The iron scent of blood drowned Sol Atrium.
The skies once bathed in holy light were now veiled in a suffocating crimson, as if the heavens themselves bled. Shattered statues of gods lay cracked and crumbling. The once-mighty banners of the Light fluttered torn in the acidic wind.
At the heart of it all, amidst the battlefield of corpses, Lucian sat lazily atop the broken throne of Sol Atrium. His obsidian armor gleamed with a darkness so pure that even the surrounding light recoiled. A single crimson eye glowed beneath the shadows of his hair, and a faint, almost mocking smirk tugged at his lips.
Before him, Kazeroth, the newly revealed General of the God of Darkness, knelt deeply, one hand pressed to the fractured marble, his scythe planted reverently beside him.
In a voice that shook the air and tore at the soul, Kazeroth declared:
"All hail the Demon God of Darkness!"
The words split the world like a blade.
The soldiers of Light who still remained, broken and shivering in the ruins, screamed and wept as the ancient fear awoke in their blood. Even the arrogant Candidates of Light, who had once believed themselves invincible, staggered. Though they were born long after the original God of Darkness had vanished, the horror of that existence had been inscribed into the very foundation of the divine world.
The name was not just a title — it was a curse, a prophecy, a doom.
And now it lived again.
Baek Mu-sang and Seraphion stood not far behind Lucian, their blades drenched in gore. The screams of Valtar, Caelthuron, and Isolde filled the air — but they were brief. Baek laughed as he impaled Valtar through the throat with a jagged blade of black qi. Seraphion crushed Caelthuron's ribcage with a single punch, the impact rupturing the very air around him. Isolde tried to flee, her wings of light fluttering desperately — but Baek's hand closed around her ankle, and with a casual yank, she was shattered against the stones.
Thomas, standing by Lucian's side, coughed into his fist and smiled awkwardly.
"My Lord... did you already know about this army?" he asked, voice half-admiring, half-incredulous.
Lucian leaned back, resting his cheek against one gloved fist. He stared at the collapsing skyline, watching as divine spires toppled like dominoes.
"No," he said flatly. "I just got tired of stepping over Light soldiers while trying to breathe."
Thomas chuckled under his breath, glancing once more at the sea of black-armored warriors that had flooded the ruins. Their presence radiated an aura so oppressive that even the earth seemed to bow.
In the distance, the last screams of the Candidates of Light faded into silence.
Lucian's crimson eye narrowed.
He sensed...something.
A disturbance. A gnawing itch in the back of his mind.
He stood up from the throne with a soundless motion, his armor whispering against itself like rustling silk. His gaze swept the battlefield — and found the anomaly.
"Thomas," Lucian said, his voice like a scalpel. "Bring those rats out."
Thomas grinned broadly and raised his hand.
A sudden rupture in space cracked open like an infected wound. The howling of broken laws screamed as a group of figures were violently dragged out onto the marble before the throne.
They were cloaked, battered, barely alive. Worn armor clung to their bodies, patched together with dragonhide and rusted steel. Around their necks and belts hung the remains of dragon cores — some still faintly pulsing with dying energy.
Their eyes, however, burned.
Not with hope.
Not with desperation.
But with pure, absolute hatred.
Lucian studied them for a long moment. He said nothing.
The figures remained kneeling, half from exhaustion, half from silent defiance.
Thomas tilted his head, curious. "Who are these worms?"
Lucian answered by stepping down the stairs of the throne, each footfall echoing in the broken temple.
He stopped before the one who seemed their leader — a woman with silver hair matted with blood, her gaze harder than steel.
"Speak," Lucian ordered.
The woman hesitated. Then, in a hoarse, shaking voice, she said:
"We are the Revenant Circle."
Once, they had been free people.
They lived across dozens of worlds — vibrant, chaotic, flawed, and beautiful. They had no gods. They needed none. Their civilizations rose and fell by their own will, their own strength.
Until the gods came.
Until the Kingdom of Light descended upon them — not as saviors, but as tyrants. Playthings.
The gods tore through their worlds as children might smash toys. Entire continents sundered in celestial games. Cities burned to entertain divine boredom. Every time they rebuilt, the gods returned, laughing, clapping like delighted audiences at a puppet show.
Thousands of years. Endless cycles of slaughter.
And the gods never once cared.
The Revenant Circle had been born in the ashes of the last apocalypse. They were the scraps — the survivors who refused to die.
One among them, an ancient dragonkin, had unearthed a forbidden spell — a twisted incantation woven from the marrow of dead Primordial Dragons. A spell that could blind the gaze of gods. A spell that could free them from the "Matrix" — the endless cycle of suffering imposed by divine oversight.
The spell worked.
They fled.
They saw, for the first time, the truth: the Kingdom of Gods was not a utopia, but a gilded slaughterhouse. Its glimmering palaces were built atop mountains of bones.
They wandered the void, starving, hunted, forgotten.
Then they found the crippled dragons — once majestic beasts that had been shattered by the gods and abandoned like broken pets. The Revenant Circle, weeping with rage, harvested the cores of these fallen titans to strengthen themselves.
They learned to fight.
They learned to hate.
And when they heard of Sol Atrium — when they heard the Candidates of Light would gather in one place — they saw their only chance.
A single assassination.
A single act of vengeance.
They had no illusions of survival. They had come to die, so long as they dragged even one god down into hell with them.
The silver-haired woman, her voice ragged but steady, finished the story.
Lucian stood silent.
The Revenant Circle knelt before him — not in submission, but in defiance.
It was not loyalty they offered.
It was a shared, unspoken hatred.
Lucian chuckled under his breath.
He turned his back to them and walked a few steps away.
The Revenant Circle flinched, sensing death.
Instead, Lucian said, without turning:
"You dared risk everything... just to spit in a god's face."
He turned his head slightly, crimson eye gleaming like a dying star.
"That's the kind of madness I can use."
He faced them fully, spreading his arms slightly, as if offering them the world.
"Swear yourselves to me. Become my silent knives. My unseen fangs. In exchange... you will have all the gods you can kill."
The Revenant Circle looked at each other.
And one by one — they knelt.
Not because they trusted.
Not because they believed.
But because they had finally found something darker than the gods they hated.
Lucian, the Demon God of Darkness.
Above them, the skies of Sol Atrium screamed and tore open.
The Kingdom of Light — what remained of it — shuddered in terror.
In the distance, entire divine armies withdrew.
The birth of the Demon God of Darkness was not the beginning of a new era.
It was the beginning of the end.
And the Revenants...
The silent knives...
The unseen fangs...
Would carve the way.