Chapter 117: The Crown of the Dawn and the Decree of Blood
The night over the Morningstar Citadel was not natural. The sky, usually a mantle of icy stars over the northern desert, bore a chromatic scar. A faint mist of violet and crimson distorted the upper atmosphere—a persistent echo of the pillar of light and void that had torn through reality during Samael's awakening. The world itself seemed to hold its breath, as if the firmament feared that a single sharp sound would draw the gaze of the abyss now residing in the fortress's tallest tower.
Samael Morningstar stood on the main balcony of the Patriarch's Tower, an overhanging obsidian platform that overlooked the entire citadel and the infinite desert beyond the walls.
He was bare-chested from the waist up, letting the biting cold wind of the wasteland lash his new skin. It was no longer the fragile, broken body of a scholar who had pushed his limits. It was a masterpiece of lethal evolution. His skin, pale as quartz, was lined with dense, compact muscles carved with the precision of a siege weapon. But it was the minute details that betrayed his inhuman nature.
Samael slowly raised his hands, observing them in the fading light of the stellar scar. His nails were no longer human keratin; they were solid formations of black obsidian, sharp as scalpels. As he focused his vision, he noticed the fingerprints on his fingertips had vanished, replaced by microscopic patterns of dragon scales designed to generate friction capable of tearing stellar metal.
He clenched his fist. The air trapped in his palm didn't simply escape; it erupted with a dull pop, creating a perfect micro-void that hissed as it refilled. His control was absolute, instinctive.
He had leaped two entire stages in a single night. In the world of traditional cultivation, advancing from Stage 1 to Stage 3 in the Saint Realm was an epic feat that consumed centuries of isolated meditation, the plundering of entire spiritual veins, and mind-shattering epiphanies. He had achieved it through death, resurrection, and the assimilation of fire and stars.
System, Samael commanded in the silence of his own mind, his internal voice as cold as the exterior.
In the blackness of his Sea of Consciousness, the interface did not deploy with the generic blue of his previous incarnation. It flickered violently, distorted by the new hierarchy of his soul, before stabilizing into a Dark Gold tone—the color of absolute imperial authority.
[HOST STATUS UPDATED]
Name: Samael Morningstar. Race: Transcendent Entity (In evolutionary process). Primary Lineage: PRIMORDIAL DRAGON (Awakened to 20%). (System Note: 20% is the critical limit of physical assimilation for the current cultivation level. Future awakening requires ascension to Higher Realms).Evolutionary Affinity: The primordial lineage has devoured and assimilated the "Void Body." The Void is no longer an altered state; it is a biological attribute of your blood. You are the Predator of the Origin. Previous Cultivation: Saint Realm (Stage 1 - Collapsed). Medicinal Effect (Supreme Saint Grade): Tectonic Reconstruction of Dragon Meridians + Phoenix Soul Assimilation. Current Cultivation: SAINT REALM (STAGE 3 - CONSOLIDATED). Estimated Combat Power: Saint Realm (Stage 6 - Law Suppression).
Samael nodded imperceptibly. Stage 3 was a monumental leap; it granted him enough power to crush Patriarchs of top-tier sects and eradicate entire coalitions if he so desired. However, his strategic mind was not clouded by false arrogance. He knew that to sit at the table with the true masters of the continent—the monarchs who reigned at the pinnacle of the Emperor Realm—he still had to climb the mountain. But with his real combat power, inflated by the brutality of his lineage and his Laws, the gap to begin hunting those giants had shortened drastically.
Samael shifted his attention to the tab for his new evolutionary traits. Information flowed into his brain, not as text to read, but as a biological instinct he had just remembered.
[Physical Awakening and Authorities of the Primordial Dragon - Level 20%]
Passive Effect - "Authority of the Origin":
The blood of the Primordial Dragon does not recognize mortal laws. Any attack (physical, magic, soul, or Law manifestation) launched by an entity lower than a Stage 9 Peak Saint loses its "Killing Will" upon entering Samael's sphere of perception.
Combat Mechanics: Base damage is reduced by 90%. A slash designed to decapitate him will be degraded to a superficial scratch, which will be closed in milliseconds by draconic regeneration. The physical world refuses to be the instrument that harms its Progenitor at the hands of inferior beings.
