"Where is your master, dog?"
Lucian didn't flinch.
"He is right here."
The voice came from behind the rubble. Boots clicked against steel. Five silhouettes emerged through the smoke—armored, cloaked, armed. The one in front, tall with white-blond hair and a jagged scar over his left brow, walked like he owned the world.
Garrick.
Lucian turned, the corner of his lip curling into a smirk.
"No longer hiding, I see." He tilted his head. "Well, congratulations. You actually pulled it off. Poisoning me? Clever. If I were in your shoes… I'd do the same. After all…" He stepped forward, dragging his fingers through his hair, blood dripping from his fingertips. "…being in my shadow must be exhausting."
Garrick's eyes narrowed. His jaw clenched.
Lucian kept going. "You remember, don't you? All those years, standing behind me like a pet. Watching. Failing. Trying to catch up but always being two steps behind. People never even said your name unless I was in the room."
Garrick's hand twitched near his blade.
"And now, after all this time, you grow the courage to strike." Lucian's tone dropped, calm and sharp. "But not with honor. Not face to face. No. You had to slip something into my system like a rat."
"You bastard," Garrick hissed.
Lucian's voice turned cold. "What's worse than a weakling, Garrick? A coward. And that's what you are. A spineless coward in a borrowed coat of pride."
With a howl, Garrick blurred forward.
His blade flashed—twice.
Lucian sidestepped both with ease, his body swaying like smoke. He spun, slammed his elbow into Garrick's spine, and kicked him forward into the dirt.
The others moved instantly.
One—Volge, the red-haired brute—unleashed an earth-shattering punch at Lucian's back. The ground cracked from the sheer force.
Lucian's eyes flicked gold. Time slowed—Chrono Perception. He sidestepped again, twisting under the punch, and drove his knee into Volge's ribs. Bones crunched. The giant wheezed.
Another attacker—Kael, the one with shadow daggers—came in from above. Lucian snapped his fingers. Black flames erupted upward like serpents and devoured the shadows. Kael screamed, his weapons disintegrating mid-air.
Lucian leapt up, rotated mid-spin, and kicked Kael into the side of a broken tower. Stone exploded.
"Pathetic," Lucian muttered. "All that buildup and still this weak?"
Garrick roared, eyes glowing with lightning now.
"I'LL RIP YOUR HEART OUT!"
He activated Stormbreaker Pulse—his body covered in crackling armor of plasma and lightning. His blade surged with force, and he shot forward like a railgun.
Lucian dodged left, but the poison pulsed through him. Just for a second. A delay. His shoulder got nicked—just slightly.
He staggered.
Garrick saw it.
"Finally," he grinned. "Not so untouchable now, are you?!"
Lucian steadied himself. His hand trembled, but his eyes burned even darker.
"That was your one."
With a snap, twelve Lucians blinked into the battlefield.
Each copy carried a different aura.
One shimmered with lightning. Another radiated ice. A third crackled with gravity distortion. A fourth floated in the air, eyes glowing as he manipulated dozens of aether swords in orbit.
They attacked all at once.
Kael tried to vanish into the shadows—only to get skewered by a blade that vibrated through dimensions.
Volge raised his fists, bracing for impact—but a Lucian using Void Arms shattered his defense and punched a crater into the earth with his body.
Another of the lackeys tried to cast a barrier, screaming an incantation—but was swallowed whole by a spatial rupture and erased.
Only Garrick remained standing.
Covered in wounds. Chest heaving. Aura flickering.
Lucian walked toward him.
Step by step.
The clones merged back into him with silent flickers.
But his steps were slower now. His breath rougher.
The poison. It was spreading.
"You… bastard…" Garrick muttered, clutching his side. "I… I had to… I had no choice…"
Lucian stopped a few feet away.
"Yeah," he whispered. "You did. But that's why you'll always be less. You needed poison. You needed numbers. I only needed ten percent of myself to humiliate you."
And then he moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
He appeared behind Garrick, placing two fingers against his neck.
A pulse of darkness shot into Garrick's nervous system, paralyzing him. He dropped, twitching on the ground.
Lucian knelt beside him.
"Next time you want to dethrone a king, Garrick…"
He whispered near his ear.
"…don't use a peasant's dagger."
Then he stood.
But something was wrong.
The black in his veins glowed brighter. His legs trembled. His vision blurred.
