Ascension of the Dark Seraph

Seth and Loki exchanged glances.

Neither were expecting Lucivar to wake up so soon, or at all, for that matter, at least until he was allowed to.

But he was now standing.

Once his back was straight like an arrow, he turned to look at Seth, and then Loki, shooting them a dark, peculiar gaze that hinted at something deeper. One corner of his lips curled a little before he turned to the restrained Sunna and approached her.

Sunna looked down at him, confusion clearly etched on every part of her face.

"More… What do you mean more?"

"I meant there's more than them inside me,"

He leaned forward to whisper.

"More Gods."

"Five Gods…?"

"Oh, you're informed. I must be someone special, then."

Almost instantly, Sunna's eyes darted back at Loki and Seth—her mouth opening and closing, but not a single word came out. It ran deeper than she thought. All of this. But now she managed to scratch the surface, "The Oracle, he's the Oracle, isn't he?"

Neither Loki nor Seth answers.

But their silence was answer enough for Sunna.

"So, before whatever next is going to happen, what do you know about Karma?" Lucivar asked.

He didn't care about anything other than Karma.

It was his ultimate goal.

"Karma? Why do you want to-"

Before she could even finish her question, a branch from the tree curled and covered her mouth.

Loki's cane was glowing, showing that it was his doing.

Seeing this, Lucivar nodded incredulously—he could feel anger climbing up from the deepest part of him to his head, causing fire to burn within his skull. Blocking him from getting information about what he wanted the most is unforgivable.

Not after how he brought triumph to Loki.

"Rrgghh…!"

Just as he was about to snap, a sharp throb tore through his mind, forcing him to clutch his head.

He tried to fight the pain, but it only grew more intense by the second.

"She awakened, all because of your own two hands," Loki's voice rang, looking at Lucivar crumpling to his knees with a slight amusement. "You could be awake right now because of her, but that doesn't mean she'd disagree with me. If you want to know more about Karma, it must be through us."

"And gain only biased information?!" Lucivar roared, his eyes bulged with fire. "Arghkk!"

As soon as he said that, the pain grew more intense.

So bad that he curled up on the ground while clutching his head as if it was about to explode.

From the entrance, a head could be seen peeking inside.

Ravenna.

Despite every single one of them being knocked unconscious, even erased from the collapsing reality, an unknown energy covered her entire body and helped her retain her consciousness. She passed out for a moment earlier, but she woke up.

She peeked inside and saw three extreme beings beyond her comprehension.

Throughout her entire life, she has never seen anyone close to the aura of these three entities.

All of them seemed to be talking; she couldn't hear them properly, and at the center was Lucivar.

He was on the ground, seemingly in immense pain.

'I knew that something was different about him, but this? Are they Gods…?' She thought inwardly.

An Angel Hybrid would never be able to do the evil Lucivar did.

But she wasn't surprised.

Upon reaching the Chrysalis rank, she too experienced the Snippet of Bloodline—the glimpse of power that Surpanakha possessed. She had no idea about who Surpanakha was but in that snippet, she saw countless powerful beings.

All of them looked like Gods.

'I should talk with Lucivar once he gets out of this,' Ravenna thought firmly as she watched Lucivar toss and turn on the ground, watched by the three Gods surrounding him. 'He must get out of this. Nothing can stop him, I believe in him.'

For who knows how long, the pain persisted.

Lucivar drooled, whimpered, cried—right in front of the overlooking Gods.

All three of them ignored him, even talking over him.

He didn't know what was discussed, his ears were ringing, and the pain occupied his mind.

But vaguely, he could see them engaging in a war of tongues.

Sunna seemed desperate, while Loki and Sutekh remained as composed as they had been earlier.

Once the pain faded, he breathed easily for a few much-needed seconds, face pressed against the ground.

Slowly but gradually, the ringing sound in his ears disappeared.

He could now hear his own heavy and loud breaths.

Blinking his eyes a couple of times, his mind snapped back to reality, and once it did, his eyes that were once brimming and full of malice had now dulled. Something changed about him, but the change wasn't visible to the eyes, something inside of him.

He pushed himself off the ground and gave his head a hard shake, shaking off the residual pain.

Lucivar climbed to his feet, struggling.

Rough and forceful pant escaped his lips as he fixed his gaze ahead, at anything but the three Gods.

Loki tilted his head.

"Have you come to your senses now?"

Instead of answering, Lucivar only glanced at him before turning to Sunna.

He walked over to her.

Unlike earlier, she was now unresponsive, almost as if hope had been robbed from her completely.

"Tell me anything about Karma," He demanded.

Hearing this, Loki sighed heavily, not expecting Lucivar to be this stubborn.

But before he could stop the conversation, Lucivar raised three fingers.

