Ancestral Lineage

"You dare!"

The voice rolled like thunder across the seabed, so furious it sent whole reefs trembling and whales fleeing into the black. The ocean itself bent under its weight, the currents lashing violently, churning the battlefield into a storm of foam and shattered coral.

"Oh, so you decided to grace me with your presence, big sister?" Kraken's voice oozed with malice, every syllable heavy enough to crush the hearts of those still clinging to life. The venom in her tone manifested in reality: a fleeing merman's body ruptured mid-swim, torn into a cloud of flesh and blood.

The water went still for a heartbeat.

Then Leviathan appeared.

She hovered high above the ruined city, her presence pressing down like a tidal wave. Her hair, long and blue, billowed as if alive, strands curling into streams of liquid light. A sheer veil hid most of her face, but it could not conceal the regal weight of her form, nor the suffocating authority in her aura. With a single sweep of her hand, a vast blue dome of transparent force unfurled over the city, holding back the ocean's wrath and shielding what little remained.

"You caused this yourself, Kraken!" Leviathan's voice carried across the waters, sharp yet laced with sorrow.

"AND YOU CAST ME INTO HELL, LEVIATHAN!"

The words tore through the sea like blades. The water shivered, screamed — and then exploded outward as Kraken rose. Her scream twisted into a sonic wave so violent it cracked Leviathan's dome with thunderous fractures. For the first time, Leviathan's eyes widened behind the veil.

'How?' The thought trembled in her mind. Kraken's strength should not have grown this far…

Her sister's colossal body breached the waves. Tentacles thicker than ships coiled beneath her, each writhing with restrained fury. Her golden eyes burned like suns through the darkness. Even rising slowly, she displaced enough water to summon tsunamis that battered the coastline. Her horns gleamed, jagged and alien, crowning her monstrous form.

"Was it because of my tentacles?!" Kraken's voice cracked, tearing through the depths.Her body pulsed with rage, each word echoing like thunder."Was it because of my golden eyes?! Because of my horns?! Because Mother died the day I was born?! Just TELL ME, sister! Tell me where I went wrong!"

The sea itself buckled under her scream. Cities quaked. Leviathan, regal and unflinching for centuries, found herself shouting in desperation:

"Kraken, please! STOP THIS!"

A sonic wave burst from her lips, equal in force, colliding with Kraken's. The clash tore the water apart, pushing Kraken back several miles, her tentacles carving deep trenches into the ocean floor as she braced herself.

Silence fell for a moment, broken only by the groan of crumbling ruins and the fearful prayers of the Merfolk trapped under the dome.

And then Kraken laughed — low, bitter, broken.

"So in the end, you're still a coward." Her massive golden eyes narrowed, shimmering with a pain older than words. "All I ever wanted… was to know why you hated me so much. Why you cursed me just for existing. But it seems I will never know the truth."

Her eyes glowed, blazing like suns before she flickered out of sight, plunging back into the abyssal depths. The sea groaned at her departure, leaving only devastation, silence, and guilt in her wake.

Leviathan remained suspended above the dome, her veil masking her expression, but her aura betrayed her. It wavered, unstable, heavy with anguish.

'I didn't mean to…' The thought burned inside her chest, twisting her heart. Tears threatened but never fell. She knew the truth: Kraken had never wronged them. She had only been born, and for that sin, they all had condemned her.

The Merfolk below dared not speak, but every gaze was the same: guilt, shame, fear. They had all played a part in birthing this tragedy.

And in the shadows of the waves, a pair of deep silvery-blue eyes glowed faintly. Watching. Patient. Amused.

'Hehe… The King will love this news.'

The voice slithered away with the currents, carrying whispers of war.

...

Oblivious to what was unfolding in Old Gassendi or the Beast Plane, Ethan was locked in a battle of his own. He sat in a meditative stance within the heart of a colossal volcano, surrounded by a roaring ocean of violet lava — the kind so rare and potent it was said to burn through divine essence itself. Each ripple of molten fire carried with it an oppressive weight, pressing against his flesh and soul, testing his resolve. The air shimmered with unbearable heat, but none of it touched him; instead, it seemed to bend, swirling violently around the sphere of energy he unconsciously radiated.

