Ascension of the Dark Seraph

Delilah's death.

It's what kick-starts his determination to actively become evil.

Despite being treated badly by his biological family, her good presence restored his trust in the goodness of people. He had only been unlucky by being born in a broken family, one that discriminated against him, all because he was unlikely to become a Hybrid.

Perhaps in this new family of his, it will be different—things will be different.

Since he learned how to be loved and cared for from Delilah, things should go differently.

But he was wrong.

Delilah was taken away unfairly, leaving him to realize that goodness couldn't survive in this world.

He realized the darkness in this world could swallow everything other than itself.

Only the evil could fester and grow stronger.

All this time, he had blamed the world for Delilah's unfair death.

It's the reason that drove him to grow stronger as quickly as possible so that he could change the world.

Change it for the better.

Even if he couldn't achieve it in the end, or his aspiration wasn't plausible, he hoped that he would at least thrive in the world. He'd be strong enough that nothing would be able to touch him, to kill him, to cause pain to him.

But darkness caught up to him.

Evil catches up to him.

Despite his best attempt to harvest bad karma, it wasn't enough.

And in this case, Master Tobias was the ultimate evil, and his darkness was swallowing Lucivar.

Lucivar had been dancing on Master Tobias' palm all this time.

"Hahaha~!" He laughed, grasping his face like a lunatic. "HAHAHAHA~!"

His fingers dug into his face, nails dragging down his skin as he tilted his head back toward the ceiling.

A raw, unrestrained laugh tore from his throat—louder, harsher, more unhinged with every breath.

The truth had struck him like a divine joke.

All this time… he had been dancing in the palm of Master Tobias' hand. Every move, every rage, every step toward damnation was calculated, monitored, engineered. Delilah's death was nothing more than a chisel to crack his mind, body, and soul.

Even the phone was a relic meant to rot his heart with memory.

It was extremely painful to realize, but the cruelty of it, the precision—it was brilliant.

It was hilarious!

Pssh…

Emerald, bronze, and royal purple light bled from Lucivar's pores, seeping into the air like toxic vapor.

Divine energy coiled around him, hissing and writhing.

"Seraphiel was right," He thought aloud, voice tinged with madness. "I don't fucking know anything!"

Deep within the void, pain was also present.

Seraphiel's scream knifed through the darkness, a desperate, burning sound as her being crumbled.

Her radiance flared—then blackness surged over her like living tar, smothering her light. The darkness clung, ate, and tore at her being. She fought. She writhed. She screamed Lucivar's name again and again like a broken cassette, voice straining to reach him.

But her cries could no longer pierce the abyss between them.

Crack!

In the next second, her face cracked like glass beneath the relentless force.

Likewise, something was also happening within the Inner Chamber.

All three active God statues throbbed with violent power—the Divine Blood within each statue, stuck at the threshold to reach the above, the third Divine Elevation, now flooded the space above with blinding brilliance.

Nothing was stopping the sure.

Even the egg statue at the center blazed, almost as if it were attempting to stop the escalating darkness.

But its light was devoured, stolen by the three statues—its nature warped beyond recognition.

Once the golden statue was snuffed out, the chamber shook as if the world itself had flinched.

A beacon of what energy remains in it was pulled and thrown to the other two statues.

Upon impact, the dark clouds covering their forms began to fade.

Just like that, the rest of the Gods were awakened.

Just like that, the descent—no, the ascension was complete.

A new Dark Seraph was clawing its way into existence, and there's no Archangel stopping it.

Back in reality, Lucivar's hands slid down his face, nails raking deep enough to draw blood.

Red streaks painted his skin as he lowered his gaze to Master Tobias.

Even Master Tobias could be seen sweating a bit as what looked at him right now was no longer human, only a glimmer of madness burning in the shadow of something far greater. A product of his own evil, but somehow, it was more horrifying than what he anticipated.

In that moment, time fractured and sound dropped away.

For a fraction of a second, Master Tobias and the others on the second floor could only hear their breaths.

Something was coming, but none of them knew what to expect.

All of the focus was fixed on Lucivar as a whisper came to his mouth, "I'm going to kill you."

Then, the world detonated.

Kaboom!!

Lucivar's body exploded like a bomb.

A blast of divine malice erupted from within him, ripping outward in all directions.

For some unknown reason, the blast didn't strike Master Tobias and the others—but it phased through them as if it was ignoring them. However, what lies beyond wasn't shown the same mercy as the blast shattered everything.

The second floor of the mansion didn't crumble—it exploded, vanishing into a storm of shattered stone.

As the shockwave faded, it left behind a silence too heavy to bear.

