Selene Ashborne
Elira's story hung in the cold, dead air of the cenotaph, a ten-thousand-year-old ghost story that had settled deep in Michael's bones.
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the faint, spectral weeping of the soul-cultivating chairs.
He was still trying to process the scale of it all, the wars, the sacrifice, the impossible love that had built this prison-sanctuary when he felt a soft, familiar pressure against his leg.
He glanced down. The terrifying, winged beast of nightmare and legend was gone.
In its place, the scruffy, melon-sized black cat stretched, yawned, and then with a surprising agility, leaped into his lap, curling into a comfortable ball.
Umbra's voice, a dry, telepathic rasp that was nothing like Elira's ethereal whispers, echoed directly in his mind.
She only told you her side of the tragedy.
The grand, cosmic part. You deserve to know the rest. The part that got you here.
Michael found himself stroking the cat's coarse fur, the simple, grounding action a relief after the story of gods and monsters.
His own life felt impossibly small and yet inextricably tangled in this ancient mess.
He waited, his fingers tracing the cat's ragged ears.
I woke from a hundred-year nap to a world I didn't recognize, Umbra began, his mental voice laced with an ancient weariness.
My contract with Elira was shattered, a cold void where her soul used to be.
The Ashborne Clan, the rulers of the Devil Realm, were nothing but a cautionary tale whispered in the shadows.
Four new masters had carved up our home. I was… adrift.
"Alone," Michael murmured.
Precisely, Umbra confirmed. Powerless and without purpose. So, I did what any desperate creature does. I went to see a fortune teller.
Michael blinked. "A what? You're telling me a ten-thousand-year-old Divine Beast of Chaos went to get his palm read?"
A flicker of annoyance rippled from the cat. It wasn't a back-alley charlatan with a crystal ball, you insufferable child.
I sought the Prediction Beast.
A miserable creature of tangled light and annoying riddles that lives in the folds of fate.
It told me two things: my second master would be a descendant of the Ashborne line, living in the Mortal Realm.
And that she would, eventually, lead me back to my first.
The breath caught in Michael's throat. A fragile, impossible hope bloomed in his chest "My mother."
Yes. Your mother, Selene Ashborne, Umbra's voice softened, a warmth tinged with fond memory seeping into the dry rasp.
It took me another century of searching through the dreary, Aether-thin Mortal Realm, but I found her.
She wasn't a queen or a warrior. She was the granddaughter of Talon, living a quiet life in a quiet village called Qingluo Town.
She had all of our family's fire, that stubborn, unyielding spark, but none of its power.
We formed a contract. I swore I would protect the last ember of the Ashborne legacy.
The image was so contrary to the epic tales he'd just heard. His mother, a normal woman in a normal town. It was almost harder to believe than the rest of it.
We traveled, Umbra continued. She was determined to find a way to cultivate, to reclaim some small piece of her heritage.
We were in a miserable place called Breeze Valley when we were ambushed.
A pack of Rock-Fang Boars, far more than she could handle.
She fought like a cornered lioness, but she was outmatched.
The alpha's tusk was inches from her heart. And then… he appeared.
"My father," Michael said, his voice barely a whisper.
Darius Ashborne. Though he was just Darius Valerius then, of the great human House of Valerius.
He was young, barely a man, but his power… it was like a silent storm.
He was already an Aether Soul cultivator.
He didn't shout or make a grand entrance.
The air simply grew heavy, and the alpha boar exploded into a cloud of red mist.
He saved her without a word, then dusted off his robes like he'd just dealt with a minor inconvenience.
Michael shook his head, a bitter laugh escaping his lips.
"My dad? The quiet scholar who thinks a raised voice is an act of barbarism?
You're telling me he made a boar… explode?"
That's the man he was, Umbra sent, a hint of something that might have been admiration in his tone.
They traveled together after that. For seven years, they were a blur of motion and adventure across the continent.
She, with her devil's wit and fierce spirit; he, with his calm strength and terrifying power.
He was the heir to one of the most powerful human families in Suop Country, a land that sat uncomfortably close to the shadow of the Blood Divine Sect.
He didn't care. When Selene finally got the courage to tell him about her Devil Clan blood, terrified he would see her as a monster, he just… smiled.
Told her he'd known from the day they met. He chose her. Over his family, his status, his entire world.
A sharp pain lanced through Michael's heart.
This was the father he'd never known. A warrior, a romantic, a man who defied the world for love.
How had that man become the disappointed, fearful teacher who had locked away his own son's power?
His family was not so understanding, Umbra's voice turned cold, snapping Michael from his thoughts.
When they discovered he had bound himself to a 'devil,' they were… displeased.
They held a ritual. Stripped him of his title, his inheritance. They used their family's ancient arts to shatter his cultivation, leaving him a fraction of the man he was. Then they cast him out.
Michael's fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white. They had broken him. They had broken his father.
He and Selene married. They went into hiding, back to the quiet life.
For fifteen years, they were happy. Truly happy.
It was the most peace I'd known in centuries.
Then, you were born.
The cat's tone darkened, the memory a fresh wound.
You were… a loud baby.
Not with your cries, but with your power.
You were born with a Devil Lo so pure, so potent, you couldn't possibly contain it.
Your very birth sent a shockwave of Umbral Aether rippling out from our tiny, hidden home.
It was a flare in the dark. A beacon.
"The Blood Divine Sect," Michael growled, the name a curse on his tongue.
He could feel a phantom rage, a memory not his own, boiling in his blood.
They sensed you, Umbra confirmed. Our most ancient and bitter enemies. They sent their seven deadliest assassins, the infamous Seven Disciples, descending on our home like vultures to a corpse.
We were trapped. Outnumbered. Outgunned.
The cenotaph seemed to grow colder, the shadows deeper.
Your mother… Selene… she did the only thing she could to save you and Darius.
She used a forbidden Ashborne technique, one so dangerous it was only whispered of in the oldest scrolls: the Shadow Domain Transportation.
It uses the caster's own soul as fuel, burning their very essence to tear a hole in reality and move others to safety.
She poured every last drop of her life, her soul, into that single spell, sending you, your father, and me hurtling through the void towards the relative safety of Brimot Town.
Umbra went silent for a moment, the memory sharp and agonizing even across the decades.
As the last of her energy faded, as her form began to dissolve into motes of light, I saw one of them.
The disciple with the wild beard. He snarled and hurled a weapon at our disappearing portal.
Michael held his breath, his own soul screaming in silent protest.
It was a spinning disc of polished silver, humming with a murderous energy.
It screamed through the air, a razor edge of fate about to slice us all in half even as we fled.
There was no time. No escape.
Umbra's mental voice was a taut wire of remembered terror.
And then…
Michael leaned forward, his heart hammering against his ribs.
…a man appeared. Out of thin air. A huge, bearded man, bigger than any I had ever seen.
He just stood there, between our fading portal and that screaming silver death.
And in the instant before everything went black, the world, the weapon, the very air itself… just stopped.