The stars stretched endlessly before him, a tapestry of light and darkness, worlds untouched and worlds broken. Lucien moved through them as a shadow and a storm combined — the Sole Exception, carrying the weight of the White and the power of the Outer God in a body honed by centuries of death and survival.
He felt it immediately: each world reacted to his presence. Even the smallest planets trembled at the touch of his aura, the delicate balance of life and gravity straining beneath his existence. The universe itself seemed to whisper, warning, bending, acknowledging that something ancient and unstoppable had arrived.
Lucien's pale eyes scanned the horizon of a dying sun. There, beyond the remnants of its planets, he sensed movement — the faint ripple of an Outer God hiding in the void, a predator waiting, arrogant in its strength. His lips curved in the barest smirk. "You've been waiting, then," he murmured. "Let's not waste time."
Even in solitude, his mind lingered on home. Selene, seated beside a warm fire, laughing as Arios stumbled through his first real attempts at controlling the White's spark within him. That laughter, that warmth, grounded him even as he drifted farther from the worlds he had saved. It reminded him why he endured, why he carried more than just power — responsibility, love, legacy.
And yet, the path of one demanded sacrifice. Each step through the cosmos was deliberate, every strike measured, every movement precise. He encountered armies of twisted beings, constructs of Outer God influence, and scattered remnants of void-corrupted civilizations. Each clash was a symphony of power — reality bending, gravity twisting, the very elements warping to meet his intent.
But Lucien did not linger. Each fight honed him further, pushed him beyond limits even the White had never tested. Pain, destruction, survival — each was a lesson, recorded in the Martial God System that now pulsed through every nerve, every muscle. His body adapted, evolved, mastered techniques not even gods had anticipated.
And always, at the edge of his mind, Selene's hand and Arios' small smile kept him tethered. Not as a weakness, but as a reason to remain whole. Even as he moved through death and desolation, their presence whispered: he fights for them, not himself.
He stopped briefly on a shattered moon, looking at the horizon as it cracked under gravitational stress. The Outer God's aura flared ahead, massive, terrible, and confident. Lucien's aura rose in response — the pale light of the White weaving with the raw energy of a slain deity, coalescing into something no mortal, no god, had ever seen before.
The silence stretched, pregnant with inevitability. Then, finally, Lucien's voice broke the void.
"I've come for you. Show me everything you're hiding."
And with that, the Sole Exception leaped forward, the cosmos bending around him, the promise of his legend written in every collision, every step, every strike yet to come.
Even alone, even against beings older than stars, he was not afraid.
Because he carried more than power. He carried home.