Samael exhaled slowly. Invulnerability to pawns was useful; it would save time in pitched battles. But it was the offensive and sensory weapons that would dictate the new war.
Claws of Spatial Extinction:Combat Mechanics: Upon channeling Qi, the hands are covered in black and stellar scales with violet iridescence. They possess the conceptual property of "Tearing Laws." If an enemy conjures a pure energy technique or a defensive formation, Samael can physically grab the concept and tear it apart, breaking the runic structure with pure physical force. Wings of the Primordial Void:Combat Mechanics: Manifestation of colossal appendages forged from Void and Blood. A single beat of these wings launches blasts of negative pressure that erase projectiles or toxic clouds from existence. Its secondary function maximizes spatial blink speed, leaving behind "Blood Afterimages" that detonate with Origin Grade force if crossed by the enemy. Breath of the Primordial (Suppression Aura):
The mere beat of his heart emits a blood suppression frequency. Any beast or cultivator with an inferior lineage (meaning 99.9% of the continent) will suffer an immediate 30% reduction in all combat stats (speed, Qi flow, resistance) while remaining in his presence, choked by atavistic terror.
Samael closed his eyes and concentrated his Qi toward his face. He felt immense heat building behind his eyelids. Upon opening them, the world was not illuminated by natural light, but by a spectrum of latent energies.
Eyes of the Crimson Abyss (Violet/Neon):Passive Effect - "Gaze of the Primordial Truth": Vision pierces the lie of matter. Illusions, camouflages, and concealment formations below the Saint Grade barrier dissolve like mist. Observes "Blood Flow" and Qi in real-time, identifying diseases, poisons, or structural weaknesses in allies and enemies with a simple glance. Active Effect - "Sovereign Lockdown": By channeling the Law of Space through the gaze, it "freezes" the spatial coordinates around the target, locking them in an invisible block of spatial amber. Forcing an exit fractures space, dismembering the target at a molecular level. Active Effect - "Sentence of the Progenitor": Visual attack of pure Killing Intent. Eye contact with a being of inferior lineage causes their blood to boil, shattering their meridians from within by pure cellular submission.
"The weaponry of a god of death," Samael murmured, the echo of his voice sounding polyphonic in the solitude of the balcony.
However, he knew that brute force without calculation was the undoing of foolish tyrants. And the System had prepared the pinnacle of his lineage's evolution for exactly that purpose.
Samael focused his Will on his head. He felt no pain, only an expansion of his consciousness that seemed to span the entire desert.
Above his head, without touching his hair, the Crown of Eternal Dawn manifested.
It was not a gold helm or a mundane metal hoop. It was seven needles of translucent crystal, ethereal and flawless, floating in a perfect circle. They were joined by extremely fine threads of icy blue energy that pulsed with the rhythm of a distant universe's heartbeat. When the Crown materialized, the air around Samael's head seemed to take on the density of purest crystal; light refracted strangely in a ten-meter radius, creating a bubble of absolute stability.
The System deployed the parameters of the biological relic.
Crown of Eternal Dawn (Sovereign Attribute):Micro-Space Mastery: The ten-meter radius becomes an extension of his nervous system. Detects enemy teleports microseconds before they occur. Allows kinetic alteration of trajectories; lethal projectiles or sneak attacks are passively diverted by critical centimeters, ensuring they miss. Arcane Flow Processing (Mental Calculation): Relative time for Samael's perception slows down by 20%. His cognitive processing capacity skyrockets to supercomputational levels. He can predict the attack trajectories of up to five elite enemies simultaneously based on their muscle tension and Qi flow. Decrypts complex enemy runic formations in seconds. Unyielding Mind: Absolute immunity to Intent Suppression. No aura of terror—not even the psychic pressure of a Saint King or an Emperor—can shake his will or slow his decisions.
When the Crown's Cognitive Acceleration ignited, Samael's eyes emitted a cold white glow. Inside his crimson and violet pupils, hundreds of tiny mathematical and spatial runes began to spin dizzyingly. The Crown emitted a Halo of Calm, a faint light that didn't illuminate the balcony's darkness but devoured chaos, giving Samael the appearance of a serene deity sitting at the epicenter of a cataclysm.
