Chapter V: The Ritual of Repeated Perishing
Lucifer McKenzie exhaled through clenched teeth, his breath ragged and wild like a beast just released from its chains.
His bare chest rose and fell in trembling waves, ribcage rattling beneath wet skin. The pond water clung to him like the residue of some ancient curse, viscous and cold.
"Fuck... getting dragged back into life feels like getting skull-fucked by a thousand needles," he hissed, fingers spasming in a painful twitch.
Each nerve still remembered death.
His limbs refused to respond like they once did, his bones heavy as iron, his muscles soaked in fatigue like they were drowning in tar.
"Reviving... is a cunt of a thing," he growled, glaring at the gray sky above as if it had betrayed him.
And yet, despite the protest of every sinew in his form, Lucifer inhaled sharply, focused his mind, and prepared himself once more.
He dipped beneath the surface of the pond like a sinner seeking baptism in poison.
Primordial energy coiled through his spirit, and he activated his forbidden talent—
[Unique Skill: Death]
And again, it claimed him.
The taste of perishing was no longer strange. No longer terrifying. He had begun to study the feeling—the numb descent into the dark, the weightless drag of gravity melting away, the sudden, violent yank that ripped his soul from his vessel.
He paid attention this time.
The marrow in his bones simmered with icy flame. His guts boiled with a heat like molten stone. A paradox of frost and fire sang through his spirit.
Then came the cold void. That sacred, eternal silence.
And when he opened his eyes once more, the gray shores of the Underworld greeted him like a familiar prison cell.
The black sand beneath him clung to his skin with stubborn affection. A chill brushed his soul.
The cloaked warden of this realm—hooded, skeletal, unwavering—stood exactly where Lucifer had met him the first time.
"Why hast thou returned, Blood of the Monarch?" asked the Grim Reaper, his voice a hymn carved from death itself.
Lucifer rose, brushing sticky grains from his hands. There was no hesitation in his movements this time. No confusion in his gaze.
"I came back through the ritual of revival," he stated plainly, his crimson eyes alight with clarity. "Can you hurl me back to the realm of the living?"
The Reaper tilted his skull, shadows dancing like silk around him. He could not decipher what was happening—why the child of the God of the Grave would willingly tread the line of mortality again so soon.
"Indeed, we may return thee…" he murmured, suspicion curdling in his tone.
He assumed Lucifer, young and unlearned in the arcana of resuscitation, had made another blunder—another foolish sacrifice.
"Yet beware—Death is not a bauble for children. Thou mayest hold a sacred lineage, but the touch of death should not be courted with such reckless repetition."
Despite his warning, the Reaper chose mercy. The boy bore the blood of the Monarch—of the Great God Hades.
Royalty must be forgiven for ignorance.
"Then farewell, O Child of the Monarch. We grant you passage with hopes of peace."
The abyss around them rumbled as a hurricane of darkness erupted from the Reaper's cloak. It consumed Lucifer's spirit and flung it upward, hurling him violently back into his mortal shell.
[Unique Skill EXP +1]
[Unique Skill: Death (2/10)]
Lucifer awoke with a grunt, splashing water across the sacred pond. Its freezing kiss made him shiver.
"Fuck me sideways, it's colder than a corpse's cunt in here…"
He wiped the droplets from his face and shook his head.
"If I keep fucking around like this, I'm gonna catch something. This body is still too weak."
Still, determination burned inside his chest. He didn't hesitate.
Again, he submerged. Again, he called upon Death.
[Unique Skill: Death]
And once again—he died.
The cold hand took him, yanked him into the beyond.
When he returned to the black sand, the air was no longer calm.
This time, the Grim Reaper greeted him not with curiosity—but with fury.
"Thrice?!" the Reaper's voice thundered like a curse spat from the abyss. "Dost thou mock us, O Blood of the Monarch?! Hast thou turned the boundary of life and death into a fucking playground?!"
Black flame roared within the hollow of his skull, and the very atmosphere thickened, pressing down on Lucifer's body like the wrath of a dying star.
His legs trembled under the weight.
His teeth chattered involuntarily.
Yet despite it all, Lucifer's eyes did not waver.
There was no fear in him—only understanding. Only fire.
The Reaper paused. The rage in him faltered.
"…Then speak, O Child of the Monarch. What purpose do thy transgressions serve?"
"I'm training," Lucifer said simply, his tone stone-solid.
"Train…ing?"
"You said it yourself," he answered, gaze unwavering. "I am the son of the God who commands Death. But I know jack shit about it."
"To not understand my own dominion? That's a disgrace to Him. To my father."
"I seek to correct that. By experiencing it. By dissecting it. By mastering it."
The Reaper's soul trembled.
His bony fingers clenched.
Lucifer thought he might attack.
Instead, the Reaper fell to one knee.
The sound of his bones striking the obsidian shore echoed across the dead plain.
"Forgive us, O Noble Heir of the Monarch," he said, voice soaked with reverence. "We… we have gravely misjudged your intent."
He bowed lower, shadows weeping from his body like blood.
"We shall offer our very existence in penance. Permit us to atone for this sin with death."
He raised his hand. Darkness surged into a terrible shape—a scythe as black as the void between stars.
Its edge gleamed, ready to claim him.
"Enough," Lucifer said.
He stepped forward, scarlet eyes glowing like embers.
He looked down upon the Reaper—not as a subject to a servant—but as a Monarch gazes upon a loyal knight.
"You were doing your job," Lucifer said, voice calm and terrifying. "And you had the spine to call me out, even knowing what I am."
"I respect that."
The Reaper's bones quivered with awe.
"O Great Heir of the Monarch… your mercy is boundless."
He rose slowly, trembling under Lucifer's gaze. The words he spoke carried new reverence, new purpose.
The Reaper now believed. Now understood.
Lucifer extended a hand. His fingers brushed against the Reaper's robe, and a spear of glacial energy stabbed into his palm. He clenched his jaw and bore it without flinching.
"Send me back," Lucifer ordered.
"We shall. But…" the Reaper hesitated.
Lucifer raised an eyebrow.
"Problem?"
"Nay, but… O Great Child of the Monarch, your soul is stretched. Unrested. If you keep ripping yourself between realms, you risk… corruption."
"Your essence will decay. You will lose your ability to feel. To think. You will become something... hollow."
"And when that happens, even I shall not be able to restore you."
Lucifer narrowed his eyes.
The warning rang true.
He hadn't yet reached the final volume. He didn't know all the truths of this world. He wasn't some omniscient protagonist in a fucking light novel.
He had to play it smart.
This wasn't a game.
He had just danced too close to the edge of actual, eternal death.
The Underworld didn't feel so mythic anymore. It felt real.
Permanent.
And though his expression remained carved in stone, the Reaper saw it.
He saw how the boy was beginning to change.
How detachment had begun to creep into his heart. How clarity was replacing chaos.
And he approved.
This was the nature befitting a scion of the Monarch.
One who would not fear Death—but rule it.
'Perhaps… this one will not fail,' the Reaper thought. 'Unlike all the other bastard children of the Monarch before him…'
'Perhaps he shall become what they never could.'