Heaven had seen wars.
It had seen rebellions, uprisings, divine duels, and cataclysms that ripped galaxies apart.
But it had never—not once in its entire existence—seen anything like the moment Lucien Dreamveil's clone smiled at an army meant to protect the skies.
The Celestial Guards stood in formation, their gold armor humming with ancient blessings, eyes burning with righteous fury. Each guard wielded an armament forged in cosmic storms, a weapon that could reduce entire continents to drifting dust.
Behind them hovered the Elder Celestials, each towering like a living sun. Their power bent space. Their presence crushed reality into trembling submission.
And above all, the High Sons glowed like the very concept of supremacy—rulers born from the heart of Heaven's core.
The air was thick with essence.
The ground pulsed.
The sky burned white.
Guru whistled. "Well… that's definitely more dramatic than last time."
Vaelion brushed a speck of dust off his sleeve. "They're overcompensating. Again."
Lucien's clone didn't even bother looking at the army.
His eyes remained on the sky—calm, detached, thoughtful.
Calystria stepped forward, voice taut with duty and regret.
"Lucien Dreamveil… I ask once more. Leave. You are forcing Heaven into war."
Guru snorted.
"War? This? This is less than breakfast exercise."
Serion, the First Spear of Heaven, clenched his jaw and raised his shining halberd.
"ENOUGH TALK—!! CELESTIAL GUARDS—!! CHARGE—!!"
And Heaven erupted.
The Celestial Guards launched forward in a single, unified roar—10,000 voices merging into a sound that tore the clouds apart.
Their steps cracked the ground.
Their collective aura became a storm of gold.
A spear wall rose—like a tidal wave ready to swallow three men.
Guru cracked his knuckles.
"A'ight… I got the appetizers."
He disappeared.
No—he stepped, but so fast the world didn't track it.
Space folded, refusing to comprehend the motion.
Guru appeared in front of the first row of Celestial Guards—smiling.
"Morning, boys."
His fist moved.
Just once.
One punch.
The sound was a detonation—
as if a nuclear star went off within an inch of silence.
The sky flashed.
The nearest 200 Guards vanished.
Not dead—
but erased from the battlefield by sheer force, thrown into distant realms like insects in a hurricane.
Guru rotated his shoulder.
"Hmm. A little stiff."
Thousands of guards charged again, panic twisting in their features.
Vaelion sighed, stepping forward lazily.
"You know," he said while floating upward, "I promised myself I'd avoid breaking Heaven again… but oh well."
His hands moved slowly—gracefully—
as if painting something unseen.
Then—
The air rippled.
A pressure burst outward, a soundless wave that forced reality to kneel.
Suddenly, every guard in a 10-mile radius froze mid-charge, suspended like marionettes with snapped strings.
Vaelion flicked his finger.
Boom.
Thousands of bodies slammed into the ground.
Not dead.
Not crippled.
Just defeated in a single gesture.
Guru frowned.
"Oh come ON— let me have some fun too!"
Vaelion smirked.
"Get faster."
Up in the sky, Serion seethed.
"Damn monsters… ELDER CELESTIALS—!! ATTACK!!"
The twenty luminous beings descended.
Each one pulsed with power strong enough to crush half a universe.
Their forms were fluid—giant, divine, terrifying.
One Elder raised a hand, summoning a sea of constellations.
Another conjured a blade crafted from the very essence of time.
A third opened a divine tome, rewriting fate with every turn.
Guru's eyes sparkled.
"Oh, good—they're bringing the good toys."
Vaelion cracked his neck.
"Try not to kill them. Heaven whines when we do."
Lucien's clone finally spoke—calm, soft, yet cutting through the battlefield like the whisper of a god.
"Stand back."
Guru paused.
Vaelion raised a brow.
Lucien lifted one finger.
Just one.
And the Elder Celestials—
the feared, universe-crushing gods—
froze as if the fabric of existence had grabbed them by the throat.
Light distorted.
Space stilled.
Their movements became mechanical, panicked, desperate.
Lucien's clone exhaled.
A soft breath—no killing intent, no hostility, no arrogance.
Just fact.
"You can't beat me. And you know it."
The Elders felt it.
They lived for hundreds of billions of years.
Yet in that one moment, for the first time,
they understood what true insignificance was.
Calystria shivered.
Buddha swallowed hard.
Lucien's clone took a single step—
and space cracked beneath his foot like glass.
"I don't want your lives," he said.
"And I don't need your loyalty."
He appeared behind the Elders—
so smoothly the world didn't notice the transition.
"But I do want your attention."
He tapped the back of each Elder Celestial gently.
A tap that sent shockwaves through their souls, not their bodies.
A tap that overloaded their core with information—
far beyond their realm.
Their knees buckled.
Their auras flickered violently.
They coughed golden blood.
Guru murmured, "Bro… you said no killing."
Lucien shrugged.
"I'm not killing them. I'm teaching them humility."
Vaelion laughed.
"Oh that's FAR worse."
Serion roared, eyes burning with divine wrath.
"HIGH SONS—!! NOW—!!"
Nine others stepped beside him.
Their wings spread, casting shadows across Heaven itself.
Their combined aura turned the air into molten gold.
Their presence alone warped gravity, time, and logic.
Each one of them was a being who could destroy countless worlds without effort.
Guru grinned.
"Finally. Actual fun."
Vaelion wiped dust from his sleeve.
"Try not to break the sky this time."
Lucien's clone simply crossed his arms.
Serion shouted, "Luci—"
Lucien raised a hand lightly.
And Serion's mouth refused to open.
No sound.
No breath.
No movement.
The First Spear of Heaven froze—
not physically, but metaphysically.