The rewards accumulated by the System during his long slumber—the refunds, investment relics, divine weapons—remained safe in his consciousness's inventory, ready to be deployed. They would not fall from the sky like cheap rain. They would be delivered with the weight and honor that the Morningstar family demanded.
The obsidian balcony door opened behind him with a soft hiss.
Samael did not turn. His senses had already informed him of the Qi signatures of the two people entering, and the Crown processed their physical states with mathematical accuracy.
Kael and Eris crossed the threshold.
Both had been through the Elders' recovery chambers, but the scars of the ten-day war were still evident. Kael wore clean martial robes, but his posture maintained the rigidity of muscles that had been pushed to the brink of tearing. Eris, now free of the parasitic mark thanks to Samael's Law of Destiny, moved with grace, but her fire Qi flickered unstable within her, emptied by the curse's extraction.
They stopped three meters from the Patriarch's back and, in unison, dropped one knee to the stone floor.
"Patriarch," Kael said, his voice hoarse, free of terror, but laden with infinite reverence.
Samael vanished the Crown of Eternal Dawn. The seven crystal needles dissolved into blue light, returning the balcony's space to normalcy. He turned slowly toward them. He was already dressed; a military robe of shadow-spider silk and light obsidian plates covered his torso, absorbing the ambient light.
"Rise," Samael ordered. His voice was magnetic, the tone of domination wrapped in the warmth of blood.
Both stood. Samael looked at Kael. The Vanguard leader kept his gaze high. At his left side, sheathed but visibly broken, hung his previous weapon. The metal was cracked; the blade's spiritual core was dead, burned beyond repair after channeling inhuman amounts of magma and clashing with a Semi-Saint's techniques in the wasteland. It had been an excellent sword, but it was now nothing more than scrap.
Samael extended his right hand toward the void.
In a flash of fiery light that illuminated the entire balcony and raised the temperature drastically, an immense Claymore materialized in his palm. It was the Magma Fang (High Origin Grade Weapon). The massive blade was an almost-black dark red, throbbing with veins of living heat, and the hilt was forged from the petrified bone of an ancestral Earth Dragon. The sword roared silently, demanding to be wielded by a master of destruction.
Samael tossed the immense sword toward Kael.
Kael caught it in mid-air by the hilt. The instant his hand made contact with the dragon bone, his own fire and magma Qi entered perfect resonance with the weapon. The red veins of the blade shone with blinding light, and the massive weight of the weapon seemed to lighten to synchronize with Kael's Sovereign Will.
"Your old blade served its purpose, Kael. It broke a Semi-Saint's shield and brought me back from the abyss," Samael said, his gaze evaluating his younger brother's perfect stance. "But you are the Commander of the Morningstar Vanguard. A Sequence of my lineage will not face the next war with dead weapons. Wield the Magma Fang."
"I will feed it with the blood of the sects, Patriarch," Kael replied, lowering the sword in a sign of oath, his golden eyes shining with pure martial devotion.
In Samael's mind, the Swiss watch of the universe turned again.
[INVESTMENT AND REFUND SYSTEM ACTIVATED!]
You have granted: Claymore Sword "Magma Fang" (High Origin Grade) to a direct lineage subordinate (Loyalty: 100%). Calculating critical multiplier for "First Martial Act after Resurrection"... X100!REFUND SUCCESSFUL!You have obtained: Holy Sword "THE STAR TEARER" (Mid Saint Grade).
Samael felt the legendary weapon appear in the depths of his systemic inventory. The Star Tearer—an imperial rapier forged of stellar silver and black meteorite, possessing an awakened Sword Spirit and capable of sowing points of light to tear space and freeze the enemy's Dantian at a molecular level. A weapon designed for a queen. Samael kept his face inscrutable. That weapon was not for him, nor for Kael; it already had a destiny written for Seraphina when the perfect moment to arm his wife arrived.
The Patriarch shifted his gaze to Eris.
The Fire Pillar squared up immediately, trying to hide the slight trembling of her hands. She was alive, but the Cult's mark had robbed her of the stability of her Flame of Ruin.
Samael did not hand her a weapon. He raised his hand, and in his palm materialized the small crystal vial Kael had brought from the Badlands. It was empty, but not clean. At the bottom and adhered to the concave crystal walls remained a few thick, brilliant drops like liquid rubies. The residue of the Ancestral Phoenix Tear. Valueless trash for the cultivation of a Stage 3 Saint like himself, but a miraculous elixir capable of remaking the world of a mortal or an expert in the Origin Realm.