Master Tobias slowly uncoiled from his twisted stance—his arms lowered from where they had shielded his head. Dust and embers drifted past his vision—but as he opened his eyes, the scene before him, the scene that greeted him, hollowed the breath from his lungs.

The second floor was entirely gone.

No walls, no roof, nothing but splintered beams jutting like broken bones.

Beyond the gaping ruin, the courtyard was stripped bare, its stone and soil peeled from the earth as if by a giant's claw. Further beyond, the fence was gone, cars flattened into scrap, people reduced to mere scorched remnants of what once was a living being.

And further still… the world itself seemed erased.

For almost a mile in every direction, houses lay gutted, buildings slumped into heaps of steel and rubble, streets swallowed in smoking craters. Power line sagged in molten arcs, their cables hissing—even the air reeked of ash and ozone.

An aftermath that felt less like a powerful blast and more like the passing of an unstoppable hurricane.

Master Tobias turned back toward the epicenter.

His pupils tightened, then blew wide in shock.

Lucivar was still standing in his spot, but his entire form was shrouded in the dust.

And what shocked Master Tobias was the glowing golden halo above his head.

Slowly, with a tilted head, Lucivar walked out of the dust as the golden halo above his head transformed, growing in size and its gold color melting visibly, revealing the dark red beneath it. His steps echoed, but there was another fluttering sound that followed.

It was then, his wings emerged.

Unlike what Master Tobias remembered, Lucivar's wings were now bigger, thicker, and stronger.

Not to mention, there are four of them instead of two.

His ascension sprouted two fresh wings, still coated and dripping with blood.

Swallowing harshly, Master Tobias took a step back and summoned his power.

Blood attribute began to seep out of his pores, covering his entire body.

Exerting the power of a Paragon-rank Hybrid, the blood attribute sharpened his fangs more, dyeing his already crimson eyes darker, and sharpening his fingernails into claws. After transforming him, it then gathered into his fingernails, making them glow.

A Chrysalis-rank Hybrid gained access to their bloodline's attribute.

For a Paragon-rank Hybrid, making a breakthrough allowed them to tap into their heritage.

As a descendant of the Valerius Supreme House, Master Tobias tapped into Dracula's heritage.

A well-known heritage throughout the land—the Blood Sovereign's Heritage.

It not only increased the physical power of the Hybrid to an extreme degree at base, and also the more blood absorbed, but it also allowed absolute mastery over blood. Shaping weapons, healing, and some even reached as far as controlling blood within others' bodies.

Such power was the real reason why the Valerius House became supreme.

But despite that, there was no change in Lucivar's face.

Bam!

In the blink of an eye, the world tilted.

A rush of wind slammed into Master Tobias's back as Lucivar's hard shoulder drove into his ribs like a battering ram. One beat of those wings, and space itself seemed to lurch—Lucivar almost blinked from existence.

One second, he was several meters away, and in the next, he was already dragging Master Tobias through the air with him.

Both of them tore across the sky, speed boiling the wind in their ears.

Underneath, the ground passed in a blur, showcasing how fast they were tearing through the sky.

But before impact, Master Tobias' eyes flared with a cold light.

His body detonated in a crimson burst, blood erupting outward in a violent wave that hurled Lucivar off him.

Lucivar shot upward, wings beating once more to descend, but Master Tobias was already moving.

His right hand swept through the air, summoning an insane amount of blood from thin air, twisting and coalescing under his command. In seconds, it forged into a massive war hammer, its liquid handle writhing before solidifying in his grip.

Once Lucivar was far enough, Master Tobias gripped the handle with both hands.

Muscles bulged as he swung the warhammer with brutal force.

The blood-forged head ripped through the air and slammed into Lucivar's side with a shaking crack.

Bam!

Master Tobias had expected the strike to send him tumbling like a ragdoll, but the impact met a strong resistance that jarred his arms to the bone. Lucivar's body was impossibly dense—the blow launching him only a dozen meters before he ploughed into the earth with enough force to carve a shallow crater.

Gritting his teeth, Master Tobias backflipped midair, landing lightly on both feet.

But the composure in his stance betrayed nothing of the storm behind his eyes.

Both eyes wide with a shock he could not mask.

Ahead of him, Lucivar climbed back to his feet, but his body seemed… wrong.

His skin rippled in slow, unnatural waves, as if something beneath the surface was pressing outward.

And the divine energy around him, the emerald, bronze, and royal purple light, coalesced in different parts of his body. Each seemed to shape something into reality, something powerful and divine, one that even made Master Tobias sweat.

Even so, a smile still bloomed on his face.

"Divine Armaments…" He muttered aloud, realizing that Lucivar had ascended to a higher power again. "He reached the third Divine Elevation."

It was clear to him now that Lucivar had broken free from the shackles.

He was now complete.

He was now... the Dark Seraph.