"Honey, you need to relax." Barki's voice rang softly, cutting through the volcanic roar like a gentle song. She stood on the obsidian platform behind him, her fiery orange hair spilling loosely down her shoulders and back, dampened slightly by sweat from the suffocating heat. Her orange eyes flickered with deep concern as she watched Ethan's trembling form. "I know you feel tension. I know the anger festers. But if you want to be successful, if you want to move forward, you must still your heart. A calm mind will take you further than fury ever could."

Ethan exhaled slowly, a deep sigh that carried both weariness and defiance. "Sigh! I know but…" His voice faltered, as if the weight of the truth crushed the words in his throat. His fists trembled atop his knees, the scarlet strands of his hair already beginning to rise, carried upward by the surge of power coursing through him.

"Honey," Barki stepped closer, kneeling so her gaze was level with his. Her claws brushed against his arm, grounding him. Her expression softened, though pain still etched her features. "You can never bring them back. That is the harsh truth. You know it, as I do. The most you can do now is pray… pray their spirits rest in peace. Carry their memory with strength, not despair."

The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the bubbling churn of the violet lava. Then Ethan's eyes snapped open, and within them burned the fire of unshakable resolve.

"Thank you," he whispered, though his tone carried steel. "I am ready."

In that moment, his body became a beacon. His crimson hair flared upward, strands whipping like a burning banner. The silvery and golden streaks he had hidden all this time emerged, gleaming with brilliance, as though stars themselves had been woven into his mane. His crystalline horns pulsed and then glowed with a radiant white, shards of light scattering like shattered glass across the volcanic chamber.

His eyes shifted — no longer mere eyes, but twin orbs of blinding, celestial white. Between them, on his forehead, the third eye tore itself open with an audible hum, glowing with the calm yet terrifying light of his Psyche-Eye, a deep, unfathomable blue that pierced through both matter and spirit.

The volcano shuddered as his aura surged. Then, with the snap of a thousand phantom feathers, the last of his hidden features manifested. Behind him unfurled a pair of wings — not flesh, not bone, but energy incarnate. They shimmered with hues of sapphire blue, radiant gold, and pristine white, their expanse so vast that they seemed to stretch beyond the confines of the volcanic cavern. Each beat of the wings sent waves of raw force rippling outward, making the violet lava quake as though bowing to him.

Barki's expression softened at the sight, though her worry never left. She lifted her chin, her draconic aura blooming in kind — a heatwave so potent it distorted the very air. Her wings, massive and scaled, flared outward with a sound like cracking thunder, scales shimmering with molten brilliance. "Good," she said, her voice firm but laced with pride. "Just take your time. Master yourself. We will hold the front, no matter what storms rage outside. War is inevitable now. Once the culprit is caught—be they family or not—blood will answer for blood."

She took one last lingering look at him, her eyes betraying both love and dread. Then, with a single thunderous flap of her colossal wings, she vanished from the chamber, disappearing into the blazing heavens above the volcano.

Ethan, alone now, sat at the center of it all — the volcano's pulse matching his heartbeat, the lava trembling as if afraid of what he would become. His aura bled into the earth, sky, and flame, a silent promise that when he finally rose, the world itself would tremble.

...

In the middle of nowhere, where even time seemed to forget its flow, something stirred. There was no sky, no earth, no air—only a hollow silence. A ripple spread across the void, like an unseen hand brushing against still water.

From that ripple, an entity shifted. No name, no origin, no memory. It was neither light nor shadow, yet both at once. Its presence alone bent the nothingness, pulling fragments of the void into shapes that instantly collapsed again.

It did not breathe. It did not speak. But the silence grew heavier around it, as though the absence of existence recoiled from its being.

The unknown had awakened.