CHAPTER 206: The Weight of Souls and the March of Monsters
Within the depths of the mirror dimension, inside one of the meditation chambers isolated within the folds of Sienna's Mirror Dimension, time flowed with a heavy, solemn slowness.
Sitting in a perfect lotus position upon the polished crystal floor, Kael Morningstar remained motionless. Wisps of crimson Qi, dense as a freshly slain king's blood, blanketed his bare torso. To a mortal eye, the youth was merely a wounded marble statue surrounded by red mist; but if a cultivator of the Saint Realm were to extend their divine sense toward that room, they would recoil, their soul trembling.
Around Kael's silhouette, there was no simple energy: there was a sharp, absolute authority. A glow of pearlescent white and platinum, extremely fine, outlined the edges of his body like the edge of a celestial blade newly emerged from the forge. The warrior's red hair floated suspended in the air, heedless of the world's weight, and the space surrounding him vibrated with a continuous, high-pitched, invisible tolling, akin to the lament of ten thousand swords unsheathed at the exact same instant.
His Sword Heart had entered the sacred state of Resonance with the Dao.
That heretical condition opened the doors to absolute comprehension. What took an ordinary prodigy of the great sects a century of penance under frozen waterfalls, Kael's spirit dismantled and made its own in a single heartbeat. In his mental sea, the youth disassembled every technique in his repertoire: a horizontal slash, an upward thrust, a minimal parry. He repeated the basic movements once, ten thousand, a hundred thousand times within his mind, purifying his martial intent until stripping it of any vain adornment.
But on the hundred thousandth repetition, his mental sword stopped dead.
Before his spiritual projection rose an imposing wall, an unfathomable conceptual barrier that denied him passage to the next stratum of his Dao. Kael knew, with the absolute certainty of his blood, that if he managed to fracture that wall, his Sword Intent would ascend to the realm of the Living Sword.
As he stood before the illusory wall, a primordial warmth brushed his shoulder. Turning his face, the vacuum of his mind split to reveal two presences that did not belong to his memory.
To his left stood the tall, imposing figure of a man completely bathed in white light; he wielded no divine weapon, but a simple, humble dry tree branch. To his right, levitating upon spirals of red mist, floated a small crimson dragon whose large mismatched eyes flashed with suffocating familiarity.
The beast's left eye—the Magma Dragon's Eye—possessed an iris resembling a ring of molten gold. Its pupil was a living vertical slit composed of golden flames that swirled in spirals, giving off micro-sparks of primordial fire that extinguished before touching the air. Its right eye—the Sword Heart's Eye—was a unified surface of incandescent ruby; in the exact center of the crystal flickered the sharp silhouette of a platinum sword emitting geometric flashes.
Kael attempted to articulate a word, but his voice found no echo in the astral plane. It was the two apparitions who broke the silence.
"Do not rush, boy," spoke the dragon, its voice resonating like the grinding of two mountains. "Step by step. Do not force the flow of your blood. Go slowly; your vessel already carries a monstrous force. Focus on cementing your base. By doing so, you will marvel at the cataclysms a perfect foundation can unleash. Do not chase shadows of power not your own. We, of our race, possess eternity in our favor; we only demand patience." The dragon bowed its neck, pointing to the youth's chest. "Do not lose yourself in the hunger of your sword. I know very well what your soul yearns for, but everything has its hour under the firmament. Trust in your Patriarch; that which your destiny claims, he will put in your hands."
The dragon dissolved into a wisp of red ash, leaving the youth alone with the white figure.
"That old reptile does not lie, boy," said the man with the branch, his tone distilling millennial melancholy. "Possessing my heritage, for what reason do you seek to run toward the precipice? Go slow. Do not wield metal solely as an instrument to reap lives; swords are temples. Use it as an extension of your own flesh. Merge your breath with the steel. Only when you are one with it will you reach the supreme state: One Man, One Sword. A realm where every fragment of your body will be an edge, where a blade of grass or a fallen leaf can cut the wills of heaven. And do not wear yourself out trying to guess my name; I am but the residual echo of the previous owner of this Sword Heart. If I am before you today, it is because I fell. My executioners are your executioners now. No one in the higher planes wishes for another Sword Saint to be born... much less one carrying this blood. Look closely, boy."
