Ascension of the Dark Seraph

Nobody reacted in time.

It was too fast.

All they recalled when they realized what had happened was a shiver in the air, the ether itself unsettled, disturbed by something or someone, followed by a sudden breeze that brushed across their bodies, then came the sharp inhale.

But for Leandra, it was entirely different.

It struck her before she even realized what had happened.

A shock—sudden, alien, almost weightless that ripped through her middle, a hollow pressure that didn't feel like pain at first, only a strange emptiness spreading wide in her core. For an instant, she thought she'd simply lost her breath.

Finally, it came—sharp and merciless.

A searing lance of fire erupted in her toned abdomen, scorching nerves and unravelling every thought in her mind until there was nothing but the agony. She stumbled forward, but she was met with a broad chest that was as hard as rock.

Her knees weakened, forcing her to grip the dark ocean shirt as a support.

Then, from within, a wet, metallic taste rose up her throat.

Instinctively, she raised her hand to cover her mouth and was surprised when a warm liquid climbed up her throat, spilled past her white teeth, and drizzled down her chin. Her body trembled uncontrollably, the world blurring around her as the pain burrowed deeper, as if trying to hollow her out from within.

Only then did she look down.

Only when the crimson dripped freely to the ground, pooling around her feet, that the truth strike her.

She was stabbed.

"LEANDRA!!"

Mirel and Bakar shouted in unison, eyes wide open in absolute shock.

Before any of them could react, Lucivar had already struck Leandra with his sword.

He wasn't only fast; it looked like he blinked in and out of reality.

'No… There's no way he's even faster than me,' Mirel thought frantically, swallowing hard as he could not believe Lucivar was that fast. Too fast. 'Speed is my forte. I'm the one who has the bloodline of the Yellow Lightning Elemental; he can't be faster than me.'

Just then, his eyes noted a mark on Leandra's arm.

Mirel recognized that mark; he had seen Lucivar use it before, back against the doppelganger.

'It's the Soul Warden spell… He marked her already.'

Gritting his teeth, Mirel's body sparked with a violent carnival of yellow lighting as he charged his body with ether, preparing to make a move, "Bakar! Snap out of it!" He roared—eyes fixated on Leandra. "If you don't move, he'll kill her!"

Blinking his eyes, Bakar snapped out of his daze and swelled in size.

Both his muscles and bones grew, turning him from a big man to a massive man.

"Stop…" Leandra tried to shriek at them, but what came out was a light whimper. "Don't attack…"

Swoosh!

Mirel and Bakar couldn't hear what she was saying as the two immediately dashed.

One turned into a streak of yellow lightning, while the other sprinted with wide and massive stomps.

Neither of them was going to allow Lucivar to do as he pleased.

He needed to be stopped.

But the second the two dashed, Lucivar glanced over his shoulder, eyes glowing emerald.

Mirel could feel a chilling breeze brushing against his skin; he could feel that something was wrong—that Lucivar did something, but he ignored it and kept going. As he took another step, the massive wings on Lucivar's back fluttered.

It blew a violent torrent of wind, strong enough to blow the two away rather easily.

Swoosh!

Both were pushed back, their arms shielding them from the violent wind.

Instead of landing on the ground on their feet—Mirel and Bakar were caught off guard when their legs sank into the earth as if the ground had suddenly turned into quicksand. No matter how hard both of them tried, be it using their attribute or their ether, they couldn't break free.

"What's this?! Lucivar didn't have this power before! He's an Angel Hybrid for God's sake!"

"Are you blind?! He transformed! Surely, he has a wide variety of abilities now!"

Just as Mirel said that, he felt a chilling sensation on his nape.

A natural warning that he was in trouble or even worse, that he was about to die.

Raising his gaze, his eyes widened as Lucivar was already upon him, and the black sword was already inches away from slicing his neck—inches away from decapitating him cleanly. He raised both arms, but it was already too late.

Shingg!

Mirel's eyes widened as the world spun in his vision.

For a heartbeat, he thought he had stumbled or was thrown away from the impact.

But then the ground was gone, replaced by a sickening rush of air that clawed at him from all sides. His vision spun faster, the sky dragging itself unnaturally close, and with it came a sudden hollowness—a gnawing emptiness where his chest should have been steady, where breath should have filled his lungs.

Soon, the pain came.

Not sharp, not immediate, but a searing burn that lanced through him in a way he could not place.

Like a fire had already devoured his nerves completely.

His muscles refused him, his arms would not lift, and his legs had vanished into nothing.

Every blink smeared the world further.

Something wet splattered his lips—metallic, thick.

