[Third person POV]

Annabeth looked almost hesitant, her lips pressing into a tight line. She didn’t want to say it. She knew exactly how Lucian would react. Every instinct in her body screamed against provoking what lay dormant in him. But the truth had to be spoken—there was no avoiding it now.

With a weary sigh, she turned toward the group, all of them soaked to the bone from the relentless rain. Her gaze was firm despite the storm, her voice unwavering as she issued a single warning, “Brace yourselves. Things are about to get dicey.”

“What?” Hestia asked in a quiet, confused voice, her body trembling slightly from the exhaustion and the miasma eating away at her. “For what exactly?”

Annabeth closed her eyes, her expression darkening. Her answer came like a whisper of doom.

“Lucian’s rage.”

With a breath, she activated the [Psychic Link], her mind stretching across the battlefield in search of him. ‘Lucian…’ she called out warily, her tone laced with urgency and dread, as if stepping barefoot into a den of beasts.

…

Across the field, far from the others, Luke stood with arrogance in his eyes. He scoffed with disdain, his voice dripping with mockery, “Have you perhaps grown more arrogant? You’re talking a lot of crap for someone who’s been wasting their time in something as pointless as school.”

His eyes narrowed as he watched Lucian—who was barely even acknowledging him. Lucian’s gaze was fixated on the distant camp. That indifference only stoked Luke’s anger further.

“While you were busy playing student, I was training—growing faster, stronger—!”

But before he could finish, Lucian’s hand shot up with terrifying speed and gripped Luke’s jaw in an iron vice, silencing him instantly.

Lucian slowly descended from the air, levitating down like a wraith, his feet touching the earth as a gust of wind spiraled around him. His head turned in an unnatural, slowly, eerie motion. His appearance had shifted slightly—one of his eyes was now ringed in black, the darkness bleeding from his iris, tainting the once vibrant gold of his pupil until it gleamed a haunting crimson red.

A single tear slid down his cheek.

Luke growled, struggling against Lucian’s hand. He pushed, kicked, and clawed—but Lucian’s grip didn’t budge. He pried at Lucian’s fingers, trying to free himself, but they may as well have been carved from stone.

He threw a desperate punch at Lucian’s face. It landed—barely—but Lucian didn’t even blink. Soon the eye too began to morph, the blackness swallowing it until only the red pupil remained, glowing like a blood moon, a tear rolled down both his cheeks now.

“I pity them, Luke…” Lucian’s voice was low and heavy, drenched in sorrow. “I truly do.”

His gaze burned with something far more terrifying than anger—grief.

“I pity your mother, waiting at home with a fresh batch of cookies, hoping her son comes back. I pity your father, holding out hope for redemption… I pity them both,” he said, his tone growing colder, more distant, “because now they will have to mourn a son much earlier than they were supposed to.”

Luke’s eyes widened, caught between rage and growing fear. Desperation surged through him as he reached for his sword and pulled it free. But the shadows beneath Lucian moved with unnatural speed. They rose like serpents, shooting out and coiling around Luke’s wrist the moment his blade neared Lucian’s neck.

The shadows continued to surge upward, wrapping around Lucian’s form. The very light around him began to dim as tendrils of darkness billowed from his body like smoke, smothering everything in reach.

Luke screamed, but it was cut short as Lucian’s hand began to tighten.

Crack.

Snap.

The brutal sound of Luke’s jaw shattering echoed across the battlefield like twigs being stepped on, followed by a gut-wrenching scream. Blood gushed from his broken mouth, splattering against Lucian’s hand. The pain was unimaginable. He writhed in agony, screaming into the crushing grip.

Through the veil of darkness, Luke saw Lucian’s expression. Not hatred. Not wrath.

Pity.

Cold, merciless pity.

The shadows now formed a towering pillar around Lucian, rising into the storm-filled sky like a dark beacon. Only two things were visible through it—Lucian’s extended arm, and those twin eyes glowing red, now dry from the tears that had stopped falling.

‘He’s going to kill me… He’s actually going to kill me!!’ Luke’s mind screamed in panic. Desperate, he activated his teleportation. But his concentration was broken. He couldn’t manage a full escape. Instead, he blinked—teleporting only a few feet away from Lucian.

And just in time.

