For a long moment, neither of them moved.
The wind passed gently between them, brushing Aelira's hair as she looked curiously at the man of light.
Serion stood rooted in place, the weight of his divinity pressing against his ribs, his instincts screaming that he was standing before something no scripture had ever described.
Lucien smiled faintly. "You've been standing there quite a while," he said. "You'll make the forest nervous."
His tone was calm, almost teasing. He turned slightly toward the mansion. "Come in. I don't enjoy conversations where one party's ready to faint."
Serion hesitated. The moment he crossed the threshold, the world changed. The air inside wasn't air at all—it was something like breathing in stillness, as if every particle of existence had decided to pause and listen.
The interior of the Dreamveil Estate was vast but simple: white corridors shaped from flowing light, doors that hummed faintly with energy, and the distant echo of water that didn't seem to exist anywhere physical.
Lucien gestured toward a table. Aelira ran inside, giggling, as Umbra floated lazily behind her.
Serion sat carefully, his eyes studying every detail, every subtle pulse of energy. "This place… it feels like a domain, but it isn't. It's—alive."
Lucien nodded. "It remembers. I built it that way." He poured tea—motion so ordinary that it disarmed the divinity sitting across from him. "Drink. It won't harm you."
Serion looked at the cup, the steam curling upward. For the first time in ages, he realized his hands were trembling. "You drank from the Styks," he said. "You've broken laws older than Heaven itself. Who are you?"
Lucien looked up, eyes reflecting quiet amusement. "If I told you, would you believe me?"
"I have seen the heart of creation," Serion replied. "I've stood in the Choirs of Heaven and watched stars be born. Try me."
Lucien's smile deepened just slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting as if he'd heard this line a thousand times before.
Then everything stopped.
The room dissolved—not violently, but like mist touched by sunlight.
Serion blinked.
He was no longer in the Dreamveil Estate.
He stood in a place where up and down no longer existed—a horizon of endless black light and shifting reflections. Stars pulsed like living veins through a sea of darkness.
Before him rose a throne, built from the bones of collapsed realities. Upon it sat the real Lucien Dreamveil.
The true form.
Eyes that contained galaxies behind galaxies. Skin that flickered with the faint shimmer of existence and non-existence intertwining.
The faint smile he wore wasn't cruel—it was simply aware.
"So," the true Lucien said softly, voice echoing across both time and thought, "you wanted to know who I am."
Serion fell to one knee. His wings flared instinctively, light bleeding from them in waves. "This… this cannot exist. This realm—this plane—it defies every order Heaven stands on."
Lucien leaned forward slightly, resting his chin on one hand. "That's because Heaven stands on order. I don't."
The space around them rippled with quiet laughter, or maybe thunder—it was impossible to tell which.
"You are sitting," Lucien continued, "in the merged Primordial Void and Metaphysical Plane. Once separate, now one. Every concept of origin, causality, and end folds here. There is no Heaven here. Only balance between what should never have met."
Serion raised his head slowly, eyes wide. "Then the being I met on Azure Blue—"
"My clone," Lucien said. "But more than that. A Heaven-Void Paradox."
Serion's voice shook. "Explain."
Lucien rose from the throne. The act itself sent a silent tremor through the dimension; the constellations bent slightly, bowing as he passed.
"When I drank from the Styks, I took within me the memory of Heaven—the law that governs order, faith, divinity. But my essence is Void. Nothingness. Anti-law."
"A clone created from that mixture cannot be defined. He is neither Heaven nor Void. He is both."
He paused, turning his gaze toward the endless horizon. "A Heaven-Void Paradox… a being that can bend divinity with logic and erase logic with belief. A flaw in creation, if you ask your gods. A necessary evolution, if you ask me."
Serion struggled to breathe. Every word carried the weight of millennia, each syllable pressing against his soul like the edge of a blade. "Why show me this?"
Lucien turned back toward him, that same faint, human smile on his lips. "Because I wanted you to understand before you return. The Heavens will sense the imbalance soon. They'll send more of you. They'll demand retribution, order, purity."
He walked closer, the floor rippling beneath his steps like liquid night. "And when they do, I want them to know—Heaven isn't being replaced."
He stopped inches away, his eyes locking with Serion's.
"It's being rewritten."
The world blinked back into place.
Serion gasped, finding himself once again in the mansion, tea cup still in hand, steam still rising as if nothing had happened. Lucien's clone sat across from him, perfectly calm, as Aelira peeked through a doorway, curious.
"Now," Lucien said, his tone light again, "you were saying something about Heaven?"
Serion exhaled, shaking slightly, his voice hoarse. "You… you're no god."
Lucien's smile widened a little, but his eyes softened. "I never claimed to be."
He stood, placing a hand on Serion's shoulder—an oddly human gesture. "You can go back now. Tell them whatever lets you sleep at night."
Serion looked up, and for the first time in his eternal life, he couldn't find a word that fit what he'd seen.
As he rose to leave, Lucien turned toward the window where the night sky of Azure Blue shimmered with distant meteors.
"The Heavens watch everything," Lucien murmured. "But even they must blink."