"Eris," Samael called. "Come closer."
She stepped forward. Samael uncapped the vial.
"The Sleeping King tried to steal your fire, scared that your entropy was the key he couldn't control," Samael said, tilting the vial. The two residual Phoenix drops floated in the air, held by Samael's Void control, shining with a heat that healed instead of destroyed. "Drink this. Let the fire of rebirth clean the scum the abyss left in your meridians. Let it stabilize your core."
Eris did not hesitate. She tilted her head back, opened her lips, and allowed Samael to guide the crimson drops directly into her mouth.
The effect was volcanic. The instant the Phoenix Tear residue touched her tongue, the unstable and flickering fire within Eris erupted in a conflagration of light and power. Her eyes—crimson and neon violet—ignited like miniature supernovas. An aura of golden and black flames enveloped her, burning away the last parasitic toxins and fatigue from her spiritual channels. Her presence expanded, filling the balcony with the arrogant and indomable heat of the Fire Pillar restored to all her glory.
[INVESTMENT SYSTEM ACTIVATED!]
You have granted: Residual Essence of Phoenix Tear (Saint Grade - Waste) to a direct lineage member. Karmic Relevance Multiplier: x50.REFUND SUCCESSFUL!You have obtained:"PRIMORDIAL BLACK PHOENIX FLAME" (Minor Divine Grade Fire Seed - Incomplete). Stored in the System Core.
Samael nodded with a slowness that denoted absolute satisfaction. His siblings were healthy, armed, and at the pinnacle of their strength. His divine refunds were secured in his arsenal.
The moment for gifts was over. The moment for war had arrived.
Samael passed between Kael and Eris, walking toward the balcony exit door.
"Wash the blood of the wasteland from yourselves and put on clean armor," Samael ordered without looking back, the tone of an older brother being replaced by the cold authority of the Supreme Commander. "The Conclave meets in the Obsidian Room in fifteen minutes. No one is late."
The inner workings of the Morningstar Citadel did not house ballrooms or courts designed for diplomacy. At the geographic core of the immense fortress, protected by a hundred meters of solid rock and Saint-grade suppression matrices, lay the Obsidian Room.
There were no windows. The walls, floor, and ceiling were forged from perfect blocks of black volcanic rock, polished to a dark mirror finish. The material possessed the property of devouring excess light and annihilating any echo, creating an environment of suffocating acoustic isolation. No one—not even a spy in the Saint Realm with fully deployed divine sense—could hear a single sigh of what occurred within those walls.
In the exact center of the room stood a massive circular table, carved directly from the base of a petrified Iron Tree. Above it, floating in the dark air, a three-dimensional holographic map of the continent rotated slowly, traced by intricate lines of red and golden spiritual light marking borders, Qi veins, and city-states.
Tonight, the Conclave was complete. The power dome of the Primordial Dragon had gathered, and the concentration of killing energy, tactical intelligence, and destructive power in that single room was enough to collapse a minor empire.
At the head of the circular table, in a throne of raw obsidian that seemed to have grown from the floor to hold him, sat Samael Morningstar.
The Patriarch had abandoned his torn robes from the wasteland. He wore a military robe of shadow silk and light plates of matte obsidian. But it was not his attire that dominated the room; it was the crown floating above his head.
Samael had manifested the Crown of Eternal Dawn. Seven needles of translucent crystal, perfect and ethereal, levitated in a silent circle above his white hair, joined by fine threads of pale blue energy that pulsed with the rhythm of a distant universe. Within the circumference of the needles, space itself refracted as if underwater—a domain of absolute micro-space. The Patriarch's eyes, now a cold and blinding white, showed hundreds of mathematical and spatial runes spinning in his pupils. The crown emitted a Halo of Calm, a faint light that didn't illuminate the room but seemed to cleanse the environment's chaos, giving Samael the appearance of an inscrutable deity calculating the end of times at 20% higher cognitive speed than the rest of the universe.
