The wind stilled.
Lucien stood before the kneeling assassin, shadows writhing softly beneath his boots. The air between them crackled—not with tension, but transition. Something ancient had been awakened, and it demanded a vessel.
"You understand what this means," Lucien murmured, voice like velvet and iron. "To serve me is to shed the skin the world gave you."
The assassin didn't flinch. His head remained bowed. "I am ready."
Lucien extended a hand, fingers veined with threads of abyssal light. The moment they touched the assassin's forehead, the ground trembled. A faint circle of runes spiraled beneath them—etched not by magic, but will.
From the assassin's chest, a breath escaped, jagged and raw, as violet tendrils seeped into his veins. His eyes rolled back, then flared with voidlight. Not pain—transcendence.
Lucien did not smile. He simply watched as the assassin's old self burned away.
When the transformation ended, the man rose. His hair, once black, now shimmered with streaks of obsidian and violet. His eyes—mirrors of the void.
Lucien nodded, satisfied. "You are the first."
The assassin bowed again, deeper this time. "Then I shall be your blade, your shadow, and your warning."
From the distance, whispers drifted across the plains—sensed by seers, feared by nobles, and felt by every realm touched by fate. A new power had just been born.
One that did not answer to gods, kings, or realms.
Only to Lucien.
And the Nameless King turned his gaze to the stars, knowing this was only the beginning.