The morning at the Dark Castle was cool. Lucius Feramir sat on the edge of the crumbling roof. Dressed in a simple dark t-shirt and matching trousers, he tossed and caught a smooth metal ball with one hand.
Below, at the foot of the castle, an endless army stood in formation.
"Do it!" a commander's booming order rang out from the front lines.
In that same instant, massive torrents of dark energy rushed toward the castle from above and the sides. The spells flew with such destructive force that, as they grazed the ground, they instantly annihilated the soil and scorched everything in their path.
Lucius watched the incoming magic for a second and said calmly, "So, you're here already..."
With those words, he spun the metal ball high into the sky. In mid-air, the ball instantly expanded into an incredibly durable, shimmering dome that enveloped the entire castle. The streams of dark energy slammed into the barrier, but nothing happened. The dome simply absorbed the entire barrage.
Lucius stood up. Drawing his sword, he inspected the blade as he moved, then stepped off the edge and fell headfirst toward the ground.
Mid-air, his silhouette dissolved, and a split second later, he materialized in the very center of the army—right behind the commander who had shouted the order.
"Sorry, but you’re not on my level," he said quietly.
A knight standing nearby lunged forward, trying to run Lucius through. But Lucius had already vanished, leaving only a pulsing red crystal in his place.
The knight's blade sliced right through the crystal.
BOOM!
The explosion shattered the formation and sent nearby soldiers flying in all directions. Lucius himself was already standing calmly by the castle outside the dome, surveying the smoking clearing.
He pressed the bracelet on his left wrist. A translucent map of the terrain immediately unfolded in the air before him. Taking a quick glance at the hologram, he saw only rank-and-file units.
"Nah, that won't do..." Lucius muttered quietly.
With one movement, he ripped the stone bracelet off his arm and hurled it at the castle wall. The artifact shattered into tiny pieces with a chime.
At that very second, hundreds of kilometers away, a deafening low hum rang out at the three kings' feet—Olgerd, Valdes, and Edriac. The space around them instantly warped and, with a sharp whistle, compressed into a single point.
A moment later, all three kings materialized right in the middle of their own army.
One of the nearby knights almost dropped his sword in shock and shouted in a stuttering voice, "L-Lord Olgerd?! Aren't you supposed to be in your kingdom?!"
Olgerd looked around in confusion, unable to understand what had happened. But when he looked up, he noticed Lucius standing at the castle, smiling and waving at him in greeting. The sight twisted Olgerd’s face with rage:
"I gave the order to kill him! What are you doing here?!"
Nearby, Valdes, breathing heavily, looked from the massive castle to the soldiers in astonishment:
"Damn..."
Regaining his composure, he barked across the field:
"What are you standing around for?! Move, now!"
And Edriac barely realized where he was or who he was looking at before his face went pale. With trembling legs, he spun around and bolted away from the army and the castle, whispering in horror:
"No, no! I don't want to... I don't want to die!"
The massive army rushed forward. Mages in the back ranks raised their staves, preparing their spells.
Lucius only watched the approaching avalanche with boredom. With a calm motion, he pulled his sword from his back, gripped it with one hand, and plunged the blade into the ground.
"Black crash, boundless abyss..." he said quietly.
In that same instant, an impenetrable black void rushed out from the blade in all directions. It instantly swallowed the entire space around. The ground beneath the soldiers and kings collapsed, turning into nothingness.
The entire army, along with the castle itself, plunged into the abyss.
Panic erupted. Soldiers screamed deafeningly, flailing helplessly as they fell. Mages frantically tried to conjure flight or levitation spells, but the magical currents only dragged the mages and everyone else down with even greater force. Commanders vainly tried to shout over the chaos and restore some semblance of order.
"Damn it!" Olgerd roared, trying to see anything below him.
Valdes stared into the void beneath his feet with wild eyes full of terror. A strange, bright pink glow pulsed from the very bottom through the darkness.
"Create a wind current! Quickly! Make a cushion so we can land!" Valdes screamed at the top of his lungs, addressing the mages falling nearby.
They tried with all their might to form a dense gust of wind, but the magic spiraled out of control, sparking and scattering. A few minutes later, the pink surface below rushed toward them at insane speed.
With only seconds remaining before impact and the ground rushing up toward them, Valdes, bracing for instant death, squeezed his eyes shut and screamed with all his strength:
"Fuck!"
But the impact never came.
Half a meter from the ground, the fall froze instantly. Soldiers, chunks of rock, and debris settled gently onto the pink surface. Everything went quiet, and the warriors cautiously got to their feet.
Looking up, the soldiers and kings froze. The familiar forests and fields had disappeared. The ground beneath their feet was bright pink, and an equally unreal pink sky stretched overhead. Huge chunks of the familiar brown soil floated in the air, and massive gray columns, as if cast from marble, rose throughout the space—some remained intact, while others were partially destroyed.
Lucius stood to his full height atop one of these half-destroyed columns.
"Welcome to my world," he said with icy calm.
Olgerd and Valdes, noticing him, were the first to recover and screamed at the top of their lungs:
"Kill him!"
The army rushed toward the column, but right before their eyes, Lucius's silhouette began to grow rapidly, becoming larger and taller with every second. The soldiers slowed down, not believing their eyes. The next moment, the giant Lucius dissolved completely, turning into a thick fog that instantly enveloped the entire battlefield.
