Ancestral Lineage

"What I refuse all of them?" Malgarius asked, his multiple voices echoing frighteningly in the vicinity.

"Then... you know the answer," Lilith answered calmly.

"Mm." That was the only sound Malgarius made, but Lilith quickly sensed that something was wrong and moved out of the place. And she was right in doing so as the next moment, a wave of decay hit the place she stood.

"Tch!" Malgarius clicked his tongues in annoyance at the failed attack, but it was expected. He would have been rather disappointed if Lilith couldn't dodge that.

The next moment, his aura exploded all over the Chained Pits.

"Saint Realm…" Lilith's voice carried a mixture of surprise and amusement, though her crimson lips curved into a smile that did not reach her glowing eyes. She had underestimated this progress—it seemed she would have to tread carefully after all.

Her pupils ignited with a purplish radiance, a light that shimmered like a dying star about to collapse into a void. The ground beneath her trembled as shadows thickened, and with a resonant crack like shattering bone, wings burst forth from her back—six of them, vast and terrible. Each feather was a tapestry of darkness and flame, black as midnight yet laced with veins of red and streaks of luminous violet that pulsed like living embers. They did not merely spread; they unfolded as if the abyss itself had grown limbs to cradle her.

Then came the fire. Purple flames crawled across her silken garments, devouring them in an instant yet leaving not ash but revelation. From beneath, a suit of armor emerged, clinging to her like it had been forged from her very essence. Black steel gleamed like obsidian, trimmed with crimson etchings that writhed as if alive. It was elegant and terrible all at once—crafted to seduce and terrify in the same breath.

The design left little to the imagination, accentuating every curve while exuding an aura of inviolable might. Crimson sigils glowed across her chest plate and gauntlets, whispering ancient blasphemies, while spiked pauldrons arched like the fangs of some forgotten beast. Every inch of the armor screamed of temptation and ruin.

This was no ordinary battle gear—it was the raiment of her station, a mantle only one being in existence could bear. The Paragon of Sins.

"It seems you are still underestimating, empress." Malgarius's voices rang out as the dark green light that had covered him finally receded, living behind a being Lilith would never expect.

He was a tall man with long hair that cascaded like a river of ashen silver streaked with rotting green, flowing with the eerie majesty of a crown undone by time. His skin gleamed with a pallid marble-white, but upon closer sight, veins of blackened decay traced across it like cracks on a forgotten statue, exuding both nobility and dread.

His eyes were dreadful jewels—pits of black void rimmed in a starving crimson glow, each gaze carrying the weight of inevitable decline. They did not merely look upon a subject, they claimed them, as if declaring that all things would wither, starve, and fall under his dominion.

Armor of tarnished gold and poisoned bronze clung to his frame, etched with sigils of gluttony denied and kingdoms consumed. Flowing behind him was a mantle woven of corrupted shadow and violet flame, a cloak that reeked of famine and despair, yet carried the unmistakable authority of a king enthroned in darkness.

Where he stood, the earth cracked into ashen dust, food withered into nothingness, and the very air thickened with the stench of corruption. Yet none could look away—for he carried himself not as a beast, but as a sovereign. Every step was measured, every gesture deliberate, as though even ruin itself bowed before him.

Behind him, the air tore apart like fragile glass, and from the rift yawned a portal of writhing shadow and sickly light. The atmosphere thickened, groaning beneath the weight of something ancient and malignant forcing its way through.

From the portal stepped a being of dreadful grandeur—six arms unfurled like the branches of a dead world-tree, each hand clutching an artifact of horror. In one, a chalice that dripped with black ichor of decay, its stench enough to wilt stone. In another, a rusted censer spilling fumes of corruption, twisting the air into grotesque shapes. In a third, a wicked sickle forged from hollow bone, the very essence of famine embodied.

The other hands carried instruments more arcane and cruel—chains that rattled with the screams of those who had starved, a mirror reflecting only ruin, and a staff crowned with a skull whose jaw gnawed eternally, never sated.

Its body was gaunt yet towering, wrapped in robes that shimmered with green rot, black corruption, and the pale gold of hunger denied. A crown of jagged bone circled its head, while its face bore no eyes—only hollow sockets that wept an endless stream of ashen dust, the residue of worlds consumed.

When it emerged, the realm itself seemed to recoil. The ground cracked and bled famine; the air choked with corruption; and the stars above dimmed, as though unwilling to gaze upon the herald of unmaking.

This was no servant. No slave. This was a Harbinger—an attendant of the Malgarius, a manifestation of his threefold dominion over Decay, Corruption, and Starvation. Where the king embodied inevitability, this six-armed shade was the executioner of his will.

"You are really at the Saint Realm. Magnificent! Are you sure you want to do this?" Lilith asked in an excited tone as she hovered in the air, her wings flapping gently behind. All though she looked small as compared to it, her aura and presence was more encompassing and heavier.

"Let me witness the power of the empress," Malgarius answered, his face lacking emotions as his aura exploded outwards.

Lilith responded in kind as she also released her aura, clashing with Malgarius's. The air twisted and churned and cracked like glass as the two auras clashed. The whole of the demon realm shook and experienced earthquakes from it. But it was far from over.

This was just the start.