The man raised his bare hand and moved the small dry branch in a subtle arc.
Upon lowering the piece of wood, Kael's mental space split into two symmetrical halves. Through the illusory rift, the memory of an atavistic battle was projected: a broad-backed sovereign, with blood-red hair flowing in the vacuum of a starless sky, surrounded by mountains of millions of corpses. The warrior fought alone against deformed entities descending from the firmament, protecting with his body the remnants of the mortal factions huddled behind his back.
*"You... *********," spoke a tall being among the cosmic entities, its voice vibrating the void. "The strongest person in this plane. You have managed to hold out for so long... I congratulate you. But for how much longer will you be able to hold out? Do you think those vermin you protect will be able to save this planet just by sealing it? Those inside are strong..."
The cosmic being took a step forward, making the firmament crack.
"I genuinely congratulate you. I had never found a being as entertaining as you; someone who reached the highest level of sword mastery representing that Dao... but this is as far as you go."
The man with the blood-red hair did not lower his weapon. His face remained blurred in shadows, but his voice carried a heavy, raspy authority when he slightly turned his torso back, locking his gaze on the surviving humans:
"I only have one question..." spoke the sovereign. "Why do you do this? What was the purpose? Why did you betray us?"
The man fixed his gaze on the mortal troops.
"Just for power, or something more? Speak... you damned bastards."
Absolute silence.
No one dared to respond, until the sovereign's eyes stopped on the woman who led the human factions. A woman of fiery figure, hair of eternal night, and purple eyes.
"Why you, my beloved wife?" the man insisted. "Why did it have to be you?"
*"Because you became too strong, *********!" the woman screamed, tearing her throat with poisonous hatred. "You were the one who destroyed my family! You separated me from my beloved... you killed him! Why did you do that? Why?! So I joined them. I administered poison to you, I weakened you... and look at your state now. How long will you hold out? You made many enemies along the way. You brought all this upon yourself."
"..."
The sovereign remained silent for a microsecond before the entire void trembled under the echo of his laughter.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" the man's laughter tore through the black clouds. "So it was all for that useless family of yours... and for that fiancé of yours that you did all this? HAHAHAHAHA! Your damned family was going to sell you to demons! Your fiancé was going to use you as a simple spiritual cauldron for his own benefit! HAHAHAHAHA... and I'm the bad guy!"
"Lies!" the woman shrieked, her eyes wild. "All that is a damned lie! You are a liar!"
The sovereign of crimson hair stopped laughing.
In the next heartbeat, his Sword Intent and killing intent rose to the absolute limit, shattering space into a thousand fragments of crystal. The air tore; all entities on the battlefield felt the freezing edge of a great sword tightening around their throats, and behind the sovereign's back, two crimson eyes projected, burning upon the mere illusion of millions of dead.
"Silence, bitch..." the man whispered, his voice extirpating oxygen from the plane. "I do not want to hear you anymore."
The warrior opened his mouth to continue his sentence, but stopped dead. His expression changed; his ear caught a coded sound transmission. As the message cut off, the sovereign raised his face and burst into fresh laughter, this time purely euphoric and deranged:
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Good! Good! Their time has arrived! Enough games!" bellowed the man, releasing the entirety of his repressed power.
The giant cosmic being leading the invaders noticed the telluric change. It attempted to articulate a command, but blinked stupefied: the spiritual connection network with its vanguard inside the planet had just been cut cleanly.
"What did you do, bastard?!" roared the cosmic entity.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" the sovereign cocked his head. "I like that expression of yours... so haughty. Well, my little friend..." the man lowered his gaze to his great sword, which trembled violently, blanketed by a bloody aura that hummed, affirming its desire "...we have one last dance."
"Good! Let's get them!"
The sovereign took a step toward the cosmic precipice and unleashed three slashes in fractions of seconds, reaping the lives of thousands of divine entities. At the climax of that blinding flash... the vision cut off.
