The scene opened on a forgotten age — a time when ancient cities shimmered with arcane sigils, and the air itself hummed with raw magic.
Towers floated in the sky, streets were lit by enchanted crystals, and sorcerers walked like gods among mortals.
But deep beneath that golden facade, a storm brewed.
In a hidden grand hall carved from obsidian and old magic, fire orbs hovered overhead, casting flickering shadows across the stone walls.
Hooded figures sat in a perfect circle, their robes whispering as they moved — not cloth, but magic woven into fabric. Power clung to them like smoke.
The air was tense. Electric.
"Now that Serge is dead" one figure rasped, his voice like crumbling bone, "dealing with his wife will be nothing."
He leaned forward, hatred gleaming in his eyes.
"That unborn child... it's not natural. It's emitting magic from the womb. Raw, untamed. If we allow it to live—"
He slammed his staff into the ground.
"—it will surpass us all. It will rule."
A ripple of unease passed through the circle, followed by murmurs of agreement, sharp and bitter.
Then the Head Elder rose.
Older than stone. More feared than death.
He cleared his throat — a sound that cracked the silence like a spell — and every voice stilled.
His eyes burned with a dark fire as he spoke, slow and final:
"Then let it be done."
He raised his hand, magic coiling like a serpent.
"Let us kill Hugrah."
A surge of black lightning flared across the chamber.
The elders rose in unison, their cloaks flaring like wings of shadow, voices rising into a single war cry that shook the walls.
From that moment forward, the fate of a child — and the world — began to unravel.
Elsewhere...
A dim light flickered from the rear of a quiet home on the city's edge—its walls etched with protective sigils now flickering weakly, as though sensing what was coming.
Hugrah emerged from the shadows, breath unsteady, her silhouette framed in soft golden luminescence.
Her long hair clung to her face, damp with sweat, her hand trembling over her swollen belly. The magic radiating from within her was undeniable.
It pulsed—raw, wild, divine. Her unborn child was not just alive... it was awake.
She had foreseen this night.
The betrayal. The fear. The decision of the Council.
"They will come for us" she had whispered days ago. "Because they always fear what they cannot control."
The air grew still.
And then—chaos.
The front of the house shattered in a flash of red sigils and cracking wood.
Black-cloaked assassins surged in like shadows cast by hatred. Their boots smashed through furniture.
Their spells tore through protective enchantments like paper.
"She's gone," one snarled, eyes scanning the room.
Another mage stepped forward, his eyes glowing with deep violet light. He raised his hand, and the dust shimmered midair, forming patterns.
"Here..." he muttered. "Footprints. Still warm. She fled through the back."
The leader's lip curled. "Then we hunt."
They poured into the night, cloaks flaring, blades humming with cursed steel.
But the golden trail was fading—each step Hugrah took scattered her presence like stardust.
The hunt had begun.
And in her womb, the child pulsed—its magic slowly beginning to stir, as if sensing its first war.
Hugrah stumbled through the dense, moonlit forest, branches slashing at her torn robes as her blood painted the earth behind her.
Her breaths came sharp and uneven, every step a scream locked behind clenched teeth. Crimson streaked down her legs—life escaping, but not the one she carried.
She pressed a trembling hand to her womb, her golden aura dimming, flickering like a candle nearing its end.
The child inside her still pulsed with radiant energy, unshaped but overwhelming—too powerful to be born without shaking the world.
Her strength was failing.
Her vision blurred.
And then—she collapsed.
At the mouth of a cave veiled in mist and silence, Hugrah fell to her knees, her back pressed to cold stone.
She looked up at the dark ceiling above, lips dry, eyes wide with pain and fire.
"I... I can't let this child die..." she gasped, her voice fractured. It wasn't a plea—it was a mother's vow. A warrior's oath.
But the wind turned cold. And with it, came the sound of death.
Voices, distant but closing in. Cloaks rustling. Spellcraft whispering against the air.
The assassins had caught her scent.
Her eyes snapped open.
From the shadows of the woods, cloaked figures emerged—black robes stitched with blood-runes, eyes glowing with lethal precision.
Magic rippled at their fingertips like lightning tamed and coiled, ready to strike.
"There she is," one growled.
"End it. Now."
But Hugrah—wife of Serge the Great, mother of the unborn prodigy—was not a woman to fall quietly.
Though her body was broken, her will was not.
The air ignited. Golden veins of energy burst from beneath her skin, cracking the ground with divine resonance. Her eyes lit like twin suns.
Even in agony...
Even at death's edge...
Her magic answered.
And it did not whisper.
It roared.
With a trembling breath, Hugrah lifted her hand and carved a glowing sigil into the air, each motion precise despite her pain.
"Volar ariuim eafeanar!" she cried out, her voice echoing with ancient power.
In an instant, golden blades erupted from her palms—pure arcane light given shape.
They tore through the first two attackers before they could even whisper their incantations.
Their bodies were severed cleanly, vanishing into sparks, not even screams left behind.
The others reacted, snarling spells in unison.
Dark energy bolts—heavy with cursecraft and death—hurtled toward her like vipers.
But Hugrah's eyes flared, and with a sharp spin of her hand, a radiant barrier of shimmering light encased her.
The blasts struck with violent force—but the shield held.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the barrier.
So did the fire in her heart.
Gritting her teeth, she pushed through the pain and thrust her arm forward.
From her fingertips, flames—bright as the sun and wild as divine fury—spiraled outward in ribbons.
One of the mages was wrapped in golden fire.
He didn't scream—he couldn't. He was gone before the sound could reach his throat. Only ash remained.
