First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess

"I kneel to no one except my goddess."

The elder's jaw clenched, insulted by the sheer indifference. He snapped his fingers, signaling the guards to advance. Wings spread. Auras rose. The air warped from the pressure of dozens of high-rank vampires ready to tear a single man apart.

Luther didn't intervene yet. He watched.

He wanted to see it.

He wanted confirmation.

The first guard moved with vampire speed—a blur aimed to slam Eleazar to the ground. Before the strike could land, his body jerked mid-air as if yanked by an unseen force. He spiraled out of formation and crashed into the wall hard enough to crack the stone.

Shouts erupted. Two more lunged in perfect sync, blades drawn, fangs out. They didn't even reach arm's length. Their weapons stopped mid-swing, hanging uselessly in the air like bugs caught in resin—an invisible barrier pressed against their bodies, flattening their aura and suffocating the momentum of their attack. They slid backward across the floor with no resistance from Eleazar, as if he had simply breathed in their direction.

Eleazar still hadn't moved an inch.

Elder Romial snarled, furious and confused. "What sorcery is this?!"

Eleazar finally turned his head, slowly, as if acknowledging a group of noisy children. "If you had the sense to look beyond your anger," he said, his voice quiet but cutting through everything, "you would understand that I am not here to fight you."

His tone wasn't threatening. It wasn't condescending. It was simply… true. Spoken like a fact of nature. And somehow, that truth stung more than any insult.

One of the younger elders, hot-blooded and foolish, snapped. He flared his aura, letting it surge in a violent wave toward Eleazar. The hall trembled. The air thickened under the weight of a full vampire elder's power.

But when the aura reached Eleazar, it dissolved—quietly, cleanly, like smoke vanishing into cold air as if it never existed.

It wasn't blocked or countered. It was simply erased.

Luther's eyes widened a fraction.

The elders recoiled in confusion, unable to comprehend what they were seeing.

Eleazar simply faced the door again. "Finish your shouting," he murmured. "And when you are done, step aside. I came to see my son."

The temperature of the room dropped.

Some elders stared at Luther, demanding action. Others whispered among themselves, shaken by the ease with which Eleazar had dismantled their coordinated attack without even lifting his hands. One or two simply backed away, realizing something fundamental—

They were completely outmatched.

Luther finally stepped forward, raising his hand to hold the guards back. "Enough," he said, voice firm. His eyes never left Eleazar. "This man is not here for war."

Elder Zocran hissed, "Lord Von Stein, he's a threat—look at what he did to your warriors!"

"And look at what they failed to do to him," Luther replied, not bothering to raise his voice. "If he had wanted them dead, they would not be breathing."

Silence swallowed the hall.

Eleazar didn't look proud. Didn't look smug. He carried the same bored stillness as before—like someone waiting politely for a line to shorten.

Luther studied him again. The faint ripple of invisible force around him was subtle, almost imperceptible, but it disturbed the space enough for an old vampire like Luther to feel the pressure threading through it.

He thought of the prophecy. Of Eryndor's words. Of the impossible transformation happening in the chamber behind them.

"Humans," Luther muttered under his breath, "do not carry power like this."

Eleazar didn't deny it.

Luther turned to the elders and dismissed them with a single command. They hesitated, but under his stare, they backed away. One by one, they left the corridor until only two remained—Luther and Eleazar, with the isolation chamber's sealed iron door between them and Xavier's volatile awakening on the other side.

Luther finally spoke again, calm but edged. "This is your last chance to tell me who you really are."

Eleazar met his gaze without flinching. "I am Eleazar Astreaus Zenith, Xavier's father," he said, "And whatever the goddess wishes me to be,"

"Very well," Luther said at last. "Then show me… if you are worthy to stand where he sleeps."

Eleazar stepped toward the chamber door without hesitation—hands still tucked calmly behind his back, white hair brushing his shoulders, gait steady like someone who had already walked this path long before today. Luther followed behind him, silent, though every instinct in him remained coiled and suspicious. The guards who had tried to bar Eleazar's entry lay unconscious in the corridors, and even now the ones stationed near the isolation chamber didn't dare move as the door opened for Luther alone.

The two of them descended the narrow path until the final archway appeared, runes glowing faintly on the stone. The air inside the chamber wasn't normal. It pressed on the skin like weight, the kind that usually broke bones—yet Eleazar walked through it untouched, the runes flickering as if bowing in recognition.

The pressure, the barriers, and the aura guarding it— everything was evading Eleazar somehow. It wasn't even touching him.

Luther noticed it, but said nothing.

'Just what is with this family? Why do they have strange powers? Are they truly humans? Are they perhaps… the nova?' Luther wondered as they walked.

Inside, Xavier lay in the center of the circular platform, the sealing chains loosened but still active, the air around him shimmering like heat off metal. His skin looked pale, almost grey. His chest barely rose. Every breath he took was thin, shallow, stretched too far apart. Even the healers earlier had been shaken by the stillness running through him.

Eleazar walked to his side. For the first time since entering the castle, an expression touched his face—quiet concern, the kind a father never admits out loud. He placed a hand near Xavier's mouth, feeling the faint wisp of breath, then rested two fingers near his throat.

"He is not living," Eleazar murmured. "And he is not dead. His soul is caught between the two… pulled somewhere it cannot decide whether to stay or return."