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Dorian slowly raised his right hand.
The moment his fingers moved, the air trembled.
One dagger became ten.
Ten became a hundred.
In the blink of an eye, countless black daggers materialized around him, hanging in the air like the fangs of some ancient predator. Their edges shrieked as they cut through the Severance Realm itself. Each carried enough force to pierce mountains, and together they formed a storm of death, blotting out the world before Lucian.
With a slight flick of Dorian's wrist—
The entire storm descended.
The daggers surged forward from every direction, twisting and weaving like starving wolves that had finally found prey. There is no opening. No escape. Only endless steel rushing to consume everything in its path.
Lucian didn't retreat.
His eyes closed for a fleeting moment.
Then—
The Seventh Form.
Eclipse of Desolation.
His body dissolved into motion.
One step.
One turn.
One breath.
Obsidian arcs bloomed around him, graceful yet merciless, each swing so precise it resembled the passing of Death's own scythe. Darkness traced every movement of his blade, swallowing the mana carried within the daggers before the steel itself shattered.
Thousands of impacts echoed at once.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
The storm that moments ago threatened to bury him is ripped apart piece by piece. Broken blades rained across the fractured realm like metallic rain.
Then Lucian vanished.
Before Dorian's widened eyes could follow—
A single black flash crossed the distance between them.
Silence.
Dorian blinked.
A heartbeat later...
His right arm slid from his shoulder.
Blood erupted into the air.
"AAARGHHH!"
His scream tore through the Severance Realm.
Muscle twisted violently. Veins bulged beneath his skin as regeneration desperately tried to reconnect flesh and bone.
Nothing happened.
Instead, strands of black mana spread across the wound like living chains, devouring every trace of healing mana that approached.
His severed arm withered before his eyes.
"No...!"
Dorian stumbled backward, clutching the ruined shoulder.
"You... bastard..."
His voice cracked between pain and disbelief.
Lucian remained perfectly still.
If the Seventh Form had been unleashed in the outside world...
Not even the villa would have survived.
The entire estate—walls, earth, forests, and mountains beyond—would have been carved apart under its expanding arc of destruction.
This isolated realm alone had spared the world from witnessing its true reach.
Lucian slowly lifted his eyes.
Within them burned neither rage nor satisfaction.
Only judgment.
"You murdered my mother."
His voice is quiet.
"You stained my father's name."
Each word fell heavier than the last.
"You stole everything that belonged to my family..."
He slowly raised Obsidian Oath above his shoulder.
The darkness surrounding the blade thickened until even the light inside the Severance Realm began to disappear.
"...Now..."
His crimson eyes met Dorian's.
"...I will erase your name from history itself."
Lucian could feel his body reaching its limit.
Every breath grew heavier.
Every heartbeat sent burning pain through his mana channels.
If this battle continued even a little longer...
He would collapse before his enemy did.
There is only one answer.
Only one strike remained.
Lucian inhaled deeply.
His mana surged.
The world froze.
The Eighth Form...
Nocturne's Ascendancy.
The blade awakened.
Darkness no longer flowed from the sword.
It devoured.
Light disappeared first.
Then sound.
Then even space itself seemed to collapse toward the edge of the blade.
For one terrifying instant, the Severance Realm became nothing but endless black.
Dorian's instincts screamed.
Every assassin's sense he had honed over centuries cried the same warning.
Run.
His remaining arm erupted with mana.
He forced every ounce of power left inside his body into movement, attempting to flee.
Too late.
Lucian stepped forward.
One swing.
There is no explosion.
No grand collision.
Only a quiet slash...
...so clean that the world itself failed to realize it had been cut.
The darkness continued past Dorian, splitting the horizon of the Severance Realm before fading into nothingness.
Silence returned.
Dorian stood frozen.
Then thin crimson lines appeared across his body.
His torso separated.
His remaining arm fell away.
His skull split cleanly down the center.
His body collapsed into countless pieces.
Each fragment writhed violently, desperately trying to regenerate.
Flesh crawled.
Blood surged.
Bones reached toward one another.
Yet every attempt ended the same.
The darkness coating the wounds consumed every trace of life before it could take form.