Sharp spikes erupted from the thick fog in all directions. They pierced armored knights, mages, and commanders through and through.
The fog lifted as quickly as it had appeared. When the haze cleared, most of the army already lay dead on the ground. Lucius hovered in the sky, his arms outstretched and his head tilted toward the pink clouds.
"Witness your weakness..." he announced loudly.
In that same second, his silhouette dissolved and appeared right in the midst of the surviving soldiers:
"...and die, you wretched creatures."
Lucius cut down dozens of knights and mages in mere seconds with nothing but his sword. Olgerd raged with fury, shouting senseless orders, while Valdes, breathing raggedly, staggered unsteadily.
Easily carving a path through the remnants of the guard, Lucius reached Olgerd in two steps.
SWING!
With one precise blow, he severed the king's right arm. Olgerd screamed deafeningly from the sudden pain:
"Son of a bitch!"
Following that, the blade instantly lopped off his left arm at the elbow. The king collapsed to his knees, howling in agony.
"Your Majesty!" the knights cried, rushing to his rescue.
But Lucius just snapped his fingers—and a dense, transparent shield appeared around him and Olgerd. None of the soldiers could even touch them anymore.
Lucius demonstratively grabbed Olgerd by the scruff of his neck, hoisting the writhing king before the frozen army:
"And this is your king? Look..."
Another quick swing—and Olgerd's severed right leg flew aside. A couple of seconds later, the blade severed his left leg as well. The king could no longer even scream, only wheeze in shock.
"These cries... these screams... Isn't it beautiful?" Lucius muttered with an insane smile.
One of the commanders, standing outside the shield, went into hysterics, overwhelmed by horror and despair:
"Monster! Monster! How dare you?!" With a wild roar, he threw himself at Feramir.
Lucius removed the barrier and, with one precise lunge, drove his sword straight into the commander's heart. Looking into his fading eyes, Lucius smiled:
"What is the point of fighting against me if you're going to lose anyway?"
He pulled the blade free and instantly materialized behind the paralyzed Valdes.
"Your turn," he whispered into his ear.
"Da—" Valdes didn't have time to finish before Lucius did the same to him. Seeing their masters reduced to mangled corpses, the remnants of the army finally broke. Trembling knights and mages, dropping their weapons, ran in all directions in mortal terror.
Watching the chaos unfold, Lucius broke into a manic grin and shouted after them:
"Yes! Yes! That's it! That's how it's done!"
Laughing, he slowly went after everyone who tried to escape, intent on destroying them all.
But the pink world and the destroyed columns crumbled into dust instantly.
Morning returned to the foot of the Dark Castle. The entire army—knights, mages, commanders—froze in place, their eyes glazed and vacant.
Lucius walked across the field among the motionless troops with an indifferent expression. He passed commanders, passed rank-and-file soldiers, without even drawing his sword.
Suddenly, one of the knights near him twitched convulsively and collapsed dead flat into the mud. Then the second, third, fifth... Soldiers began to buckle at the knees one after another and fall to the ground. Their bodies died in reality the moment their minds finally shattered within the illusion.
Lucius walked unhurriedly toward the kings standing motionless. Olgerd and Valdes, with wild terror frozen on their faces, collapsed at his feet at the same time and stopped breathing.
Stepping over the dead Olgerd, Lucius said indifferently:
"Falling for such a pathetic illusion—a disgrace..."
Surveying the pile of corpses, he squinted. Edriac was not among them.
Lucius raised his right hand and activated the built-in tracker with a light touch. A dark holographic projection flashed above his wrist, displaying a lone black dot that pulsed rapidly as it moved deeper into the forest.
At that moment, another knight fell with a dull thud right next to Lucius.
"And yet he managed to run away..." Lucius muttered with a light chuckle, looking at the marker on the tracker.
He took one step and vanished immediately.
A few kilometers from the castle, stumbling over roots and coughing heavily, Edriac ran. His lungs burned, his legs buckled from exhaustion, and panic clouded his eyes. He sprinted without looking back, hearing only his own ragged, wheezing breath.
Suddenly, right in front of him, Lucius appeared. He stood calmly, his arms hanging at his sides, looking at the gasping king with a slight smirk.
"Well, hello," he said quietly.
Edriac squealed in surprise and terror, caught his foot on a dry root, and hit the ground hard. Pressing his back into the grass and frantically scrambling backward, he waved his arms in fear:
"L-Lord Lucius! I... I didn't mean to! I really didn't mean to!"
Memories of the recent council flashed in his head. Olgerd's looming face: "Edriac, you must come with us! No refusals accepted!"—and Valdes's heavy hand pressing threateningly against his shoulder: "Or do you want to die right here?"
"I was forced to do it!" Edriac whined with a tremor in his voice, swallowing tears. "I had no choice! I really didn't—"
"Shh-shh-shh-shh..." Lucius interrupted him gently, pressing an index finger to his lips, as if calming a frightened child.
He slowly approached, crouched right in front of the trembling king, and looked into his eyes.
"Don't worry, I know everything," Lucius said in a quiet, soothing tone. "And I'm not going to kill you."
Edriac froze, swallowing hard, and exhaled in disbelief:
"R-really?.."
Lucius paused for a moment, tilted his head slightly to the side, and smiled:
"Of course. But on one condition... Make me your son."
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