Ascension of the Dark Seraph

As soon as Leandra lowered her arms, she paused at the sight.

Her breath was caught in her throat, and her heart lurched violently against her ribs.

Ahead of her, thirty meters away, Lucivar stood.

Just like when the night first started, he still wore the crisp, deep ocean-blue shirt, though the top buttons were torn open, revealing his bare chest. But it wasn't only his honed chest that was revealed, but also a vertical slit of seething, violent light.

An alien scar that had no place in the realms of mortals—an abyssal eye.

In his grip hung a black blade wreathed in a haze of drifting crimson grains, as if the sword bled sand instead of steel. And then, the reptilian white mask. One glance was enough to fracture her vision into doubles, a shifting, maddening thing that gnawed at the edges of her mind like a ceaseless whisper.

'Gods…' Leandra swallowed harshly. 'All three of those things must be tied to the Gods inside him.'

From how powerful the energy coming from those things was, Leandra reached that conclusion.

Frankly, it was obvious.

'Master Tobias hurt Lucivar for a reason… There must be one.' Cold sweat wetted down her temple as the thought pressed harder. 'Was it to force his transformation? This transformation? He didn't have those things before and now, suddenly, he does.'

It was clear enough that Lucivar had broken through a milestone, allowing him access to this power.

Behind him unfurled four wings—not emerald, not bronze, not even the neutral hue she had seen him wear before, but a searing ruby-red, glowing as though forged in the deepest pit of Hell. Above them, suspended in unnatural stillness, blazed a halo with the same crimson shade.

A crown that should have marked an angelic ascension, but instead pulsed with malice.

However, it wasn't the sword, the abyssal eye, the mask, the wings, or even the crimson halo that froze her blood. It was the air around him. Violent. Unrestrained. But most importantly, foreign, almost like the person behind the mask was not Lucivar.

Even the pressure rolling from him felt wrong.

So wrong it hollowed the pit in her stomach.

Leandra's lips parted soundlessly, realization cutting deeper than fear.

Lucivar had crossed some threshold, and whatever stood before her might no longer be him at all.

And it was best for her not to treat him like she used to.

Her shaking eyes fixated on him, who was looking around, seemingly in search of someone.

For Master Tobias.

"Oh, that's Lucivar."

Cluelessly, Bakar voiced out his thoughts, pointing at Lucivar.

Almost instantly, Leandra pulled Bakar by his head and threw them to the side.

Both of them landed silently thanks to Leandra's telekinesis with the flipped car as their cover.

She did that right on time as Lucivar snapped his head towards their direction.

His eyes narrowed on the overturned car before shifting away—Master Tobias hadn't crashed in that direction. He was the one who hurled Master Tobias into the mansion, back to where the night began, and he already had a rough sense of where the man would be.

If there was anyone behind the flipped car, it'd probably be the guests.

"What's wrong?" Bakar asked incredulously.

Leandra was saying that she was going to help Lucivar, and now, he was right there.

He doesn't understand why they were hiding like this.

"Shh…" Leandra pressed a finger against her lips. "Shut up if you don't want to die."

"Die?" Bakar exhaled sharply—not knowing what Leandra was talking about, since all they needed to fear was Master Tobias, the lunatic and sociopath who started all of this. "It's only Lucivar. It's not like this is the first time we're seeing him bloodlusted like this."

Hearing this, Leandra's expression hardened as Bakar didn't understand what was going on.

Unlike her, who knew Lucivar the best, he wasn't aware of the danger this situation brought.

Bakar tried standing up, but Leandra pulled him down again.

"What are you doing?" He frowned in annoyance. "Let's go out and help Lucivar. I want to kill Master Tobi—Tobias with my own two hands. I understand all of you are also a victim—but I have to avenge Dinda."

Leandra bit down on her lower lip.

Nobody cared about their past right now, not when their survival was on the line.

"Just listen to me, you dumb knucklehead. Listen to me if you don't want to die!" She wanted to scream at Bakar, but her voice came out hushed, afraid that Lucivar would hear. "You've never used your brain for anything substantial other than humping that stupid punching bag all the time, so sit down and wait!"

"Wow…" Bakar clutched his chest. "Is that how you really think of me?"

"You're Lucivar, aren't you?"

Both of them paused when they heard the voice of a man, seemingly talking to Lucivar.

Silently, the two poked their heads out to look and found that one of the guests was nearing Lucivar.

He's a middle-aged man with signs of balding, and his right arm was busted from how it sagged.

Recognizing Lucivar as the rising star in the city, the man approached him.

"Are we under attack?" He asked, limping towards Lucivar, who only looked at him blankly. "Vanessa, how can her security be this bad? For commoners to bomb us like this… Anyway, can you help call an ambulance for me?"

Leandra and Bakar held their breaths when the man placed a hand on Lucivar's shoulder.

