THE FALLEN ONE (TFO)

LUCIUS 

Darkness, my old friend. Nice to see you again, I thought—vividly.

I mean, I did open my eyes to look around, but I literally saw nothing...

It was as if my eyes were still closed, but they weren't. I was sure. I think.

I could feel my body. My hands. My legs. Even my crushed back.

I could feel my heartbeat—slow, steady. My mana core still pulsed, weak but intact.

My ears, though? Still ringing. The high-pitched screech of impact hadn't left.

And my whole body still felt the aftershocks—shockwaves pressing against me, pushing me back, inch by inch, like invisible ripples.

The smashed pillar behind me was the only reason I hadn't been thrown further—it halted the pushback just enough.

Then I heard it, the sounds of blades clashing.

MERCY!

The realisation crashed into me.

My Captain. The 'Hero' of Varis. Out there, right now, battling that beast, my 'prey'... the Valgura.

"How long was I unconscious?" I wondered faintly. My mind was still screwed from the backlash of that telekinetic burst. Everything was a blur—memories tangled and sluggish. I couldn't even piece together the events from a few minutes ago.

But if Mercy was still battling that thing...

Then it probably hadn't been that long. A few minutes? Maybe less. I wasn't sure. But it made sense.

Captain Mercy—an SS-ranked Lunarknight, a rank above the already-weakened Valgura. Sure, his water affinity wouldn't offer a massive advantage against the beast, but when combined with his raw skill, reaction speed, and experience...

He should be more than enough to take it down.

That is, if it was still the same beast.

Since my actual eyes were out of commission, I relied on what I had left:

My senses.

I pulled on everything I'd learned, every battle, every brush with death.

Every sensation I'd once ignored—I summoned them, reinforced them, pushed them to their absolute limits.

And within moments, my mind began to conjure it. A strange kind of vision. A live, hologram-like feed in my mind's eye.

Not sight. Not exactly. But a reconstructed version of reality, forged from pure perception. It flickered, faint and rough—but it worked. I could "see" again. Kind of.

Through this unreal set of eyes,

I could watch what was happening.

Mercy was going all-out against that—

Wait. Valgura?

I tried to confirm. But something felt... off.

Its mana signature was no longer what I remembered. It was more potent. Heavier. Denser. Brighter—if I had to describe it in sensory terms.

The video playing in my mind laid out the terrain, the trees, the craters. The movement of the two entities.

Everything in black and white.

Grainy.

Crude.

But good enough.

Their bodies burned like stars in my internal vision—each mana signature defining their outline.

Mercy's?

A flowing, blue-toned signature. Fluid. Controlled. Familiar.

Water-aspected, naturally.

But the beast?

Grey.

With streaks of black, flame-like sparks dancing through its core.

Unstable.

Something about it screamed wrong.

Yeah...

I didn't understand any of it.

And this sure as hell didn't feel like a dream.

Anyway—

The battle was ongoing.

Roughly a hundred meters from where I lay.

Close. But too far to help right now.

"My weapons?!"

The thought slammed through me like a wave.

I immediately extended my senses further—despite the pain, despite the strain.

Even if it meant frying what little coherence I had left, I had to know.

The beast's chest no longer held Rare Death—my weapon.

Instead, something else was there—

Something I couldn't identify from this distance.

But whatever it was, it made no difference.

Because—

Mercy was fighting the beast... BARE-HANDED?!

What the actual fuck happened while I was unconscious?

The terrain around them was devastated.

Trees burned in scattered patches.

Crater marks—deep, fresh, everywhere—as if a meteor shower had landed.

The air still crackled with residual mana.

And yet—

There he was.

Mercy.

Fighting that thing without his weapon or shield.

The Valgura, at least twice his size—maybe even thrice—was throwing punches like wrecking balls.

Each fist enhanced with blade-like mana, sharpened into jagged, serrated edges.

One clean hit, and most warriors would be cleaved apart.

But Mercy?

He was countering with open palms.

Deflecting. Redirecting. Blocking raw power with sheer technique.

Dodging with inhuman precision.

Moving like water. No hesitation.

Trying to buy time.

Trying to retrieve something.

Probably—

His sword.

I expanded my senses again—deeper this time.

Even if it split my skull open, I had to locate something—anything.

Weapons don't emit mana unless they're being used.

That made them hard to trace.

But not impossible.

Then—

"…Found it!"

A jolt ran through me.

Barely visible through my spectral overlay—

One of the three weapons lying in the wreckage.

By its form, its presence, its weight in my senses—

It had to be Silvermoon.

Mercy's longsword.

But it lay closer to the beast than to him.

And unless he got it soon,

he'd be forced to rely on nothing but his agility and hand-to-hand techniques.

Not good.

Not good at all.

And yet—

This was the plan.

Dragging Mercy into this mess had been intentional.

All of it.

I had let my mana pulse through the outer sectors of the Lunar Walls—subtly, carefully.

