Morning in Celestara usually felt like the inside of a music box — sunlight spilling through clouds, gears of the floating city humming softly.But today, that same sunlight hit Lumiel like an old friend.It didn't burn.It sang.
He blinked. His skin glimmered faintly, and the veins beneath his wrist pulsed with two lights — gold and crimson, weaving together like living veins of code.
"...Well," he muttered, staring at his hand. "I'm either blessed or having a very aesthetic heart attack."
The air around him shimmered. His blood magic — usually wild, hungry, and temperamental — now moved like it had learned manners. The chaos had rhythm. The hunger had… taste.A drop of his blood floated before him, glowing softly before splitting into two threads — one red as wine, the other gold as dawn.
"Holy light and blood magic. Who in creation thought that was a good mix?""You," murmured Kuroha, sprawled lazily on his shoulder in fox form. "Congratulations, you've become your own contradictory religion."
He turned toward the forge — his forge — built into the side of his balcony.The Crimson Scythe lay across the anvil like a sleeping beast. The blade had drunk shadows before, but now, it shimmered faintly with the new light, as though unsure if it should consume or bless.
"Guess we're both confused, huh?" Lumiel whispered.
He drew a circle of Red Code beneath it. Symbols flickered into being — not typed, not spoken, but felt. The bloodline magic obeyed, dancing along the etched runes.He pressed his palm against the metal, and the forge flared alive.
Crimson light poured from his veins, and for the first time, it didn't burn the metal black — it polished it.His new power wasn't about destruction. It was about refinement — purification through contradiction.
Blood turned into radiant fire.Nihility's void became the forge's breath.The scythe screamed, drank, and changed.
When the light died, the weapon no longer looked forged — it looked grown.The blade's edge shimmered translucent, veins of silver and red threading through it like living capillaries.At its heart pulsed a small crimson crystal — a captured droplet of his own blood, endlessly circulating.
Lumiel grinned. "Now that," he said, lifting it carefully, "is craftsmanship my father can't complain about. It even comes pre-sanctified."
He swung once.The scythe whistled — and the sound was alive. It pulled the air around it, dragging the energy from nearby plants and light, condensing it into himself.It didn't just drain — it fed him.
"Hah," he said with a crooked smile. "A weapon that drinks your enemies and heals your hangovers.Daniel's going to want a patent."
From behind, a soft voice drifted in — Luminous.
"So that's what the fusion did to you," she said, stepping into the golden light. "I can feel it from the hall. Your magic… it hums differently now.""I call it balanced diet energy. Half sunlight, half bloodlust.""You're impossible.""You married impossible," he reminded her with a grin."Not yet," she said, cheeks faintly pink. "But I might, if you keep forging miracles."
She watched as he spun the scythe once more. When it cut through the air, trails of faint light and shadow intertwined like ribbons, dancing in harmony.
"What will you call it?" she asked softly."Hm." Lumiel looked at the weapon, its runes glowing faintly along the shaft. "Maybe… Crimson Radiance. Feels poetic enough to sell.""And terrifying enough to win wars," she added."Exactly," he said, resting it on his shoulder. "Now let's go test it before it decides it's the protagonist."
The day ended with laughter echoing through the halls of Celestara — laughter that masked something deeper:Lumiel had felt it, just for an instant — the pull of Nihility itself, whispering through his veins.
His new balance between light and blood was beautiful… but unstable.And somewhere, in the forge's dying embers, a new rune flickered across the scythe's edge — one he hadn't written.
[System Notice: New Trait Unlocked – Blood of the Twin Suns]