Arc 3 – Leviathan: Envy (Chapter 3 of 7)
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The ocean was still.
Too still.
Lucen stood on the edge of a crumbling pier. The sky was grey, layered with clouds like bruises. Below him, Port Solis's once-beautiful bay was now a mirror — flat, silver, unnatural.
And in the center of that silent water...
A door stood upright.
A rusted, barnacle-covered door, free-floating, nailed to nothing.
Lucen narrowed his eyes.
"You want me to enter," he muttered. "Fine."
He stepped forward. The water didn't even ripple around his boots.
No resistance. No sound.
He opened the door.
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Scene – Underwater Dreamworld
He didn't fall. He drifted.
Lucen found himself sinking into a vast ocean — yet he could breathe. No pressure. No weight. Only silence.
Glowing jellyfish lit the abyss like hanging lanterns. Distant whales sang, but their voices warped, bent… as if the ocean was hiding them.
Then he saw it.
A throne — made from coral, glass, and bone.
Upon it sat a figure. Long, wet, draped in a cloak made from eel-skin and pearls.
A face carved from drowned royalty. Long black hair floated like oil.
And green eyes.
Green like envy.
Green like venom.
Leviathan.
He didn't look up.
"The eighth son of the Devil walks without his skin," he said, voice slow and deep, echoing in every direction. "Tell me, Zaqel Fallmoon... how long can you wear the mask of humility?"
Lucen clenched his jaw. "I'm not here to talk philosophy."
"No," Leviathan said. "You're here because you wonder.
Why you survived. Why you were chosen."
"Your brothers were forged in flame, chaos, and endless war.
You? You were kissed by monks."
The water around them tightened. The pressure built.
"You envy them."
Lucen stepped forward. "I don't."
"Don't lie. You hate that they're free.
Free to be what they are. You hide."
Lucen's eyes sparked faintly with virtue light — Chastity, Temperance, and Diligence — swirling around him like faint runes.
"I fight what I am to protect what I love."
Leviathan finally stood. Seven feet tall, serpentine, slick with cursed royalty. His arms were longer than natural. His smile twisted, never touching his eyes.
"Then let's see how long your love can breathe underwater."
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Scene – Combat Begins, But Not Physical
Lucen rushed forward — but the water turned to glass. His fists cracked it, but the shards reflected not Leviathan—
—but his brothers.
Lucifer, smirking in golden armor.
Asmodeus, shirtless and seductive.
Mammon, sitting on a throne of gold.
And himself… Zaqel… with a crown made of human teeth.
Each reflection whispered:
"He's better than you."
"He was born right."
"You were a mistake."
Lucen snarled. The virtue runes around him pulsed.
He struck the glass again. Harder. Louder. Angrier.
But Leviathan didn't move.
He just watched.
"You wear the sins you hate," he said. "You use Asmodeus' lust to blind, Beelzebub's hunger to destroy.
You can't kill what you carry."
Lucen's breath shook.
The ocean twisted around him.
The throne shattered.
And from the shadows behind it — a tidal wave roared forward.
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Scene – Escape, But Not Victory
Lucen summoned all his power. He leapt — kicking off the coral wreckage — activating Beelzebub's Glutton Strike, absorbing the incoming energy and throwing it behind him as a blast.
He barely escaped.
Soaked, panting, landing back on the broken pier.
But Leviathan's voice echoed still:
"You can run from the ocean, Zaqel.
But you'll always carry its salt in your wounds."
Lucen sat in silence.
Wet. Shaking. Angry.
Not because Leviathan almost killed him.
But because he knew something was right in what he said.
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⚔️ End of Chapter 29