The Academy bells echoed like slow heartbeats through the midnight air.Their tolls weren't to announce class or curfew—they rang for initiation.
Daniel's transformation had rippled through the halls like forbidden music.By dawn, every scholar and noble whispered his new name:The First Blood Seraph.
But in the dark below the academy's marble towers, one ritual remained unfinished.
The Cathedral of Broken Wings
The ritual chamber was deep beneath the Academy — a place where even angels whispered prayers before entering.Columns of obsidian rose around a shattered statue of an angel, its face cracked and eyes bleeding gold.Red Code glyphs crawled across the walls, alive and writhing like veins.
Changli stood before the altar, her six black wings spread wide, her red hair trailing like a comet's flame.
"Daniel opened the path," she said softly. "But it cannot exist for one. Balance demands three — Light, Blood, and Nihility."
Her gaze shifted to Lumiel and Luminous.
"You two will complete the trinity."
Cartethyia's voice whispered inside Lumiel's mind, trembling with static.
[Lumiel, her ritual isn't pure fusion. It's recursion. She's rewriting divine architecture.]"Then we'll rewrite it better," he murmured.
The Choice of Fire
Changli gestured toward two chalices: one of silver, filled with golden ichor; one of black crystal, glowing red.
"One holds divinity," she said. "The other, Nihility. Together, they make existence.""And if we drink both?" Lumiel asked."You cease to be either—and become everything."
Luminous hesitated. "This feels wrong."
"Wrong?" Lumiel smiled faintly. "It's the only thing that's ever felt right."
He took both chalices, raised them toward the broken statue, and drank.
The Awakening
The effect was instantaneous.Every nerve in his body burned.His blood boiled with light and darkness at once.
His vision split—one eye seeing angels weeping in heaven, the other seeing gods drowning in void.The Red Code inside him ignited, lines of glowing script spiraling across his skin like living tattoos.
[WARNING: synchronization exceeding safe limit!]"Cartethyia—don't stop it!" he gasped.[You'll lose yourself!]"Then I'll find something better!"
The ground shattered beneath him.A storm of feathers and red lightning erupted.
When the light cleared, Lumiel stood transformed.
Six wings unfurled behind him —not of feather, but of shifting Red Code fire, each feather a shard of living scripture.His veins glowed faint gold and black, pulsing in rhythm with the void.
"Heaven forgot how to breathe," Lumiel whispered, voice echoing in two tones.
Changli smiled — awed, reverent, almost afraid.
"The second Blood Seraph is born."
Luminous' Ascension
But Luminous was still trembling.
"I… can't," she whispered. "I'm not like you two.""You're exactly like us," Lumiel said softly. "You just haven't fallen yet."
He reached out his hand, Red Code flames flickering between his fingers.
"Then let me fall with you."
She hesitated — then drank.
Frost and fire collided.Her wings erupted from her back in a storm of snow and light —four frost-feathered appendages glowing with Nihility's blue flame.
"Luminous," Changli breathed, "you've bound frost to flame. You've done the impossible.""We all have," Lumiel said.
The Birth of the Crimson Seraphs
The air shimmered as the three of them stood together — Daniel with black-gold wings, Lumiel with crimson flame, Luminous with blue frostfire.The cathedral trembled beneath their presence.
Changli stepped forward, placing her hands together in prayer.
"You are no longer rats. No longer mortals.You are Crimson Seraphs — the children of Blood and Void."
Cartethyia's voice trembled.
[You've rewritten your DNA, your code, your soul. Even I can't calculate what you are anymore.]"Then call us undefined," Lumiel said. "The gods will fill in the blanks later."
The Price of Ascension
Then the pain came.Divine rejection.Heaven's scream echoed faintly above — a shriek of code tearing from light.
Their halos fractured into fragments of red light, floating like shards of broken mirrors.
"Heaven knows," Luminous gasped."Good," Lumiel whispered. "Now it'll finally look down again."
Changli's smile flickered — admiration mixed with guilt.
"I've given you eternity," she said. "But eternity always charges interest."
Closing Scene
When the storm settled, Lumiel stood over the altar.His new wings folded close, pulsing softly like a heartbeat.He looked at Changli, then at Daniel and Luminous.
"We were cursed once," he said quietly. "Now we're the curse itself."
Cartethyia's tone was almost human when she spoke next:
[You've done what even the Aeons feared.]"Then maybe it's time they start fearing again."
The three Crimson Seraphs turned toward the sky as the Academy bells tolled once more —and above them, a single feather of pure white drifted down, burning red before it touched the ground.