Another assailant lunged, desperate, casting a binding curse meant to paralyze her womb, to silence her child before birth.
But Hugrah's eyes locked on him—calm, sharp, defiant.
She snapped her wrist sideways.
Reality twisted. The air around him fractured like glass—his body folded, warped—then simply ceased to exist.
Silence fell.
Only the scent of ozone and scorched stone remained.
Hugrah dropped to her knees, her aura flickering like the final glow of twilight.
Sweat ran down her face. Blood soaked her robes. Magic crackled faintly in the air like dying embers.
One hand clutched her stomach, protectively, reverently.
Tears welled in her eyes, but her voice was firm, eternal.
"I won't let you die.
Not now.
Not ever."
In the heart of darkness, she shined like a fading star—too stubborn to fall.
Just as Hugrah drew a shaky breath, the earth groaned.
Not from her wounds.
Not from the wind.
But from something far worse.
The cave trembled—deep, low, like a beast exhaling beneath the world.
Then they arrived.
The remaining High Sorcerers—elders among monsters—stepped through the broken veil of shadows. Their presence alone warped the cave.
The air thickened.
The temperature dropped. The stone floor beneath them cracked, unable to bear the weight of their malice.
Their power didn't radiate—it crushed.
It pressed against Hugrah's body, her bones creaking under the strain.
Her protective barrier, already weakened, flickered... then shattered like glass under the weight of their collective might.
Shards of divine light scattered through the air before dissolving into nothing.
She didn't flinch.
One of the elders stepped forward—massive, cloaked in layers of armor and rotting spells.
His voice rumbled like tectonic plates grinding.
"You're stronger than we thought."
Another followed—thin, pale, with serpentine eyes and a cruel twist to his lips.
"Don't cry, dear Hugrah..." he hissed, magic coiling around his fingertips like smoke.
"The pain will be over soon."
But Hugrah didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
And she didn't run.
Instead, she rose—slowly, painfully, defiantly.
Her hair danced in the rising pressure, her eyes glowing through the haze of pain and exhaustion.
The light in her chest... was no longer just hers.
It was the child's.
And it had begun to awaken.
"This child must not die" Hugrah whispered, the words trembling from her lips like the last prayer of a fallen queen. Her gaze rose to the dark ceiling of the cave, as though looking beyond worlds. "There's only one option left... for my life to become his womb."
The cave seemed to inhale.
The air stilled.
Even time hesitated.
Before the sorcerers could react, Hugrah raised her arms—her bloodied fingers trembling, her body broken, but her will... unshaken.
And then—
A surge.
Her magic detonated like a supernova, ancient and divine.
The very walls of the cave expanded outward, distorting as runes of a forgotten age spiraled around her body, burning with primordial language.
She rose from the earth—levitating, no longer bound to mortal weight—as her form erupted in radiant light.
Her soul detached from flesh.
A forbidden spell. One not spoken in ten thousand years. Not since the gods feared their own creations.
Her body dissolved, gracefully, painfully—atom by atom—until nothing remained but a towering, translucent structure. Oval. Colorless. Like glass carved from divinity itself.
It pulsed, slow and steady, like the heartbeat of a slumbering star.
Within it floated the child.
Safe. Timeless.
Radiating a light that no shadow could reach.
The sorcerers, desperate and furious, lunged forward, casting spells meant to bend mountains.
Bolts of black flame, spectral chains, dimension-cutting sigils—all hurled at the construct.
Too late.
The object shimmered.
A dome of anti-energy burst outward, silent and final. The laws of magic inverted. Every spell twisted, dissolved, and returned to nothing.
The sorcerers screamed
—but only for a breath.
In a flash of blinding white, their bodies disintegrated, their souls erased. Not even the ash remained.
The egg-like construct hovered in the hollow silence.
No voice. No movement.
Only power.
Then—
Gone.
Vanished, beyond space, beyond time, into a place untouched by fate.
The cave stood still once more.
Empty.
Quiet.
And in that quiet... a faint, steady hum remained.
Like a mother's final lullaby, echoing through eternity.
Leo jolted upright, drenched in sweat.
His chest heaved.
Breath shallow, eyes wide, fingers trembling against the soaked bedsheets.
The room was still... but inside him, something had shattered.
Not just a memory.
A seal. A wall.
And behind it—floods of pain long buried came roaring back, sharp as daggers, unrelenting.
Echoes of another life, another womb, a cave bathed in divine sacrifice. And a name... long forgotten.
"Leo?!" Iris burst into the room, her eyes wide with panic, a blanket still tangled around her. "What's the matter?!"
But he didn't answer.
Didn't blink.
Didn't move.
Like a puppet whose strings had finally snapped.
He rose, slowly—mechanically.
Each step to the window felt like walking through the ruins of his soul.
He stood there, bathed in the pale light of the sleeping city beyond the glass.
But his gaze pierced no buildings.
No lights.
He wasn't seeing this world.
And then—
A single tear slipped down his cheek.
Silent. Uncontested.
A tear that did not fall from weakness...
...but from a heart too long denied the right to feel.
Iris stood frozen.
In all the years she'd known him—through battles, silence, impossible odds—he was unshakable.
Cold, yes. Quiet, always. But never this.
Not broken.
She stepped forward, slowly... gently... and wrapped her arms around him from behind.
Her fingers gripped the fabric of his shirt tightly, trembling.
Trying to hold him together.
Trying to anchor him back.
"I'm here," she whispered.
That was all.
And it was enough.
In that still moment...
The ghosts fell silent.
The gods looked away.
And Leo—child of Serge The Great—stood not as a myth.
But as a man.
And in her arms...
Just a man who hurt.