Blood in the Rain
The wind was blowing.
The insects were screeching.
On a lonely mountain in the ash-colored continent, a young boy knelt in the ruins of what had once been life.
The world around him was shattered — trees broken, earth torn apart, a scorched scent drifting through the wet air. Rain slid across his cheeks, tracing paths over the blood already there… blood that dripped from his crimson eyes as though he were weeping scarlet tears.
His black hair — shoulder-length, soaked, and heavy — clung to his face. Two small horns curved back from his head, catching the cold rain. His hands trembled in the mud. His breath came shallow and ragged.
Lucien tried to process everything.
And as he stared at the devastation, memory dragged him backward.
He remembered the moment it all began.
After he was born, his father — Damion Avaritia, head of the Avaritia clan — had pinned all his hopes on him. Expectations. Pride. Destiny.
All of it shattered when Lucien turned seven and stood for aptitude evaluation.
The result had been disastrous.
His body was weaker than most demons. His magic core had been murky, clogged with impurities. A disappointment. A stain. A shame to the clan.
So he was cast aside.
Truthfully, he would've been "disposed of" like trash if his mother hadn't fought for him, taken him, and fled the Avaritia mansion. Evelyn — long black hair trailing behind her, deep red eyes burning with defiance, two long black horns curving like crowns — had stood in front of elders and her own husband.
She bled for him.
She burned through forbidden magic to escape.
And in doing so, she tore cracks through her magic core, wounding herself from the inside out.
But the nightmare didn't end there.
They had appeared midair, above an unknown mountain, far beyond the demon continent he once knew — the continent ruled by the Seven Demon Clans, each named after a sin spoken in ancient tongue:
Superbia. Invidia. Ira. Avaritia. Luxuria. Gula. Acedia.
Seven powers. Seven tyrannies.
And Lucien — born into Avaritia — had been thrown away by his own blood.
Evelyn still had enough consciousness left to twist her body mid-fall, wrapping her arms around Lucien, shielding him. She hit the ground first. The impact rippled through her frame.
Lucien only reacted after they crashed, when he saw her lying there — pain etched into every breath.
Heat flooded his veins.
He hated Damion Avaritia for discarding them like refuse.
He hated his own weakness.
But there was no time to dwell on hatred.
A demon's magic core was like a second heart — it regulated mana. Without it, mana from the world seeped into the body, poisoning the mind, twisting flesh, turning one into a maddened beast that would eventually tear itself apart.
Right now, Evelyn was enduring something terrifyingly close to that.
Only her demon bloodline — strong, resilient — kept her alive.
At the very least, she still had the items within her storage ring.
She fainted after shielding him, body limp. Lucien wiped his tears away with the back of his hand and forced himself to move. The rain chilled his bones, but fear sharpened him.
He gathered wood. He dragged branches. He worked with numb fingers until he had enough to build something — anything — to shelter them.
Someone might ask how a ten-year-old child could think so clearly instead of collapsing into panic.
The truth was simple.
Lucien carried another life inside his memories.
He had once been a seventeen-year-old human on a distant world called Earth — a place with no magic, no aura, but endless knowledge, and something called science. As a university student, he had learned enough about survival to improvise.
The mountain was cold. The breeze bit into skin.
So first: fire.
He built it carefully, coaxing sparks to life until a flicker warmed the darkness. Then he searched for shelter.
He found it — a massive tree, swollen by centuries of mana absorption, its trunk broad enough to swallow shadows whole.
He cut away the bark and hollowed the inside just enough for himself and his mother. He carved small holes for air, thinking of suffocation, thinking of the way people die when they forget simple details.
Just as he finished sealing the entrance with the bark, the sky broke open.
Rain poured.
Time crawled.
Eventually, Evelyn stirred.
Though the hollow was dim, demons could see in the dark. Her lashes fluttered. Pain threaded through her expression, but when she looked at him, warmth softened her gaze.
"Sweetie… where are we? Are you okay?"
Her voice trembled. Worry, not for herself — for him.
Lucien's throat tightened. He almost crumbled.
But he steadied himself.
"I don't know. We landed on a mountain, and… I found a place to stay because it was getting cloudy. How do you feel, Mom?"
Evelyn quietly checked herself.
Her magic core screamed with cracks.
Her insides burned.
But she smiled anyway.
"I'm fine. Can you look in my storage ring for a blue bottle with a white label and help me drink its contents, please?"
He nodded and searched.
He hesitated before handing it over.
"What does this potion do?"
His mind flashed with fear — what if it was something meant to end suffering?
Evelyn saw his concern. A soft warmth touched her eyes.
"Don't worry. It's just a recovery potion."
Lucien believed her — mostly — but still took a tiny sip himself first. The warmth spread, energy returning. Relieved, he helped her drink.
A few minutes later, Evelyn could move again, though pain still shadowed her features.
"It's okay now, honey. I don't hear any rain outside, so let's go out. Maybe I can recognize where we are."
He removed the bark door. They stepped out.
Evelyn scanned the landscape — twisted trees, rocky slopes, distant valleys drowned in gray.
Nothing familiar.
After a moment of silence, she made up her mind.
"I don't know where we are, but it doesn't matter. We can't go back anyway… so let's build a house for the time being. Then we'll decide what to do later, okay?"
Lucien noticed her restraint — the way she hid her pain for his sake. His jaw clenched.
He opened his mouth, ready to suggest she rest more, when his body suddenly stiffened.
A chill crawled up his spine.
Slowly, he turned.
And froze.
Not far away — only a dozen meters — stood a creature born of nightmares.
Its body was leonine, massive and muscular, but its wings stretched wide like those of a bat, membrane slick beneath the rain. A scorpion-like tail curved upward, venom dripping. Bone plates ridged its back, pale and deathly against black fur. Its eyes burned with feral hunger.
A Griffin — corrupted, twisted by mana.
Evelyn's face drained of color.
"A Griffin!!!"
She surged forward, placing herself between Lucien and the beast despite the agony in her core. Her gaze flicked over their surroundings, searching — fighting for an escape she already knew wasn't there.
Normally, a Griffin would match her at full strength.
But this wasn't normal.
Her core was cracked. Her strength was bleeding away.
Lucien bit his lip hard enough to taste iron. His heart hammered wildly. The sheer pressure bearing down on him — primal, suffocating — threatened to crush him.
Adult demons froze under a predator's killing intent.
Yet somehow, breath by breath, he forced his body to move.
He wasn't strong.
But he refused to be a coward.
He looked at his mother.
"Mom… is there a way to scare that thing away?"
Evelyn blinked, then smiled faintly — something fragile, something resolved. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead.
"Of course. I might be wounded, but I'm still quite strong, you know. But I need you to step back, because the magic I'm about to use will cause a strong blowback, okay?"
Lucien nodded and turned to move—
The Griffin lunged.
Evelyn's eyes dimmed.
Sadness brushed her expression.
In the same heartbeat, the magic she had already prepared exploded outward. A violent force wrapped around Lucien and hurled him away.
Then she faced the beast alone.
Booooom.
For an instant, everything slowed.
Lucien watched through wide, crimson eyes as his mother whispered words he couldn't hear — then fire and lightning roared into existence.
The mountain vanished beneath light.
Flames devoured trees. Thunder split rock. A wave of destruction swept across nearly a kilometer of land.
"NOOOOO — MOTHER!"
His scream tore out of him — raw, broken.
Then the world turned black, and his consciousness slipped away.