Becoming the Dark Lord

Days had passed since Luke watched Layla return to Maine.

[Estimated Time Until Event 51: 4 months : 19 days : 08 hours : 59 minutes : 57 seconds]

He was in Washington now, inside a SIA building. Angie and Charlie had stayed behind in Camlann, living in a house he’d rented for them. Luke studied the invitation Azazel had given him.

[Azazel’s Invitation]: A special letter that will teleport your soul to Azazel’s primary residence. Only your soul will travel between universes, so be mindful of where you leave your unprotected body.

He planned on using it soon. Focusing on his core, he opened the interface for his beast.

Core: Spectral Beast

Rank: F

Rank E Cores: [32/100]

Core Skill: [Form Devourer]

Beast Skills: [Spectral Rend (Rare)]

Form Devourer: [Abyss King (Rank F)]

Form Devourer Skills: [Neurotoxic Venom (Epic)], [Eye of the Abyss King (Legendary)]

He’d gotten better at controlling the creature, and the steady hunt for beast cores was paying off. When he’d fed the beast twenty-five cores, it awakened a new skill.

[Spectral Rend (Rare)]: The Spectral Beast delivers a brutal, precise tear, ripping open deep wounds that bleed instantly. The strike destabilizes the flesh, causing persistent blood loss, and drastically weakens the effectiveness of healing magic, as if the wound refuses to close under arcane influence.

The [Form Devourer Skills] were their own category, tied exclusively to the form currently assimilated. If Luke replaced the Abyss King with another beast, all those skills would vanish with it.

He walked down the hallway alongside an agent, his right eye hidden behind an eyepatch.

The eye drained him mentally, as if he’d spent days reading without rest. Covering it helped with the strain. There was something in the overwhelming flood of information that the brain wasn’t meant to process. He’d figured out one of the eye’s secrets: distance meant almost nothing. He could see with absurd clarity now down to a bird’s feathers, miles above him. And often more detail than he wanted.

“This is Miss Kennedy’s wing. Just continue down the hall,” the agent said.

Luke thanked him and moved on. He was impressed by how easily he’d been allowed into the building. Once he gave Eleanor’s name, the doors practically opened on their own. Sure, they’d confirmed his identity first, but even then… walking into a government blacksite wasn’t something he expected to happen so casually.

Eleanor’s wing felt less like an office and more like a furnished apartment. Gym, kitchen, bedrooms everything designed to keep her comfortable. When he reached the office area, he spotted a small group of people. A few faces he recognized.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” one said.

“It’s really the guy from the tutorial.”

“Hi,” Luke replied.

These were people who had worked with Eleanor in Bastion. She’d brought them here. Luke shook a few hands, doing his best to look like he remembered each of them. He absolutely didn’t.

“I was there when you lost that knife-throwing contest at the tavern with Eleanor.”

“Oh, right. I remember you,” Luke replied, though he absolutely didn’t.

He dropped onto the couch. “Where’s your boss?”

“She’s probably in the training room,” one of them said. “She doesn’t like being interrupted. Might take a while.”

Luke glanced at the wall clock and sighed. “Yeah, sorry, but I can’t wait.” He had already checked the facility map posted nearby.

“Hey, she really doesn’t like being interrupted,” someone warned. One of them even started toward the glass door that led to the academy wing.

“It’s fine,” a voice cut in.

Eleanor’s voice. Coming from a speaker.

“I authorize him,” she said. “Better than letting him commit a federal crime by breaking in.”

The glass door unlocked with a soft click.

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“Looks like your boss likes me after all,” Luke said as he stepped inside.

“She has literally never let anyone see her while she’s using the academy,” one muttered as the door slid shut behind him.

Luke followed the painted lines on the floor.

The academy doors opened automatically as he approached. The room was enormous, half gym, half combat arena. At the far end, Eleanor pedaled on a stationary bike, focused and expressionless.

“How was your mission in Sirius?” she asked without slowing.

“You should’ve gotten Layla’s report by now.”

”Oh my god, Luke! Eleanor in workout clothes on an exercise bike! I’m drooling! Look at her!” Artemis squealed in his head.

Shut up.

Luke walked closer. Eleanor kept her rhythm steady.

“Layla quit,” Eleanor said.

