My legs trembled. Not out of fear but because of what I'd accomplished. What I'd lost.
The magical energy inside me snarled, rough and jagged, like threads torn from a greater loom. I had strained too far past the limits of human strength, past what this realm would allow. But it was worth it.
Because I had discovered him. The ancestor shaman.
The man who had set it all in motion; who poisoned the roots of the Great Forest, sold the fate of his own kin, drained the life of entire orc villages to reach godhood.
And I told the shaman where he had gone into hiding. To this day, I can still echo the screams from that final battle through the grove. The Angel of the Beast God, wings of feathers and light and claws of sacred iron, descended with thunder at her heels. The orc shaman, wielding ancestral rites and fury unloosed, cut through the turncoat's guard in anger only a dishonored bloodline could unleash.
Ultimately, the traitor fell not under a curse, but under a plea.
"I was chosen by heaven… you are all ants—"
He never had a chance to complete.
His soul was devoured.
And in that instant, I felt it. A mute system alert. A thread of fate snapping. A debt repaid.
I fell.
----
Darkness enveloped me. Not unlike being unconscious.
Like plummeting into the realm between reality. Where nothing is real, and even your thoughts reverberate without walls to reflect off of.
And then I saw them.
Two pale fuchsia eyes. Black slitted pupils like vertical emptiness.
Watching, studying and breathing.
"You helped demons."
The voice wasn't angry.
Just, curious.
It came from everywhere and nowhere, sliding past my ears and deep into the marrow of my bones.
Syrelle.
The one who taught me, shattered me and awakened me.
"Not demons," I whispered.
"Beasts. Survivors. Victims of a god's lie."
There was silence. Then a vibration. As if the smile without a mouth.
"So you feel. And that feeling is enough?"
I stared at her.
Here, my soul did not wear a veil. My aura was not hidden. I was present, bare in spirit, bare to the last memory.
"I don't owe the human race anything any more," I said. "Not after what they did to me. My name. My brothers. My past. They burned it all to ash. So no, I didn't do it for them. I did it because it felt right. Even if no god ever agreed with me."
The eyes blinked once.
And the void shifted.No longer infinite. Just… watchful.
"Then prepare."
A whisper.
"Soon you will be sent to the Dimensional Battlefield. Where your name is weighed less than your power, and your choices balance worlds."
I breathed, though there was no air.
She wasn't done.
"Make peace. Make memories. Kiss your family. Forge your terrors. Become a storm in the body of a boy. Because when you enter that place… only the people who are willing to become monsters will survive."
And then her voice softened.
Almost… nostalgic.
"Visit your grandmother. She waits. Her threads are entangled with too many dying stars."
Grandma Valestra.
My heart twitched.
"I will."
"Good."
The void pulled back. The fuchsia faded.
And then came the last whisper like a blade sliding into its sheath.
"And make your preparation, Lucifer. You'll need it to command the dead. And the living."
---
I woke up in a tent, covered in enchanted cloth, mana potions lined up beside me like quiet attendants.
The orc shaman had gone rebound to his people.
The Beast God's angel had passed on, leaving only singed feathers in the roots of the world.
I had lived.
But something had altered.
Not only in the woods.
In me, I struggled back to sitting, joints groaning, and reached for the spell-scrolls in my haversack. My hands moved of their own accord; scrawling sigils I had not practiced, lines of light and blood.
A Soul Control Device.
Made of will and law-magic.
Something I could use to brand, warp, and dominate sentient souls and eventually, the bodies that once held them. It would be my voice in the Dimensional War.
But first, my family.
Grandma Valestra. She was waiting. And I had no more time to lose.
Supremacy was no longer a dream. It was a countdown.