Chapter 168 A Mother’s Plea
The heavy oak doors of the mansion groaned on their hinges, the sound echoing through the cavernous foyer as Lucifer stepped inside. He didn't pause to shed his coat; he moved with a singular, frigid intensity that seemed to push the very shadows back into the corners.
"Master!"
Morgana emerged from the arched hallway, her silhouette swaying as she moved with short, uneven breaths. She stepped into his path, her eyes darting toward the upper landing with a frantic rhythm. Lucifer came to a dead halt. The air around him stilled, his presence filling the corridor with the suffocating weight of a physical blow.
"I brought her back," he said. His voice was flat, the sharp adrenaline of the garden replaced by a terrifying, hollow calm.
"Where is she?"
"The north guest wing," Morgana whispered. She began smoothing the silk of her dress with hands that wouldn't stop trembling. "She… she’s inconsolable. The moment she caught sight of me, the air left her lungs in a scream that wouldn't end. She looks at me as if I’m a nightmare made flesh and bone."
Lucifer offered no comfort, his expression a mask of sharp, unyielding lines. He gave a single, curt nod and brushed past her. The rhythmic click-clack of his boots against the polished marble sounded like the ticking of a countdown as he ascended the grand staircase.
He didn't knock when he reached the door. He simply gripped the brass handle and pushed.
The air inside was cloying, a suffocating mix of dried lavender and the metallic tang of raw, unadulterated fear. Monica was no longer on the bed; she was huddled in the furthest corner, her spine pressed so violently against the bedside table that the wood gave a sharp, protesting creak. Her hair was a matted, wild halo of tangles, and her eyes wide, bloodshot, and rimmed with white snapped to his. She didn't just move; she recoiled, her shoulder blades hitting the wall with a dull thud.
"You know me," Lucifer stated. His voice was a low vibration in the small room, stripped of any pretense. It wasn't a question.
Monica’s chest heaved in shallow, jagged spurts. She stared at him, her lips drained of color and trembling so hard she could barely form a shape. "Yes," she finally choked out, the word sounding like gravel being crushed. "I know you. Lucifer Morningstar. The King of the Pit."
"Then why are you cowering?" Lucifer took a slow, measured step into the room.
"Because you are the end of things," she whispered, her fingers clawing at the fine bedsheets until her knuckles turned white.
"You are the darkness they warned us about. You are meant to destroy everything your shadow touches."
A thin, razor-sharp smirk ghosted across Lucifer’s lips, though his eyes remained as cold as a winter grave. He continued his slow, predatory prowl toward her, closing the distance inch by agonizing inch. "If my only purpose was ruin, Monica, do you truly believe I would have reached into Luca’s throat to pull you out? I brought you here because I chose for you to live. I do not act on 'meant to be.'"
Silence crashed down between them, heavy and suffocating. Monica watched him, her terror warring with a newfound, bitter clarity that sharpened her gaze. "I was told... I was warned that you were a living plague. That you would keep me caged only until the moment it was time to bleed me dry."
Lucifer stopped a few feet from her, his towering silhouette casting a long, jagged shadow that swallowed her trembling form whole. "I do not hunt humans for sport, Monica. I have no desire for your life unless you reach for something that belongs to me."
He spun on his heel, his cloak snapping behind him like the dark, leathery wing of a predator. He had already reached the exit, his fingers curling around the cold brass of the door handle with a finality that seemed to seal the room's air.
"Please."
The word was a fracture in the quiet. Lucifer halted, his hand frozen on the latch. He didn't turn back, his spine a rigid line against the dim light of the hallway.
"Can I... see my daughter?" Her voice was a ghost of a sound, barely more than a bruised whisper directed at the floorboards, laced with a desperation that made the very air ache.
The silence that followed was heavy, stretching out for a heartbeat, then two, until it felt as though the walls were closing in.
Lucifer’s knuckles whitened as his grip on the handle tightened, the metal creaking under the strain of his silent fury. Slowly, he looked back over his shoulder. His eyes were no longer just cold; they were swirling with a dark, unreadable heat that seemed to swallow what little light remained in the room.
"I never intended for your eyes to rest on her again," he said, each word falling with the heavy, blunt force of a stone. He paused, his gaze lingering on her shattered form until, for a fleeting second, the sharpness in his eyes softened by the smallest fraction. "But because she is mine and because I love her you will see her soon."
In the hollow heart of the Dream Kingdom, the air felt thick and stagnant, as if the realm itself were holding its breath. Michael paced a jagged, frantic path across the translucent floor, his boots creating sharp echoes that rippled through the mist. His stride radiated a restless, explosive energy. Every few seconds, his fingers would twitch violently, the phantom sting of the lightning he’d been forced to swallow still searing his palms. He looked less like an angel and more like a caged beast a creature of gold and fury, bound by the invisible chains of a Father who demanded his absolute submission.
He stopped abruptly, his chest heaving with harsh, ragged breaths. Slowly, he unfurled his clenched fist. Nestled in the center of his palm was a small, silken pouch. He tilted it, revealing a fine, shimmering grey powder that seemed to pulse with a dull, forbidden light: the ashes of Abyssara.
A slow, jagged smirk spread across his face, a look so sharp and malicious it felt entirely foreign to his celestial features.
"What is that, Michael?"
Dream stepped out from behind a pillar of shifting, iridescent mist, his brow furrowed as he watched his brother with a growing sense of dread. The unease in the room was palpable, a cold shiver running through the foundations of the realm.
Michael didn't look up. He merely tilted his hand, letting the grey dust catch the pale, watery light of the Dream Kingdom. "This? This is the remains of a fallen demon," he murmured, his voice humming with a terrifying rhythm. "The ashes of Abyssara."
Dream recoiled as if he’d been struck, the color draining from his face until he looked like a marble statue. "Brother... how?
They were never meant to see the light again.
How did you get your hands on that?"
"Secrets are the only currency I have left," Michael snapped, his head whipping around. His eyes flashed with a dangerous, manic light that made Dream take a step back.
"What do you intend to do with it?" Dream moved closer, his voice dropping to a cautious, hurried whisper. "That power is volatile, Michael. It’s poison. It was never meant to be touched by our kind."
Michael looked back down at the ashes, his smirk widening into a grin of pure, unbridled malice. "I’m going to breathe life back into the Black Dragon. I want to see how the 'King' fares when a nightmare from the old world comes knocking at his gate."