He remembered the wind more than the fall.
How it screamed.
How it felt like the sky itself was mourning.
How it didn't stop.
Lucian fell through layers of light, then darkness, then something in between. He hit stone, flesh, metal—none of it mattered. The world tore at him. Bones cracked. Ribs caved. Magic bled like steam from his mouth. His sword, once the symbol of the Lightbringer, shattered into obsidian dust as he vanished into the heart of the Abyss.
And still—he lived.
Because something deep within him refused to die.
---
His first breath was a gasp of ash and silence. He woke with rock embedded in his back, dried blood painting his eyes shut.
Lucian blinked. The pain came later.
He reached out. Dirt crumbled beneath his fingertips—coarse, warm, breathing. And then came the voices. Not shouts. Not threats.
Whispers.
"Another one."
"No one survives the Fall."
"But he did."
Hands touched his body. Bandaged his ribs. A bitter salve pressed to his tongue.
Lucian faded again.
When he awoke the second time, he saw them.
The Hollowed.
People like him. Not weak. Not broken.
Cast out because they would not kneel.
---
It took a week to stand.
Three to walk without rage pulsing through his every nerve.
But something changed each time he closed his eyes.
A loop.
Lira. Laughing.
Lira. Reaching for him in the tower garden.
Lira. Dying.
Then rewind.
Lira. Smiling.
Lucian first thought he was hallucinating. Grief playing tricks.
But it happened again. Then again. And one night, he realized he could control it.
Time magic. Not just to slow or pause.
But to record. To replay.
To live inside his own memory.
---
He bled into the stone and carved a sigil with his own hand, powered by ancient echo-spells he recalled from a forbidden Sancturm tome.
He whispered her name.
And then stepped into the memory like stepping into a warm bath.
She was there. Real. Laughing again. Touching his shoulder. The exact moment before her betrayal—perfectly preserved. No consequences. No death.
He stayed there for hours.
He came out trembling.
He did it again the next night.
And the next.
Until it wasn't comfort anymore.
It was torment.
But he couldn't stop.
---
By the second month in the Abyss, he had mastered the art of possession.
His new strength wasn't brute force alone. It was subversion.
One night, he sat before a mirror. The Hollowed watched as he stared at his own reflection and whispered a name: Seris Del.
In the Sancturm above, Seris—a mid-level scribe—suddenly stood up mid-meeting and began reciting battle secrets aloud before collapsing.
Lucian opened his eyes and smiled.
That was the test.
Now he was ready.
---
He trained with the Hollowed daily. Not just physically. Strategically. Psychologically.
He could see into the future now—but not far. Five seconds. Ten, at most. Enough to disarm any opponent. Enough to strike without ever being touched.
He tested his strength in brutal sparring pits where he fought four, then six, then ten at once.
He never lost.
They began to call him the Black Flame.
Because when he moved—light bent around him. Magic bowed to him. And pain was just another memory he refused to let win.
---
By the end of the third month, the Hollowed had pledged to him.
Not because of power.
Because of purpose.
He wasn't a leader.
He was what came after gods fell.
And Lucian had only one thing left to say.
"They killed the only light I had. So I'll become the dark they can't extinguish."
He looked up at the ceiling of the Abyss.
"I'm coming back."
And the stones trembled with the promise.