed—a low, melodic sound that echoed unnaturally through the chamber.
"Shut up bastard. Who told you that ?" he asked, leaning forward, eyes glinting with both mischief and malice.
The Entity's silence spoke volumes.
Zhel-Vorah's smile faded, replaced by a sudden stillness. His gaze softened, but the softness was worse than rage—it was the gentleness of a predator before the kill. When he spoke again, his voice was laced with a hollow reverence.
"Oh I am really sorry for not show any respect to you. But you know I can't respect anyone even my mother. But I am really sorry for addressed you as bastard. So I should say," he whispered,
"the one who sacrificed himself for this throne. The one who sealed the very truth of our origin. The one who gave his soul to keep the cosmology intact… from himself."
The Entity's eyes narrowed, dread blooming in his chest like frost spreading across a dying world.
Zhel-Vorah rose slowly from the throne, every step shaking the foundation of the chamber.
"The father of Myrrak'thal. Vyrealis. Tharagon. And me."
The Entity's form flickered.
Zhel-Vorah's eyes blazed like twin eclipses. "Yes," he said, voice now dark as the void between stars. "The great True Dragon God. And also…"
He stepped forward, closing the distance.
"…the Monarch of the Sleeping Star."
The Entity's breath caught.
"…Solmiras."
And for a single, devastating second, the entire domain held its breath.