It had been three days since the declaration of war.
In just one week, the flames would spread. After piecing together several realizations with Mirabel, I set off.
I needed to find those from my past life, people whose survival remained vital to my plans.
With my reputation fractured and the Golden Authority dismantled, I believed I could reach them without interference.
The truth, however, was harsher. I could not risk their deaths.
They were threads in a design far greater than I once imagined, remnants of an old plan I thought I'd never live to see unfold.
What I hadn't accounted for was Miraculum joining me.
He sat across from me in the carriage, his wide, unblinking eyes fixed on me as I silently rehearsed what I might say when we arrived.
[Nicholas was beginning to rethink his actions. Perhaps he should have brought gifts.]
I scowled inwardly. Gifts? The damn voice always spoke at the most useless moments.
A groan escaped before I could stop it, and Miraculum flinched.
"Daddy! Are you dying?" he cried, small hands clutching the air.
I truly wondered what Mirabel had been telling them. On impulse, I entered her mind again.
She always accused mine of being indecent, but hers was far worse, crowded with memories of me unclothed.
Still, between her fantasies were softer visions: our children wrapped in warmth, her holding them close.
I even caught glimpses of their first words, battle for Cassio, love for Miraculum.
It explained his gentleness, the absence of monstrous intent that had so defined my own youth.
"No, I'm not dying," I said at last, rubbing the back of my neck. "I was just remembering something irritating."
His face fell, disappointed. "Are you afraid, Daddy?"
The question surprised me. Fear, such a simple word.
[Nicholas felt shivers crawl down his spine.]
"Yeah," I admitted quietly. "I suppose there are a few shivers down my spine."
Even as I spoke, my vision sharpened. A vast shadow darkened the horizon, a beast with wings like forests and a serpent's body.
A wyvern. Its screeches split the air like cracking stone.
It was driven forward by a charred horse corpse and a hollow puppet, remnants of my own old artifices, now twisted mockeries of life.
This was the third ambush in recent memory. And this time, my child was with me.
A nuisance, yes, but also an opportunity.
I snapped my fingers, halting the carriage. Miraculum looked up, eyes bright. "Are you going to fight the monster?"
I extended my left hand, Sotergramma forming in the other. "Come on."
Without hesitation, he took my hand, and together we leapt from the carriage.
We stood at the edge of Novastia, where a renowned doctor resided, the one I had come to find.
But now the sky itself seemed to tear open as the wyvern descended, roaring loud enough to shake the heavens.
Miraculum's voice was filled with awe. "It's beautiful…"
I drew my sword in a single fluid motion. Black roses bloomed across the horizon, their ink-dark petals dripping into the air like liquid night.
The wyvern's scream cut short as its body split in two, dissolving into colossal butterflies that shimmered briefly before surging toward me.
I raised a hand and crushed them, scattering their essence like dust upon the wind.
[Nicholas had shown off before his child, rewriting reality and bending logic itself. A boastful man indeed.]
A faint smile touched my lips. I turned to Miraculum, expecting pride or joy. Instead, blood spilled from his lips.
His small body trembled, words caught in his throat before he collapsed.
Before I could move, a sword pierced my neck.
Blood struck the ground between us.
"There is a great tale of a fallen angel who became a demon," a voice intoned. "I am one of those angels."
My vision blurred, and then I was rising through a torn sky, trying to reach Miraculum, but he was slipping further away.
That was when I saw him.
A man with bronze skin and white wings, eyes molten gold, robed in pristine white stained by streaks of blood.
I remembered that face. My father had killed him long ago.
Zadkiel, the fallen angel.
"There it is," he said with a cruel smile. "The face of someone seeing a dead man walking. Or rather, flying."
[Nicholas suddenly had an overwhelming clarity, and a deeper dread.]
My blade flickered outward, slicing the sky itself. Zadkiel's right wing tore away. "It was a mistake to think I was still weak, Zadkiel!"
He only grinned wider as a horn sprouted from his forehead, his sword of life darkening to black. "Yeah. Same to you."
A black hole appeared against my chest.
My ink magic strained to rewrite its pull, but this was different. This was real.
Even small, a black hole bends time, space, and causality. The closer you are, the more its laws bind you.
This one made me a prisoner of cause and effect itself.
Black holes and other celestial bodies were not ordinary constructs.
They were born from the highest extensions of creation itself, concepts so ancient and vast that they stood above logic, rewriting, and negation alike.
Their laws reached beyond, affecting even those who transcended the laws entirely.
I unleashed a surge of mana, collapsing the singularity and shattering his blade.
With a roar, I kicked him down from the sky, driving my sword through his chest and pinning him to the earth.
"You vermin. Did you actually summon a black hole?"
He laughed, blood spilling from his lips. "Yeah… maybe. But I also did this."
My eyes snapped toward Miraculum. Two black spheres twice his size folded inward around him.
They weren't collapsing masses, they were wounds in existence, spirals of infinite gravity where even concepts refused to escape.
Their edges shimmered like mirages, bending the world into impossible shapes and twisting distance until it no longer existed.
I gritted my teeth and invoked Alter.
In an instant, our positions shifted. I was now pinned, while Miraculum held my sword down into Zadkiel's chest.
The black holes writhed, devouring the world, dragging every cause and law into their spiral depths.
Zadkiel had amplified them, weaving power into their hearts until they became something beyond celestial bodies, forces that could erase entire worlds if left unchecked.
I forced my way through the pull, each movement breaking unseen barriers. Zadkiel remained pinned, but fear for my son cut deeper than any wound.
Reaching forward, I seized my blade just as Miraculum opened his mouth to speak.
Before a single word escaped, I cast him into my inner world. He vanished.
Zadkiel's laughter thundered through the air. He kicked upward, hurling me high into the sky as he tore my sword from his chest.
But contrary to his belief, no one could wield my blade but me.
The moment his fingers touched it, his hand began to decay, flaking into ash.
He dropped it instantly.
I fell back toward the earth, extended my hand, and summoned a sphere of darkness. It struck him squarely.
My sword returned to my grip as I twisted midair, slashing through his back.
Darkness coiled around my blade like a predator's jaw, tearing his spine apart.
I caught his throat and slammed him into the ground. The earth cracked like glass.
"Threatening my child was a mistake," I said, tightening my grip. "What could have driven you to such stupidity?"
He smirked through the blood. "Such arrogance. Is that a common trait of the new world?"
I pressed him deeper into the earth. "What are you doing back, Zadkiel? What's your true purpose?"
He chuckled, soft but sharp. "I do not believe in God anymore, so why would I tell you the truth?"
"Foolish statement, that would imply, the Almighty needs something like you, he needs nothing." I said.
Still, I felt my body weakening, that familiar sickness stirring through me like an old ghost.
He noticed, of course he noticed, and laughed again.
"Still bound by that illness. You know… if you used that ability of yours, it would disappear."
My scowl deepened. I lifted my sword, black roses beginning to fall from the sky like rain.
"I would rather not submit to weakness," I said quietly. "Even I have my limits."
He shook his head, pain twisting his smile. "Then the only mercy I can offer you… is to reveal my cause."
An overwhelming tiredness fell upon me, heavier than exhaustion, as if sleep itself had taken form.
Zadkiel's eyes glowed. His words became an invocation.
"Lord of Mercy. Zadkiel."