The bells of the Solar Capital rang with a purity so sharp it seemed to carve the morning air into shards of gold. The sound drifted over Aurelius like a living thing, up the marble colonnades, past the merchant streets stirring awake, into the grand terraces of the noble districts where banners of the Seven Gods fluttered in the light breeze.
At the center of the capital, the Grand Solar Cathedral stood like an ivory mountain. Towers speared the sky, stained glass windows shimmered like trapped dawn, and enormous statues of the gods lined the outer courtyard. Crowds moved toward the cathedral in slow waves, murmuring, awed, curious, anxious.
Today was the Divinity Awakening Ceremony, the Grand day when young nobles and holy students would drink from the Divine Cup, hoping the gods would bless them with a class, a path, a future.
Among them walked an eighteen-year-old with black hair touched by a faint red glow, the color hidden except when sunlight struck it just right. His posture was stiff yet steady, his eyes sharp, cautious, restless.
Lucas Von Vaskarus.
An Illegitimate son of the infamous Marquess.
The Unwanted heir.
The Rumor-born bastard son.
And yet there he was, wrapped in the ceremonial white, stepping into the greatest cathedral of the empire as though the goddess herself had invited him here.
If only he had felt worthy of the space he was taking.
The interior of the cathedral swallowed him whole, an grand ocean of gold and white, the ceiling lost in darkness beyond the chandeliers' reach. Incense drifted through the air like soft smoke. At the far end, on an elevated platform, stood the "High Priestess Meridia", flanked by priest. Near her rested the Divine Cup, forged from sunstone and silver.
Hundreds of spectators filled the pews. Nobles, knights, priests, and distant relatives of every participant. Their voices rolled like distant thunder.
Lucas felt several gazes on him already.
"Is that the Vaskarus bastard?"
"I thought they wouldn't let him participate this year."
"Rumor says his father's illness is worsening maybe they're just desperate."
"He won't eveb awaken anything. Goddess Lia despises impurity."
Lucas's jaw tightened, but he kept walking. His heart thumped hard in his chest, steady but sharp, as though preparing itself for battle. Not divine awakening but a divine battle.
He reached his designated place among the candidates. Standing beside him, Julius Vaskarus, his half-brother didn't even bother to hide his disdain in his face.
"Try not to embarrass the family," Julius muttered. "On second thought… go ahead. It'll be amusing."
Lucas's lips pressed into a line. "Didn't father teach you to speak less?"
"He taught me that impurity should know its place," Julius hissed back.
The High Priestess raised her staff.
Silence struck the hall like a hammer.
"Children of the Empire," Meridia began, voice resonant and calm, "today you stand before the gods. Today the heavens will open to reveal your path, be it the Holy Knight, Priest, Executioner, or none at all."
Lucas felt a shiver crawl up his spine. Not of fear of something heavier. Fate? Instinct? He couldn't tell.
Meridia continued, "Step forward when your name is called. Drink from the Divine Cup. Accept the light that is granted, or bear the silence you receive."
One by one, candidates ascended.
The first girl drank and collapsed as golden light wrapped around her.
"Holy Priestess!" the attendants called.
Applause erupted.
The next boy awakened as a Knight. Another received no blessing. Some cried, some trembled, some beamed with pride.
Lucas watched it all with a strange detachment.
What would he receive?
Would Lia the goddess herself tied inexplicably to his birth will reject him?
Would he awaken nothing?
Or worse.. something that poured fuel onto the Vaskarus family's spite?
When Julius's name was called, the crowd leaned forward.
"Julius Vaskarus!"
His half-brother ascended with theatrical poise. He drank confidently. A burst of radiant heat flared around him, swirling like golden armor forming in midair.
The High Priestess smiled. "A High-Class Holy Knight. Rare and powerful. Well done."
Applause thundered. Julius turned slightly, shooting Lucas a triumphant smirk.
Lucas rolled his eyes.
Then–
"Lucas Vaskarus."
