[The Duke's Mansion The Underground Hall]
"Make sure no one leaves alive."
Eighteen year old Zion's dual layered command echoed with the freezing finality of an executioner's block. The elite Imperial Knights instantly drew their heavy broadswords, the lethal metallic schwing ringing out through the blood-stained basement.
Duke Alistair Valerius scrambled backward in pure terror, his own broadsword trembling in his sweaty grip. "W…What is the meaning of this, Crown Prince Zion?! Why are you and the Imperial Knights invading my private, sovereign estate?!"
Zion slowly stepped forward, his heavy boots crunching loudly against the frozen, shattered bodies of the Southern Knights Seraphina had already dismantled. His glowing, demonic crimson eyes locked onto the terrified Duke.
"Did you honestly expect me to be somewhere else, Duke of the South?" Zion's voice was completely dead, devoid of any human empathy or hesitation. "Did you arrogantly think I would stay comfortably in the Capital while you tortured my wife?"
Zion raised his massive, pitch black blade, prepared to decapitate Alistair right there on the stone floor.
"Stop."
The massive, cosmic voice suddenly echoed directly inside Zion's mind once again. It was the command of the Original God, though Zion still assumed it was simply a hidden ancestral spirit or Arthur's highly advanced telepathic spy magic.
"First, take immediate care of Lyra and her unborn twins. Her fragile core is destabilizing."
Zion flawlessly dropped his lethal combat stance. He snapped his head toward the glowing holy barrier where seventeen-year-old Lyra was resting.
The terrified High Priest rushed frantically toward Zion, dropping heavily to his knees in the blood. "Please forgive my rudeness, Your Highness! But we need immediate help with Crown Princess Lyra!"
Zion sprinted across the room, ignoring the Duke, and threw himself to the floor beside his young wife. The magnificent, divine golden light that had shielded her in the crypt was flickering, turning pale, weak, and dangerous.
"Lyra!" Zion gasped, grabbing her freezing hand. Her skin was terrifyingly cold.
"Zion..." Lyra whispered, her deep, beautiful blue eyes struggling desperately to stay open. "They... they lied about my mother... I'm so sorry..."
Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed into his arms, unconscious.
"Heal her! Now!" Zion roared at the trembling priests, his chaotic Three Aditya mana flaring so intensely it cracked the reinforced stone ceiling.
The desperate group of High Priests quickly surrounded Lyra in a circle. They raised their glowing staves, channeling their highest tier Divine Holy Magic directly into her pale chest. The warm, usually flawless green healing light washed heavily over her skin.
But it wasn't working.
The advanced healing magic bounced off her body like water hitting solid glass. The priests poured significantly more mana into the spell, sweating profusely in sheer panic, but Lyra's breathing remained terrifyingly shallow.
"My Lord," Duke Alistair sneered from across the room, fatally misreading the room's terrifying atmosphere. He arrogantly thought he had finally won. "The holy magic is aggressively rejecting her! I think the little half breed must already be dead...!"
Before Alistair could finish his venomous sentence, three distinct sets of monstrous killing intent slammed into him simultaneously.
Eighteen year old Zion, twenty year old Seraphina, and twenty one year old Seris all turned their heads to look directly at the Duke at the exact same time. The combined, apocalyptic pressure of the Budla Aditya Ice, the Jeal Wind Fire, and the chaotic Three Aditya Darkness was so crushing that Duke Alistair was physically forced face-first into the hard stone floor, unable to draw a single breath.
"Why her?!" nineteen year old Elena Valerius suddenly screamed, stepping out from the shadows and pointing a trembling, jealous finger at the unconscious Lyra. "Why does she automatically get absolutely everything?!"
Elena's mind was breaking under the weight of her lifelong jealousy. She had always hated Lyra, hated her beautiful, shimmering silver hair, her cute, flawless face, and her unfailingly gentle nature. Elena had been raised in spoiled luxury, yet Zion, the most powerful Prince in the Empire, had unapologetically ignored her to marry the 'filthy half-breed' from the dungeons. It drove Elena venomously insane.
Jealousy is a poison that only destroys the vessel holding it; it demands you burn down your own kingdom just to make sure someone else doesn't get a throne.
Zion didn't even dignify Elena with a single response.
"Seraphina," Zion commanded coldly, his dead eyes never leaving Lyra's pale face. "Capture Elena Valerius, Duke Alistair's younger sister Cassandra, and her daughter Vanya. Throw them into the deepest, darkest, most frozen dungeon in this estate. Leave the Duke completely to me."
