Far from the silent prayers of Empress Seraphine, beyond oceans and sunsick wastes, on the other edge of the world, the sky bled over a realm where rot bloomed like roses.
This was the kingdom of Vorthag the Undying, Lord of the Black Mantle, King of the Thirteen Abysses. A crown of horned bone rested on his scorched brow, and his throne was carved from the spines of ancient beasts. His realm, Dren-Vael, was a land not ruled, but endured.
Here, nobility was measured not by name, but by the blood you could spill and still stand. Only the strong held power. Only the ruthless were remembered.
And Vorthag hated humans with a rage that had outlasted empires.
To him, the race of man was a mistake—fragile, arrogant, and drunk on self-appointed dominion. Their cities spread like tumors. Their faiths smothered the old ways. And worst of all, they feared demons not because they were evil, but because demons were free.
The Plea of Vorthag
Within his volcanic sanctum, where rivers of molten shadow flowed beneath obsidian altars, Vorthag stood before the Shard Altar of Truth. Alone. The chamber pulsed with dark heat, and the air itself seemed to scream.
He threw back his arms and roared to the nothing beyond reality:
"I do not beg for favor. I demand reckoning! Let the stars hear me!
If this world was shaped with balance, then I demand the weight of justice be returned!
Let fire consume the false order! Let rot bloom upon the thrones of men!
I do not ask for a gift.
I ask for destruction, for liberation, for enlightenment through war!
If the Universe has a voice, then let it answer not with light—but with truth!"
And the Universe did not send light.
It sent her.
A rupture in the heat. A silence deeper than ashfall. Then a presence, descending.
The Descent of Lucifer
A wingless fall of stars.
A ripple of silver fire.
And then, standing in the center of the inferno, a being of beauty so perfect it tore the senses.
She stood barefoot on lava that cooled beneath her presence. Her skin was moon-pale, and her eyes held galaxies bent sideways. She wore no armor, no crown. Just a white robe that shifted like dying starlight.
She smiled like an ending.
"You called. And unlike your gods, I listen."
Lucifer, the First Light, Archangel of the Echo Flame, stepped forward.
Vorthag stared at her, his monstrous face unreadable.
"An angel," he growled. "Come to scorn me?"
Lucifer chuckled—a sound like falling ash. "No. I came because you asked for what only I ever dared dream."
She walked among his flames, untouched.
"You hate the world because it was shaped without you.
I hated the heavens because they only loved what they made."
A Different Creation
Lucifer stopped before him. Her presence did not weaken him. It honored his strength.
"I know what Samael has done. I know the child that sleeps in the womb of the war-queen. He seeks balance.
But you and I? We seek truth.
Balance is a lie. Creation demands tension. Light means nothing without shadow.
So let us make something outside that lie."
Vorthag narrowed his eyes. "Speak plainly."
Lucifer stepped closer, until her breath touched his.
"Let us create a child. Yours and mine. Demon-blood and angel-essence.
Something unholy. Something divine. A being that carries neither Heaven nor Hell, but the collapse of both.
Not peace.
Revelation."
Vorthag bared his fangs. "What would such a child be?"
Lucifer's voice dropped like a falling veil:
"The undoing of walls.
The echo of all things denied.
A soul forged not from choice, but from the truths others feared to speak."
Vorthag tilted his head, fire glimmering in his gaze. "You want doom."
"No," said Lucifer. "I want completion."
He growled. He burned. He thought.
Then he offered his hand—a clawed thing that had ended thousands.
Lucifer took it.
Light met ash.
Their pact bound in a kiss of entropy.
And somewhere, in the roots of the world, a heartbeat began to thrum.
Beneath the Ashen Sky
Days passed without the sun rising. Dren-Vael became a cauldron of hushed expectation. Vorthag no longer addressed his generals. The Demon Court whispered.
Something had shifted.
Within the deepest cave of the Sulfur Cradle, Vorthag prepared for what had never been: union not forged in conquest, but in cosmic defiance. Lucifer awaited, already cloaked in shadows woven from silence and stars.
No witnesses would remember this ritual. No blood sacrifice would be offered. Only intention. Only fusion.
They laid upon stone not made by gods, but by the first collapse of a dying star.
And in that union, they conceived a soul. Not human. Not demon. Not angel.
A soul sharp enough to cut fate itself.
The Whisper of Doom
Lucifer lay beside Vorthag in the silence that followed creation. They said nothing. There was nothing left to say.
But within her, something ancient stirred.
A child growing in the space between contradiction and possibility. A creature born outside prophecy. One who would not be remembered in holy books or cursed scrolls, because his very existence would unmake the narratives that had always shaped the world.
Lucifer turned her head and whispered:
"He will not be angel. He will not be demon.
He will be the memory the Universe tried to forget.
And when he walks this world, the truth will follow."
Vorthag, for once, said nothing.
He only watched the last of the lava die around her.
And knew that something had ended.
And something else had begun.