Even regeneration...
had been executed.
Blood spilled from Dorian's lips as the fading remnants of consciousness clung desperately to existence.
"T-this..."
Another mouthful of blood escaped him.
"...this can't..."
His vision blurred.
"I..."
Lucian walked forward without a sound.
He stopped before the shattered assassin.
Obsidian Oath rested above what remained of Dorian's neck.
"This is not revenge born from hatred."
His voice is calm.
"It is justice long denied."
A brief silence followed.
"This..."
The blade lowered slightly.
"...is the judgment of Blackthorne."
The sword fell.
One final strike.
Dorian's head rose into the air before tumbling across the fractured ground.
The Silent Reaper had drawn his final breath.
The instant his life vanished, deep cracks spread across the Severance Realm.
The sky shattered.
The earth crumbled.
The entire dimension collapsed like broken glass.
Darkness dissolved.
Lucian opened his eyes once more within the ruined villa.
Smoke drifted through the broken halls.
The scent of blood and scorched stone lingered in the air.
He stood alone amidst the wreckage—
the last man left standing.
Lucian slumped onto the half-broken sofa, the fabric tearing further under his weight. Each breath dragging like iron through his chest. His body shook under the strain—the higher the forms, the harsher the toll, every muscle screaming from the burden.
His hand trembled. He had slaughtered countless monsters within the gates when he was small, carving through abominations without hesitation. But never once… never once had he killed a human.
"Is this truly the right path? Should I have let him live? His thoughts pressed like knives." but then he remember the night that lead him to this state " No… there’s no other way to reclaim humanity. Not while men like him walk free."
Lucian’s gaze fell on Dorian’s severed head, its lifeless eyes still locked in silent defiance.
" It's not like I don't try other ways for justice. But in the recent years I got to know that it was not a simple massacre, it was a well planed assassination known to every big power in the world. Noble Families, Media and the world never once raised a question.. that how the strongest family on the earth were whip out in one night?"
He exhaled, slow and heavy, the sound more weary than triumphant.
“One down…” His voice cracked, almost swallowed by the silence.
He leaned back, eyes shadowed. Still six remain.
The hunt had begun.
***
A pall of dread lay thick over the Hunter Association headquarters like a mourning veil, quiet and suffocating. The slate tower, a monolith of mana-forged steel and blackened glass, rose defiantly into the storm-churned sky, its sharp spires cutting through the clouds like blades. Rain lashed the windows in jagged streaks.
Thunder rolled in the distance—low, mournful, and too frequent to ignore.
Inside, the fortress no longer felt invincible.
Wards etched into the stone glowed with a strained pulse, flickering as if even the runes themselves were uncertain. Hallways once brimming with confident footsteps now echoed with uneasy silence. Hunters walked with shoulders drawn tight, hushed whispers passing between them like contraband. No one laughed. No one lingered.
Even the air tasted different—like static and burnt ozone, the remnants of something powerful and wrong.
In the heart of the tower, deep within its secured sanctum, sat the Crescent Hall.
Here, around a crescent-shaped table forged from black iron, dragonbone, and ancient stone, the surviving National Hunters convened. These were not ordinary men—they were legends, walking calamities who had once turned the tide of war with a gesture.
Now, they sat in grim stillness, their silence more thunderous than any spell.
At the table’s center sat Aldric Voss, President of the Hunter Association. His silver robes shimmered faintly beneath the enchantment of the Veritas Mantle, a woven miracle of truth-forcing spells layered by generations of Grand Enchanters.
Tonight, though, it offered no comfort. His eyes, usually sharp as polished steel, were dull with fatigue—less from sleepless nights and more from the weight of history cracking under his watch.
To his left, Elias Vitalis—the Sacred Restorer, a National Class Hunter—rested his gnarled fingers on an ivory staff inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Once, he had raised cities from ruins. He had healed thousands with a breath. But now, he sat hunched and pale, as if every breath cost him a memory.
He tried to speak.
“What… what is happening?” His voice trembled, dry as old parchment.
No one answered.
A single droplet of condensation formed on the rim of his crystal goblet, then fell with a faint plink into the silence.