To his right, standing like a divine sentinel, was Seraphina. The future empress wore a form-fitting combat suit of stellar white, her slender and regal figure emanating the natural authority of one born to rule. Her silver-blue hair cascaded down her back, and her eyes—a deep, almost translucent blue—observed the holographic map with unwavering tactical coldness. On her head, crowning her dazzling beauty, rested the Ice Crown of the Blue Phoenix. It was not made of metal; it was carved entirely from ancient glacier crystal, shaped like two phoenix wings rising in sharp points. In the center of her forehead rested a gem that seemed to contain a liquid blue flame. A constant icy mist fell from the sides of her face like a white silk veil, and small feather-shaped snowflakes floated and vanished before touching her shoulders—evidence of the Criopira Aura passively devouring the ambient heat.
To the Patriarch's left, seated with impeccable posture, was Great Elder Lilith. Dressed in dark tones and smoky reds, her white hair with silver highlights framed a face of fair complexion and ashen glow. Her dark red eyes scrutinized those present. Behind closed doors, with her family, her aura was an unbreakable shield; but even in stillness, the sadistic and relentless goddess of war pulsed just beneath the surface of her skin, ready to turn any territory that threatened her own into wasteland.
And behind her, merged with the shadows in the darkest corner of the room, waited General Malak. The Sovereign of the Scythe did not breathe or emit heat. His "body" was not made of flesh, but a conglomeration of jet-black smoke, dense and semi-liquid, twisting like boiling pitch. Under the hood of his cloak, forged with the dust of dead stars, there was no face—only absolute darkness broken by two orbs of icy blue will-o'-the-wisp fire. In his left hand, larger than himself, he held the Soul Harvester, an immense obsidian crystal scythe that emitted a blue mist and revealed distorted faces screaming in silence inside the edge.
Distributed along the immense obsidian table, occupying their stone thrones, were the Six Elders of the Morningstar family—the specialized forces that turned the clan into a self-sufficient war machine.
The first to Seraphina's right was Marcus, the First Elder and Master of the Imperial Forge. An indomable mountain of 2.10 meters. His broad body and muscles, which looked like granite blocks sculpted with a chisel, clashed with the general elegance of the room. His copper skin was stained with perpetual soot, and his short beard looked like copper wire. He was tectonic force and volcanic heat incarnate.
Opposite him, seated with chilling military rigidity, was Torian, the Second Elder and Supreme Weapons Master. A man of 1.95 meters whose tense musculature seemed made of braided steel cables. His skin had a grayish, metallic undertone. His face was an expressionless blade, further hardened by the loss of his left eye. Torian did not look like a cultivator; he looked like an ancient, bloodthirsty sword that had taken human form.
Next to Torian, reclining in her seat with feline grace, was Sela, the Third Elder, Supreme of Intelligence and Guardian of the Void. The shortest of the Elders at 1.60 meters, but possibly the most lethal at close range. Her compact, spectacularly curvaceous and flexible body was wrapped in a matte black shadow-spider silk suit that absorbed light. Her asymmetrical black hair and spectral pale skin contrasted with her dark eyes, which observed the room's shadows as if reading the future in them. A silent predator of the eternal night.
Beside her, radiating absolute contrast, was Livia, the Fourth Elder and Supreme of Alchemy. A majestic and voluptuous figure dressed in flowing robes woven with lotus petals in white, emerald green, and gold. She went barefoot, her connection to life and wood flowing into the obsidian floor. Her long, bright green hair cascaded down, floating gently like vines even without wind. Livia was the life and healing of the clan, but her emerald eyes knew that nature could destroy with the same ease it healed.
At the other end of the table, static filled the air around Astarion, the Fifth Elder, Supreme of Reconnaissance and Aerial Assault. A man of sharp beauty, lean and wiry. His tanned skin was lined with fine scars that shone with a faint blue light, revealing the electrical circuits of his plasma and storm lineage. His platinum white hair floated upward, perpetually charged with electricity. Astarion did not look at the holographic map head-on; he analyzed it in three dimensions, his hunter-hawk eyes calculating bombing routes.
And closing the circle of leaders was Thalassa, the Sixth Elder and Supreme of Aquatic Prisons. Standing 1.85 meters, her hourglass figure was so pronounced it seemed to defy anatomy—a design of the abyssal hyperdensity of her water element. Her white, icy-as-porcelain skin and midnight blue hair, which billowed as if she were submerged in the ocean, gave her a hypnotic appearance. Thalassa showed no emotion; her face was a frozen mask hiding the methodical sadism with which she crushed the minds of enemies captured in the depths of her prisons.