He acted nonchalant, oblivious to the tension in the air.

Slowly, Lucivar extended his hand with disarming slowness, fingers brushing the man's hand.

"Hmm…?"

Seeing this, the man blinked and tilted his head, confusion flickering across his features.

Naturally, he asked Lucivar to make a call, so he was confused as to what Lucivar was doing.

Lucivar should be calling the hospital by now, as a lot of people got hurt.

But in the next second, the sickening, grinding crack echoed before the sharp, final snap.

Crack!

Before the man could react, Lucivar wrenched the hand sideways with a sudden, vicious twist, bending the arm in a grotesque angle no human body could endure. Seeing this, the man turned from relaxed to horrified in the blink of an eye.

His mouth gaped open, a scream rising in his throat—but it never came.

Lucivar used the same hand to reach forward again, fingers digging mercilessly into the man's throat, ripping free the adam's apple and vocal cords of flesh that give him voice. A wet, strangled choke spilled from him, wide eyes filling with horror as the realization set in.

That this wasn't because of some commoners who hated the upper class.

But it was Lucivar who did this.

Mercy was out of Lucivar's hand right now.

In one seamless motion, he raised his blade and carved clean through the man's neck.

Brutally, the head fell and thud against the ground, while the crimson grains hovering around his blade drank in the blood spraying from the man's headless body as though the earth itself had opened to feed, not a single drop was wasted.

Once he was done, the headless corpse fell to the ground with a thud.

And that thud seemed to resume the world once again.

"KYAAHH!!"

From a distance, a guest let out a piercing scream, her voice cracking in sheer horror—at the sight of a man of stature butchered like livestock. Her cry ignited the area like a spark to dry tinder. Others joined in, shrieks rising in a dreadful chorus as panic erupted and chaos consumed the gathering.

All of them tried running away from Lucivar, but it was no use.

Instead of screaming, they should've remained silent.

Lucivar charged his new black sword and merged the Fang of Ankh into it—the bronze goo coating the blade like a second skin, charging it with more divine energy. Once it hummed and trembled, he made a cleaving swing.

From the blade, a crescent-shaped energy slash burst forth.

It moved faster than the blink of an eye.

One heartbeat, the guests were stumbling and flailing, dragging their wounded bodies in sheer desperate retreat. The next, silence split the entire area—then a wet, tearing sound as their bodies were cleaved cleanly in half.

Torsos slid grotesquely from legs, collapsing in heaps while fountains of blood burst skyward.

Lucivar did it in a heartbeat; the suddenness of it was merciless, leaving no time for screams.

Almost in an instant, the entire area was silent once again, save for a few sobs and rough breaths of those who, instead of running, stayed down, feeling that Lucivar was no fond of rowdy observers. And when they saw the bodies of the people cleaved, a sense of relief and also dread washed over them.

Had they not made the right decision, it'd be instant death.

Seeing this, Leandra and Bakar immediately went to cover once again, eyes widened in absolute shock.

Only now did Bakar realize why Leandra was acting this way.

Lucivar had lost it!

"Tobiaaass~"

Deg!

Both their hearts skipped a beat when they heard Lucivar's voice reverberating through the air.

He called out to Master Tobias, rolling the name off his tongue with a playful lilt, drawn out like a child teasing in a game of hide-and-seek. But in the silence of the blood-soaked backyard, riddled with fresh corpses, that sing-song voice twisted into something far more chilling.

"Come out, come out, wherever you arree~"

Thud!

It was so silent that Lucivar's footsteps echoed.

Lucivar was moving slowly, the sound of his halo vibrating filling the air like a death knell.

Even without needing to see, the two knew that he was sweeping the mansion, or what was left of it.

Somehow, he couldn't sense where Master Tobias was.

Bakar turned to Leandra, eyes wide and frantic.

"What the fuck are we going to do?" He asked, lips moving, but the voice that came out was silent.

Almost voiceless even, ringing only at the edge of every word.

Leandra looked at him—with the same alertness and fear, "How should I know? Nobody was moving right now—if we so much as twitch, he'll notice! Maybe… Maybe we just wait for Master Tobias. Pray he shows up soon."

She was also voiceless, afraid that even a whisper would alert Lucivar to their position.

Hearing this, Bakar gritted his teeth.

He can't possibly sit still and wait for the person who killed Delilah and Dinda.

Hesitantly, Bakar leaned to the side to peek despite Leandra's protest.

But as soon as he did, he immediately pulled back again.

Then, he slowly turned to Leandra, his face as pale as a sheet of paper.

"What?" Leandra asked, her throat suddenly feeling dry.

"I… I think," Bakar smiled wryly. "I think he saw me…."

"Tobias," Lucivar's voice rang again, still playful. "Is that you hiding behind the car?"