Lucien fell.
Not through space—but memory, blood, and shattered identity.
The black void consumed him like a hungry mouth, swallowing his essence piece by piece. Around him, echoes of his past screamed like dying gods—Calista's first kiss under the blood moon, his father's betrayal in the marble halls of their estate, the slaughter at Blackridge where he'd first tasted true power, and his first system message glowing in crimson letters. They twisted together, corrupted, out of sequence, like someone else was rewriting his story with ink made of malice.
Each memory burned as it passed through him. The pain of his mother's death. The ecstasy of his first kill. The moment he'd realized the system wasn't just guiding him—it was learning from him, growing stronger with each drop of blood he spilled.
Then… he hit the floor.
Hard.