Finally, forming a perfect perimeter of lethal security around the table and blocking the only exit, stood at attention the Twenty Sequences of the clan. The Golden Generation, the elite of the elite, heirs to the deadliest techniques and future leaders of the assault divisions. Among them, shining with an aura of veteranhood forged in the recent continental bloodshed, were the survivors of the Vanguard: Kael, Eris, Elara, Violeta, Bren, and Varian. Also present was Elowen, her robes smelling of ancient herbs, and the remaining fourteen youths, all at the pinnacle of their cultivation, armed and waiting for the order to unleash hell.
The silence was broken by Kael's hoarse but firm voice. The Vanguard Commander had finished his tactical report.
"—...We confirm forty-three high-level enemy casualties during the extraction at the Scum Bastion, including the Stage 7 Inquisitor in the vault, annihilated by Sequence Violeta. Sequence Varian's aerial saturation neutralized the aerial pursuit squad. The parasitic mark placed on Sequence Eris by the Cult of the Sleeping King has been purged by the Patriarch, and the Semi-Saint known as the Dust Hunter was neutralized in the wasteland. Vanguard casualties are zero. The medicinal objective was recovered. End of report, Patriarch."
Kael brought his left fist to his chest and returned to his position at attention, his right hand resting instinctively on the dragon-bone hilt of his new weapon, the Magma Fang.
Samael nodded by a millimeter. His conscious mind recognized and processed Kael's report, validating the tactical success and his younger siblings' survival. However, thanks to the Crown of Eternal Dawn's Arcane Flow Processing, the 20% relative time slowdown allowed Samael to operate in two simultaneous realities without losing a shred of concentration.
While Kael spoke, Samael's mind had opened the System's rewards menu in his Sea of Consciousness.
Before his internal eyes, floating in the digital void, the "War Chest of the Forgotten Pantheon" materialized.
The virtual chest was heavy, forged of a grayish metal that devoured the interface's light. Samael, with a simple thought, broke the Saint Grade seal. The contents unfolded into golden inventory lists.
[Loot Breakdown - War Chest of the Forgotten Pantheon:]
Phantom Legion Arsenal (x500 pieces): Batch of High Earth Grade and Low Heaven Grade weapons (Swords, spears, bows, shields). Defensive Artifact: "Mantle of the Overcast Sky" (Mid Origin Grade): Invisibility to spiritual sense below the Saint Realm. Formation Manual: "Iron Dragon Phalanx" (High Heaven Grade): Unification of defenses for 50 cultivators. Special Item: "Seed of the Divine Forge" (Growth Artifact).
Samael did not show a physical smile in the room, but his mental avatar nodded with cold satisfaction. The 500 weapons and the phalanx were exactly the muscle he needed to turn the Shadow Legion from an elite defense force into an army of conquest. However, emptying a chest full of shiny swords in the middle of a military council was an act unbecoming of a monarch. The weapons would stay in the System inventory; Malak and Kael would distribute them discreetly in the barracks in due time. The Mantle of the Overcast Sky would go to Sela and her spy network. The Phalanx Manual for the Legion's instructors.
But there was one object that required immediate attention.
Samael shifted his focus back to the physical room. He raised his right hand. The air above his palm warped slightly, and in a flash of blue fire that emitted no heat but an immense spiritual pressure, a small sphere materialized.
It was the Seed of the Divine Forge. The core burned with a crystalline blue flame that pulsed like a titan's heart, casting dancing shadows over the Patriarch's inscrutable face.
The temperature in the room did not rise, but Marcus, the Master Blacksmith, tensed immediately. His geological and volcanic instincts resonated with the object. The giant's eyes widened, recognizing the mythical artifact he believed extinct since the Era of the Great Wars.
"Marcus," Samael said. The polyphonic voice cut through the obsidian silence.
Samael tossed the blue sphere with a casual flick. Marcus, moving with startling speed for someone of his size, caught it in mid-air with both hands, treating it as if it were the most fragile and sacred crystal in the universe.
