The heavens wept blood as the Radiant Empire burned.
Where once stood gleaming marble towers and gilded palaces, only ruin now trembled beneath Nyx's wings. The black flames of her abyssal breath clung to the land, eating stone, soil, and flesh alike, refusing to die out.
The air was no longer air—it was thick with screams, ash, and the metallic tang of blood.
Aezreal stood at the center of it all. Silent. Watching. His scythe dripped rivers of gore, each crimson drop writhing as if alive, begging to return to his blade.
He had already broken the lower world's cage. Now, he would drown it.
The Farmer's Last Embrace
A farmer tried shielding his daughter with his arms. Flesh bubbled and split as Nyx's fire licked at his back. His skin sloughed away like melting wax, exposing sinew and bone.
"Papa, it's hot…" she whimpered.
His jaw worked uselessly, teeth falling from gums as his skull burned. Both father and daughter fused into a single mass of charred flesh, their forms inseparable.
The Beggar's Curse
In an alley, a beggar raised his stump of a hand.
"Monster! Curse you!"
His eyes boiled in their sockets before he could finish. Steam hissed from his mouth as his skull collapsed inward. His body jerked once, then splattered into a puddle of half-cooked organs.
The General's Stand
General Caelis tried to rally boys barely old enough to wield swords.
"Stand for—"
Aezreal lifted his scythe.
The blood of their comrades rose from the corpses below, twisting into spikes that shot upward. Dozens of boys were skewered at once, their shrieks harmonizing into a high-pitched wail. Some lived long enough to twitch, impaled like grotesque banners.
Caelis dropped his sword and fell to his knees. "Forgive me…"
Nyx descended. The general vanished under a tide of black flame, leaving only fused bone and armor.
The Merchant's Gold
A merchant stuffed coins into sacks with frantic hands, screaming at his slaves to move faster.
When the wave of blood surged through the street, it swept gold and flesh alike. The coins seared into his skin, fusing with flesh as molten metal. His screams choked off when his lungs filled with boiling gold.
The Princess's Prayer
Beneath the collapsing palace, Princess Lysandra knelt at the altar.
"Save us, great heavens—"
The doors blasted inward. Aezreal entered, his steps quiet despite the world's ruin.
"There are no heavens."
Chains of blood erupted from the altar itself, wrapping her body and tearing her limbs apart one by one. Her jaw unhinged in a silent scream as her torso was nailed to the very altar she prayed to. Her eyes—still wet with faith—dried into black pits before life left her.
The Orphan's Hunger
A starving boy clutched a crust of bread. When Nyx's fire swept the slums, his body burst open like rotten fruit, intestines uncoiling across the cobbles. His little hand, still gripping bread, twitched once before crumbling to ash.
The Council's Cowards
Ministers cowered in the throne hall. One gouged his own eyes out, shrieking about shadows. Another tore off his robes, clawing at invisible insects.
The scythe's aura alone ruptured their organs. They vomited black blood, their bellies swelling until they split open, spraying gore across the marble floor.
The Child Soldier
A boy of thirteen ran at Aezreal with a broken spear.
The scythe whispered.
The boy's torso peeled apart from sternum to groin, skin curling back like petals of a grotesque flower. His heart pulsed once in the open air before it was devoured by the blood mist.
The Emperor's End
The Emperor still sat on his throne, though his body sagged, sweat and blood pooling beneath him.
"You… you are no man."
Aezreal's eyes glowed crimson. "I never was."
The scythe fell. His head split, not in one clean cut, but in five jagged strokes, each carving deeper until the crown itself melted into the gore of his skull.
The Sword Awakens
[Ding!]
Sign-In Location: Radiant Empire — Imperial Throne
Reward Acquired: Primordial Dragon Sword Intent — Monarch of Blades
Grade: Omnipotent (Lineage-Exclusive)
The heavens convulsed.
Dragons roared beyond the void. Blood erupted upward, coalescing into thousands of blades, each dripping gore. The very rivers ran upward, forming a crimson armory above the ruins.
The sound was unbearable—a screeching chorus of steel on bone, of blood sizzling against fire. Survivors clutched their ears, but their heads still split open under the pressure.
From the rubble, a single girl—the farmer's daughter, her body half-burned but miraculously alive—peeked out from beneath her father's corpse. She saw the sky filled with swords, every blade drinking blood.
"Papa… the devil… has a sword…"
Her words were swallowed by a collapsing tower, crushing her to paste.
The palace crumbled into nothingness.
Nyx lowered her head, her voice vibrating through Aezreal's soul:
"Demon's Scythe. Dragon's Sword. Two dooms, one throne."
Aezreal raised his gaze, crimson eyes cold and merciless.
"Not two thrones. One kingdom. Mine."
The Radiant Empire was annihilated. No stone, no bone, no prayer survived. Only ash, rivers of gore, and the will of the new sovereign of slaughter.