Chapter 15: The Start of the First Arc of the First Game (5)
The smell of burned air hung in the carriage like thick fog, sharp and buzzing, mixing with the warm metal taste of blood that soaked into the rugs and formed small, blaming pools on the floor. The train—once a shiny ride for rich folks through promising skies—now looked torn open, like a hurt animal of bent metal and broken glass, its smooth hum turned to a rough gasp from the hole above. Bits of the golden shield floated like dying bugs, their light fading to weak sparks on the ground, while morning sun cut through the haze in thin, unsure lines, throwing long shadows that moved over the mess like worried ghosts.
Lucian Azrael Von Blackstar sat in the quiet middle of it all, elbow on the edge of a cracked window, his face showing broken in the glass—gray hair dirty with soot, eyes black holes that took in the light without want. Far off past the mountains, quick flashes of magic lit the sky like summer storms: last hits of the fight, where help clashed with leftover attackers in bursts of purple and gold. Through the growing cover of leftover smoke, knights in armor on flying mounts and magic users in white robes rushed in, their flags cracking sharp with the Lumina Empire's bright eagle—signs of normal coming back to the wild. The sounds of breaking shields and attackers' last yells rolled like thunder's end, until finally, the world let out a breath into quiet, broken only by the soft fall of settling dirt.
Lucian took a slow breath, the air tasting of burn and sorry, his out-breath hardly moving the cold that bit at the morning's side. 'So they finally showed up.'
He turned his head a small bit, eyes moving over the wreck—seats flipped like fallen rocks, walls marked with black lines from bounced blasts—his face smooth like a cover, calm as frozen water. 'I should've stayed put from the start... shouldn't have jumped into the flow.'
Memory pulled at him then, without ask: his first awakening in this world, the raid going in planned anger—losses piling like unpaid bills, students falling in the smoke, guards cut down in red sprays. Mess had ruled, a hard start to the hero's morning. But this time... no one taken by the sword. The train breathed with the rough easy of the alive, no sad songs needed for the dead.
A dry laugh came from him, soft as leaves on rocks—no fun, touched with the twist of roads not taken. 'How the wheel spins. The second I stop grabbing at fate's edge, it opens nicer than any busybody's hope.'
A whisper from another life floated through his mind then—the rough sound of his Murim teacher, voice like wind in old trees, steady in the training hall's endless work. "The river of fate cuts its path as it wants. Fight it, and it pulls you down; go with it, and you might come up."
Smart words, carved in the sweat of many mornings, but even now, as the smoke cleared and the sun rose higher, a small wrong buzzed under the calm—like a song played just off note.
The Mana Raiders had been... wrong. Stronger, their hits full of a wild that bent the shields where once they'd just pushed them. Their magic hadn't burned with the usual bad twist of stolen power from cult ways—but beat with something older, deeper: a shadow that talked of locked-away places, of powers sleeping out of people's reach.
Lucian's eyes got sharp, a small shine in the dark of them, thoughts digging like roots into dark ground. 'This power... it isn't made in people's shops. It smells of the gods—bent, yes, but god-like all the same.'
He leaned back in his seat, chin in hand, the cool window pressing his temple like a listener's cold touch. 'Could it be... the Evil Gods?'
The idea sat heavy in his chest, like a rock skipped on still water, sending waves through the quiet of his calm. If those old monsters—sent away ages ago to deep prisons, their names wiped from holy books—were waking again, then this raid was no small change, no random catch in fate's web.
And deeper, a piece scratched at the edge of memory...
'A piece of the Demon God...'
The picture came without call: black fire eating the sky, heavens breaking like egg shell under claw; a shape at the fire's center, not body or air—tall, shapeless, a nothing given hunger.
The game's stories had always gone around it, fuzzy as morning mist: the Demon God, ruler once over gods and animals, broken before the first story started. No tale of the fall, no list of why—only hints in game books and fan guesses, bits of "what if" made from scraps.
But the tug in Lucian's soul was no lazy think, no book-smart dream—it held like a hook deep, known as the mark of old hurts.
'I've touched this shadow before... in my second life...'