The moment Marcus's calloused copper skin touched the Seed, the blue flame enveloped his arms. It didn't burn him; it integrated into his Qi flow. The giant closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the immense forging knowledge the seed injected directly into his mind.
"Plant this Seed in the core of the underground forge's central furnace," Samael ordered, his white, runic eyes fixed on the First Elder. "The stellar fire will never go out. Any metal you introduce will automatically rise one grade in quality. I want the armor and weapons of our shock divisions forged with steel imbued with this flame before the lunar cycle ends. No one in the Shadow Legion will ever fight with mortal equipment again."
Marcus, the indomable man who rarely showed reverence to anything but fire, fell to his knees before the table, clutching the seed to his broad chest. "It shall be done, Patriarch. The forges will roar day and night. We will forge fangs capable of piercing the sky."
Samael nodded. The clan's military-industrial machinery was secured. Now, he had to aim the weapon.
Samael leaned forward. The seven needles of the Crown of Eternal Dawn glowed intensely. He moved his hand over the holographic map, ready to expand the projection and mark the Valois border camps as the first bloodbath of the new era.
But before his fingers touched the spiritual light of the map, a maximum-priority digital siren erupted in his Sea of Consciousness. It wasn't an attack alarm or a refund notification. It was a destiny interference reading.
His crown's Halo of Calm suppressed any physical surprise on his face, but internally, Samael halted his movement. The System interface flashed with solid gold text—a color he had only seen when it concerned his own lineage or the deepest fabric of reality.
[CRITICAL CAUSAL INTERFERENCE ALERT!]
[Continental Network Scan Activated by Massive Karma Fluctuation.]
[Detected: Unregistered Individual with "Golden Destiny" (Category: Protagonist / Heaven-Born).]
[Current Status of Anomaly: Rapid Decline. Golden Destiny is corrupting into "Dark Blue Destiny" (Absolute Tragedy / Imminent Death within the next 4 hours).]
[Individual Aptitude Profile: Soul Synergy 99.8% compatible with the Morningstar family's dark arts.]
[System Tactical Suggestion: The individual meets the requirements of supreme talent and karmic resilience to occupy the vacancy of the TENTH SEQUENCE. Unique Recruitment Opportunity by Life Debt.]
Samael's mental gears paused for a microsecond.
A "Protagonist"? A child of the heavens, a being born with the universe's luck, about to be prematurely slaughtered. The System wasn't giving him a mission; it was showing him a king piece about to fall from the enemy board, ready to be stolen and painted black.
The position of the Tenth Sequence had been empty for years. None of the internal aspirants had managed to survive the shadow and blood initiation rites required by that specific number. The Morningstar family did not admit weakness. If the System considered this dying anomaly worthy of the tenth seat, the individual's destructive potential must be astronomical.
Samael needed to confirm the reading. He wasn't going to mobilize the Vanguard based on an algorithm without visual verification.
In the Obsidian Room, the silence stretched. Seraphina and Lilith noticed Samael's pause—an unnatural freezing in his body language—but neither spoke, knowing the Patriarch was calculating something beyond their vision.
Samael closed his eyes under the Crown. Crimson Law of Destiny, Samael murmured inside his mind, forcing the activation without uttering the command aloud.
He knew using the Authority of Destiny was playing with divine fire. The karmic backlash he had suffered from annihilating the Dust Hunter still left painful echoes in the root of his soul. Manipulating death from a distance cost blood. But Samael wasn't going to kill anyone with the Law this time; he was only going to look.
He was going to open his eye for a single second.
The physical world vanished. The Weave of Causality replaced the stone walls. Millions of threads crossed the darkness. Samael ignored the robust crimson threads of his own family and extended his perception toward the southwest, guided by the latent coordinate in the System.
And there he saw it.
Hundreds of kilometers away, a thick, dazzling causal thread, bright as molten gold, was twisting agonizingly in the void. It was a glorious destiny, designed for conquest. But it was suffocating. Dozens of gray and black threads, dirty and treacherous, were tangled around it, choking the golden light. Samael could see the gold fading rapidly, corrupting from the base toward a dark, cold, dead blue. Tragedy was imminent. The "dragon" was bleeding to death in physical reality, cornered by lesser wolves.