He shook his head slowly. “First the Dark Emperor… now the Silent Reaper. These weren’t men. They were paragons. They were untouchable, so how..”
The table remained silent, Elias don't know that the National Hunter were behind the dead of Dark Emperor. They believe he is to pure to know the sickness of how the world works. Including him to this grand plan of years would just make things more complicated
No National Hunter had died in a hundred years— at the very least not by someone's hand.
Until now.
Aldric straightened. He didn’t want to speak. But the truth demanded it.
“Dorian was found at the mid of his living room. Alone. Impaled by a weapon of unknown origin— may be forged through black steel. His regeneration failed. His body never healed.”
Elias recoiled as if struck. His lips moved without sound. “How… Who could cut through his divine field. No, even what type of mana could hinder is regeneration skill?”
A chill passed through the chamber.
Some lowered their eyes, others glanced sideways. They had ideas. Fragments. Whispers. But none dared to speak the name aloud.
Alaric Spellbinder leaned forward, the soft glow of violet runes blooming across his dragon-hide robe. His tone is calm, almost eerily so.
“It matters not who wields the blade,” he said. “Only that they dared. And that they succeeded.”
A quiet, furious rhythm tapped against the table—Sebastian Stratagem, the Grand Tactician, rolling a carved chess pawn between his fingers. He didn’t look up as he murmured, “Perception is power. If word spreads that we can die—truly die—then our deterrence evaporates. The world will descend into chaos... nah, the world is already sink after the dead of Dark Emperor.”
Ignatius Emberlord exhaled sharply through his nose. Flames licked the edges of his gauntlets, casting erratic shadows on the walls. Then, with a flash of anger, he slammed his fist onto the table. Sparks leapt into the air. The scent of scorched stone and brimstone followed.
“We find whoever did this,” he growled. “And we burn them. Loudly. Publicly.”
Aldric met each gaze in turn—Hunters who had once fought side by side to save the world. Now, they looked haunted. Fractured.
He rose, slow but firm. The sound of chair legs scraping stone is the only reply to the quiet tension.
“Mobilize your guilds. No delay. No discretion. The Association will fund every step. Find whoever killed Dorian. I want no forest, no ruin, no heart to shelter them.”
One by one, the hunters nodded. It isn’t agreement. It is obligation. The meeting ended with no words of closure—just the soft fall of boots retreating into darkness.
***
The death of the Silent Reaper marked the end of one battle—
But not the end of the war.
Hidden beneath the cover of night, Lucian returned to the Blackthorne Sanctuary. The ancient fortress welcomed him in silence, its enchanted walls swallowing every trace of his presence as though the world itself had forgotten he had ever left.
The battle had been victorious.
Yet victory had demanded a price.
The body he carried is still that of a young boy.
His soul had matured through countless lifetimes of memories, his mind had reached heights few could comprehend, and his swordsmanship had surpassed that of legends. But flesh could not keep pace with experience.
Every muscle screamed beneath the burden of techniques it had nbeever been meant to withstand. His bones felt as though they had been struck apart and forced back together, while countless mana channels throughout his body had ruptured from the overwhelming strain.
Even lifting Obsidian Oath had become difficult.
For several days, he remained confined within the Sanctuary, allowing his body to recover while the relics hidden beneath ancient oak slowly restored the damage. The pain reminded him of a truth he could never afford to forget.
Power meant nothing if the vessel wielding it failed.
Meanwhile, the outside world descended into chaos.
The assassination of a National Hunter shook every nation hunter across the globe. Emergency meetings were called overnight. Borders tightened. Hunter Associations mobilized elite investigation teams, while intelligence agencies searched relentlessly for even the smallest clue that could reveal the killer's identity.
The local police and public were disclose for knowing about the dead of National Hunter, cause it will make great chaos and controversy.
Every possible suspect is investigated.
Every organization is watched.
Entire guilds found themselves under surveillance.
Yet no matter how deeply they searched...
They found nothing.
No corpse.
No weapon.
No surviving witness.
Exactly as Lucian had intended.
The world searched for a ghost while the one responsible quietly disappeared into the shadows.
For Lucian, there is no reason to rush.
A hunter who survived by revealing every card in his hand rarely lived long enough to play another.
