Chapter 11 – The First Words
The moment had come.
Not with trumpets or war drums, but with a stillness that suffocated the wind. The clouds did not roll, they hung — heavy with mana, dense like breath held too long. The air thickened as if the world itself had inhaled… and refused to exhale.
Luceris stepped forward.
Not with fury. Not with doubt.
But with purpose sharpened by bloodline, by expectation, by pressure wrapped in silk and steel.
His voice, when it came, was clear and cold.
"Face me, elf. No armies. No allies. Just steel and will."
The elf did not answer immediately. He turned, slowly, gaze sliding toward the two shadows flanking him — Lilith on the left, Valtor on the right. Neither blinked. Neither breathed.
"Lilith," the elf said. "Left flank. Valtor, right. No mercy. They come to bleed — let them."
Lilith's smirk was elegant, wicked, hungry.
"Their blood will speak to me, Master."
Valtor laughed — a deep, rolling sound that smelled like fire.
"And their screams will sing your name."
The elf turned back to Luceris. Their eyes met, locked — not in hate, but weight. The kind of stare that doesn't challenge, but measures.
And the sky cracked. Not in sound — in silence.
Valtor moved first.
No rush. No roar. Just motion — and everything around him responded. The grass withered. The air rippled. The line of soldiers before him shifted, even before he reached them.
"I am Valtor," he declared, his voice a furnace. "You are fuel. Burn well."
And they did.
Flames erupted from his steps, from his breath, from his rage. Spears melted. Shields exploded into splinters. One soldier tried to scream and found his lungs already burning.
"What is he?!" one cried.
"Not a man," another whispered. "Not a beast either…"
"A god?"
Valtor grinned.
"Worse. I have purpose."
Lilith was already gone. No footsteps. No cloak. No war cry.
Only shadows — slithering, shifting, slicing. Wherever she passed, light bent away. Blades missed. Blood did not. She whispered through darkness, every word a curse older than memory.
"Arise."
And the dead rose.
"Obey."
And they followed.
By the time the third rank realized they were surrounded, they were no longer soldiers.
They were corpses that hadn't noticed yet.
"You serve names you don't know," Lilith said. "But I kill for one I've sworn to."
And in the center — stillness.
They stood alone.
The chaos of war echoed around them — screams, fire, steel shattering bone — but between them, there was silence. Not the absence of sound, but the weight of it. The kind of silence that comes before a world changes.
Luceris gripped his sword.
The elf did not move. He simply watched.
"You walk like a king," Luceris said, his voice even. "But there's no crown. No banner. Not even a name to kneel to."
The elf blinked once — slow, deliberate.
Luceris lunged.
Their first clash came like thunder striking stone. Steel met air — then flesh, then steel again. Sparks burst outward, illuminating the field around them as if the heavens themselves leaned in to witness.
Luceris moved fast — too fast for most to follow. His strikes were clean, calculated, trained.
But the elf… moved like still water. Like wind shifting without sound. He didn't block — he simply wasn't there.
Why is he not striking?
Does he toy with me?
Does he mock me?
Frustration bleeding into every swing. He gritted his teeth.
No. This has to end — quickly. I can't waste time.
She's waiting
He pressed harder. Blade sweeping, twisting, turning.
The elf bent — low, calm, avoiding with mere inches.
Luceris growled. "Stop dodging!"
Then, without warning, the elf stepped forward — palm open.
A pulse of black mana burst from his arm, raw and cold. Luceris flew back, boots tearing into the earth. He skidded, recovered, breathing harder.
He didn't even draw a weapon…
Luceris growled. His mana flared, wrapping around him like armor. He stepped forward again, faster this time — weaving feints into fury.
The elf blocked one strike with a single hand — bare skin against glowing steel — and pushed Luceris back.
But still, he said nothing. Luceris's grip tightened.
"Enough of this," he shouted. "Face me — truly."
He raised his blade high, and the air bent around its edge.