"With pleasure," Seraphina replied, her terrifying ice magic wrapping like frozen chains around the screaming women and dragging them into the dark corridors.
Zion turned frantically back to the High Priests. "Why isn't the healing magic working?! Her back is still bleeding!"
"I... I don't understand it, Your Highness!" the High Priest panicked, his hands visibly shaking as his magic repeatedly bounced off her. "Her physical body is desperately trying to accept the healing, but her mana core is violently sealed shut! The Triple-Attribute mana of the unborn twins is so overwhelmingly dense that it is acting like an impenetrable shield! It is aggressively blocking our foreign magic from entering her system to repair her internal pathways!"
Zion gritted his teeth until they ached. If normal divine magic couldn't physically penetrate the babies' protective shield, her core would slowly suffocate, and she would die right in his arms.
Suddenly, a deeply hidden, ancient memory surfaced in Zion's frantic mind.
It was an ancient legend he had read in the deepest, most restricted archives of the Imperial Library. A story from a hundred years before the Great War.
[The Legend of the Paradox]
Long ago, the Goddess of Healing a mortal who had miraculously ascended to divinity suddenly collapsed, her divine core rejecting the ambient mana of the world. All the greatest priests and clerics of the continent desperately tried to heal her, but her absolute, blinding purity violently blocked their lesser magic.
The only one left in the world was the King of Shadows, a terrifying warlord who commanded pure, apocalyptic Darkness. Darkness and Healing Light were absolute cosmic opposites; they were mathematically meant to destroy each other upon contact.
But the King of Shadows did not use his terrifying power to fight. He knelt beside the dying Goddess. He didn't use a healing spell. Instead, he forced his pure, absolute Darkness directly into her core. He didn't heal her physical body he used his dark gravity to stabilize the violent, chaotic fluctuations of her light.
He didn't save her because of 'Healing Magic.' He saved her because of the absolute, unconditional power of love.
At that exact time, the previous God of Time and Space (Akaasha) had watched the miracle unfold from the heavens and permanently wrote a single prophecy in the stars: "Light and Darkness do not destroy each other when bound by a true soul. They complete the circle."
[Present]
Zion looked down at his own trembling, scarred hands. He was the literal reincarnation of that terrifying shadow. He possessed absolute, unadulterated Darkness.
"Move," Zion ordered the priests, pushing them aside gently but firmly.
"Your Highness, wait!" the High Priest warned frantically, completely horrified. "Your mana is pure destruction! If you violently push your dark aura into a fragile, pregnant Light core, it will cause a catastrophic mana explosion! You will incinerate her from the inside out!"
"No, I won't," Zion whispered, his glowing crimson eyes softening entirely as he looked down at Lyra's pale, beautiful face. "We complete the circle."
True salvation does not come from finding a light bright enough to blind the darkness; it comes from finding a darkness gentle enough to safely hold the light.
Zion gently, carefully placed both of his hands directly over Lyra's stomach.
He didn't summon red lightning or chaotic destruction. He closed his eyes, digging into the deepest, most primal depths of his Three Aditya core.
A pulse of completely pure, immensely heavy, jet-black mana flowed steadily from Zion's palms directly into Lyra's fragile body.
The High Priests gasped, backing away in sheer terror, expecting Lyra to instantly explode into dust.
But it was impossible.
The unborn twins' Triple Attribute shield, which had violently rejected the priests' foreign healing magic, didn't block Zion for a single second. The babies instantly recognized their father's mana. The heavy, dark gravity flowed seamlessly into Lyra's shattered pathways, wrapping entirely around the babies' overwhelming light, perfectly stabilizing the internal pressure, and acting as a flawless cast for her broken core.
Suddenly, the pitch black mana in Zion's hands shifted, sparking with a faint, impossible trace of golden Divine Light.
The High Priest's jaw dropped to the floor. "It is mathematically impossible... How can a mortal possess the ultimate destructive Darkness and a trace of Divine Light at the exact same time?!"
It was the ultimate, universe-breaking paradox. The King of Shadows holding the Goddess of Healing.
Zion poured every single ounce of his soul into the spell, his own body trembling violently from the sheer, agonizing effort of perfectly balancing the heavy gravity inside her fragile chest.
I am here, Lyra, Zion thought, holding her tightly as the golden black mana began to meticulously mend her internal wounds. I won't let you go. Please... wake up.