The forest was quiet.
Too quiet.
The kind of silence that came after something died, not before. The trees no longer whispered. The wind had retreated. Even the birds had abandoned their nests as if the sky itself no longer wanted to watch what came next.
Lucien stood in the ashes of the clearing.
The monolith was gone. The Watcher was gone.
But the Hunters were not.
There were eight of them half-cloaked in armor stitched with silver and bone, faces hidden behind masks carved from demon skulls. Across their bodies were glyphs, brands, and crude sigils symbols stolen from Heaven, repurposed in Hell, and corrupted by mortal ambition.
They didn't speak at first.
Hunters rarely did.
They believed in one truth: anything born from both light and shadow was a mistake.
And mistakes needed to be erased.
The first to move was the largest a man standing nearly seven feet tall, wielding a chained greatsword that hissed with runes. He didn't announce himself or give warning. He simply charged.
Lucien didn't flinch.
He raised one hand. Not to block. Not to strike.
To listen.
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat.
And in that space of stillness, he heard it the hum of the sword, the breath of the Hunter, the fear buried beneath the man's mask. Lucien didn't sense it with his mind. He felt it in his blood.
The blood that remembered being both flame and void.
He opened his eyes and the air shattered around him.
The Hunter swung.
Lucien vanished.
No sound. No flash.
Just gone.
The greatsword struck the ground where Lucien had stood, splitting the forest floor like a fault line. Trees snapped in half from the impact. Smoke and dirt billowed upward.
Then
> "Behind you."
The voice whispered right into the Hunter's ear.
Lucien stood there, a hand on the man's shoulder, eyes glowing faintly red.
He snapped his fingers.
A sound like shattering glass echoed and the runes on the greatsword went dark.
The weapon crumbled into ash.
The Hunter staggered back, stunned, weaponless.
Lucien sighed. "You're not the worst they've sent."
That was when the rest attacked.
Blades. Chains. Crossbows. Magic-laced bullets.
Lucien moved through them like a shadow wrapped in light. Not dodging disappearing. Not striking undoing.
He didn't need spells.
He was one.
One of the Hunters, a woman with long silver hair, tried to pin him with a binding sigil—a complex seal meant to freeze time in a ten-foot radius.
She activated it with a scream.
Time froze.
Lucien kept walking.
The sigil flickered.
Cracked.
Died.
He approached her, took the parchment from her trembling hand, and set it on fire with a glance.
"You don't understand the laws you're using," he said calmly.
"You shouldn't have come here."
She dropped to her knees.
Not in surrender but in panic.
She had seen it then.
Not the child.
Not the halfbreed.
But what was behind his eyes.
Only one Hunter remained now.
He hadn't moved. Hadn't attacked.
He stood at the edge of the clearing, masked like the others, hands at his sides.
Lucien turned to him. "Are you here to fight, or just to watch me ruin your friends?"
The Hunter tilted his head slightly.
And spoke.
"I was told you'd be taller."
Lucien blinked.
That voice… didn't belong.
It was too calm. Too familiar.
The Hunter removed his mask.
And Lucien's breath caught in his throat.
He was looking at a face almost identical to his own.
Slightly older. More scarred.
But undeniably similar.
Lucien stared.
"What… are you?"
The stranger smiled.
"The one who came first."
A shockwave of silence passed between them.
Lucien's fingers curled instinctively.
"You're lying."
"Am I?" the stranger asked. "Why do you think Heaven and Hell were so eager to kill you the moment you were born?"
Lucien's voice dropped.
"They saw me as a threat."
"No. They saw you as a replacement."
Before Lucien could move, the stranger vanished into smoke.
Not teleportation. Not magic.
A tear in reality.
Ripped open and sealed just as quickly.
Gone.
Lucien stood alone in the clearing, his pulse racing.
The last Hunter's words echoed in his head like poison.
> "The one who came first."
Was it true?
Was he… not the first of his kind?
And if not…
Then who or what was he replacing?
Behind him, the raven landed on a broken tree branch.
Lucien looked to the sky.
It was beginning to rain again.
But the drops that fell were red.
Not water.
Blood.
End of Chapter 4