Six years ago, Hex Nocturne lost his universe.
It was not the destruction of a planet, nor the fall of a kingdom, nor the outcome of a war. Those were events that time might eventually forgive, or at least allow one to bury in the recesses of memory. What Hex lost was far more personal. Far more absolute. He lost everything that made him human, everything that anchored him to a life that had once been simple, beautiful, and worth fighting for. In a single night, the universe he knew—the one filled with love, laughter, and fragile hope—was obliterated.
Rain poured in thick sheets that night, like broken glass falling from the sky. The streets were empty, silent except for the occasional roar of wind through the skeletal remains of the city. Hex walked through the storm, his boots soaked in mud, water, and something darker—something that smelled of iron and death. Even before he reached the edge of what used to be his home, an instinctive dread coiled in his chest, tight and unyielding. Years of battle had honed his senses into near-perfection. His body, honed by years of training and countless missions, told him one thing immediately: something was horribly wrong.
The front door hung crooked on a single rusted hinge. Deep cracks ran along the walls, their surfaces slick with rain and grime. Smoke still lingered faintly in the air, carrying the acrid tang of fire. And the smell of blood—too much blood—pushed itself past Hex's defenses. His stomach churned violently, but he did not falter. He could not falter.
Hex had returned from a mission, one that had spanned several worlds, several weeks, and countless nights of bloodshed. The memory of it was etched into his bones: the screams of enemies cut down, the screams of innocents he had sworn to protect but could not reach in time, the endless grind of survival, and the near-constant presence of death. Yet nothing—no mission, no war, no battle—had prepared him for what he would find tonight.
He had expected laughter, warmth, the smell of cooking, the soft pitter-patter of little feet chasing him through the halls. He had expected life.
Instead, he found death.
L–Luna?
The name barely left his lips, and it was swallowed by the silence. No answer came. No soft voice, no hurried steps, no life stirring in the familiar house. Only silence.
Hex stepped inside. The familiar threshold of his home had become a doorway to hell. Furniture lay smashed across the floor, splintered wood and shards of glass glinting in the dim, flickering light. Family pictures had been ripped from the walls, their frames shattered. Paintings and photographs, memories of laughter and birthdays, of sunlit mornings and sleepy nights, all lay trampled, unrecognizable and worthless. The wooden floor beneath him was sticky and slick, soaked in blood. Too much blood. Every instinct, every fiber of his being screamed at him to stop, to turn back, to escape the horror, but Hex moved forward. He could not turn back.
And then he saw her.
Luna Nocturne. His wife. The woman whose smile had once lit up his world brighter than the twin suns of the Arcane Realm. She lay against the far wall, broken, twisted, and silent. Her eyes stared forward, wide open, yet empty, void of the warmth that had always defined her. Her hair, once meticulously cared for, now clung to her face in sticky, matted strands. One arm reached feebly toward the hallway, fingers curled, as if she had tried to crawl, tried to fight, tried to protect someone she could no longer save. Hex froze, his chest tightening, a scream building in his throat that refused to leave.
"…No."
The word was weak, frail, and yet heavy with the weight of worlds. He fell to his knees beside her, feeling a cold, alien emptiness creep through his soul. His hands reached for her face, trembling, but she did not respond. Cold skin met his fingertips. No warmth. No pulse. Only stillness.
And then he saw them.
His daughters. Both of them.
They lay near the edge of the room, small shapes in a sea of red, twisted beyond recognition. The innocence of childhood, the fragility of life, shattered into something unrecognizable. Hex's stomach twisted violently. He could not scream, could not cry, could not even think. His mind shut down under the sheer weight of what had been done. The world fell silent. All of his years, all of his battles, all of his survival meant nothing.
And then—a sound.
Weak. Faint. Shaky.
"…D-Daddy…?"
Hex's head snapped toward the end of the hallway. There, against the wall, slumped his son. Barely alive. Blood soaked his small body, dark and sticky, dripping to the floor with every shallow, broken breath. His hands trembled as he tried to hold on, trying to fight for life against odds that were insurmountable.