Kael opened his eyes in the meditation chamber, drenched in cold sweat. His chest rose and fell rhythmically while his own pupils mutated by reflex: his left eye burned with the molten gold ring of the Magma Dragon, and his right eye vitrified into the incandescent ruby of the platinum sword.
He exhaled a long red vapor, forcing his blood to calm until his eyes recovered their serene black color.
"What... what damn aberration was all that," Kael murmured, bringing a hand to his temple. "Who were those beings? What calamity unleashed that massacre? Tch... calm. Everything has its moment. The day will come when my edge amputates those answers directly from the flesh of their heirs."
Just as the warrior managed to stabilize the flow of his meridians, an invisible pang pierced his sternum. At the same time, in the main palace gardens, Samael Morningstar was rocking a sleeping Celeste in his arms when the interface of his consciousness flickered crimson red.
[Rune of Destiny Alert: The threads of causality converge. The lost bloodline claims its course.][Rank Five Mission: Mandate of the Dark Crown (Calamity)]
Samael narrowed his eyes. A mission cataloged as Calamity? For whom?
[Recipient: Kael Morningstar.][Location: The Beast Sea.][Time limit for fulfillment: One lunar month.][Penalty for failure or expiration: Irreversible Qi deviation, collapse of the Sea of Consciousness, and perpetual madness.]
The Patriarch stopped his rocking for a second. System... is this a damned joke? Or are you speaking seriously to me?
[Design does not admit irony, Host. If the subject does not confront the core of those coordinates within the stipulated period, the weight of the draconic heritage will break his mortal vessel.]
Samael let out a soft sigh so as not to wake the child resting on his shoulder. A blood debt from the past... Good. We will see what this edict is truly about.
On the other side of the mirror complex, in a chamber buried beneath shadows where the air reeked of rusted iron and bile, Dante measured the weight of his own ambition.
The young warrior contemplated the translucent panel of his Killing System. The figure flashing in the center of his retina filled him with sour regret:
[Available Killing Points: 1,000,000]
"A miserable million..." Dante whispered, clicking his tongue in disdain. "I butchered all the infantry of that fortress, I bathed in the blood of thousands of mercenaries, and this is all I reaped? Trinkets for beggars."
Dante looked up at the gloomy ceiling. "Hey, you... what can I improve in my arsenal with this misery?"
[Responding to Host request. With your current balance, you only possess liquidity to improve your pre-existing technique:][Defensive/Assassination Technique: Mantle of the Phantom — Existence Dissipation (Upgrade to Level 2)]
Upgrade Cost: 200,000 Killing Points. (Successfully deducted!) Perfected Martial Mechanics: Dante's body fragments into thousands of particles of black mist and blood for 0.3 seconds. Any physical or spiritual attack passes through him without exerting friction. Upon materializing, Dante invariably emerges in the aggressor's blind spot, obtaining a 300% lethality increase for his next stabbing.
🩸 New Secondary Skill Unlocked: [Echo of the Reaper — Phantasmagoric Blink]
Mechanics: After exiting intangibility and executing the first death attack with the 300% boost, any trace or splash of fresh enemy blood within a 15-meter radius (whether the current target or wounded rivals in the area) instantly activates as a "Reaper's Portal." Secondary Effect: During a 2-second time window, Dante can execute a second instantaneous blink direct toward any of these blood foci. Upon reappearing directly from the blood on the ground or the victim's clothing, Dante maintains the 300% lethality and resets the intangibility state of the [Mantle of the Phantom] for an additional 0.1 seconds. This allows him to jump from one bloody victim to another in a blink, unleashing an unpredictable chain massacre.
"Mmm..." Dante scratched his chin with the tip of his nail. "What if I wish to improve the Dagger of the Fallen Asura? Or if I want to push my Law of Killing to the next stratum? How much does advance of my cultivation base demand?"
The algorithm's response fell upon his shoulders like a slab of lead:
[Refinement of the Dagger of the Fallen Asura: Requirements unmet.][Evolution of the Law of Killing: 50,000,000 Killing Points.][Realm Ascension (Saint Stage 1 to Saint Stage 2): 2,000,000 Killing Points.][Primordial Purification of Draconic Bloodline: 100,000,000 Killing Points.]
