In a dark, solemn castle with doused torches and shattered glass lights, a woman sits alone in silence on a broken throne.
The woman's golden hair glows in the darkness, resisting the dark, yet her once beautiful eyes cast no light as they look at the stone monument in her hand. Her long, delicate fingers tap a single name illuminated with a red hue, only for a loud buzz to ring out each time she tried to summon their soul.
[Soul has been destroyed - unable to revive]
Words in a dull, monotone voice, yet each time she pressed the name, her face distorted more and more.
She did not know why she tried again and again. Perhaps it was a stubborn desire to see him alive once again; perhaps she was still waiting for that one miracle to happen; perhaps this was the only thing keeping her sanity in check.
Now that he died, there was no chance he would become her enemy. A lost soul that she could usher into her bosom, and no longer would Lumina have to fight against him.
"Misguided soul, lost in the abyss of time and death. Awaken!" Her beautiful yet eerie voice once again cast forbidden magic that the high gods before her cast aside and made prohibited to use.
Yet, as a goddess born in another world, a former hero who ascended to godhood to protect her beloved, she felt this was her right- something only she could use, and so she honed the spell in her first thousand years. To save, protect and guide her fallen heroes, unlike those who became divine naturally.
Lumina was different because she remained both a hero and goddess, and thus, many rules didn't apply to her, thanks to the goddess who summoned her to this world and gave her such a blessing.
With the spell activated, a large, intricate, and complex magical formation formed around her, surrounding her throne and filling the entire hall with a golden light that the shadows of the castle could not reject.
"The hero known as Ryuji Vincenzo, one that was destined to be lost but reborn again. I command you, come forth!"
A strange power emanated from the stone monument. The loud whir of magical power filled the castle, and for but a moment, the colour of life returned to the goddess as her eyes shone with golden light.
However, the spell circles began to shatter like fallen glass, and a magical backlash filled her entire body with searing pain as her soul became heavily damaged by the backlash, golden blood pouring from her lips as her skin cracked, turning black and disintegrating into ash.
"Why? Why?! What is the reason you cannot return?" She cried out, clutching her chest in pain. "Why can't I resurrect you?!"
"Cough" She spat out blood as her body convulsed and fell backwards, her beautiful hair now dull and lifeless as it covered her pale, lifeless face, now lying on the cold stone floor looking up at the beautiful imagery of what her believers thought she resembled and what her original actions were.
A goddess who supported the people, protected them, and empowered heroes to save the lands.
There was only one god who could cause a soul to vanish this way, a god she presumed to have been an old friend and someone who would never betray her, even if he fell in love with the goddess of darkness.
'Because Serena would never wish this fate upon a former hero...'
As she lay on the floor, her body slowly repairing itself, she could only curse the gods and the fates who denied her even the chance to perish and meet his soul in the dark realm of death.
"Kuh!"
"Ugh!..."
"N...nooo..."
"Sob"
"Soo...b"
"No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no....no. Mikael already left me once. You cannot snatch his son from me... not by death! Not by my own hands!"
"Sob"
Her body had already healed, yet she could only lay on the floor, her spirit and mind wracked by a sense of hopelessness and emptiness.
"Please, my lord, lend me strength..."
"So, either you let him go, or you try to stop me, and we will see who comes out on top."
Lumina crawled to her feet, holding a golden spear, her body still covered in light wounds and cracks from her failed attempts to revive the man she believed she killed.
Lumina never denied she wasn't sane or that her thoughts and ideas were twisted because of her human feelings.
Unlike the other gods, who had their souls stripped of most of their feelings, she kept everything, all the sins a mortal has. When she ascended, the true gods left them and laughed, saying it would be an amusing sight to see what she would become.
That was why she hated the gods, hated this world in the darkness of her kingdom of light.
Those two were the only ones that shone radiance into her world.
"So be it... if you wish to oppose me, and the laws of this world. Then, I, the god of death and deception, will not hold back."
A giant monster of a shadow rose above the castle walls, a beast with hundreds of arms, wings, and tails. His head was that of a skeleton with three eyes and a snake coiled around his neck—the monster's body was pitch black and appeared to be death itself.
"By the power vested in me, by the agreement of 5 Higher Gods and 10 Lesser Gods and signed by the true goddess of destruction. You are found guilty of violating the laws of order and breaking the pact made between the gods of light and darkness. Your sins involve placing a curse on both the former heroes and the bloodline of the Grigor family twice.
The massacre of countless people and creation of a monster beyond all hope of destruction."
"Eh..." The face of Lumina distorted, twisting into a horrific sight as she looked at the towering beasts now lingering ahead of her. Death was imminent, no. She would not receive something as kind as death, Lumina realised that the other gods apart from one had become tired of her actions...
He would make her into a mortal without blessing. Return her to a state when she was summoned to this world over ten thousand years ago, far before the Grigor king guided his people, a time when strife and war ruled the lands...
However, this time, she would have no blessing, meaning her chance of surviving was low.
"Come forth, legions of the damned! Devour the flesh of the false goddess and drink her divine ichor. Cast her into the pit of endless darkness, and never shall she be able to escape or enter the land of the mortal with no blessing, no power and only the hope of repeated death awaiting her."
"The decree has been spoken and the gods have agreed. Go forth, Leviathan, and destroy her!"
"..."
"The end of the false goddess is nigh."
"Bastards! I won't submit or forget! You will rue this day when I return all of you... all of you will perish!"
"Hahahahaha! So ends the goddess betrayed and twisted by the beings that made her! But Lumina, the fact you believed a goddess of light could curse someone just because they loved a man or because they felt betrayed is amusing.
To think you would be nothing but my little puppet, pining for that filthy human for so long~ Ah, to take your divinity, make you my scapegoat for all the sins I have committed over the past seven thousand years, and nobody realised it was all so I could stand equal with Serena... to make her face me as a complete equal... so refreshing."
Mephisto's laughter rang through the castle.
"Now that bastard is gone, Serena won't think of him; let's wipe him from the world's memory. Hahahaha! Goodbye, Ryuji Vincenzo and former hero Lumina, no... Luisa D'Angeli1 from Venicia.2 Hahahaha!"
****
Name: ?????
Title: Fallen, Hero Slayer, Murderer, Tyrant, The Obsessed, Living Dead, Marionette
Race: Arachne
Class: Assassin Lv.1
Rank: B+