~ Our Blood: Part 3 ~

In the alleyway behind the bar, the muffled laughter of intoxicated men could be heard from beyond the backdoor. The tight alley was dark and uninviting, almost as if it was intentionally warding people off. With no light to illuminate it, darkness stretched over even its smallest corners.

"Start talking," Henrik growled at the man whose eyes looked like the darkness that covered them. "I had your stupid drink, now talk."

In the night, Lucaf's face was hardy visible from under his cloak. His figure fluttered slightly like a shadow, his brief movements serving as the only indicators of his presence. Henrik watched him with a devouring glare, but felt as if he was staring into the darkness.

"It's as I said," Lucaf replied from the shadows. "I'm your father. Did you truly think your mother would have no lover?"

Henrik shook his head in disbelief. Although his mother never loved his father, she wasn't the type to keep a lover. His mother valued her position more than anything else. She would give up everything for it, even love.

"My mother was not that kind of woman," He retorted. "My mother was the Queen, a woman who valued and cherished her position."

Lucaf grinned under the cover of night. "It is for that exact reason that she sought me out. Child, your mother was infertile. To secure her position as a Queen, she had to give birth to an heir."

"Shut up!" Henrik replied, eyes burning with silver fire and hatred. "Stop talking nonsense!"

"Of all my puppets, you are perhaps my most beautiful creation," Lucaf laughed while stretching his arms out towards the heavens. "It took several tries, but eventually you were created in her womb. What do you think the consequences are from bearing a child made with black magic?"

Henrik stumbled backwards, his back hitting the crooked alley wall. He buried his head in his gloved hands, unable to grasp the situation.

He grew up hearing his mother whisper words he once thought were sweet: "Child, you are my miracle."

Miracle. Miracle. Miracle. His mother said those words to him again and again as if they were her religion.

"Your mother knew of the consequences," Lucaf told him. "Eventually, the black magic left from your birth ate away at her from the inside out."

"You think I wouldn't kill you after hearing this!?" Henrik yelled, his hands trembling as he spoke. "This is your fucking fault! You fucking bastard!"

"Mmm." Lucaf replied. "Am I the one who killed your mother, or was it you?"

"Stop talking!"

Lucaf titled his head, watching his child's eyes burn with hatred. In the darkness, Henrik almost resembled him; but Lucaf knew that it was only because of the negative emotions displayed across Henrik's face. Only when his child's eyes burned with a murderous intent in the shadows of night would Henrik look like his father.

"You can't kill me," He told his son after some time. "I've already been dragged to hell."

Lucaf couldn't die just yet. Soon, Aiden would usurp the throne and he would gain total control over the Empire. At this exact moment, his puppet was on a killing spree. Lucaf's black magic ran through Aiden's veins. Even if the boy was incapable of holding a sword before, his body would now be reinforced and supported by the devil's power.

Black magic was Aiden's life support. If the boy was stabbed, cut up or even blown to bits- his body would still heal itself and work. Only when Lucaf let go of his strings would Aiden die.

"You're wrong," Henrik told him.

Lucaf chuckled as he spoke: "Just how am I wrong, my son?"

No matter how he looked at it, someone who used the devil's power could not be easily killed. Especially since Lucaf had been using it for hundreds of years. No amount of magic Henrik used could hurt him.

"You created me."

"Yes, I did."

"So then, watch the monster you created kill you."

He summoned a ball of mana in his right hand, charged forward and threw it as swiftly as a knife. Lucaf easily avoided it, sneering at his son's advances. He backed up and began chanting his own spell. The shadows that hid in the darkness seemed to be laughing at how easy it would be for Lucaf kill his own kin.

When his whispers quieted, the father glanced at his child expectantly. It was at that exact moment that Lucaf realized his powers were far more divine than he had thought.

The boy in front of him was no normal being. He was the result of Lucaf's most successful and outstanding work. Henrik was a product of the hundreds of years of skill gathered from wielding the devil's power. His child remained totally unaffected by the black magic used to create him and lunged forward again.

'What a perfect way to pass.'

Henrik made a blood offering to the ghost of his dead mother. In the dark alleyway, nobody witnessed the scene of the boy killing his father. His perfect little sin-filled creation spilled his father's blood so easily as if it was nothing. This was his atonement, a punishment much more horrible than anything else he could imagine.

With Lucaf's last dying breath, he uttered words of praise: "My son. How proud I am of how you turned out..."

The puppets were finally cut free from their strings and the master was finally condemned to hell.