Pain was no longer just a feeling. It was a language—spoken in blood, bone, and divine spite.
Vaelion screamed as his right arm hit the ground with a wet thud, severed at the shoulder. Crimson mist sprayed into the air, glistening under the eternal night sky of the divine dream-realm.
Lucius stood over him, a specter of perfection and malice. White hair shimmered like starlight, and his divine coat rippled with shifting, unreadable runes. In one hand, he held the curved black katana--- a twisted evolution of the Judgment Daggers.
He brought the severed arm to his lips.
"You know, I wondered what my soul tastes like in failure," Lucius said, licking blood from his fingers. "Still bitter. Still weak."
Vaelion couldn't move. Divine chains rooted him to the living obsidian beneath, pulsing with anti-life. He felt the weight of every past failure, every future he might never reach.
"Stop..."
Lucius crouched before him, eyes gleaming with sadistic glee. His laughter echoed through the cosmic void, fractured and mad.
"You thought you could surpass me? Pathetic."
He ran a finger down Vaelion's face.
"You were never me."
Then came the legs.
One clean slice.
Then the other.
Vaelion howled, divine ichor spilling in rivers. Lucius grabbed his hair and forced his head back.
"You want power? You want meaning? You want to rise?"
Lucius's smile widened.
"You will always live in my shadow."
And with that, the katana slid slowly into Vaelion's abdomen. Not fatal. Deliberate. Painful.
He twisted it.
Vaelion's scream broke into a rasping choke. Blood dripped from his mouth.
"Look at you," Lucius whispered, voice now almost tender. "Still clinging to pride. Still thinking this is your story."
Lucius rose to his feet.
And then, with one precise, reverent stroke he took Vaelion's head.
Vaelion awoke with a scream, his body jerking upright.
Warmth.
Softness.
Divine scent of steel, roses, and fire.
He blinked—only to realize he was face-first in a pair of very divine breasts.
"AH—!" He tried to move, but his body barely responded. His head remained cradled.
Caelia, the Goddess of War, looked down at him, her expression conflicted between confusion and some shade of concern. A faint blush marked her cheeks.
"Y-You almost died," she said flatly. "There was a Gift surge in your sleep. Your subconscious domain collapsed."
Vaelion stilled, eyes wide.
"...Why are you here? You tried to kill me."
Caelia looked away. "I did. And I don't fully understand this either."
She lowered her gaze. "But when I felt your pain echo through the divine veil... I came. It was instinct. Like something in me couldn't let you break."
Vaelion slowly sat up, cradling his head. Phantom pain throbbed through his limbs all of them intact now, yet the memory lingered like cursed fire.
Lucius's words returned:
"You will always live in my shadow."
Vaelion clenched his fists.
"No," he whispered. "Not anymore."
Caelia raised a brow. "You saw him again, didn't you?"
He nodded.
She reached out, slowly, and touched his shoulder.
"Then rise. Next time... don't lo
To be continued...