The child was born in secret.
Beneath the Ancestral Mountain of Wakanda, where the earth thrummed with vibranium veins and ancient spirits whispered through stone, a lone woman labored.
Her breath was sharp, her eyes wide with both agony and awe, her every pulse synchronizing with the ancient energies of the mountain.
Her name was Cynthia —a woman of ambition and arcane brilliance, descended from the bloodline of Alexander Corvinus, the progenitor of immortality and mutation.
In her youth, before destiny tied her to Latveria and the future tyrant known as Victor, Cynthia was a wanderer, a seeker of lost knowledge.
Her journey had brought her to Wakanda—a land closed to the world, veiled behind mysticism and unparalleled technology.
She arrived not as a conqueror, but as a scholar… and left carrying a secret far heavier than any tome.
She had fallen for a king. Not the first Black Panther, but his grandson—King T'Zandru Udaku, ruler during Wakanda's golden isolation.
A man of immense pride, vision, and terrifying silence. Where Cynthia wielded magic, he held dominion over the ancestral pulse of a civilization older than myth.
Their affair was as brief as it was forbidden. But the consequence? Eternal.
The mountain bore witness to the birth.
The chamber deep below the panther shrine exploded in silver and obsidian light as the infant emerged—eyes closed, skin golden-dark, hair black as night, utterly silent.
No cry.
No motion.
Just the deep, unsettling stillness of something that did not belong to this time.
"He sees already... even with his eyes shut," whispered one of the flame priestesses.
Cynthia knew the price of such a child. Her bloodline was dangerous. So was Wakanda's. Together, they had created something the world was not meant to see.
T'Zandru stood at the threshold, robes still wet with the rites of storm calling. He did not speak. He simply stared at the child—then at Cynthia.
"I will raise him," he said at last, voice like polished stone. "Here, where the mountain can shape him."
Cynthia hesitated. Her heart screamed. But logic—her eternal mistress—prevailed.
"If he leaves Wakanda… the world will hunt him."
"He will not leave," T'Zandru promised. "Until the world begs him to rule it."
So she kissed her son on the forehead, leaving behind a faint glimmer of silver light—a soulmark, part curse, part blessing. Then she turned and vanished into the mists of the jungle… back to her homeland, where fate awaited her second child.
She would one day be known as the mother of Victor Von Doom.
But before that, she was the woman who abandoned Azrael.
Three Years Later…Azrael stood on the edge of a glowing platform within the sacred Heart Chamber, skin gleaming with streaks of starlight ink.
Dozens of priestesses watched from the shadows—silent, reverent, afraid.
The Black Flame Codex, an artifact older than Wakanda itself, hovered in the air before him. Its pages moved like breathing cloth, etched not in ink, but in cosmic resonance. It pulsed with ancient breath, synchronizing with the marrow inside his bones.
Codex Syncing Complete.
Sovereign Flame Path Initiated.
The mountain trembled.
Azrael was unlike any being born to this earth.
Human at his base.
Mutant by design.
Royal by blood.
Arcane by legacy.