Their Blood, Our Crown
### The Aftermath and Their Vow
The ruins of Blight Ravine groaned behind them, demon carcasses still aflame, painting the night with scorched flesh and silence. The siblings—Kael, Nyra, and Aelina—stood drenched in blood, their breaths shallow but calm. Their eyes glinted with cold victory, no flicker of remorse.
Before they left the city, they turned to their remaining followers—twisted things born of obedience and fear. Each bowed low to the blood-soaked ground, trembling.
"We will call upon you when you're needed. Understood?" Kael's eyes scanned them coldly.
"We are not your saviors. We are your reckoning."
Before one could answer, a broken, blood-soaked demon barely clinging to life let out a hoarse cry: "You think you've won…?"
Kael didn't hesitate. His boot slammed down without mercy, crushing the demon's skull with a sickening crunch.
"You'll learn your place, worm," he snarled, eyes cold and unyielding.
The followers gasped—a collective ripple of terror.
One dared to glance up, voice barely a whisper: "We... we understand, Master."
The others recoiled, but hesitation gave way to reverence twisted by fear. They bowed lower, nearly scraping their foreheads against stone.
"We will never betray you. We fear you more than death."
Their voices rang out together, a monstrous echo:
"YES, MASTER."
One by one, they vanished into the black, fading into cracks of stone and shadow. Their laughter echoed—twisted, broken, joyless. No grief. No mourning. Just silence, hollow and cruel.
The siblings looked back once.
And smiled.
---
### The Crimson Moon and the Return
As they turned away, a strange hush fell. They looked to the sky—
A full moon loomed above, massive and bleeding. Not silver, but a sphere of tortured hues—crimson soaked in violet and green veins, like agony frozen into light. The air pulsed with judgment. It was not comfort—it was condemned.
Kael exhaled. "Figures the sky itself wants us dead."
Then—
A sharp, blinding pain pierced their chests.
They screamed—not in fear or sorrow, but in laughter twisted by agony.
Their bodies convulsed. Hair floated upward violently, then slammed downward with bone-snapping force, as if gravity bent around their cursed blood. Crimson light shimmered through strands.
Their skin cracked, red-hot like magma, revealing glowing black veins. Their eyes ignited, glyphs swirling and burning like cursed runes etched in fire.
Kael chuckled through a bloody grin, "At least this time I didn't vomit up my ribs."
Aelina groaned, staring at her hands. "Ugh. My nails. Again? Gross."
Nyra's expression was stone. "It's happening again."
They didn't panic. They didn't fear it. They smirked at their monstrous reflections.
Their half-demon forms were back.
Red-glowing skin laced with obsidian runes. Demonic sigils pulsing through their limbs. Horns faintly etched into their shadows—but not visible. Yet.
Nyra ran a hand across her burning eye. "We need water. No one must see us like this."
---
### The Sacred Spring of Mavakhal
They wandered through the crumbled hollows of Blight Ravine, then—
A pulse.
A scent of ancient magic led them to a hidden grove, sunken in shadows. At its heart lay the Sacred Spring of Mavakhal.
The waters were black as ink, yet shimmered like constellations in a midnight mirror. Trees twisted unnaturally around it, limbs curled in reverence or terror. The air whispered secrets and blood-bound curses.
The moment their feet touched the water—
The spring screamed.
Not a ripple or hiss—but a deafening shriek. A sentient guardian spirit roared through the water's voice, rejecting them like poison.
Kael's half-demon form flared. Infernal chains of molten shadow burst from his spine, lashing out and binding the spirit in sizzling arcs.
Aelina's eyes darkened to pits of void. Her voice dripped with curses: "Silence."
She muttered an incantation of void-binding, silencing the spring's will.
Nyra walked to the center calmly. Her fingers shimmered with blackfire, and as she pressed them into the heart of the spring—
The spirit burned. A deathless shriek died.
The spring was submitted.
A floating object emerged: a sentient soapstone, formed by the water itself. It pulsed gently, hovering before them.
They understood.
Without the soap: the half-demon transformation would fade in 2–3 days. With it: the transformation would collapse immediately, their god-forms restored in moments.
They bathed—scrubbing blood, bone, and corruption from their bodies. As the soap touched their skin, the lava-cracked flesh cooled, sigils dimmed, and their golden godlight returned.
Kael's hair fell back to starlit silver. Aelina's eyes stopped smoking void. Nyra's body pulsed gently, divine and unbending.
They emerged—silent, unshaken, unholy.
---
### Collapse of Blight Ravine
As they ascended from the spring, the world beneath trembled.
Soil cracked. Trees imploded inward. Stone folded like paper.
And then—
Blight Ravine collapsed entirely.
Not from battle. Not from damage.
But from fear.
The earth itself rejected their return.
Kael turned back one last time.
"Guess the land didn't like our goodbye kiss."
Nyra opened a crimson portal, the veil between realms twisting like a bleeding wound in the air.
They stepped through—
Back to Maevhara's divine domain.
---
### Disdain & Divinity: The Realm of Gods
Maevhara's domain pulsed with divinity. Yet the moment the siblings arrived, it recoiled.