So he remained hidden.
Days became weeks.
Weeks quietly slipped into months.
Every sunrise was devoted to rebuilding the foundation his battle had exposed.
He refined the flow of mana through his body until every strand obeyed his thoughts without hesitation. He strengthened muscles that had torn apart under the pressure of the Seventh and Eighth Forms. His sword never left his hand for long, each swing correcting imperfections so small that no ordinary swordsman could have noticed them.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The smallest mistake on the battlefield could one day become the difference between victory and death.
He also replayed his duel against Dorian countless times inside his mind.
Every exchange.
Every step.
Every unnecessary movement.
He dissected his own performance more harshly than any enemy ever could.
He realized he had relied too heavily on overwhelming power when a cleaner strike would have ended the battle sooner. His footwork had wasted precious mana during several transitions between forms. Even his timing, nearly flawless by mortal standards, still possessed imperfections that irritated him.
Those flaws were unacceptable.
One by one, he erased them.
By the end of his secluded training, the Lucian who emerged is no longer merely stronger.
He had become quieter.
Sharper.
More efficient.
Like a blade polished until not even light could find a flaw upon its edge.
And before anyone truly noticed the passing of time...
A full year had gone by.
The boy who had returned from the Severance Realm wounded and exhausted no longer existed.
In his place stood a far more complete Blackthorne.
A swordsman who had turned every scar into experience...
And every mistake into another step toward becoming invincible.
The world spun on, pretending normalcy. But fractures webbed the surface like ice cracking beneath the weight of a forgotten giant.
***
Above the skyline of Argent City, where chrome towers kissed the clouds and traffic hummed on rivers of light, a storm brewed.
It isn’t weather.
Lightning forked across the sky, illuminating the city’s tallest spire—a pinnacle of enchanted glass and arc-steel.
At its summit stood a lone figure, cloaked in shadows and silence.
Lucian Blackthorne.
The wind tugged at his cloak, but it did not move. His presence defied the elements. His black eyes shimmered—not with light, but with the reflections of all he had lost. There is a kind of stillness about him, like the world bent subtly around his breath.
He after a long time, almost for 3 years did not stood inside any city. But today he is not here to stroll around the city or to have fun, he came because he have work to do.
He looked down.
In the elite district below, behind marble walls and golden gates, sat the mansion of Caius Voltaris—Thunder Sovereign. One of the National Hunters. The man who had turned Lucian’s world into fire and ashes.
Lucian closed his eyes briefly.
He remembered the laughter of his mother, the scent of rain in the garden of his childhood estate. He remembered Seraphina’s violin, his father’s hand on his shoulder, the echo of Maximilian’s laughter echoing across the dueling yard.
He remembered their screams.
Lucian’s fingers brushed the hilt of Obsidian Oath strapped to his back. The blade pulsed faintly under his touch, like a heartbeat—slow and ancient. It had fed on monsters. On tyrants. But tonight, it would taste justice.
A sharp crack of thunder split the sky.
It ripple around Caius’s mansion, dense enough to warp the rain midair.
Lucian whispered into the wind.
“Tonight, the storm falls.”
And then with a glow on pendent he vanished.
In the velvet-draped bedroom of Caius Voltaris, soft classical music played from a golden gramophone. The walls were adorned with tapestries of dragon-flight, of storms frozen mid-roar, of old glories painted in thread and mana. Caius sat on a chaise, humming quietly, polishing his saber—an artifact brimming with old lightning.
The candles flickered.
Then, in a breath, they died.
The chandelier above trembled. Shadows stretched unnaturally.
Caius stood in one motion, mana flaring around him in a halo of static. His eyes darted to the corners of the room—but it is as already too late.
Lucian emerged from the darkness like a memory dragged from the void.
Caius’s voice tore through the silence, low and venomous.
“So… you were the reason the world went still beyond silent. Bold of you—almost as if you’re begging for death.”
Lucian’s reply is quiet. Cold.
“No. I have a name to avenge.”
Before Caius through lighting upon Lucian.
The darkness clung to his skin. Veins of shadow spread down his arms as the room dimmed further, light itself refusing to touch him.