A strong enough ripple to get attention—

But only to someone who'd be looking for me.

Mercy would know the explosion was a decoy.

He'd deduce that someone was manipulating the situation.

And he'd spread out his senses, trying to pick up anything strange—

Not just toward the inner city, but outward too.

Toward the Beast Rims.

That's where I waited.

He wouldn't bring others.

Not with the political risk.

Not when I—Lucius, 17, injured, and very much a problem—was involved.

Bringing a squad meant bureaucracy.

And bureaucracy meant questions.

If they caught wind of what I was doing,

I'd be behind bars in a day.

And Mercy? In the courtroom—possibly worse.

So he came alone.

Predictable.

Calculated.

He justified it by claiming he was investigating the explosion.

Said he detected a second mana presence moving outside city bounds.

The others bought it.

Ronith, the newly appointed Vice-Captain, took the inner patrol squads.

The rest searched near the Lunar Wall.

But Mercy?

He came for me.

***

Lucius was trying his best—to move, to help, to not be the burden that dragged Mercy into this mess.

But he couldn't.

He couldn't move.

His body screamed at him, joints locked in pain, mana flow tangled like frayed wires.

And in that moment of bitter clarity, he realized something brutal:

He was a liability.

A dead weight.

He gritted his teeth, fury bubbling just beneath the helplessness.

If he couldn't fight—

Then he'd do the next best thing.

Support.

He began scanning the field—his senses flaring again—this time to locate every scattered weapon.

Anything could tip the scales.

His own sword. Mercy's blade. Even a shard of enchanted steel.

At the same time, he did something reckless.

Something desperate.

He pulled out every last potion he had left.

And without hesitation—

Drank. Them. All.

It wasn't recommended.

Hell, it was borderline suicidal.

Especially after already being given one of the high-grade knight-issue potions—the kind meant to kickstart a full recovery over the course of hours.

After that kind of elixir, it was standard protocol to wait.

Let the potion settle. Let your body respond in phases.

Intervals mattered. Mixing multiple variants could warp your mana core.

Could kill you.

But Lucius?

He wasn't in the kind of situation where "protocol" mattered.

He didn't care.

Each gulp burned his throat, surged through his veins like molten heat, and collided with the other potions already working inside him.

His muscles spasmed.

His vision pulsed.

But his focus never wavered.

He directed it—

All of it.

Using his tenuous mana control, he manipulated the cocktail of mana-infused potions surging through his bloodstream.

Redirecting their healing potential.

Focusing it.

Toward two areas only:

His lower back and his left arm.

The damage to his core structure was too deep to fix entirely.

Trying to recover everything at once would be pointless. Inefficient.

But targeted healing?

That he could do.

The trade-off was clear:

Most of the potion's power would go to waste.

But what little remained would be condensed—

Refined.

Poured into the muscles and nerves he needed right now.

His left arm—his dominant.

His spine—his support.

He felt the tingle of restoration begin, not soothing, but sharp and agonizing.

Like nerves being stitched together by fire.

Still—he endured it.

Forced his breath to stabilize.

Sweat dripped down his chin, mixing with the blood that hadn't yet stopped.

But for the first time since he woke up—

He could feel the faint twitch of movement return to his fingers.

While one half of his mind anchored itself to the slow grind of internal recovery,

the other half locked onto Crimson Ultima.

His sword.

His will.

His anchor in battle.

But it was too far.

Too far for his telekinesis to reach.

His connection was weak—barely functional.

Still, he extended his left arm toward it, palm shaking.

The weapon remained motionless.

The surrounding mana refused to react.

As if it didn't even register his call.

Lucius didn't stop.

Didn't waver.

The tremors in the ground worsened—each shockwave rattling his bones.

His vision flickered—still blurry, riddled with blind spots.

But pieces were returning.

Like scattered puzzle fragments slotting into place.

He dug his feet into the ground, forced his knees to obey.

His breath was ragged.

Pain shot through his spine.

And still, he reached.

"Shit! Come on!!"

His voice cracked—hoarse, but laced with raw power.

The sword didn't move.

His hand trembled harder.

His focus intensified.

And something inside him snapped.

Not in a breaking way.

But like a chain coming undone.

A mental barrier falling.

"Tonight—" Lucius growled through his bloodied teeth,

"—I surpass my limits."

His mana spiked.

Chaotic. Wild.

But alive.

"I'll shatter the walls in my mind—

Break through every locked gate they said I couldn't pass—

AND I WILL RISE!"

His aura exploded.

Not in size—

But in intensity.

A focused surge of purpose, of identity.

"SUMMON—CRIMSON ULTIMA!!!"

He roared with every last ounce of breath in his lungs—

And his knees buckled.

But he stood.

Blood dripping.

Body barely holding together.

Vision still patchy.

But he stood.

Because the fire inside him hadn't gone out.

Wouldn't go out.

Not until he ended—

What he originally started.

The hunt.