Dante felt a cold sweat soak the back of his neck. Fifty million. One hundred million. He was a spiritual beggar playing in the emperors' market. However, his calculating mind did not let itself be dragged into panic; he suddenly remembered a red sphere he had seen floating days ago in the general catalog of the Clan's Task Hall.
He extracted a small black jade tablet from his space ring and injected a thread of his Qi to inspect the heretical arts section.
[Dark Art: Domain of Corrupted Blood (Incomplete)]
Classification: Semi-Saint Level. Internal exchange value: 5,000,000 Clan Contribution Points. Catalog Note: Being a fragmented conceptual domain, its assimilation carries a high risk of mental collapse. Possession of innate affinity with the Law of Killing, the Blood attribute, or abyssal essence is required. Lacking said anchors, the Clan Council severely prohibits its acquisition.
Dante widened his cracked lips in a macabre smile. "Hey, system... if I redeem this incomplete domain with clan contribution points, could your authority merge it directly with my Law of Killing to engender a True Domain?"
[Processing viability of conceptual synthesis...][Analysis concluded. Fusion is absolutely viable, Host. By integrating the incomplete domain, the condensation cost of your own Domain of Killing is reduced to exactly 5,000,000 Killing Points. You will obtain absolute sovereignty over a territory of corrupted blood.]
"HOHOHO!" a wet giggle bubbled from Dante's throat as he caressed the pommel of his dagger, which responded by emanating a scarlet glow. "It's still a fortune, yes... but five million is no longer one hundred million. I'm only short four million killing points and a handful of clan contribution. To what blessed corner of this continent will the Patriarch send me to harvest heads tomorrow? I am anxious to sow my garden."
Under the perpetual and serene light of the Eternal Aurora, far from the reclusion chambers and the stench of runic weapons, two female silhouettes walked in absolute silence along the nacre paths of the outer palace.
Eris Morningstar advanced with her head high, her long silvery-white hair fluttering in the wind, revealing those characteristic tips dyed a violent crimson red. Her mismatched gaze—one eye a fierce blood red and the other a neon violet speckled with scarlet flashes—contemplated the vastness of the horizon with indomitable haughtiness. She wore imperial red robes trimmed in white silk, garments that clung to the firmness of an athletic, proud, and sculptural figure, molded by blows in the forge of the Sequences.
Beside her, flowing with the delicate grace of a spring stream, walked Violeta Morningstar. Her bearing was the reverse of her twin's: serene, ethereal, and silent. Her own eyes—one an electric violet and the other an absolute, crystal blue akin to the heart of a celestial diamond—reflected the calm of the Mini-World. Her celeste and silver silk robes barely brushed the ground, conferring upon her the appearance of an untouchable maiden descended from the stars.
Both stopped before the viewpoint of the great jade waterfall, contemplating the realm their older brother had torn from destiny's claws to gift them a home where no one could make them kneel.
"Who would have thought..." Eris broke the silence, her voice losing its habitual harshness for a second. "I never imagined we would walk on marble terraces. It is overwhelming to contemplate the immensity of what our brother has built for us, right?"
Violeta nodded slowly, her fingers caressing the white stone balustrade.
"From being cornered in the mud of that mortal city, with our people being hunted like street beasts... to possessing sovereignty of this firmament. It is a leap that defies common sense." Violeta subtly clenched her fists. "And to think that the heritage of the ancient dragons slept in our veins..."
"A mystery that only agreed to react under Samael's shadow," added Eris, shrugging her shoulders with a haughty smile. "Although what importance does the origin of our blood hold at this point? What is truly unquestionable is that we are breathing, that we are a thousand times more lethal than yesterday, and that we possess an older brother with a pathological obsession for protecting us, HAHAHAHAHA. We have our Aunt Lilith, our sister-in-law Seraphina, little Celeste, and those two monstrosities growing in the palace's womb."
However, after uttering those words of victory, the fierce gleam in Eris's crimson eye wavered. A deep, silent melancholy clouded her view.