Hex didn't think. He didn't hesitate. He didn't hesitate for a single second. He crossed the distance in a heartbeat and lifted the boy into his arms, pressing his hands firmly against the wounds, willing life to return to him. "Stay with me," he whispered, his voice hoarse, cracking under the strain of grief. "Please… stay with me."
The boy's eyes tried to focus. Faint, flickering, but alive. "Why… Daddy…? Why… why did they… do this…?"
Hex's lips moved, but no words came. How could there be words for this? How could there be explanation for a nightmare of this magnitude? Only tears welled in his eyes, sliding down unheeded. He whispered again, more to himself than anyone else: "I… I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you had to see this…"
The boy coughed violently, blood staining his lips and chin. "…I tried… to be strong…" he murmured.
Hex broke. All restraint shattered. He held the boy to his chest, his own tears soaking into the small frame in his arms. "I know," he said, voice trembling, raw. "I know you did. You were brave. You were perfect."
A weak smile flickered across the boy's face, barely there, but enough to pierce Hex's soul. "Am I… going to see Mommy… and my sisters…?" he asked, voice small and fragile.
Hex's chest constricted. He could not answer. The words would have been lies, and he could not lie to a child, not now, not ever. He could only hold him closer as the life within the boy faded like a candle in the wind. "I'm here," he whispered. "I'm right here."
"Please… don't be lonely…"
And then, the last breath left him.
Hex felt it, a vacuum where love had lived. The boy's small body went limp against his chest, and the world itself seemed to shatter. A scream erupted from Hex—not from his mouth, but from the core of his soul, from the very essence of being. The raw, incomprehensible grief surged outward, twisting reality. Walls cracked, windows shattered, the roof collapsed. Energy flowed from Hex in waves like a dying star, tearing the house apart from within, hurling debris outward as if the world itself rejected the atrocity committed. Rain poured down, mixing with blood, and the wreckage of his life lay strewn across the shattered floorboards.
When the storm of grief and power subsided, Hex Nocturne stood alone among ruins, drenched, covered in blood, and utterly hollow. The remnants of his home, the place that had been filled with laughter, love, and life, were gone. Everything he had ever cared for, everything that had given him purpose, had been obliterated in a single night.
Hex lifted his head to the sky, rain streaming down his face, mingling with blood and tears. "I don't care who you are," he said quietly, voice low and steady, carrying the weight of death itself. "I don't care how many of you there are. I don't care what gods protect you." His eyes burned with a cold, white-hot fury, eyes that had seen and endured too much, eyes that had been forged in grief and sharpened in pain.
"I will find you," he continued, voice rising, echoing into the storm. "And I will kill every single one of you."
And then, the first spark of Aetherion awakened within him.
Invisible, primal, raw. Aetherion surged from his body like molten stars, bending the fabric of reality itself. Rain hissed as it met the growing aura of energy, wind swirled violently, and the shattered house trembled under the force of a power older than worlds, older than life itself. Hex felt it—the energy that had always been within him, now unleashed in the wake of grief so deep it could no longer be contained.
Aetherion, the primal current of existence, responded to his will. The force that bound all things, that tied elements, matter, and life to the very essence of the soul, flowed through him unchecked. He could feel the potential, the raw, infinite power that had always been waiting, dormant, within him. Stars, darkness, time, solar radiance, lunar force—everything resonated, everything obeyed.
And Hex's soul burned.
A silent vow formed in that chaos: he would hunt them, every last one. He would tear through universes, hunt through time, tear apart worlds, and obliterate anyone or anything responsible for this night of horror. Nothing would stop him. No army, no god, no monster, no universe.
"I will find you," he whispered again, quieter now, almost reverently, "and I will make you feel the void you have left inside me."
And so, Hex Nocturne rose from the ruins of his life. Not as a man. Not as a husband. Not as a father. But as something far more terrifying: a force of vengeance incarnate, a being whose grief had been forged into power beyond comprehension, whose will had become absolute, whose hatred had become a weapon of cosmic proportions.
The universe had died for Hex Nocturne that night. And in its place, something far deadlier had been born.