The battlefield of Heaven still trembled behind them, but Lucien's clone had already turned his back to it — hands folded behind him as if he had simply grown bored.
Guru hovered beside him with that feral monkey smirk, Vaelion floating with lightning-calm eyes.
The High Sons, Elder Celestials, and the thousands of celestial guards remained frozen in shock, the weight of the unspoken taboo still crushing the entire realm like a silent guillotine.
Lucien's clone looked over his shoulder.
"Don't kill them," he said casually. "Not yet. They still have their uses."
His voice carried across Heaven like a verdict.
No one dared move.
Then he turned to Guru and Vaelion.
"Head back. I'll rejoin you later."
Guru blinked. "Huh? Where are you going?"
"A suspended zone," Lucien's clone answered. "Between the Astral and the Etheric."
Vaelion's brows twitched.
"That place shouldn't even… exist."
Lucien smiled — that small, knowing, terrifying smile.
"Exactly."
And without another word, he vanished.
Guru scratched his head.
"Damn kid moves like he doesn't even need space to walk."
Vaelion sighed.
"He really doesn't."
The two turned and slipped through the void, leaving Heaven behind.
The moment Lucien's clone arrived, all light collapsed into grayscale.
A vast expanse stretched before him — a place that was neither here nor there.
Floating islands drifted like shattered memories.
Etheric winds moved without sound, carrying the weight of timelines that never happened.
Everything felt dead, but not empty.
Dormant, like something holding its breath.
Lucien's clone appeared above one of the suspended lands, boots touching nothing — suspended on pure will.
And there he saw it.
A lone floating island.
A lone iron cage.
A lone man sitting within it, chained by runes older than the Astral itself.
His hair was snow-white.
His eyes — crimson, but dim, as though they once burned bright enough to shame the heavens and had been forcibly muted.
His presence…
Even chained, even suppressed, even crippled…
It was like a forgotten sun.
Lucien's clone's steps slowed.
This aura… familiar.
The man lifted his head weakly.
He stared at Lucien's clone… and something in his dead-still expression trembled.
"…Your eyes," he murmured, voice hoarse. "Those… crimson eyes… why do they feel… familiar?"
Lucien didn't answer at first.
He already knew.
This was no ordinary prisoner.
No random sealed entity.
This was the one Father never spoke about.
The one even Heaven erased from every record.
Lexus Dreamveil — The Undying One.
His grandfather.
But before Lucien could speak, space folded — another man appearing on the floating land with a staff of astral inscriptions, wearing robes of the Etheric Judges.
The man frowned.
"You. Outsider. Why are you interfering with a sealed—"
He never finished.
Because in the blink of an eye, Lucien's clone wasn't floating above the ground anymore.
He was already standing beside the cage.
The Etheric Warden's eyes widened in terror.
"What—?! How did you—?!"
Lucien ignored him entirely.
He looked at Lexus — at the chained, shackled, broken figure.
Then he finally addressed the warden, voice empty of effort.
"Why is my grandfather chained up here?"
The warden's face turned pale.
"G-Grandfather? This prisoner is your—w-wait—this—? HIM?! That's impossi—"
SNAP.
A finger flick.
Barely even a gesture.
The warden disintegrated into fine dust — erased so perfectly that even the laws here did not realize a life had ended.
Lucien exhaled softly.
Then he placed his hand on the chains.
They reacted violently — runes igniting, dimensions trembling, the suspended zone screaming like it was being ripped apart.
The chains were crafted to bind someone who couldn't die.
Someone who refused to.
Someone whose very existence rebelled against all endings.
But Lucien was not someone.
Lucien was Dreamveil.
He tightened his grip.
Crack.
The first shackle snapped like dried clay.
Lexus' eyes widened — a spark of life flickering inside them for the first time in ages.
Lucien broke the second. Then the third.
Every chain shattered like an insult to him.
When the final shackle fell, Lexus slumped forward, half-dead, half-alive, but free.
Before he could fall, Lucien caught him.
And then —
Lucien hugged him.
A warm, firm, grounding embrace — shocking the entire suspended reality into silence.
"Hey, Gramps."
Lexus froze.
"You… what…?"
"You probably don't remember me yet," Lucien said quietly.
"But I'm your grandson. Lucien Dreamveil."
Lexus trembled.
A tremble that felt ancient.
Like a man who had lost every timeline suddenly being given one piece back.
Lucien's clone stepped back and snapped his fingers.
A portal tore open — a spiraling vortex of silver-black storms and violet divinity.
The merged Primordial Void and Metaphysical Plane.
A place only one being truly ruled.
Lucien looked at Lexus.
"If you step through…
you'll understand everything."
Lexus stared at the portal.
Something deep within him stirred — something instinctual.
Something that recognized the throne beyond.
He took a breath.
He stepped through.
Light. Darkness. Infinity. Silence.
And at the center of it — seated on a throne of void-woven luminescence, surrounded by collapsing galaxies and blooming metaphysical blossoms…
Was Lucien Dreamveil.
The true one.
The real one.
The Lucien whose presence made creation bow.
Whose eyes reflected every universe that ever lived and every universe that would never exist.
Lexus froze.
Not in fear.
But in recognition.
"…That posture… those eyes… that bloodline aura…"
His voice cracked — the first true emotion he had shown in countless ages.
"You… you're…"
Lucien stood slowly from his throne.
"Welcome home, Grandpa," he said, voice warm — a softness that contradicted the cosmic pressure of his existence.
Lexus' throat tightened.
For a man called The Undying One,
it was ironic…
…how easily this moment almost made him collapse.