Silence rippled instantly.
Even the rustling of robes stopped.
Many in the audience whispered. A few priests exchanged uncertain glances. Some noblewomen covered their mouths, intrigued.
Lucas inhaled slowly… and stepped forward.
He ascended the steps toward the shimmering cup.
High Priestess Meridia studied him closely not with disgust, but with a strange intensity. As if searching for something.
"You understand what you are about to receive?" she asked quietly.
Lucas nodded. "I do."
"And you accept the goddess's judgment?"
"…Yes i do."
She held the Divine Cup out.
Up close, Lucas could feel it.. a very faint warmth, like sunlight trapped in crystal. His fingers brushed the rim. His pulse hammered.
He lifted it.
Drank.
The water tasted like cold purity, smooth but unsettling. It slid down his throat and settled in his chest with the weight of a sun, heavy and expanding, expanding and expanding.
Heat.
A spark.
A flame.
Something ancient, hungry and divine.
Lucas gasped and staggered back.
Whispers erupted.
"Is he..-?"
"Is something going wrong-?"
Then the heat exploded.
Light burst from Lucas's body, violent, uncontrolled, a shockwave of red-gold fire that sent the nearest priests crashing backward. Flames spiraled upward, forming patterns like wings made of molten dawn. The chandeliers trembled. Stained glass flickered.
Lucas fell to one knee, clutching his chest as something inside him tore open, not painfully, but overwhelmingly. His vision blurred. His heartbeat thundered like war drums.
The crowd panicked.
"Stop him!"
"Contain the fire!"
"Get the Executioners—!"
But Meridia raised a hand. "No one moves."
Her voice shook — not from fear.
From awe.
The flames rose higher, devouring the space around him like a vortex of divine power. Within it, Lucas felt everything and nothing: love, rage, judgement, the crushing weight of the sun itself.
His veins felt like they were boiling.
His breath burned.
His skin glowed.
Then..
A symbol formed behind him. A great burning sigil shaped like a solar crest, marked with ancient runes that had not been seen for decades.
Meridia whispered the word no one dared expect.
"A Saint."
Gasps.
Cries.
Denial.
Panic.
A Saint had not appeared in twenty-one years.
And certainly not from an illegitimate child of a noble house.
Lucas forced himself to his feet. His vision swam with streaks of gold and red, but he could see.. could feel, the entire cathedral staring at him as if he had become something monstrous. Or holy.
Heat wrapped his skin like armor.
Light hummed beneath his bones.
And then he felt it.
A presence. Not human. Not mortal. Watching him from above. Warm. Terrible. Beautiful.
'Child of my fire…'
The voice did not speak aloud.
It spoke inside him.
Rise.
Lucas did.
A final burst of light erupted, blinding the hall. When it cleared, the flames vanished, leaving only faint wisps drifting around him. His clothing was unburned. His skin unmarred. But his eyes, once a dark ember had now glowed faintly with sunfire.
Silence suffocated the hall.
No applause.
No cheers.
Only stunned, terrified reverence.
Meridia bowed her head.
"Lucas Vaskarus… chosen vessel of the Sun Goddess Lia. The Saint… has returned."
The crowd erupted into chaos, few cries of joy, shouts of disbelief, wails of fear. A few nobles fainted. Priests collapsed to their knees, hands shaking.
Lucas stood alone in the center of it all, chest heaving, sweat beading along his neck. His hands trembled as the last warmth faded. The cathedral lights flickered as though unsure whether to dim or brighten.
Julius stared at him from the pews.. not with hatred, but horror.
And deep inside Lucas's heart, beneath the shock and exhaustion, something unfamiliar pulsed.
It wasn't pride.
Or triumph.
Or fear.
It was the faintest whisper of destiny.
A destiny he didn't ask for.
A destiny he couldn't refuse.
And far above the cathedral's ceiling, somewhere across a realm mortals could not see, the Sun Goddess watched him with a smile that was both loving…
…and deadly.