New Earth.
Lucifer walked down the street like he owned it.
He didn't bother hiding. Didn't fold his presence back into shadow. Crimson light burned in his eyes, his aura spilling freely through the crowd. People turned their heads without knowing why, their instincts screaming that sothing greater had just stepped into their perfect little world.
He didn't care. He wanted Adam to feel it. To know he was here.
The city stretched high around him—steel and glass, smooth towers catching the sun. Neon lights bled across polished streets, transport pods humming past without sound. It looked clean, untouched. Too clean.
Lucifer let his gaze drift over them. They weren't like the old humans. These ones carried themselves different—shoulders straighter, steps heavier, eyes sharper. Stronger. He could see it even when they tried to hide it. His lips twitched faintly.
Stronger, yes. But whose strength are they walking with? Theirs? Or Adam's?
The thought lingered. If war was coming here—and it was—then maybe these people would play a role. Maybe he could use them.
He stopped at a corner café. The glass door slid open with a soft chi, and warm air brushed against him—coffee and sugar, the faint buzz of quiet chatter. It was almost normal.
Lucifer stepped inside, cloak brushing the doorfra, and the conversations around him dropped a beat too long before starting again. He walked to a corner table, sat, and leaned back in the chair like he had nowhere else to be.
The waitress ca quick. She smiled the way all servers did—warm but tired—and set down a nu.
"What'll it be?" she asked.
Lucifer didn't glance at the list. "Coffee."
She nodded, scribbled, and walked off.
He rested his cheek against his hand, crimson eyes drifting over the room. People sat at their tables, sipping, laughing. It wasn't much different from the old Earth. For a second, he almost felt like he'd stepped back into a mory. Almost.
The coffee ca quick. She placed it down in front of him, steam curling up. He lifted the cup, but before he could take a sip, she slid into the seat across from him.
Her smile had changed. Too sharp. Too knowing.
"Thought you'd never crawl out," she said. Her voice carried deeper than her fra, mocking and familiar. "Thought you'd hide forever like the little coward you are. Guess there's still so man left in that pussy of yours."
Lucifer's hand stilled on the cup. Slowly, he raised his head.
That grin. That smug, bastard grin.
"Adam," he said.
The woman's face didn't shift, but the presence pouring out of her was his. It pressed into the air, thick and poisonous.
Lucifer's lips curved faintly. "Is that your way of riling ? If so, you've done a pitiful job."
The woman laughed—but it wasn't her laugh. It was his. Adam's. Full, sharp, cruel. The sound made the café tremble, glasses on the shelves rattling.
"You still have that mouth," Adam said through her. "Good. I'd have been disappointed if you lost it."
Lucifer leaned back, calm, the steam from the cup curling around his face. "You're slipping if this is all you can do. Send a girl with a grin to mouth your words at ."
"Enjoy your coffee," Adam said, ignoring him, the smile widening. "It might be the last one you ever taste."
Then the light in her eyes shifted. Gone was the mocking grin—her face turned blank, chanical, as her hand reached under her apron.
Lucifer felt it before it happened.
The blade whistled down at his back, but the chair was empty. The air cracked with the sound of wood splintering.
Lucifer stood two steps away, his cup still in hand, untouched.
The man behind him staggered, knife flashing in his fist. His eyes were wrong—blank, burning faint red at the edges. Not his own will.
Lucifer raised his head.
Every single person in the café had turned.
Every eye burned faint red. Every hand clutched steel, glass, anything sharp enough to draw blood.
For a heartbeat, silence.
Then they all moved.
Chairs screeched back. Tables flipped. Knives and forks glead in hands that gripped them like weapons. Their voices were silent, but the sound of their steps filled the shop as they closed in from every side.
Lucifer let the silence sit for a second longer. His crimson eyes flared.
And then he grinned.
"I was just hungry myself."
The first ca at him with a knife. Lucifer tilted his wrist, the cup sliding from his fingers, and shattered it into the man's jaw. Porcelain split, bone cracked, and blood sprayed across the counter.
Another lunged with a broken bottle. Lucifer moved through him like smoke, reappearing behind him, hand ripping the spine out with a crack that echoed against the windows.
The rest surged forward.
Lucifer's cloak flared, shadows spilling across the room like liquid fire. They lashed out in tendrils, piercing throats, snapping wrists. Blood sprayed across walls, streaking the perfect white into red.
But they didn't stop. They weren't afraid. Their bodies kept moving even after they should've fallen, driven by sothing deeper. By Adam.
One vaulted across the counter, swinging an axe ant for splitting wood. Lucifer caught it with two fingers, twisted, and sent the blade back through his skull in a spray of crimson.
Another ca low, blade at his gut. Shadows coiled out from his boots, wrapping the attacker's throat, lifting him high before snapping his neck clean.
The café was chaos now—tables shattered, walls shaking, glass raining down from the windows as bodies flew through them.
Lucifer moved through it all calm, precise, every strike heavy enough to break steel. His grin never faded.
One woman shrieked, her arm covered in runes that burned bright. She lunged, faster than the others, her knife slashing at his throat.
Lucifer caught her wrist mid-swing, squeezed, and bones snapped like twigs. She scread, and his shadows drove straight through her chest, bursting out her back.
The floor was slick with blood now. Too many bodies. Too many blank faces staring up at nothing.
And still they ca.
Lucifer spun once, cloak lashing out, shadows cutting through six at once. Heads rolled across the floor, blood spraying the counter, staining the walls.
The last three rushed him together. He let them.
They slamd him back into the wall, knives digging at his chest. The blades bent, snapping against his skin.
Lucifer looked down at them, crimson eyes burning.
"Wrong blood to spill."
His aura erupted. Crimson light filled the café, shadows tearing through their bodies like blades. When it dimd, the room was silent. The last corpses hit the ground.
Lucifer stood in the center, cloak dripping blood, boots crushing broken glass. He brushed his hand across his jaw, sighed, and glanced at the wreck around him.
The waitress's body lay slumped across a table, eyes blank again. Adam's grin was gone.
Lucifer tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling.
"Enjoyed the show?" he asked quietly.
Silence answered.
His grin sharpened.
"Good. Then you know I'm here."
He stepped out of the wrecked café into the street. Blood dripped down the steps behind him, bodies broken inside.
People walked by outside, oblivious, as if the café wasn't even there anymore. Adam's trick. His cover.
Lucifer didn't care.
He walked down the street, his aura still burning, making sure the world felt every step.
If Adam wanted him gone, he'd have to do it himself.
Because Lucifer wasn't hiding.
Not this ti.
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