CHAPTER 142: LOOKING FOR THE TRUTH

The training chamber pulsed with heat.

Lucian stepped through the door, the faint hiss of the steel closing behind him. The room was built for violence—reinforced walls, arrays woven into the floor, runes glowing faintly to absorb energy. But even with all that, the chamber felt stretched thin, like it was already struggling to contain what was inside.

Lucy floated in the center.

Her hair, usually silver-white, burned black. Not dyed. Not cloaked. Flames. Each strand flickered like a coal left too long in the fire, smoke curling faintly from the ends. Her eyes blazed, fire dancing in the depths as if they weren’t eyes at all but living embers.

Lucian stopped.

The aura spilling from her wasn’t what he had expected. The crystal he gave her—those cores—should have pushed her to XXX rank. Exactly that. Nothing more. He had calculated it himself. But what was in front of him wasn’t XXX.

It was beyond.

Epsilon.

Even the system inside him was quiet for once, as if it, too, didn’t know what to make of it.

Lucy turned her head slowly, the flames in her hair burning brighter as she noticed him. She smiled. Not wild, not unhinged—calm, steady, like she was always in control no matter how much heat was in her veins.

"Well?" she asked. Her voice carried an edge, but it was still hers. Still Lucy. "How do I look?"

Lucian’s jaw shifted faintly. "...Different."

"Different good?" she pressed, raising a brow.

Lucian exhaled through his nose, steady. "Stronger. Much stronger than you were supposed to be."

She tilted her head. "Supposed to be?"

He stepped closer, boots echoing against the hot floor. "That crystal should have capped you at XXX. No more. But whatever happened in here..." He let his gaze move over her aura, over the fire rolling off her skin, heat shimmering in the air. "You broke it."

Lucy chuckled softly, lowering herself until her feet touched the ground. The black flames still wrapped around her hair, her hands, her shoulders, like they had no intention of fading. "Maybe I’m just more talented than you thought."

"Maybe," Lucian admitted. The thought tightened something in his chest. She was already older, always a step ahead of him growing up. He remembered when he used to chase her through ruined streets as kids, never able to catch up. Maybe that was still true.

He shook the thought away. "Get ready. We’ll need to test what you’ve become."

Lucy nodded, brushing a stray flicker of flame from her shoulder like it was nothing more than dust. "Fine. But you know," she said, voice softening as her gaze shifted, "I wish they were here."

Lucian stilled.

"Our parents," she went on, looking down at her hands, flames curling lazily around her fingers. "They’d have been proud. Don’t you think? Seeing us now? You... leading. Me, finally burning at full strength." She exhaled softly, almost a laugh, though it cracked at the end. "Father would have said, ’My children carry my fire.’ And Mother—" Her lips curved faintly, bittersweet. "Mother would have cried, even if she tried to hide it."

Lucian’s throat tightened. He didn’t speak right away.

He remembered their father’s laugh. The way it filled a room, always larger than life. He remembered his mother’s hands, warm against his head when he was small, brushing his hair back no matter how bloodied he was from training.

He didn’t usually let himself think about them. Too much weight in those memories. Too much loss. But Lucy’s voice dragged it out, laid it bare.

"They would have been proud," Lucian said finally, his voice quieter than usual. "Even if they didn’t say it, they would have felt it. Always."

Lucy looked at him then. Really looked. And for once, she wasn’t the older sister teasing, or the warrior smirking through battle. She was just Lucy. His sister.

"I miss them," she said simply.

Lucian nodded once. "Me too."

The silence stretched. Not heavy—soft, almost fragile.

Then Lucy straightened, the black flames flaring again. She forced a smile, though her eyes still burned with something else. "Well, they’re not here. But we are. And if they can’t see us... then we’ll just burn bright enough to make them feel it, wherever they are."

Lucian’s lips curved, faint but real. "That sounds like you."

"Of course it does," she said, brushing her hair back as the flames rippled like silk. "I’ve always had the better lines."

He shook his head, almost a laugh. "Get ready, Lucy."

She nodded, fire surging higher around her, the air rippling with heat. "Always."

Lucian turned, cloak sweeping as he moved toward the chamber’s edge. He didn’t say it out loud, but the thought sat heavy in his chest as he walked.

Maybe she was right. Maybe their parents were watching.

And if they were, they would see their children now—not shadows of what was lost, but flames burning brighter than ever.

Ready to fight.

Ready to burn the world if they had to.

Control Room

Lucian’s boots hit the steel floor in steady rhythm as he left the training chamber, the hiss of the doors closing behind him swallowed by the low hum of the Nova Sanctum. His cloak trailed behind him, its edges brushing the floor.

His brow was furrowed.

He didn’t like that feeling in his chest. The ache Lucy had pulled out of him with just a few words. Parents.

He’d never thought about them. Not really. Even before he regressed, before everything burned and his world narrowed to rage, he hadn’t let them sit in his mind. Lucy’s death had consumed him—so much that there had been no room left for questions, for wondering about anyone else. He lived only for the monsters’ blood. For the hunt.

But now—he frowned harder as the thought pressed in—he couldn’t ignore it.

They had been strong. Not just in presence, not just in name. Truly strong. He remembered flashes, scraps from when he was young—his father’s hands like iron, his mother’s voice sharp enough to cut stone yet soft when she turned it on them. People like that didn’t just... vanish. They didn’t die so easily.

So why?

Why had he never asked?

The corridors bent, and he walked into the control center. Screens flared awake at his presence, casting the room in pale blue light. Alfred’s voice filled the chamber at once, calm and clipped as ever.

[Captain.]

Lucian moved to the console, resting one hand against the railing. His frown hadn’t eased. "Alfred. I need a message sent."

[Specify recipient.]

"Reia. Back on Earth."

There was a pause, the system already preparing the link.

[Content of message?]

Lucian’s jaw tightened. He looked down at the screens, at the blur of stars outside the glass, at his own reflection faint in the surface. He spoke slowly, each word heavier than the last.

"Tell her I want everything on my parents. What happened to them. How. Who was there. I don’t care how deep she has to dig—records, whispers, anything. If there’s a hole in the story, I want it filled."

The console blinked in acknowledgment. [Message will be encoded and transmitted.]

Lucian leaned back, folding his arms.

For years he hadn’t cared. For years all he wanted was revenge, the simplest kind of truth: the monsters killed his sister, so he would kill the monsters. Nothing else mattered. He had shut every other question out.

But Lucy’s words had cracked it open. The thought of their parents watching, proud—it didn’t sit right. Not when he couldn’t even say how they had left this world.

Maybe they hadn’t.

The idea dug into him, sharp and unwelcome. If they were alive... if they had been taken... if they had chosen to vanish...

Lucian exhaled sharply through his nose and turned his gaze back to the stars.

"Reia will find something," he muttered. "She always does."

The Sanctum hummed, steady and alive, as if listening.

And Lucian stayed there, arms folded, his mind for once not on the monsters