"I miss Mother so much... I miss Father," Eris whispered, her voice barely audible under the waterfall's rumble.
Violeta lowered her head, sharing the same lump in her throat. Upon the canvas of their minds projected the indelible memory of that distant mortal night: a small boy, soaked by frozen rain, with torn clothes and eyes reddened by a panic he tried to hide at all costs, approaching them with trembling steps to relate the tragedy that had left them orphans. That fragile child was the invincible colossus that today cradled the destiny of thousands.
Before a single tear could break the twins' composure, a dense, sovereign, and deeply comforting warmth blanketed them from behind.
Two broad arms, wrapped in dark fabric, slid over their shoulders, drawing both girls' backs against a firm obsidian chest. They needed neither to unsheathe nor look back; in all the vast universe, only one being existed with the absolute right to shorten their distances in that manner.
"Do not torment yourselves over past shadows, my girls," Samael's voice vibrated directly against their chests, sweet and protective. "I will inspect the records of death. I will find the method to tear them from the cycle of reincarnation and bring them back to this garden. I swear it to you on my crown."
Hearing her brother's edict, Violeta turned halfway in his embrace, resting her hands upon his sternum.
"Brother... do not commit any suicidal madness out of impatience," the youth requested, her eyes shining with fraternal severity. "We will not sit around waiting for you. We will temper our cultivation; we will seek the answers by your side."
"Violeta is right," added Eris, leaning her head against the monarch's shoulder with a warm smile. "Do not carry all the problems yourself alone. Today we are alive, we are strong... and we have you holding our hand. That is enough for us."
Samael did not respond with vain promises. He slid his hands to gently comb both sisters' silver hair, letting the steady beat of his draconic heart dissipate their worries.
When he stepped back a pace, he offered them both hands with a serene smile.
"Come. Let us take a walk among siblings," Samael proposed.
The two sovereigns of the vanguard lost all their military tyranny in a blink, giving a small skip of youthful dopamine to walk at the boy's sides. That was a strange sight in an empire forged upon bones, but infinitely sacred.
Hidden among the foliage of the great trees guarding the path, Lilith observed them in silence, wrapped in a loose black silk nightgown. She had perceived her nieces' Qi minutes before but had kept aloof, listening to every word until the Patriarch's arrival.
The Ashen Phoenix rested a hand upon her chest, shaking her head while a smile laden with infinite tenderness traversed her sadistic deity face.
"Just look at them..." Lilith whispered to the leaves. "These brats are going to end up killing me with a heart attack out of pure emotional attachment. They don't give me a single century of truce; they are going to give me premature gray hairs before the era ends, HAHAHAHAHA."
The woman's feather silhouette dissolved into the midday breeze, leaving them to walk in peace.
In the western wing of the main palace, inside a chamber whose black stone slabs were buried under mountains of runic flags, fractured jade plates, ancient scrolls, and spilled inkwells, Cedric fought his own battle against memory.
The young warrior lay sitting in the center of the chaos, with knees drawn to his chest and eyes bloodshot with feverish neurosis. His hands traced erratic lines in the air, inspecting and dismantling every defensive matrix of the clan catalog while his Sea of Consciousness was bombarded by ghosts of his past life.
Before time's course inverted, before being a prodigy recruited under the Morningstar banner, the mortal continent had venerated him under a heretical title: The Emperor of Seals.
He had reached Stage 6 of the Emperor Realm manipulating reality's geometry through matrices. However, all his sovereignty and vast territories had been mere setting to house his only true treasure: his wife. A woman of humble smile and modest cultivation—barely a low-rank Saint whom he had dragged toward longevity based on elixirs, loving her with absolute devotion.
And then came the night of the eclipse.
In the darkness of his meditation chamber, Cedric gritted his teeth until making his gums bleed remembering the ambush. That organization of untouchable executioners governing the Central Continent Underworld: The Court of the Eclipse.
