Lucian sat upon a throne of shadowed bone and molten iron, deep within the heart of Purgatory. The palace surrounding him rose like a wound carved into reality—walls of obsidian and charred spires that bled faint silver flame. A crown fit for horrors, sculpted by reverence and fear.
It hadn't been there before.
Now, it simply was.
Apparently, even in this bleak realm of wandering souls, there existed civilization—ruined, half-sentient, but civilization nonetheless. The remnants of the first monsters had built this place long ago, when gods still breathed the same air as mortals. At its center stood this palace, vast and hollow, where he now ruled without intending to.
And kneeling beside him, as constant as his own shadow, was Eve. The Mother of Monsters.
Her head rested slightly bowed, silver hair spilling across the cold floor like spilled moonlight. When she spoke, her voice carried both reverence and hunger.
For two days, she had not moved from his side.
Lucian leaned back, propping his chin against his hand.
"Was she an M," he mused inwardly, "or just really into the whole servitude thing? Or maybe it's the Essence."
She seemed to shiver faintly, as if sensing the thought. A small, unsettling smile curved her lips.
Two days in Purgatory—two days of uninterrupted testing, refinement, and revelation. He had learned more about his Essence in that short time than in all the days before it.
At first, he'd thought his powers were merely brute-force miracles: willing something into being and reality scrambling to obey. And in a way, they were.
But now he understood why.
The Essence of Typhon didn't create powers the way other beings did—it manifested them. When he wanted to create water, for instance, he didn't alter molecules or bend air humidity. He willed water into existence. A direct rewriting of causality—inefficient, perhaps, but absolute.
Yet, by observing the monsters under his rule—creatures that bent their abilities through natural, instinctive channels—he'd found something subtler.
Smarter.
They used paths of least resistance. They guided, shaped, and harmonized.
While he? He'd been hammering at creation with a god-sized fist.
Now, by linking their abilities through his dominion—
{You are empowered by every monster under your dominion, mostly by granting their abilities scaled to your level.}
—he had gained efficiency and power. Their instincts became his algorithms. Their bloodlines, his data.
The results were monstrous.
Immortality. Telepathy. Shapeshifting. Regeneration. Portal Creation. Hallucinogenic Aura. Pyrokinesis. Dream Walking. Invisibility. Voice Control. Flight.
Every monster's strength, refined to the level of a god.
And then came Eve's.
Monster Creation. Power Negation. Soul Domination. Possession. The ancient gift of Realm Connection—a bond tying his existence to the fabric of this realm itself. As long as Purgatory endured, so would he. Even if destroyed, he would reform, weakened but unbroken. A concept made flesh.
It reminded him faintly of the True Dragons—Velzard, Velgrynd, Veldora—each tethered to an Authority. Frost, Flame, Storm. So long as those forces existed, so did they. Destroy the multiverse, and only then could they fall.
"Eve," Lucian said at last, his voice carrying through the frozen hall. "Create a new monster. One with a singular purpose—disguise. It should appear harmless to all eyes, even Archangels. A monster that hides the monstrous."
She looked up slowly. Her eyes glowed faintly crimson. "Of course, my Lord. If it is your will, it shall be done."
Her tone was reverent. Her smile… worshipful.
Lucian raised an eyebrow. "You're enjoying this a bit too much, you know."
Her cheeks tinted faintly. "Serving the apex of creation is… fulfilling."
He coughed, half amused, half unnerved. "Right. Fulfillment. Sure."
Still, he knew the task was difficult. Even his own transformations, filtered through Typhon's Essence, couldn't perfectly fool divine perception. The more monstrous his essence, the stronger his presence burned. To hide that from beings like Velzard—or the Archangels of Heaven—would require something beyond clever masking.
He tapped a clawed finger against the throne. "What would you need?"
Eve straightened, eyes brightening with feverish purpose.
"I have already ordered my kin in the mortal plane to begin harvesting souls. A million should suffice for the base construct. But…" Her tone shifted, almost thoughtful. "We will also require the Grace of an Angel to overwrite divine perception. And perhaps—blood of a demon of royal descent. Lilith, or princes of hell."
Lucian stared. "A million souls? Planning to start an apocalypse, or just being thorough?"
Her head tilted. "They are only humans."
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And that's exactly the problem. We're not slaughtering mortals for spare parts."
