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Lucien
The battlefield is chaos, but I am not. I cut through the onslaught with the kind of precision that has been honed over centuries. Every movement is deliberate, controlled, Pride does not allow for sloppiness. My sword, forged in the fires of my power, moves like an extension of myself, slicing through flesh, bone, and shadow with effortless cruelty. Severin’s creatures are grotesque, twisted mockeries of life, stitched together by dark magic and desperation, but it doesn’t matter.
They all fall the same.
One lunges, all teeth and claws, its body convulsing as it tries to resist the gravitational pull of my will. Foolish. My power wraps around its limbs like invisible chains, locking its joints, forcing it to kneel even as it fights against the inevitable. I tilt my head, watching the way it trembles, the way its body betrays it under the weight of my Dominion.
I do not give it the mercy of hesitation.
My blade is already moving, a blur of silver and shadow. The creature's head barely has time to drop before I’m already turning, already engaging the next wave. I do not fight with desperation, I fight with certainty. There is no wasted effort, no unnecessary movement, only the brutal efficiency of someone who has never lost a battle.
The monsters try to swarm me.
I let them.
They think me outnumbered. They do not understand that I am the ruin they should have feared.
The moment they are close enough, I release the full force of my power.
Dominion crashes down upon them, a command so absolute it doesn’t require words. Their bodies seize mid-motion, their snarls choking off into panicked whimpers as I force them to bow. One by one, they drop to their knees, clawed hands grasping at their throats as their bodies betray them. I walk through their frozen ranks, stepping over the twitching forms of those who tried to resist.
I do not stop until I reach the largest of them, the one that dared to think it could kill me.
It gurgles, body trembling as it fights against the inevitable.
I crouch before it, gripping its face in my gloved hand, forcing it to look at me. Its eyes are filled with terror. Good.
“You were dead the moment you laid eyes on me,” I murmur.
Then I crush its skull beneath my grip.
The moment it dies, I release my hold on the others. They do not get the chance to recover.
My sword is already moving, cleaving through flesh, severing limbs, reducing them to nothing more than corpses littering the ground at my feet.
By the time the last body falls, my breath is steady, my stance unwavering. There was never a question of victory.
And yet, despite the massacre, I feel her eyes on me.
I turn, and Luna is standing there, watching. Not with fear. Not with disgust.
With something else entirely.
She is reckless. Foolish. And yet, she survives. She thrives.
She does not obey me.
The thought grates, an old wound torn open once more. I have spent centuries bending the will of lesser beings. My power demands submission, commands obedience, but her?
She stands beyond my reach.
And I do not know if I want to break her or kneel before her.
A snarl pulls my focus back. A creature, larger than the rest, more twisted, more wrong, barrels toward me. Its limbs are a mockery of human form, elongated, jointed in the wrong places, its face an amalgamation of features that do not belong together.
Disgusting.
It means to kill me.