The golden thread was not in Valois territory, nor in the headquarters of the Purple Light Sect. The karmic resonance pointed to a neutral stronghold, a crossroads for mercenaries and deserters.
Samael cut the flow of his Qi abruptly. He deactivated the Law of Destiny before a full second had passed, closing the door to the Weave of Causality before the universe could charge him a price for spying. He opened his eyes in the war room. He didn't spit blood; he felt no pain. The execution had been surgical.
The plan had just changed. Simple revenge could wait twenty-four hours. The expansion of the clan's power—the theft of destiny itself—could not.
Samael raised his hand and tapped the table's surface with two fingers. The continental holographic map obeyed his command. Projections of red and golden light spun violently, blurring the empire's borders and zooming in at breakneck speed on a specific region to the southwest. A geographic point surrounded by mountain formations and a dry underground river—a place known to be a hornet's nest of mercenaries and fallen sects.
The map stopped, enlarging a layered fortress city.
GOLDEN CITY.
Everyone at the table frowned. Sela, the Spymaster, leaned forward. "Golden City, Patriarch?" Sela asked, her voice a silky but lethal whisper. "It is a rat hole. A haven for deserters and renegade cultivators. It lacks the strategic value of a Valois fortress or the crystal mines of the Orthodox Sects. Why mark it as our first retaliatory strike?"
Samael leaned back in the Command Throne. The needles of the Crown spun with terrifying precision, illuminating the predatory smile that finally drew across his face. A smile that promised not mere death, but an ambitious cruelty that made even Lilith herself feel a shiver of approval.
"Because blind revenge is for crownless beasts, Sela," Samael replied, his voice filling every corner of the Obsidian Room. "The expansion of our empire begins by stealing from the heavens what is theirs."
Samael looked up, his white, runic eyes locking directly onto the Twenty Sequences at the door.
"The position of the Tenth Sequence has been empty for too long. Our shadows are incomplete." Samael pointed his index finger at the luminous projection of Golden City. "Right now, in the alleys of that neutral cesspool, there is a young dragon about to die. A being with a destiny that could devour empires, cornered and bleeding because of idiots with less worth than the dust under our boots."
Kael, Eris, Violeta, and the rest of the Sequences tensed in unison, their killing auras responding to their Patriarch's tone. They felt the gravity of the revelation that had just fallen upon them.
Samael leaned forward, the light of the holographic city reflecting in his lethal pupils. He rested both hands on the obsidian table. His skin, pale and cold, looked human at first glance, but as he tensed his tendons, a perfect pattern of black and stellar scales outlined just beneath his dermis. It wasn't a coarse external shell; the primordial beast pulsed within him, contained beneath a thin layer of humanity that threatened to tear with every beat.
"A destiny of this magnitude is too volatile to delegate," Samael declared, his polyphonic voice resonating with an authority that chilled the room's blood. "If the thread breaks prematurely due to a miscalculation, we will lose a piece that the universe itself has handed to us. Heaven does not forgive those who ignore its offerings."
Samael stood up, his robe of shadows billowing without wind in the sealed room.
"I will go personally."
The declaration sent a silent shockwave through the Obsidian Room. For the Patriarch of the family, newly ascended to Stage 3 of the Saint Realm, to physically mobilize for a dying man in a city of renegades was an unheard-of act. But no one, not even Great Elder Lilith, dared to question the Sovereign's will.
"Commander Kael. Eris. Violeta," Samael named, and each syllable sounded like the crack of a steel whip. "You three will accompany me. You are the sword, the fire, and the space I need for a surgical incursion. The rest of the Sequences will remain in the Citadel consolidating our forces with Elder Marcus's forge."
Samael extended his right hand toward the center of the table. The pressure beneath his skin became visible as the internal scales glowed faintly with a dark iridescence.
"We will leave no stone unturned among those who corner our future Tenth Sequence. We will slaughter the pack and pluck him from their holes. We will bring him alive before this very throne. And if the mercenary lords of that cesspool or the entire city attempt to stand in the way..."
Samael closed his fist with sharp, absolute violence. The holographic projection of Golden City instantly exploded into thousands of red pixels of inert light, dissipating into the void until the table was left in darkness.
"...we will turn Golden City into a mass grave. The Conclave has ended. We depart this instant."