"Rats... damned sewer rats," Cedric muttered, his voice trembling with poisonous rancor. "They tricked me. They deployed false-signature matrices to distract my attention at the borders. My wife... she was no common woman; her blood belonged to an exiled bloodline that someone at the Central Empire's apex desired to evaporate at all costs. I was a Stage 6 Emperor, yes... but before an order of supreme assassins operating under imperial edicts, my seals were nothing but wet paper. They entertained me in the north... and when I managed to break the siege and return to my chamber... she... she was already..."
CRACK.
Cedric's fingers closed with such violence upon a Heaven Grade formation jade plate that the hyper-dense mineral exploded into a thousand sharp shards, embedding into his own palm.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA! DAMNED BE YOU ALL!" the youth's roar made the chamber pillars rumble, releasing an expansive shockwave of unstable runic Qi that pulverized three ironwood tables.
Cedric's chest rose and fell erratically. He closed his eyes, forcing his breath to attach to the Dao until the runic storm inside him collapsed into a cold silence.
"Sigh... Calm, Cedric. Calm," he ordered himself, opening eyes that now distilled a frigid purpose. "To lose sanity today is to gift them victory tomorrow. The Patriarch will never oppose my vengeance, but to cut the heads of the Court of the Eclipse... first I have to survive this week's missions. I have to become a god of seals under this banner."
A thousand meters from the obsidian palace, crowning the exact center of the Mini-World, rose the titanic Stellar World Tree.
Its physiognomy had transcended any botanical record. The trunk—which long ago was nothing but a tender translucent crystal stalk—had metamorphosed into a colossal column of black wood, rough, ancient, and indestructible like the iron of a fossilized star, growing until piercing the sky's dome to act as the central pillar supporting the realm's firmament.
Its branches spanned entire provinces, blanketed by millions of metamorphosed crystal leaves displaying an imperial violet center trimmed with scarlet edges. When the perpetual light of the Eternal Aurora pierced that infinite canopy, the shadows the tree projected upon the white earth were not dark patches: they were sharp geometric patterns representing living stellar constellations.
Standing before the colossal abyssal roots of that wooden deity, a woman contemplated upward in absolute silence.
She observed how, at the intersections of the highest branches, the world's Qi condensed slowly to give shape to small resplendent spheres. Fruits in gestation.
"It is a sight that moves the soul..." the woman murmured. "It is a specimen that shares authority of the great World Trees of the higher planes, but at the same time guards an absolutely alien nature. Those fruits... harbor a conceptual density I fail to decipher. Are they ordinary catalysts of essence? Or do they enclose something more?"
The light sound of boots stepping on white grass broke her monologue.
"Mmm... is it you, Xylia?" spoke a silken voice behind her back.
Xylia Morningstar turned elegantly. Her long silver hair descended like a moon waterfall over her shoulders, making those imposing purple eyes flash with arcs of static electricity resound. Her pristine skin seemed to emit a luminosity of its own, and she wore bound to her forehead a simple ancient jade diadem. Her purple and abyssal blue silk robes fell with sovereign bearing, cinching the firmness of a majestic, tall, and perfectly proportioned figure, proper of a monarch born to dictate armies' morality.
Upon recognizing Samael, who had just left his sisters at the pavilions to visit Clara's tomb and review the divine garden, the woman bowed her head slightly.
"Patriarch," Xylia greeted.
"Do not torment yourself with empty courtesies, Xylia. Here there is only you and me under the leaves," Samael smiled, shortening distance until standing beside her before the roots. "You have immense curiosity about those fruits, right?"
Xylia nodded silently.
"Well, it makes no sense keeping secret from you," the monarch explained, looking up. "Those spheres are Law Fruits. By consuming them, universe fabric folds in your Dantian to grant you absolute mastery over a new True Law."
Xylia's purple eyes opened wide, unable to hide her stupefaction.
"A complete True Law for each fruit consumed?" the warrior's voice trembled. "Patriarch... that defies the rules. And can one guess what concept each sphere harbors? Or does it respond to chance?"
"Mmm... I decree that it responds to individual's resonance," Samael reflected. "On occasions, fruit detects latent heritage deep within your soul that you yourself ignore, and materializes it. On others, it is mere roll of destiny's dice: it can ascend you toward creation or condemn you to ruin. Everything depends on weight of your luck. But you all have no reason why worrying about stupid probabilities."
