CHAPTER 692: THE ANNOUNCEMENT (NEED EDIT)

As there was a brief silence from Claire, Azzy strained his voice a bit more and asked again. "Where is it, Claire?"

Claire couldn’t help but sigh and answer. "It’s found in the Banished Dimension... the place where the Protos race was imprisoned. Not even my father, Archangel Michael, would dare to enter that place."

Azzy exhaled slowly, his jaw tightening. "I’m willing to risk it to bring you back."

Her spirit answered immediately, firm but warm. "I already told you—it’s not your fault, Azzy. And I’ve made peace with it. What I needed, I got it."

Her voice softened further, carrying a trace of worry. "Moreover, even if you don’t fear your death to go on such a suicide mission, you have a family and a clan to look after. Think about your wife, your unborn child, and even if your clan has the successor in the form of your half-sister, if you were gone, everything would turn into chaos. If you want to attempt going there, try after fulfilling your duties to your family, try after securing your clan and your new country’s future. There is no need to be in a hurry to leave. You can wait for a century or two... After attaining godhood... I’m not going anywhere..."

Azzy went completely quiet after Claire’s words, the gentle hum of her voice fading into the recesses of his mind. The flicker of the candle beside him cast long shadows across the room, reflecting the conflict growing in his expression.

Then Claire’s tone shifted — lighter, teasing, but laced with the weight of truth. "On a side note," she said, "there’s another problem you’re going to face soon."

Azzy’s brows furrowed slightly. "Another?"

"Yes," she replied. "Once everyone learns that Leiza is pregnant, you’ll become living proof that male demigods can sire children, too. And when that happens..." she sighed softly, "you won’t be able to escape from the flood of marriage proposals that’ll come your way. The hidden clans, your allies, as well as others that didn’t try to establish any connection, all see you as a key to preserving or strengthening their bloodlines."

Azzy’s expression darkened.

Claire continued, matter-of-factly. "They’ll wrap it in righteousness — saying it’s for the sake of the world, for the survival of humanity, for the protection of the future. But you know that in truth, they’ll be asking for your bloodline. And when they find out about Zion’s parentage... even if you reject marriage altogether, they’ll still try to obtain your sperm through ’donations’. And who knows what methods they’ll use then."

Azzy’s fists tightened unconsciously, the air around him growing heavy. His golden eyes glowed faintly as he stared ahead, silent. For the first time in a long while, he seemed... cornered.

He slowly unclenched his hands and asked in a low, weary tone, "What do you suggest, Claire?"

Claire’s voice came gently but firmly. "If you ask me... I would say you have two choices."

Azzy listened, unmoving.

"One," she said, "Retire before her pregnancy becomes obvious and hand over everything to Fiona and the next generation. Don’t get involved in either administration or politics. Let the clan and the nation run without your shadow looming over it."

Azzy’s gaze lowered, the thought stirring quietly inside him. After doing so much, how could he leave it to Fiona and expect her to do it his way? He should first fulfill his vision for the clan and then hand over the reins to her

"Or two," Claire added softly, "talk to Leiza about the possibility of multiple marriages. You can’t keep avoiding reality forever."

Azzy remained still for a long time, his eyes distant — neither rejecting nor agreeing, only thinking whether there is a third option.

The flicker of the candle beside him swayed in the faint breeze, mirroring the uncertainty that stirred within his heart.

*

The next morning, Azzy completed the last calibration of the portal array deep within the Elven capital’s sacred grove. The hum of runic light faded into stillness, the silvery glow sinking into the ground beneath the ancient roots.

"I bid you farewell, Lord Azrael." Nemeryn bowed, and Azzy returned the bow with a smile. "I’ll be waiting for the auspicious day. Just prepare your clan to move when the time comes."

For a moment, Azzy’s eyes wandered all over the place, looking at the elves who came to send him off. He didn’t find Elowen anywhere.

With a brief scan, he found that she was still at the palace.

