The storm had not yet even passed, all outside the Sterling penthouse windows shone, New York’s skyline always glittered with such defiance, the skyscrapers all glowing like the steel and sentinels against all the night. But within all those glass walls, the air now felt heavier than any thundercloud shone.Marcus just stood there at the balcony, as always the divine amulet all pulsing so faintly against his mighty chest. Its glow all seeped through the mighty silk of his shiny shirt, like a heartbeat which was not his own. He could even feel it was whispering again, each of the flicker of light a fast reminder of so much power even older than the Moon great dynasty, older even than Olympus itself. And yet, he still resisted.Behind him, Aria’s voice was so broke the silence. “You’ve been out there for so many hours. That thing it’s still eating at you.” Marcus now turned, his eyes now shadowed, jaw all clenched. Aria then stood barefoot onto the marble floor, her hair all now fallin

The chambers all went black, and not even the kind of darkness that was born from all the absence of the light—but it was something older, so much heavier, ajd goddamnalive. It all pressed against the skin, just filled the lungs like a smoke. The runes all carved into the arena, the floor now dimmed one by one, their glow so smothered all beneath the presence that had once entered the room.Marcus could now hear the sharp intake of the breath from all the dozens of watchers. Even the Nine, the beings who had seen all the centuries of battle and of blood, but now they looked uneasy.“Who dares to interfere with a sanctioned that is in trial?” one of them demanded. His voice trembling even despite his authority sh9WB from how he spoke.Now the cloaked figure at the far dais did not answer at least n9t immediately. Instead, they all lifted a hand, so pale, all gloved, and then marked with a symbol that just pulsed so faintly like that of a heartbeat. With that motion all alone, the prot

It was a heartbeat, the entire world had now held its breath, the lightening all slashed across the clouds, all the casting of both men just fleeting in thief great brilliance and there held two identical faces all separated by the great centuries of great since and of so much memory. The only difference just lay in their eyes: Marcus’s burned with hmthe human rage built, his double’s with all divine serenity as if the storm itself had now bowed to him.Aria stood there between all of them, just trembling. “Marcus… what is all of this?”He didn’t even answer. He just couldn’t. The name Marcellus was still echoing through his veins like it was a curse.The double now smiled so faintly. “You’ve been forgotten,” he said. “But I do remember just everything. The cities you have drowned. The gods you have all defied. The blood that you have that has crowned you.”Marcus’s grip then tightened on his sword. “You’re just not real.”“Oh, I’m real enough,” the figure replied, stepping closer.

The first thing Lucien has felt was pain, not the kind that even screamed it was the kind that hummed. A deep, yet resonant ache, echoing just through the bones of all the creation itself.He then stood in the center of a desolate cathedral, its arches all made of black stone, its walls just pulsing with the veins of faint crimson light. The altar all before him was just cracked, a relic from a world that was long forgotten. Behind him, all the shadows moved in like living creatures just whispering in tongues that had not been spoken in a millennia. He then opened his eyes.They were not even eyes, anymore they were just twin abysses, all swallowing the light, reflecting only the memory of the stars that had died while screaming. “So,” he then murmured, his voice a low thunder. “He definitely remembers.”The cathedral now trembled as though the building itself just feared the words. A figure had emerged from all the shadows there was a tall woman now wrapped in armor of bone and of

The sky had gotten big split open and from all the shattered clouds, there was a silver lightening all laced with the black fire all burned across the heavens, each of yhsoe strikes echoing like that in a heartbeat of something that was so divine and very terrible. The big rift was now loomed above New York, and it was a living wound that had swirled into reality with just so many echoes of every forgotten god that was ever known and a cursed prayer. The tower of the M9on estate lay in so much ruins and its glass was just steel that was scattered like the bones of all the fallen titan.Marcus was there but he stood in the wreckage, his arms now half melted, his eyes all glowing but very faintlike with some sort of divine fire. He even looked nothing like a quiet businessman the world had thought he was. He was just a remnant of something that was of ancient value, a war god that was dragged but very unwilling into the memory. Somewhere beyond that rift...Aria was still alive.Her vo