"What... what do you mean with that, Patriarch?" Xylia faltered.
Samael turned face and looked at her fixedly. In that instant, boy's violet vortexes seemed crossing woman's flesh, stripping records of her past lives, her deaths, her betrayals, and spirit's guarded secrets.
"Mmm? Why so thoughtful, Xylia?" Samael mocked softly. "Or perhaps you would prefer that addressing to you as... The Thunder Empress of Higher Realm?"
Xylia's body froze. Electric currents in her meridians exploded by reflex, adopting an absolute guard posture while her mind collapsed in blank. Never, in all her years of cover-up in mortal plane, had suspected that leader of that clan knew her true primordial identity!
However, upon contemplating Samael's warm, serene, and malice-devoid smile, Empress's defensive instinct crumbled, allowing her ancient sovereign majesty emerging on her shoulders.
"How... how know you that, Lord Samael?" Xylia asked, her voice adopting a ruler's gravity.
"I know infinitely more than you all suspect, Xylia," Samael responded, his tone converting into an unshakeable edict. "I know you forty-five like palm of my hand. There is no single corner in your souls that can hide from me. That were you an abyssal demon? What matters. That were you an assassin? Welcome be. That are you a reincarnated Empress descended from Higher Heavens? Here only I command, HAHAHAHAHA. You carry my bloodline running through your veins, and that is only sacred seal recognizing. Morningstar never abandons own. Protecting you and this family against any firmament trying crushing us."
Samael took step forward until shortening his space.
"So leave masks with me. Tormenting you idea that those celestial sovereigns who betrayed you tracking your essence to this lower realm, and desiring beginning your vengeance... but having panic dragging this new family toward ruin of your past Karma. Mistaking I?"
Xylia lowered gaze, disarmed completely before boy's omniscience. Long and trembling sigh escaped lips.
"Yes, Patriarch... I have fear," confessed Empress, her voice cracking with vulnerability not showing from centuries past. "My enemies not simple mortal tyrants. They entities commanding legions of millions of immortals, figures ruling eras from star thrones. I lost my teacher... lost only lap sustaining me in higher realm. Not wanting seeing burn this palace by my fault."
Samael not answered with defensive discourses. Walked side and deposited broad hand upon woman's silver hair, caressing head with firmness crushing any cosmic law.
"Look at me, Xylia," Samael ordered. "We your family. And this family knows not concept of abandonment because never learning backward. If your enemies in higher sky command millions... my Legion tearing pieces those millions. If your enemies celestial sovereigns or gods themselves... sole and miserable destiny will be fertilizing with flesh roots of this tree. But for achieving that sentence, having you becoming absolute calamity. Not fighting wars for resisting; fighting wars for extinguishing. Throwing yourself external world without looking back... or having assign you one month rehabilitation under Lilith's skirts, Heh, heh, heh."
Violent and instinctive chill traversed Empress's back. Sustaining that supposed rehabilitation of Lilith was a hell not wishing neither worst enemies. Nonetheless, upon raising gaze toward boy's violet eyes, absolute warmth sealed soul.
"Yes, Patriarch," nodded Xylia, her purple gaze igniting with indomitable thunder. "Graving your edict in my marrow."
Samael nodded with satisfaction. In blink of stellar light, silhouette dissolved in tree root.
In following second, Sovereign reappeared standing upon highest branch of titanic Stellar World Tree's crown, levitating kilometers upon Mini-World's white ground.
From that mythological height, gaze swept totality of empire: observing Dead Blood Legion formations on islands, contemplated siblings' silhouettes conversing viewpoints, and perceived agonizing and greedy heartbeat of forty-five warriors resting mirrors' darkness.
Samael raised face toward Eternal Aurora's perpetual light, violet eyes burning like two purple suns against dawn.
"System," decreed monarch, voice propagating through stellar foliage like mandate of ages end. "Deploy casualty tables. Deliver mission list for forty-five Sequences. Rest expired... time has arrived for my monsters marching upon world."
[With largest and darkest pleasures, Sovereign.]
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