“Shadow Eclipse.”
At the utterance, the world itself seemed to shudder—light bled away, swallowed whole by an abyss without end. Darkness spread like a living tide, suffocating every corner, leaving no path, no refuge, no escape.
Dark tendrils erupted outward, silencing even the sound of Caius’s breathing. The world dulled.
Caius who somehow react to it, didn’t hesitate to recounter. He roared, lightning coiling around him.
“Thunderous Vortex!”
Mana surged. A column of lightning tore upward, devouring furniture and stone alike.
Lucian answered with his blade.
“Obsidian Genesis.”
He met the lightning—not with resistance, but with hunger.
The blade drank it whole.
Caius froze mid-step, his body seizing as if invisible claws tore through his flesh. A jagged snap erupted from his wrist, shattering like fragile glass. His veins lit with pain, blood spilling from his nose as his frame quivered under the crushing force. “Impossible… You devour lightning?”
Lucian’s gave a smile, slow and terrible.
“I devour everything.”
What followed is less a battle and more a storm within a storm.
Caius moved with blinding speed, bolts crackling from each swing. But Lucian’s sword art is a dance of void and precision.
"Sable Tempest." An onslaught of rapid strikes likened to a raging storm of shadows, overwhelming Caius with relentless force.
He weaved through thunder like smoke through fire.
Caius’s scream split the room as his left arm is torn away, crashing to the floor with a wet thud. Blood hissed against the carpet like fire consuming silk, the stench of iron thick in the air.
Lucian stand in front of the kneeled Caius " This were the hand which tore a hole in my father's chest, isn't it?"
Lucian lift him by his neck, suppressing his lighting shook with bare hands.
Caius raised his eyes, defiance burning through the agony.
“Even if you tear me apart,” he spat, crimson flecking his lips, “you’ll never resurrect what’s already rotted. The Blackthornes… are nothing but dust!”
Lucian’s gaze burned.
He tore open a gap in Caius chest with his other hand.
“Ashes can be rekindled,” he whispered. “And you… you’re the spark.”
He throw Caius towards the wall after taking out his hand. But still, he seems to breath.
"Umbral Dominion." A commanding stance that asserts control over darkness to Lucian, establishing his sovereignty in combat.
He blur all the sense of Caius, feeding his mind into darkness
The blade plunged into Caius’s heart from the Darkness.
His body convulsed. Sparks spilled from his mouth as his soul buckled.
“They’ll come for you…” he gasped, “From everywhere…”
Lucian leaned close, his voice cold and absolute.
“Let them come.”
A flicker of void surged behind Caius’s eyes—and he burned from the inside out. Not with fire, but with nothingness. With finality.
When it ended, only ash remained.
Caius from the starting was an easily target to kill, because he is a supporting type hunter which rely on others for their protection.
Lucian sheathed his sword and stood in heavy silence, the echo of battle still clinging to the air. Caius lay lifeless, of that he is certain, yet a gnawing unease coiled in his chest, a presence he could not dismiss.
Then it struck him—the unmistakable chill of mana, sharp and oppressive, seeping from afar. Another National Hunter is drawing near.
***
Far from the city at the north, on a cliff battered by salt and storm, five figures stood beneath a fractured sky.
The wind howled. The sea screamed.
At the center, Gideon Silversword, Sword Saint and elite of the Dawnbloods an Hunter Guild under him, stared into the night. His silver hair is soaked, his blade still sheathed, but his presence is radiant—a promise of unyielding purpose.
Around him stood the Celestial Swords of Dawnbloods .
None spoke.
They fell silent—whether by choice or because the sheer force radiating from Gideon pressed the air from their lungs, none could tell.
He is completely filled with anger as he sees Caius' aura fade away.
“The abyss stirs,” Gideon said while lowering his killing intent.
Someone murmured from behind him, “ I can't feel Sir Caius mana anymore.”
Gideon’s fingers brushed his blade’s hilt.
“ It mean he is here, the killer of National Hunter.”
They had been dispatched by the Hunter Association to handle routine matters in the mountains—yet what they stumbled upon is far more intriguing.
Above them, a silent tremor rippled through the stars, and fate itself shivered.
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