He closed his eyes a second, breath easy through wide nose, the car's small shake fading as the train got steady on its tracks. The buzz of leftover magic filled the air, a low hum under his think, but his mind went free—picking bits from two lives, three worlds: the murim's cold mountains, where qi sang of free demons; this place's gold traps, where magic hid the same old hungers.
His hand moved to his chest without think, fingers spread over the steady beat under—right where his dantian had once burned, a core of silver-black anger used up in snow-filled end as Seonin.
'If that piece really matches the Demon God... then maybe...'
He pulled back the thought, shaking his head in small no—a faint move of gray hair on his collar. Guessing was a siren's song, pulling the careless to rocks; he needed hold—real proof, cut in sign or old thing, before making stories into traps.
Steps came then, quick and bumpy, cutting the quiet like rocks on water.
"Lucian!"
He turned his head a bit, eyes up to meet the rush: Claire running down the aisle, her uniform torn at the edges like a flag in storm, dirt running muddy lines down her cheeks, hazel eyes big with the rough side of after. Amelia followed close, leaning hard on a staff that shook like grass in wind; Johnathan limped behind, his left arm hanging loose like used cloth, face white but set in the strong lines of one who wouldn't give up.
Claire stopped quick a few steps away, hand on her chest like to hold her fast heart, breaths short and quick. "T-thank you... for what you did back there," she got out, voice soft as hurt flowers, mixed with the shake of one who had looked at the deep hole and closed her eyes. "If you hadn't come in, Amelia and I—we'd be..."
He stopped her with the smallest head shake, move short as held breath. "No need."
Amelia came next, her red hair dirty with soot but eyes shining red-bright—a mix of respect and hold-back, like fire cooled by wind. She leaned less on her staff now, standing straight with the quiet strong of one taking back her spot. "I... owe you my life, Sir Blackstar," she said, words careful but heavy, carrying the soft sound of her empire's sands. "Your help—it was... more than I can count."
Lucian's eyes met hers, steady as a pull stone, far as stars' cold watch. "...You're welcome."
Johnathan, the one meant to hold fate, made a face as he stood up, giving a nod mixed with the clumsy nice of young not hurt by real loss—his brown hair wet with sweat and blood, sword put away at his side like a half-done promise. "You're... something else," he said, voice rough from work, pride hiding behind the simple like banked fire for later burn. "I thank you for the help out there. Couldn't have changed it without you."
Lucian's eyes stayed on him a breath—the known way, the hidden spark of fate's pick, bringing up memories of teams made in fire and worn by game. 'Still the same true light,' he noted inside, the see flat as untilled ground.
"You're welcome," he said back, softer now, a whisper going into quiet, then moved his eyes to the broken window, where the outside world turned to calm.
Out there, the help had made their trap: knights circling on mounts that beat wings of made wind, magic users saying words that locked the air to still, the sharp smell of fight giving way to the clean bite of coming rain—clouds low, heavy with wash promise.
Lucian leaned back into his seat, eyes drifting shut, the car's small rock like a bed moved by far waves. He could feel it then, twisting in the bottom of his being—a move, soft as the first tickle of storm on skin, calling from deeps no light could reach.
Not made in this place. Not even in this life's game.
Something that matched him, but bent—known as the shadow from your own hand, but strange as a face seen in sick dreams.
'If the Demon God's pieces are waking... then this world falls to wreck faster than any story said.'
His hand went back to his chest, the small beat under an echo of old fires—where qi had once roared, now only memory buzzed, a mark that itched with reason.
'And if I'm really tied to that echo... then I need the truth—why this tie, this pull across the wall.'
Outside, the clouds opened slow, sunlight breaking through the smoke in careful spears, making the wreck shine in fake kind. Students stood on shaky legs, calls of happy mixing with cries—raw, real sounds that crossed from scare to weak morning. Knights raised flags high, their eagle signs cracking proud, saying normal's back.
But Lucian—gray-haired, eyes empty of the fight—stayed still, lost in think, as if the noise was just wind in far grass.
Because somewhere deep inside, under the marks of coming back to life, the weight of memory, and sorry's strong wave— a whisper moved, faint as frost's first break.
"You cannot run from me… my other half."