Creatures fled.
Whispers followed.
"Abominations." "They should not be here." "Even death avoids them."
Kael crushed the arm of a priest who brushed against him. Not out of anger. Just because.
Aelina stood for hours, staring at nothing. Her pupils dilated like black holes.
Nyra watched the stars, unmoving.
Zephrius approached Maevhara.
"Have we doomed ourselves?"
Maevhara, voice like frost:
"Only if they stop being useful."
---
### The Attacker Descends
The gate opened in the sky—not crimson, but light. Divine. Pure.
Orivex, the Gearfallen, descended. A war-spirit of ancient gods. Bronze body, gears turning with sacred rhythm. Blade arms shifted shape with each motion. Golden clockwork eyes ticked in fury.
"Balance must be restored. You are diseased gods. I am the cure."
---
### The Fight: Brutal and Unrelenting
Kael lunged. Orivex met him midair. The clash rang like thunder.
Kael crashed to the ground, blood painting his mouth. He laughed:
"Finally, something that hits harder than my sister."
Aelina hovered, her shadow crown screaming. Time warped around her, slowing Orivex for a heartbeat. She drove needles of silence into his gear-heart.
Nyra whispered. Her hair became serpents of ghostlight. Each hiss corroded Orivex's metal. His golden eyes dimmed.
They overwhelmed him. But not without cost.
Kael's arm fractured, bone jutting through skin.
Aelina stumbled, her soul flickering visibly.
Nyra's eyes bled down her cheeks.
Still, they stood.
Victors.
---
### Broken Gods & Hinted Madness
Their silhouettes stood beneath the judgment moon.
Not as heroes.
As warnings.
Their hearts no longer broke.
They had shattered too long ago.
---
### 🩸 A Name from the Dead Is Spoken
That night, each sibling was visited in dreams by a haunting vision of a woman they never truly knew—their mother. She had golden eyes that burned like molten sunlight, and hair that shimmered like woven gold threads flowing endlessly. Her presence was ethereal yet heavy with sorrow and power.
In a voice like a whisper of wind through dying leaves, she spoke:
"I bore your curse before you. You are my legacy... but beware, for shadows lurk where light cannot reach."
Kael jolted awake, breath ragged, heart pounding like a war drum.
Aelina's hands trembled, clutching her chest tightly as she murmured, "No..."
Nyra's cold gaze pierced the darkness. "She's not dead," she said simply, as if knowing the truths others feared to face.
---
### 🕷️ The Traitor Begins to Move
In the divine halls, whispers grew of a traitor—Seratheil, once a devout priest of Maevhara, now a shadow lurking in the folds of betrayal. Pale and gaunt, his deep-set eyes flickered with cunning deceit, his presence a stain on Maevhara's order.
Flashback: The siblings' ruthless execution of Seratheil—cold blades, merciless strikes, his final breath a curse swallowed by silence. Yet, Maevhara's cold command interrupted their vengeance:
"Bring him back alive. Not a hair broken."
The siblings exchanged glances, expressions frosty but compliant.
"What's our payment?" Kael asked, voice low.
Maevhara's reply was a hush that spread like wildfire:
"The Ancestor's Gold."
Shock rippled through all present. Ashen Creed's fists clenched tight; Sahris struggled to contain his burning rage and thirst for revenge.
Kael smirked mockingly at Sahris:
"How interesting."
As Kael prepared to lunge forward, Lucien's hand stopped him.
"The time will come. We hate them too. Calm yourself."
Lucien's face twisted with disgust and hatred, retreating to his master to report.
Nyra accepted the grim task with icy resolve.
Aelina showed only boredom, eyes glazed but attentive.
Kael mused aloud:
"And if we fail? Will punishment follow?"
Maevhara's voice dropped cold and sinister:
"I know you won't fail. But if you do… the darkness awaiting you will be worse than death. You won't want to taste it."
Kael's eyes glittered with dark amusement.
Nyra's expression sharpened, a blade of resolve.
Aelina's gaze turned deadly, curious about the promised darkness.
---
### 👁️ A Shadowed God Makes Their First Move
From the void stepped Xhalion, The Forgotten Oath—a terrifying god cloaked in eternal night. His robes were woven from shadows that swallowed light, and his face was hidden beneath a mask sewn shut at the mouth. When his eyes flashed, black tendrils dripped down, consuming everything in their path.
He whispered into the minds of mortals and immortals alike, erasing memories, twisting truths.
He made the living forget who they were, and the dead remember sins better left buried.
Zephrius questioned Maevhara's decision to bring such monsters into the divine realm.
Maevhara dismissed his concern coldly:
"Their power will serve my goals. That is all that matters."
---
**Author Note**
Hey everyone,
Sorry for the delay—I've been unwell and needed time to rest. Thank you so much for your patience and support. Chapter 27 was a beast to write, but I hope you felt the weight of every word. Let's dive deeper into the madness together. 💀🔥
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### Next Time in Chapter 28
🧢 A god's corpse is stolen.
🕷️ Betrayal ripples through divine ranks.