Not intending to worry about her anymore, he bid farewell to others and left for his home.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Arcana world;

Deep beneath the Sea;

Down in the black, where no light dared linger, 16-year-old Azrael, the time variant, sat cross-legged on the seabed like he belonged there. His skin gave off a scarlet glow; black lightning stitched itself across his arms and chest in slow, lazy arcs. monsters that lived on the seabed kept their distance in fear.

He breathed in, and the sea leaned on him. He breathed out, and the sea answered.

"Focus," he told the dark, the word more breath than sound. It rippled through the water, and the lightning snapped harder, tasting the intense pressure at the bottom of the sea. The glow along his veins pulsed once, twice. The old seal embedded at his brow — fine, etched runes that no one else had seen — quivered, like a moth caught in light.

Something inside him rearranged slowly...

Muscle knitted over bone. Skin flushed a deeper red. Horn buds pushed, hard and sharp, from his temples; wings, folded and raw, scrubbed against his back like a thing waking from winter. His mouth widened until his teeth were a savage cut of white against the red.

His voice came out wrong the first time he laughed — rough, layered with something ancient. "At last," he said to no one and to everything, and the sound cracked the water above like distant thunder.

When he rose, the ocean obeyed in a way that made the sea creatures scatter in frantic, blind frenzy. He burst through the surface in a streak of lightning, salt spray exploding off his shoulders, the air trembling around his body.

A seal impressed in black on his forehead hissed faintly, smoke curling from the grooves.

"I, Lucifer Morningstar," he said to the moon and the slick, and the name slipped like a blade. "The true king of the netherworld and the heavens is back. Hahahaha... Just you wait, brother... I will kill you properly this time and claim the heavens..."

Just as his announcement faded in the wind, A demigod rank krakken felt the prickle and rose like a mountain uncoiling. It shoved up, tentacles churning, and fixed him with a barnacle-sore eye that smelled of salt and empire.

The krakken’s voice was a groan that had swallowed storms. "The demon..."

Azrael smiled without humor. He knelt, palms opening to the world’s darkest energy: black lightning condensed into a spear of night. Demonic energy braided into it, shrieking with the sound of iron on bone.

He did not speak. He didn’t need to. The spear screamed out and cleaved the water like a comet.

The krakken tried to coil and protect its heart, but the spear found a seam — a place where tendon met spirit — and the creature split with an ugly, soundless tearing.

Just like that, the ruler of the seas of the Arcana world died in one attack.

Azrael then walked through the steaming mist and laughed, low and bright. "Lucky you picked my doorstep," he said, looking up a spirit core, floating a hundred feet above the black water like a monstrous moon. It glowed like trapped thunder.

"That core," he breathed. "Enough to push my level to —"

He didn’t finish. Or rather, he didn’t get to...

Pain hit him like a hammer behind the eyes, all of a sudden. His hands laced into his hair as if to stop his skull from splitting. The red skin shrank back like wax in cold water. Horns retracted. Wings folded and vanished. The demonic mask tore away and left a normal, all-too-human face slick with seawater and sweat.

"Azrael." A voice, layered and thin, echoed in the surroundings, coming from his own mouth... "How dare you..."

"One day," the whisper hissed, like wind through a tomb, "I will take over your body."

The clawing pain faded as quickly as it came. Azrael rocked on his knees, breath ripped into ragged shreds. The spear in his hands had winked out. The spirit core bobbed above the sea, untouched and indifferent, while bubbles stitched a pale line to the world below.

He spat seawater and blood. His voice when it came was small, thin with the echo of the thing that had spoken. "That was close," he muttered to the empty waves. The red glow had gone; only dark bruises threaded his skin where the demonic energy had burned and withdrawn. "I managed to release the seal and tap into his power... but becoming a demigod at this stage seems to be even riskier."

His knuckles were white. He looked at the core again, hungry all over. The idea of that power — distilled, raw, orbiting the sky — set something in his chest keening.

"First," he said, standing and testing his legs like a man who’d almost died and found he could still walk, "I need to control this power."

His laugh this time was smaller. "Once I do... I’ll visit the Death Clan. I will take my revenge. Only after that, let’s think about the breakthrough."

He turned his face toward the horizon, clenching his fists.