He gagged on the taste of iron as it poured from his mouth, choking him with every swallow. But very soon, the world tilted enough for the truth to come into focus. Far below, his body was still in the same spot as earlier.

Knees buckled, blood fountaining from a ragged stump where his neck should've been.

At that moment, his eyes widened in horror as the final clarity struck.

He was staring down at his own headless corpse.

"HAAHK!!"

Mirel blinked his eyes and panted heavily.

Realizing that he could breathe again, he immediately reached for his neck, checking whether his head was still intact or not. Once he realized that he hadn't been decapitated, he could breathe easily again, but the experience made him sweat.

"What was that…?" He thought aloud, raising his gaze again.

Beside him, Bakar was exactly the same as him—panting, sweating, and eyes wide in horror.

As he turned forward again, he made eye contact with Lucivar.

Just like seconds ago, Lucivar was still glancing over his shoulder, looking at Mirel threateningly.

"Don't look at his eyes, Bakar," Mirel rasped, lowering his gaze. "It was an illusion."

It seemed the moment they locked eyes with Lucivar, the illusion had already taken place, and showed them that horrifying experience. Being decapitated should be a quick death, a humane death, but what they felt earlier was nothing like what people said.

Not to mention, seeing their headless bodies was a traumatic experience.

Even now, the sight lingered in their heads.

Since it was only an illusion, Mirel should've been calmer now, but it felt so real that he couldn't help but assume that Lucivar was showing a glimpse of the future—what would become of them if they were reckless enough to strike.

Mirel gritted his teeth, a hollow dread gnawing at his chest, 'But I… I can't leave Leandra to his mercy.'

On the other hand, Lucivar snapped forward again when he felt a hand grazing his face.

He looked forward and was surprised to see Leandra cupping his face with both hands, a smile tugged on her lips, as she ignored the pain from the black blade that was already sucking her blood. From the tears and hisses, it was clear that the pain was excruciating.

"Lucivar… It's me." She called, locking eyes with Lucivar. "It's Leandra."

She nodded again and again.

Her glassy eyes flicked from one of his eyes to the other, as though searching for an anchor.

"I know you," Leandra continued, her voice dulcet and sweet, calling out to the protective instinct of a man. "And you know me. I'm the annoying girl—who almost killed you from a misunderstanding. Do you remember that?"

Krrk…

Lucivar drove the blade in deeper until the cross-guard nearly pressed against her stomach.

Naturally, the pain heightened.

It wrenched Leandra's gaze downward, a broken moan slipping out of her lips before she forced herself to bite hard into her lower lip, clinging to the pain as if it were the only anchor keeping her upright. Her face drained of color with every heartbeat, yet—when she forced herself to look up again, she was still smiling.

Fragile, trembling, but it was still a smile.

"I understand…" her voice cracked into a sob as tears slid freely down her cheeks. "You're grieving… I understand."

Lucivar still looked at her with the same blank look.

Even though she was more of a family than his own biological family, he still remained impassive.

Like her tears and pain meant nothing to him.

Seeing this, a spark of fury and frustration ignited in Leandra's chest.

Her hand curled into a trembling fist, and she pounded Lucivar's chest with all the strength she could muster. It was hard—at least she thought she struck him hard, but it was nothing to him. "You promised me!" She cried, her voice breaking as her fist fell against him again. "You promised me that you would protect us! Families don't harm each other, remember?!"

At this point, her face was already slicked with drizzling tears.

She anticipated that something like this might happen.

It was the reason why she asked him to promise her last night.

But even so, she was doing this more to help Lucivar—because if he killed them, he'd be destroying the only people who still gave him a place to be honest. If not with her, who still dared to challenge his ways, there's still Bakar who would go along with him regardless, Nerissa who had become one of his, or even Ravenna who had been drawing closer to him of late.

Leandra wanted him to realize what he was actually doing.

"How can you forget about it already?!" She whimpered, pressing her forehead against her chest as her voice grew weaker by the second. She was losing too much blood already. "You promised me… a man's promise… that has to mean something, right?"

Oblivious to her, Lucivar blinked as his eyes grew clearer and clearer.

Since she was facing down, she couldn't see the changes on his face.

Even though it was a desperate attempt, a cliché attempt that has a higher chance of going south, it was surprisingly working. Mirel and Bakar, who had been watching from the sides, could see that slowly but surely, Lucivar was coming back to his senses.

But it was then, the abyssal eye sharply looked to the right.

A pulse of divine energy seeped out of Lucivar's body as the clarity disappeared again.

On his right, there was two creatures flapping their wings away.

As soon as the abyssal eye fixated on them, however, the two creatures splashed into blood and formed into two people, a man and a woman—Master Tobias and Vanessa.

"Oh, you're still here?"