"This is the holy blade of Lysanthir — forged to judge your kind!"
He stopped.
Not from pain. Not from threat.
But because something ancient had stirred.
His eyes, until now unreadable, sharpened — not in anger, but recognition.
The breath he took was shallow. The kind one draws not with lungs, but with memory.
That name…
It didn't strike like a sword. It slid beneath armor thought impenetrable.
It whispered through bone, threading between nerves, uncoiling something left untouched for too long.
Lysanthir…
It had no source. No reason.Yet it moved through him like a birthrighthe'd never been allowed to claim.
Forgotten, sealed, buried beneath lifetimes. But his.
He staggered half a step — not because the blade pushed further,
but because the name had found its way home.
And for the first time in this world…
He remembered nothing.
But felt everything.
Luceris saw it.No trembling. No retreat.Only that breathless stillness — as if memory had reached out and taken hold.
Hesitation.
And in that heartbeat, Luceris moved.
Fast. Sharp. Certain.
He didn't question the opening. He claimed it.
With a roar, he surged forward — and drove the blade into the elf's chest.
Straight through. No resistance.
Steel met silence.
The elf staggered — not from pain, but from something deeper.
His lips parted — but no words came. Only breath. And then, none at all.
Valtor stopped mid-swing.
Lilith froze mid-incantation.
Something cracked. Not just the bond — but something older. Something sacred. The moment their Master fell, the world itself reacted.
Lilith turned first. And then — the scream.
''MAAASSSTERRRRR—!!"
It wasn't a voice anymore. It was a wound in the fabric of reality. A note of grief so pure, so enraged, it bent the laws of magic around her.
The clouds tore open without rain. The wind howled — not from the sky, but from the void between planes.
Her eyes turned black — not empty, but bottomless.
"You dared touch HIM? You wretched, rat-blooded insect — I will end your line. Not just here. Not just now. Forever."
The ground beneath her cracked as shadows burst forth like fangs — living, writhing, clawing toward anything that breathed. Her magic expanded in all directions like an oil slick — devouring sound, light, and even the screams before they could escape the soldiers' throats.
Men who had never feared anything broke in that moment. Not from pain. But from knowing they'd been marked.
"Her mana... it's choking me..." "She's not mortal... she's—"
They couldn't finish the sentence. Lilith raised her hand — and the dead did not rise.
They crawled back. Dragged up by her will, forced from peace into servitude once more.
"You will serve him. In death, as in life. Even if your soul screams, it will answer to me."
Then came the second wave.
Valtor saw the body. And howled.
The air combusted in silence around him — not with flame, but with heat that had forgotten sound. His body arched backward, and then his roar followed — like a volcano screaming in agony.
"THE PROMISE! THE BOND! YOU DARE—YOU DARE?!"
"MY MASTER! MY POWER! MY PURPOSE!"
Every scale on his body glowed — red, then gold, then black, as flames exploded from him in a spiral so vast it shook the skyline.
The earth around him turned to glass.
The soldiers caught within didn't burn. They disintegrated — not with pain, but as if the world had forgotten they'd ever lived.
Birds fell from the sky. The trees combusted before the flames reached them. Even the mana in the air recoiled — as if afraid.
"HE WAS NOT YOURS TO TOUCH!"
Luceris turned, breath caught in his throat.
He had faced battle before. He had faced beasts, monsters, warlocks, blades from foreign lands.
But this…
This was devotion weaponized.
This was love turned godlike.
And he knew — in that moment — that he had not slain a elf.
He had awakened something worse.
"What… are they?" he whispered, voice hollow.
Lilith looked up, floating now — her feet no longer touching the earth.
"We were bound to him," she said. "Not by chains — but by choice. By truth. You killed more than our Master."
"You killed what we were willing to kneel for."
Valtor's shadow stretched like a beast unchained.
"And now, little noble…""You die here. Screaming. In flame."