He took a step. Staggered. Collapsed to a knee.
"Shit…"
The poison was finally overwhelming his regeneration.
He coughed—violently—black blood splattering onto the stones.
His heartbeat slowed. Magic flickered around his core like a candle in the wind.
He had won.
He had destroyed them.
But…
His body tilted forward.
And Lucian Black—the strongest hunter alive—fell to the ground.
Not by blade.
Not by war.
But by the one thing he had underestimated.
Betrayal.
Silence returned to the battlefield.
Garrick, still twitching and groaning beside a crumbled wall, turned his head weakly to look at Lucian's unmoving form.
Even in defeat…
Lucian looked like a god.
Blood dripped from his lips, but his eyes stayed open. Still glaring.
Still defiant.
Even poisoned, even collapsed, his presence crushed the air.
Lucian Black had fallen.
But not like a loser.
No.
Even in collapse—he looked like he had chosen to kneel.
Garrick groaned and shifted, coughing up blood as he rolled onto his side. His body was a ruin. Bones cracked, organs bruised, his vision blurred and doubled. Every cell screamed at him to stay down.
But then his gaze locked on Lucian.
Still.
Vulnerable.
The storm of rage and humiliation in Garrick's heart boiled over. He spat blood to the side, and dragged himself to his feet, every limb trembling, but he stood.
He stood.
The sky growled above. Thunder rumbled. But Garrick didn't flinch.
"You still look smug…" he said, his voice cracked and broken. "Even now… bleeding, broken, poisoned. You still look at me like I'm nothing."
He limped closer, each step heavy with hate.
Lucian's fingers twitched slightly.
He was alive.
Garrick clenched his jaw.
"That's what you've always done." His voice grew louder, filled with bitterness. "Everyone compared me to you. Lucian Black—the untouchable. The perfect hunter. The first XXX-rank awakener."
He stopped in front of Lucian and looked down at him like a wounded animal finally cornering the lion that ruled the mountain.
"They all worshipped you. Even when I was stronger. Even when I bled more, fought harder, gave everything—I was always second. Always behind you. Always just 'the other one.'"
Lucian didn't speak.
But his eyes opened—barely. Black and dim. Still calm.
Still looking at Garrick like he was… insignificant.
That made it worse.
Garrick's expression twisted.
"Don't look at me like that."
Lucian opened his mouth, a whisper escaping between bloodstained lips.
"…still weak…"
Garrick froze.
Lucian chuckled weakly, his voice like gravel. "You poisoned me. Ganged up on me. Watched your whole squad die… and you're still shaking."
Garrick's hands trembled. Not from fear—from fury.
"SHUT UP!"
He roared, pulling out the same blade he had used when he first tried to strike Lucian. It crackled with blue lightning, the edge glowing bright from charged venom. He raised it high, two hands gripping the hilt like he was about to slay a god.
Lucian didn't move.
His body couldn't.
But his eyes—still defiant.
No fear.
No plea.
Only silence.
"I am going to erase you," Garrick growled. "And when I do, I'll be the strongest. No more shadows. No more second place. I'll finally—"
"You'll still be nothing."
Lucian's words hit like a hammer. Quiet, but sharp.
Garrick didn't wait.
With a primal scream, he plunged the blade down—
Right into Lucian's chest.
It pierced through skin, bone, and heart. Blood sprayed from the wound, hot and dark, soaking Garrick's arms and face. The impact echoed across the ruined arena, the storm above going deathly still for a second.
Lucian gasped.
And then, silence.
Garrick let go of the blade and staggered back, breathing hard, chest heaving.
Lucian's body jerked once… then stopped moving.
His head tilted to the side.
Eyes open. Lifeless.
A black pool spread beneath him, mixing with ash and broken stone.
Garrick stared.
Then laughed.
Low at first, then louder. Hysterical. Cracked.
"I did it."
He looked up at the storming sky, laughing harder. "I killed Lucian Black! Do you hear me!? I killed the untouchable!"
He fell to his knees, laughing until tears leaked down his bloodstained face.
Lightning flashed above.
But there was no celebration.
Only ash. Silence. A god, murdered in the dirt.
Lucian Black—slain by the one who hated him most.
And the world shifted.
Because even though Lucian's heart had stopped, something deeper stirred.
The poison had done its job.
But so had Lucian's final smile.