Footsteps echoed.
It’s the sound of confidence walking into a place it believed already conquered.
From the mouth of the Obsidian Tower, goblins erged.
They did not scurry.
They advanced in formation. Their bodies were thin and hunched and their skin was etched with ritual scars that glimred faintly with runic corruption.
At the front walked one whose presence warped the air around him.
The Goblin Monster Emperor. The Covenant-Breaker.
A being older than most empires. The first to betray humanity during the war in the Mural World. A mind that survived not by strength, but by turning every alliance into a weapon.
In his grasp was a staff of blackened crystal and fossilized bone. Its surface pulsed with layered enchantnts, humming with dread and long-hoarded malice. The artifact whispered in multiple tongues at once.
Behind him ca five Monster Kings, each dragging a living prisoner.
Five captives from the Thousand Races. Two were human.
All were bound but not broken.
And all of them radiated Celestial Realm auras.
Lucien’s thoughts froze.
’...Why is it him?!’
Of all enemies. Of all emperors.
The Covenant-Breaker was not just dangerous.
He was patient. He was the kind of enemy who won wars without ever standing on the battlefield.
The goblin emperor lifted his staff slightly. Its runes flared.
The artifact translated his words perfectly into the Gargoyle tongue.
"Oh?" The Covenant-Breaker croaked softly. His voice was layered with amusent.
"Is the Gargoyle Throne truly occupied once more?"
His yellow eyes narrowed, studying Lucien like a scholar examining a relic.
"Tell , Primarch of Stone..."
A pause.
"Have the ages been kind to you?"
Lucien did not answer.
The silence stretched.
The Covenant-Breaker chuckled.
"The Basalt Regent warned ," the goblin said mildly. "He said your presence felt... thinner and less absolute. I doubted him."
He leaned on his staff.
"But now..."
His lips peeled into a slow, unsettling smile.
"...I wonder."
Lucien finally spoke.
"What do you an, goblin."
Zyrrakel’s smile widened.
"Stoic as ever," he said. "Very well."
He tapped the staff against the obsidian floor.
"I ca to reclaim what is mine."
Lucien’s eyes sharpened.
"This tower was cultivated by goblin hands for millennia. Its veins were fed with our craft. Its foundations shaped by our sacrifices. It is rightfully goblin property."
Lucien laughed.
The sound was low and rough. Cracked with the beginnings of madness.
"Finder’s keepers," he said. "Have you not learned that law yet?"
The Covenant-Breaker’s gaze darkened.
"Mind your tone, stone tyrant," the goblin replied coldly. "I still speak to you with respect."
Lucien stood.
The gargoyle instincts surged, and this ti...
He did not suppress them.
His posture shifted. His presence twisted. His expression warped into sothing unhinged and ancient.
"Respect?" Lucien roared. "You conspire with my disciple and dare speak that word?"
The Covenant-Breaker burst into laughter.
"So you do know."
He tilted his head.
"Who would have imagined it?" he mused. "The empire the Basalt Regent built during your absence would vanish the mont you returned."
His eyes glead.
"He fears you. Rightfully so."
Lucien’s voice was iron.
"What a disciple builds belongs to his master."
The Goblin Emperor sneered.
"Eons have passed," he replied. "Alliances were forged. Systems were stabilized. You returning now would shatter everything."
He leaned forward.
"And with your nature, Gargoyle... you would not negotiate. You would dominate."
Lucien’s smile was feral.
"To be ruled by ," he said, "is to flourish."
The goblin laughed again, sharp and mocking.
"Ah, there it is."
Then his tone shifted.
Cold.
"Which is why you will not leave this tower alive."
Lucien’s aura surged.
Now it was clear.
Kharzun had never intended to face him directly.
This was delegation.
A blade wielded to preserve appearances.
The Covenant-Breaker lifted his staff.
"This settles it," he said softly. "The real Gargoyle Ancestor would have torn apart the mont I spoke back."
His eyes burned.
"You hesitate."
He raised his staff and slamd it into the ground.
Then...
Reality collapsed inward.
The obsidian floor rippled. Space buckled.
Lucien’s gargoyle form fractured like glass.
Stone peeled away. Wings dissolved.
And standing there, drenched in bloodlust and undiminished killing intent, was—
A human.
The goblins recoiled.
"A human?!"
"How dare—"
"Kill him!"
Lucien smiled.
"Clever goblin," he said. "It seems your brain is sharper than your skull."
The goblin emperor’s grin widened.
"Oh, I see you now," he whispered. "A human, hm. No wonder you tried to drive a wedge between the gargoyles and the goblins. That explains your scheming."
Lucien’s eyes burned crimson.
"Knowing that will not help you," He said calmly. "You are already too late."
The truth is...
From the mont the goblins crossed the threshold of the Obsidian Tower, they had already stepped inside Lucien’s domain.
He had expanded it long before their arrival, layering it perfectly over the Obsidian Tower itself. Every corridor, every echo, and every fluctuation of presence had been mirrored. Even the tower’s authority had been imitated down to its smallest detail.
To them, nothing felt amiss.
’Good thing my domain is flexible,’ Lucien thought.
And just then—
The world shifted.
The Obsidian Tower did not move.
Reality did.
Walls stretched. Space folded. Direction lost aning.
The Covenant-Breaker’s instincts scread.
He raised his staff—
Too late.
Lucien pulled.