"Three words," He declared. "Tell me anything about Karma with three words."

Sunna glanced at Lucivar before she turned to Loki, almost as if she was asking permission to answer.

Seeing this, Lucivar glanced over his shoulder.

"Doesn't a riddle sound exciting? She'll tell me three words about karma to give me hints, true… hints, that way, I will have a chance to hasten my process to reach Karma, while you can have the satisfaction of watching me try," He proposed, offering a middle ground. "What do you say?"

Seth crossed his arms and glanced at Loki, "Don't take it."

On the other hand, Loki maintained eye contact with Lucivar.

Both of them remained silent, keeping the tension sky-high, until Loki finally smiled.

"Two words. She can tell you two words."

"Deal."

Lucivar smirked and turned to Sunna again.

For a moment, Sunna contemplated before she finally got the right words to tell.

"Twin Scales." She whispered.

Almost immediately, Lucivar branded those words into his mind so that he wouldn't forget them.

"Twin Scales…" He repeated before he smiled. "Nice meeting you, Sunna, and goodbye."

Lucivar stepped to the side.

Once he did, Loki and Seth turned their gaze back to Sunna.

Neither of them wasted any time making their final move.

In an instant, the tree she was in right now began to swell rapidly—their trunks thickening unnaturally, groaning as they contorted and closed in. Bark split and twisted with violent purpose, enclosing her in a prison of a great tree.

From below, the red sand surged upward, wrapping around the tightening bark like a noose.

It strangled the space she stood in the great tree.

All of her brilliant sunlight was devoured, draining her divine radiance with a hissing thirst.

Seconds later, her sunlight was gone.

Then came the twist—deep from the roots, a brutal torque wrenched through the trunk, and with it, her body twisted grotesquely. A scream, divinely but piercing, tore from her throat before it was cut short in no more than five seconds.

Her form shattered, splintering countless fragments of light.

Each one fluttering weakly before vanishing into the wind.

Lucivar expected a catastrophic phenomenon, but Sunna's death—It was rather peaceful and swift.

"Is it done? Will she still be a problem to us?" He asked.

"No," Loki shook his head. "She will come back eventually. Killing a Goddess permanently is not as simple as stabbing a knife to the heart. But no—she will not be a problem to us. Don't worry about her. You have more important things to worry."

Before Loki and Seth reverted the world back to normal, Lucivar approached them.

His steps were light, but they were strong and certain.

Stopping directly in front of them, Lucivar raised his gaze, looking at them profoundly.

"I… I apologize for what I did earlier," He suddenly said, catching Seth and Loki off guard. "Both of you were the ones who granted me power, so I should be thankful. If I want to reach my goal, at least, I should do it your way. I understand it now."

Lucivar paused for a good moment, letting his words sink in.

Then, he continued.

"But you should know, I really hate being in the dark. It made me feel out of control, untidy."

Upon hearing this, Loki scoffed.

His body shimmered with a splash of emerald energy before shifting into a wing.

Its wings sliced the air as it soared away.

Beside him, Seth stiffened and turned into a statue of sand.

Then, his form sank soundlessly into the ground until not a trace remained.

Lucivar remained standing on his spot once the Gods were gone, back straight and shoulders rigid, the space around him unnaturally still. It was as if the world itself recoiled, leaving him suspended in the silence that was too vast to touch.

Nothing remained but the distant echoes of what had just transpired.

Even as reality healed back to normal, he didn't move a muscle.

Though his expression was unreadable, something shimmered beneath the surface.

Lucivar clenched his fists hard as he waited for reality to return to normal.

…

He walked out of the park.

Lucivar saw that the others were still knocked out, and that made him sigh in relief.

At least, he wouldn't need to confront them instantly after what happened.

Once he was outside, he took a deep breath.

Everything had finally gone back to normal now.

He was sure because he could now hear the sound of people and see Hybrids in the sky.

All of them were still confused as to what had happened to the purple dungeon.

But they would investigate, and Lucivar needed to get out of this area as soon as possible.

Glancing to the side, he saw that Ravenna was sitting against the wall, right beside the entrance.

She was conscious, perhaps already conscious for quite some time now, which surprised Lucivar.

Regardless, he needed to finish one last thing first.

Lucivar walked to a corpse lying not too far away from the park's entrance, in the middle of the street, with Bakar lying beside it. Nerissa. He stood beside the corpse and looked down, finding that Nerissa had died with a smile on her face.

Saving him from Caldaros made her the happiest person before death.

But she wasn't meant to die right now.

"Revive her," Lucivar muttered aloud. "I know you're already awakened, and I know you hold Nerissa dear, so revive her. Oh, revive her, but don't change anything about her. I don't know who you are exactly, but your title says it all."

"Do you hear me, Tiamat…?"