Lucian’s hand clenched into a tight fist, closing right where Luke’s head had been moments ago. The air popped with pressure, as if it had been crushed under the force of his blow.

Luke collapsed to his knees, clutching his mangled jaw, his face twisted in pain. His vision blurred as tears filled his eyes from the overwhelming sensation—physical and emotional.

Lucian slowly lowered his hand back to his side. Then, like a dam breaking, an explosion of darkness burst forth from him in a tidal wave. The aura shot up like a geyser, a massive column of pure shadow surging high into the sky. It collided violently with Thalia’s swirling vortex of clouds above.

The storm broke.

Her clouds scattered as the column of darkness pierced the heavens, disrupting the very balance of her power. The light started to break through—but even that was consumed, smothered by the darkness now radiating from Lucian.

Thalia was thrown back by the sheer force of the eruption, her body spiraling before she regained control mid-air. But even as she steadied herself, a deep, bone-chilling dread began to seep into her bones. It wasn’t fear—at least not the kind she was used to. This was something darker. Deeper. Primal.

A dreadful sensation spread like a virus across the battlefield, choking the air, crawling across skin, and digging into minds. She looked down with wide, horrified eyes as Lucian’s soldiers—once beings of radiant light—began to shift. Their shimmering forms cracked and corroded, unraveling into darkness. They returned to what they once were—creatures of shadow, harbingers of death.

With a thunderous blast of speed, she rocketed toward the ground, streaking through the air like lightning. She slammed into the earth hard enough to shatter it, crouched low in a crater of fractured stone. The ground groaned beneath her, dust rising around her form as she shot her head up in panic.

“LUKE!!” she screamed, her voice breaking with a mix of desperation and fury.

Luke snapped his head toward her, startled by her voice.

“What the hell have you done?!” Thalia shouted again.

She wasn’t alone in her terror.

Lucian’s [Aura of Dread] had fully awakened, and it consumed the battlefield in a suffocating tidal wave of pure despair, it was to the point it became a physical force.

It was more than just pressure or fear—it was a feeling of doom so heavy, so foreign, it felt like dying slowly from the inside out.

Soldiers, demigods, and monsters alike buckled under its weight. Some collapsed where they stood, their minds cracking under the strain. Several were thrown off their feet entirely, crashing against rocks or sliding across the mud-soaked terrain. Cries of terror echoed everywhere.

People sobbed uncontrollably, curled up into themselves, clawing at their own flesh as if trying to peel the despair away. Some screamed for their mothers. Others simply lost the will to move.

Even monsters—beings made of pure madness and insanity—shrank back. They hissed, whimpered. The dread was so absolute it even overwhelmed the black magic that had birthed the creatures in the first place.

The automatons—machines forged for war—began to stutter and spark, their limbs twitching erratically. Some shut down entirely, blue lights dimming. Others spun aimlessly before exploding into mechanical shards.

“W-What is going on?! What is happening with Lucian?!” Markus cried out. He had fallen to his knees, arms clutched so tightly around his body that his fingernails dug deep into his skin until blood trickled down his elbows. His entire frame trembled like a leaf, his eyes empty, glassy. Despair was devouring him alive.

“God damn it! I hate it when he uses that power!!” Percy shouted through clenched teeth. He was on one knee, holding up a limp Clarisse who had gone pale, sweat pouring down her brow. Tyson stood beside them, staring at Lucian with wide, innocent eyes—confused, scared, and not understanding why the world felt like it was ending.

Nico stood firm but frowned in confusion. Around him, others screamed, gagged, or threw up in the mud. But he—he felt nothing.

Then came the sound.

Step.

A heavy foot clad in dark, ornate metal emerged from the swirling pillar of darkness. The ground cracked beneath the weight. Lucian stepped forward slowly, his towering frame now cloaked in his full Knight armor.

His helm covered his face in shadows save for a single, glowing red eye that burned from within. His long crimson cape fluttered behind him in the wind, flaring with supernatural energy. The pillar of darkness behind him had begun to collapse, the shadows trailing after him like smoke that refused to die.

“Resent the The Sisters Fates,” he spoke, his voice a guttural growl—low, deep, and demonic. It echoed across the field like a cursed hymn, as if some ancient god were speaking through him. “Resent them… for having the misfortune of ever crossing paths with me.”

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