She blinked, expression softening into something oddly vulnerable. "…Then what will you have me do, my Lord?"
He sighed, thinking. "What about Hell? It's overflowing with damned souls. Already dead, already sinners. No moral debts there."
Her lips parted in a small smile. "As expected of you. Hell will suffice. And perhaps we can retrieve Lilith's blood there as well."
"Perfect," Lucian said, standing. "Pack your metaphorical bags, Eve. We're going to Hell."
---
The gates of Hell tore open like the jaws of a dying god.
Lucian's monstrous form stepped through—a titan of nightmare and divinity. His wings stretched vast as valleys, his six arms flexed like pillars of storm. Horns of sunfire and moonfrost crowned his head, veins of molten blue and orange pulsing like rivers of creation.
Hell greeted him with fire and silence.
Rivers of flame crawled through endless canyons of bone. Skies of black iron bled sparks that never died. The air burned cold, heavy with screams that never reached sound.
Biblical. Violent. Beautiful.
"Oh, good," Lucian muttered. "Home decor by Dante."
Eve's form shimmered beside him, translucent in this infernal light. "It suits you, my Lord."
He smirked. "If I start quoting scripture, stop me."
Her laugh was soft, reverent, and a little too fond.
Lucian didn't waste time. He moved through the flaming valleys, senses unfurling like a tide. Power signatures dotted the landscape—each one bright, furious, desperate. The strongest of them all lay ahead, bound in an ancient cage of silver runes.
A familiar voice echoed as he approached. "Who are you? Has the Shadow sent you?"
Lucian regarded the figure inside: majestic, fallen, with wings of ash and eyes that burned like twilight. Lucifer Morningstar himself.
"Wrong number," Lucian said dryly. "Try the next apocalyptic visitor."
He turned and walked away, leaving the first of angels staring in bewildered silence.
The second power was less contained—wild and sultry, wrapped in darkness that smelled of roses and old blood.
Lilith.
She appeared as a woman of impossible beauty—hair black as sin, eyes like living garnets. Yet when she saw him, she faltered. For all her pride and wickedness, she recognized power beyond reason.
"I require your blood," Lucian said simply, his voice reverberating through Hell's walls. "And as many souls as you can spare. Or this realm burns."
She tried to speak—to seduce, to threaten—but the words never formed. Power answered power. And his dwarfed hers utterly.
When she bowed her head, it wasn't out of fear. It was instinct.
When he returned to Purgatory, his hands carried a chalice of demon blood and three million souls bound in threads of red light.
---
The throne room had transformed again. Obsidian pillars twisted upward, each crowned with the severed skulls of ancient monsters. The air itself hummed with reverence.
Lucian stood beside Eve at the center of a circle etched into the floor—an array of molten sigils and living runes, each pulsing with the essence of a different realm.
The chalice floated between them.
Eve's eyes glowed faintly gold now—her connection to him deepening into something worshipful, almost feverish. She raised her hands, guiding streams of souls into the sigils. They spiraled upward like ribbons of pale fire, merging with the blood, the Grace, and the divine residue of the angelic fragment they'd retrieved.
No chanting. No incantations. Just power.
Reality quivered.
The runes flared brighter, feeding on essence until light poured from the cracks of the floor. The souls screamed—not in pain, but ecstasy—as they wove into one another. Flesh knitted from light and shadow, bones forming from starlit marrow.
Lucian watched in silence, expression unreadable. Even he felt something—an unease, a flicker of wrongness. This creation wasn't monstrous. It was perfect.
Eve's voice trembled with awe. "It's… beautiful."
The being before them opened its eyes—silver-white and empty. Its skin shimmered translucent, like glass hiding stars. There was no aura, no presence. Not even Lucian could sense it when he looked away.
A perfect void. A mask of life.
Lucian exhaled softly, the air trembling from his lungs.
"Now that," he said, a faint smile ghosting across his lips, "is a masterpiece."
Eve knelt beside the newborn creature, her fingers trembling as she touched its face. Her devotion was almost painful to look at.
Purgatory itself seemed to hush. The infernal winds stilled, the fires dimmed, the monsters bowed instinctively.
And at the center of it all sat Lucian—Lord of Monsters, Typhon incarnate—watching his newest creation draw its first, silent breath.
The creature blinked once.
And the world shivered in its wake.
A/n: How's the chapter? I hope the pacing isn't too fast.