”I don’t care about Layla. Just look at Eleanor’s boobs bouncing. Gravity really is a blessing.”

Luke forced Artemis back into the mental void.

“I read the report you had her send. You walked into the middle of an attempted coup. You really do have terrible luck.” Eleanor finally glanced at him and narrowed her eyes. “Eyepatch, James?”

James?

Right. She preferred not to remember that version of him.

“I promise this isn’t some weird joke about how we met.”

She did not look convinced. Luke gave a heavily edited explanation involving a newly unlocked skill that changed the color of one eye. Ninety-nine percent of the truth remained unsaid. Government building and all.

“Let me see it. Just to make sure you’re not lying.” She reached up, tugged the eyepatch off and his right eye immediately zoomed in on her.

Details. Too many details.

He coughed lightly, pretending nothing happened, and eased the eye back to normal.

“Huh. It really is blue.”

“See? Innocent.”

“It’s a problem, though. You’re going to need a lens.”

“I need one made in the New World. Anything from here will evaporate the moment I cross over.”

“Then hire an artificer. You have money.”

“Tried. It’s a specific, delicate job. And it needs to match my other eye or it defeats the purpose.”

Part of why he’d wanted to see Eleanor was also to find out whether she’d received anything about Event 51.

“Nothing yet, Luke,” she said before he even asked.

“Nothing nothing, or the classic ‘Luke, your clearance isn’t high enough for this conversation’ nothing?”

“Actually nothing. I’m in the same position as you. If they were hiding something, they wouldn’t tell me either.”

“Oh sure, the boss’s daughter isn’t privileged at all,” he said dryly.

“Okay, fine, that detail is real. But it doesn’t make me the boss.”

***

When he finished talking with Eleanor, Luke headed for the exit elevator.

“Wait, hold the door!” someone called, rushing forward just as the doors began to close.

He tapped the button, and the elevator slid back open.

“Thanks,” the woman said as she stepped inside.

She wore a military uniform different from the usual SIA style and a sword rested at her hip. Her hand stayed on the hilt, casual but ready.

“Hero Serena?” he asked.

“That’s me,” she replied. “And sorry, I don’t sign autographs while I’m on duty.”

“No, nothing like that. I was just… surprised,” he said.

She was practically the face of America.

***

Back in Camlann, Luke was at the house he’d rented for Charlie and Angie. It was far better than leaving them at an inn. Here they had privacy, routine, and something that actually resembled a home.

Charlie had loved picking out furniture and decorating every room.

“Here is your breakfast, Master Luke,” she said, placing the plate in front of him.

If he didn’t wake up early, she brought it straight to his bed.

“Very good. Excellent, Charlie,” Artemis muttered through exaggerated chewing noises. “You will make an outstanding wife.”

“That is exactly what I intend to be!” she declared with absolute conviction.

Luke sipped his coffee, pretending to focus on the city’s morning newspaper.

Her feelings haven’t faded since our conversation back then. If anything… they seem to have grown stronger.

Across the table, Angie was buried in a book again. She’d spent the last weeks consuming everything she could find on business, political structures, diplomacy, behavioral science anything that could help her understand the world and her role in it.

“Eat something too, Angie,” he said.

She startled slightly, snapping the book shut. “Forgive me, my lord. I assure you I am consuming all the correct nutrients and daily caloric requirements to maintain a beautiful and impeccable appearance.”

“That’s not what I meant. I just want you to… share the meal with us.”

Angie was stunningly beautiful, frighteningly intelligent, and equally relentless in her studies.

Since evolving into an angel, she’d regained the ability to eat like the living. The change still startled him sometimes. A part of him continued to struggle with the fact that she had become something so rare something that shouldn’t exist at all.

[Angel]: A nearly extinct race in the multiverse, present since the earliest foundations of the System, long before the selection of the 51st and the creation of the Second Universe. Revered for their overwhelming beauty and absolute power, angels feel no pity or compassion for any form of life except themselves or the one they choose to serve.

Obsessed with their own existence, they form attachments rarely but with terrifying permanence. When an angel fixates on someone or something, they never let go. Yet there are no confirmed records of anyone truly earning an angel’s love.

Attributes per Level (Rank E): +4 to all stats, +10 Free Points.