His authority was locked down.
Lucien's clone spoke softly, but everyone felt the world tremble.
"You will all listen for one moment."
The High Sons tried to resist.
They tried to radiate aura, divine pressure, attacks—anything.
But nothing worked.
Lucien's voice continued—calm, conversational.
"I came for the Heavenly Dao. And the beasts sealed beneath this realm. And yes…"
He leaned slightly forward.
"I do know Heaven's secret."
The High Sons snarled but couldn't move.
The Elder Celestials trembled.
Calystria bit her lip.
Buddha's expression hardened.
"But," Lucien added, "I am not here to wage a cosmic war."
He snapped his fingers.
Reality cracked like porcelain.
And suddenly—
the High Sons were shoved backward, skidding across the sky like meteors.
Guru raised a brow.
"You could've done that from the start."
Lucien shrugged.
"I wanted to see their formation."
Vaelion laughed.
"He's in a playful mood. Heaven better pray he stays that way."
The High Sons regained balance, shaking in disbelief.
Serion gasped, "You—!"
Then stopped.
Because the fear in his eyes told the truth.
He just realized—
Lucien's clone hadn't even used 0.01% of his strength.
And they were losing.
Badly.
Heaven wasn't done yet.
Not even close.
A massive divine formation lit up beneath the clouds—
ten thousand runes aligning into the shape of a colossal eye.
The High Sons shouted as one:
"HEAVENLY RETRIBUTION—
AWAKEN—!!"
The sky tore open.
Cosmic lightning fell.
Stars collapsed into beams.
The law of existence bent into spears aiming straight for Lucien.
Guru stretched.
"Want me to erase it?"
Lucien looked up, smiling faintly.
"No. Let them use everything."
The Heavenly Retribution Eye fired.
A beam larger than a galaxy.
A blast strong enough to delete universes.
It struck—
blanketing the battlefield in blinding white.
Thunder roared.
Space wrenched.
Dimensions split.
A crater larger than continents formed.
Silence.
Smoke.
Then—
A voice.
"You're done?"
Lucien's clone stood exactly where he'd been, not a scratch on him.
He dusted his shoulder.
"You're sloppy. Too much power leaking from the left quadrant."
Guru burst into laughter.
Vaelion nearly choked on his tea.
(He had conjured tea mid-battle. No one knew why.)
The High Sons stared, pale.
Serion whispered, "This… this isn't possible…"
Lucien walked forward.
Calmly.
Unhurried.
As if strolling through a garden.
Every celestial instinct screamed RUN.
But none could move.
He stood before them, one hand in his pocket.
"I told you," he said softly, "I don't need your lives."
He placed two fingers on Serion's forehead.
Serion's entire divine body seized—
flooded with fear, pain, knowledge, and truth.
Lucien leaned close, whispering:
"You are not fighting me."
"You're fighting a shadow of me."
"And you still can't win."
Serion trembled.
Tears threatened to fall.
Lucien withdrew his hand.
Serion collapsed—
not from injury, but from realizing the scale of existence.
Heaven went silent.
Lucien's clone turned to the Elders and High Sons.
"Listen carefully. I only need one thing."
His voice lowered.
"I need the Heavenly Dao. And I need the sealed beasts."
Buddha stepped forward shakily.
"Lucien… if we give you the Dao, Heaven falls apart. The realms collapse. Balance shatters."
Lucien smiled.
"I know."
Calystria's voice trembled.
"Then… why take it?"
"Because it's not yours," Lucien said simply.
The air dropped ten degrees.
No one breathed.
Guru whispered, "Welp. He said it."
Vaelion nodded. "He definitely said it."
Lucien continued, tone soft but final.
"The Heavenly Dao was forged by someone older than your Heaven. Someone you've all forgotten. Someone Heaven tried to bury."
His eyes sharpened.
"I am simply reclaiming what belongs to its rightful owner."
Buddha's pupils shrank.
Calystria staggered.
The High Sons paled.
They all knew who he meant.
But speaking that name was a crime beyond taboo.
Lucien raised a hand toward the divine vaults above Heaven.
The sky trembled.
The seals shook.
The air roared.
Lucien's voice dropped to a whisper.
"And do not make me repeat myself."
Heaven understood.
All of it.
The angels.
The Elders.
The High Sons.
Even the sky itself.
Just three beings stood against Heaven's full might—
and Heaven was about to break.
The Celestial Guards, the so-called army of divine might, froze where they stood.
The Elders knelt.
Not willingly… but instinctively.
And the ten High Sons looked up at Lucien like mortals staring at the sun.
Lucien lowered his hand.
"You will surrender the Dao. You will free the beasts. And you will wait for me."
His gaze sharpened.
"All of you."
Guru crossed his arms.
Vaelion smirked.
The High Sons couldn't speak.
Their throats locked.
Not from power—
but from instinctive, primal fear.
Lucien stepped back, expression unreadable.
"I will give you one chance."
His aura expanded slightly—
just enough for Heaven to feel the gap between them.
It was infinite.
Between him and them?
There was no comparison.
Then—
The ground cracked.
The divine vaults shook.
The Celestial Guards felt their hearts stop.
Lucien's voice, soft but absolute:
"Tell the other celestials…
Tell the higher realms…
Tell the True Ones…"
He leaned forward, eyes gleaming crimson-gold.
"Wait for me."
Silence followed—
so heavy that Heaven forgot how to breathe.
Lucien turned.
Guru yawned.
Vaelion conjured another cup of tea.
And as they prepared to leave,
the narrator whispered—
"And so Heaven stood still."
"Not because it chose to…"
"but because Lucien Dreamveil allowed it to."