"As I have said many tis before, I am the god of this world," Mark said with a satisfied smile as he snapped his fingers. The snap echoed like a verdict, and reality obediently steadied itself. Ti resud its steady current, the chaotic surges of infernal energy that had convulsed the land evaporated, and the surroundings returned to an eerie calm as though nothing montous had occurred.
Lucien watched the change with a curious tilt of his head, his eyes tracking the faint smoke that still curled from the ground. "That was not your full strength, was it?" he asked, studying Mark as if asuring the distance between a mask and a face.
Mark inclined his head once in acknowledgent. "No," he admitted, his smile never leaving his features. "I am at one third of my full strength for now, because I possess only one third of my full soul."
Lucien's brow creased as he considered the implication. "Explain sothing to then," he said. "From what I have learned, a crownbearer of a mortal world is ant to act as a guardian, a god who wards off external threats like demons and Nulls. Yet you do the opposite. You command the Nulls and allow demons to run their courses while you orchestrate things from behind the scenes." He fixed Mark with a steady look. "Why did you turn to this path? What twisted the purpose of your charge?"
Mark laughed, a sound that carried equal parts amusent and sothing colder. "You want to know why I turned," he said, amusent curling his voice. "If you truly wish to understand, then seek the missing third of my soul. It lies sealed within the Celestial Beast Temple. Find it and you will have your answer."
Lucien smiled, not quite trusting the simplicity of the request. "Is that truly your motive, or are you setting a trap so I will free your soul from that seal?" he asked with a tone that mixed challenge and calculation.
Mark's smile deepened into a nod, as though he had expected that very skepticism. "If you can free it, then I will be very pleased," he said plainly, his eyes reflecting an inscrutable light.
Lucien's expression remained calm, though his eyes sharpened with curiosity. He finally asked the question that weighed most heavily on his mind. "What are your true goals in this war? I can understand the demons' desire for that drop of blood, but what is it that you seek? Soone like you, who has remained silent for so long, would not reveal himself to the world without reason. You have hidden and plotted for ages, and you would not step into the open unless your motives were far greater."
Mark's smile thinned, and for the first ti a shadow of seriousness crossed his features, though the nace in his eyes never diminished.
"Do you truly not know what I want?" he asked. His voice deepened with a subtle edge of impatience. "I want the other two parts of my soul. That is what I have been waiting for. Do you have any idea how long I have endured this? I have bid my ti for millennia, weaving plans, shifting pieces, waiting for the right body to claim, a vessel worthy enough for to control. All of it has been for this purpose."
His tone grew heavier as he continued. "Without my other two parts, I am empty. I am incomplete. That hollow absence festers inside , and I despise it with every fiber of my being. I hate it more than anything else."
He paused only long enough for the silence to weigh between them before speaking again. "There is another reason. I need my full strength returned to quickly. If I do not recover it, then I will be consud."
Lucien's eyes narrowed, his brow furrowing with unease. "Consud? What do you an by that? Who in this world could possibly consu you?"
Mark sneered, his expression twisting into disdain as though the mory itself disgusted him. "That was my belief as well. I thought nothing could touch . But not long ago, after I possessed this body and felt the pulse of this world flow through once more, I discovered the presence of an entity unlike anything I have ever known. This being devours everything. Not just energy, not just life, but everything. I do not know when it ca into this world, nor do I know its origin. But what I do know is that it is here, and as we speak it is feeding. Piece by piece it is consuming this world, and with every passing mont, it grows stronger."
"And you cannot kill this entity?" Lucien asked, his voice sharpening with concern.
Mark nodded slowly, his face closing into a mask of sober mory. "Believe when I say I tried every thod I possessed, yet none of it affected her. Strikes that would pulverize mountains felt to her like a raindrop to flesh."
Lucien's expression hardened as he listened. He had learned to read the tiny tells that separated truth from performance, and in this mont he felt no deception in Mark's words. The gravity in Mark's eyes matched the weight of his confession.
"Where is this entity now?" Lucien asked, the single question carrying the urgency of a man who needed to know if the threat still stalked their world.
Mark shrugged with an unsettling calm. "It is gone for the mont," he replied.
Lucien frowned, pushing the doubt back and forth across his features. "Gone how? It survived your attacks and then simply vanished?"
Mark let out a small, humorless smile. "When I struck at it before, it endured even my most devastating assaults and then fled. It did not disappear so much as retreat and conceal itself. It has grown cunning and learned to hide, and for now I cannot sense its presence anywhere in the world."
Lucien considered that answer and then shifted to the only thing that mattered to him now. "If I were to restore your soul, if I gave you your full strength back, would you then drive the demons away and reseal the threats you seek to unleash?"
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