The Covenant-Breaker, the Monster Kings, the captives—
They were torn from the tower like leaves ripped into a storm.
Dragged into Lucien’s Divine Energy Core.
The space slamd shut.
Silence followed.
His voice echoed softly.
"Welco," he said,
"to my domain."
•••
The goblins hit the ground hard.
The Covenant-Breaker staggered upright first. His staff striked the earth as instinct scread through him. The goblin kings followed with their weapons raised.
"What is this place?" one snarled.
"Where did that human go?" another hissed.
Then—
The sky shifted.
Lightning traced silent paths through the clouds, watching.
A presence descended.
She stood upon the field as if she had always been there.
Tall. Still. Unmoving.
A woman clad in the echo of storms. Faint arcs of lightning traced along her arms and collarbones.
Her aura was vast.
The goblins froze.
"Who—" one began.
The Covenant-Breaker’s instincts howled. His grip tightened around his staff.
"That Song Before Lighting," he whispered, recognition laced with sothing close to disbelief. "The Storm Roc."
She did not answer.
She did not need to.
Elsewhere—
Lucien blinked out of existence.
Space folded once, clean and precise.
He reappeared within his Divine Energy Core, far from the battlefield Astraea now occupied. With a single thought, five figures were dragged through the fold and deposited before him.
The captives.
Earlier, Lucien had already made his preparations.
His monsters had been placed within the Monsterdex, resting within the sanctuary now infused with aligned laws. The Lithrens had been placed beyond the doors of Skillpedia and the Magic Book, sealed within realms under the pretense of training.
In truth, it was protection.
Everything else had been buried beneath layers of earth, law, and stillness.
Nothing would interfere now.
Lucien turned his attention to the captives.
Three were Serpentile. Two males and one female
Then there were the humans.
A man. And a woman.
The mont Lucien’s gaze fell upon the woman, his heart stuttered.
Resonance.
The sa feeling he had felt when he first t Marie.
He did not speak.
The system did.
[Ting.]
[Detection confird.]
[Target possesses another Will of the World.]
Lucien’s breath caught.
Before he could react, divine energy surged from his core without his command.
The air shimred.
The woman glowed faintly as if washed by invisible light.
And then—
Her eyes snapped open.
She moved instantly.
Lucien barely had ti to register motion before she lunged.
A fist wreathed in searing fla tore toward his face.
"Wait—"
Too late.
Lucien twisted aside as heat scorched past his cheek. The ground behind him cracked. Stone liquefied under the force of her strike.
"How dare you!" she shouted. "Release us at once!"
She did not hesitate. Another strike followed, faster than the first.
Lucien countered on instinct.
Their fists t.
Fire scread against reinforced flesh. The impact sent a shockwave through the field.
Lucien slid back half a step.
His eyes widened.
She was fast. Her movents were absolute. Each strike carried finality as if the law she wielded did not accept uncertainty.
Lucien felt sothing stir inside him.
Excitent.
The gargoyle instincts surged, thrilled by resistance, by challenge, and by the simple clarity of violence.
He grinned despite himself.
This is—
’No.’
Lucien clenched his jaw and forced the feeling down.
Focus.
He raised a hand and disengaged, stepping back.
"Listen to first!"
She did not stop.
A blade of fla ford in her palm, compressed and honed, aid directly at his throat.
Lucien exhaled sharply.
Then he reached up and removed the Crown of Transcendence.
The effect was imdiate.
The miasmic undertone vanished.
Only clean divine energy remained.
The woman halted mid-strike.
Her eyes widened.
"You...?" she whispered.
Lucien blinked.
"Finally."
She stared at him, really looked this ti.
"You’re human," she said slowly. "You are human."
"Yes," Lucien snapped back. "That is what I was trying to say before you tried to incinerate ."
Her face flushed slightly.
"...Sorry," she muttered. "Your eyes were blood-red. I thought—"
Lucien froze.
"My eyes?"
He summoned a mirror.
What stared back at him was unsettling.
The whites of his eyes were faintly veined with red, as if stained from within.
Lucien grimaced.
’System.’
[Ting.]
[Origin Rewrite forcibly disengaged.]
[Residual imprint detected.]
[Gargoyle Emperor template has not been fully purged. Instinctual residue temporarily bleeds into physical traits.]
Lucien frowned.
’So this is... leakage.’
[Correct.]
[Effect: Heightened aggression response, bloodlust amplification, ocular discoloration during emotional spikes.]
Lucien sighed.
’Will it affect my vision?’
[Negative.]
[However, prolonged exposure to instinctual triggers may intensify symptoms.]
"Great," Lucien muttered. "Another tir I cannot see."
He dismissed the mirror and turned back to the woman.
"I am not your enemy," he said firmly. "And if I were, you would not have woken up."
She studied him in silence, then nodded once.
"Understood," she said. "I will listen."
Before either of them could speak further—
The ground trembled.
A distant explosion rolled through the domain, followed by a thunderclap that was not thunder.
Lucien’s eyes snapped toward the horizon.
Astraea.
Her voice echoed directly within his mind through the Concord Pact.
[Boy.]
Her tone was calm.
[Occupy the Monster Kings.]
Lucien stiffened.
[I did not expect the Covenant-Breaker to reach this level.]
[And I have been imprisoned for millennia. My strength is returning... but not yet consolidated.]
Lucien inhaled slowly.
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