Chapter 227: Or Was Chosen

The cathedral floor split beneath their feet, cracking lines of divine and profane energy like veins of molten silver across cold stone.

Elan lunged, wings flaring in a brilliant cascade of shattered light, each feather glowing sharp and dangerous like a blade of burning glass.

His fist, wrapped in the Goddess’s radiant aura, aimed with lethal precision for Aiden’s heart, a strike meant to end the nightmare he embodied.

But Aiden only smiled.

A slow, deliberate curve of his lips, golden eyes narrowing as though tasting the fear mingled with desperation that radiated off the Vessel.

He had anticipated this—the righteous fury, the raw devotion, the naivete. And it delighted him.

Then he caught the blow. One hand, effortless, like plucking a fallen star from the sky. Elan’s eyes widened, disbelief twisting into panic. "What—?"

"You thought that was enough to touch me? You have plot, I will give you that, but you ain’t the mc here...so don’t. Even. Fucking. Try." Aiden’s voice was soft, velvet undercut with cruelty.

Then he moved. A blur, precise and unyielding. His hand shot to Elan’s throat. A pressure so immense that even the air itself seemed to shiver around them.

A sound like bone splintering rang through the cathedral, followed by a shockwave that rattled every remaining candle, shook the stained glass in their frames, and left the stone groaning beneath the strain.

"A-Aiden—!" the saintess gasped from below, her voice breaking in fear. But Aiden did not acknowledge her, did not even glance in her direction.

His mind was a sharpened edge, singularly focused, and the world contracted to the weight of Elan’s struggling body in his grip.

He lifted him, one-handed, wings flailing, halo trembling, divine light bleeding off him in desperate arcs. Elan clawed at Aiden’s wrist, a futile effort against strength that defied natural laws. "Let go! Let go of me you demon!" he choked.

Aiden leaned close, whispering against his ear. "Haha....No, Bitttcchhh."

And then they shot upward.

Marble exploded beneath them. The ceiling, sigils, holy wards, rafters, and beams shattered like brittle ice. The force of their ascent tore through sanctum and bell tower alike, each crash a drumbeat heralding their flight.

Elan screamed, a sound of agony and disbelief echoing off the clouds already trembling with the pressure of their power.

And then—suddenly—they breached the final spire, and the world opened.

Clouds ripped apart, moonlight poured down in silver fire that kissed their bodies and stung their eyes. The wind whipped at Aiden’s hair, tugged at the feathers of Elan’s wings, rending him helpless in mid-air.

The cathedral, the city, the world below shrank into insignificance. Up here, there were only the two of them, suspended in a sky torn open by raw, unrestrained power.

Aiden hovered effortlessly, his true form unfurling like a storm breaking over a calm sea. The pendant at his chest pulsed once, a heartbeat fading into nothing. Elan’s eyes widened. "No—don’t——!"

"It was always just etiquette," Aiden murmured, plucking it off. The colorful pendant dissolved into ash midair, as if it had never existed.

The world reacted. Clouds roiled violently, the moon dimmed, air pressure dropped so sharply that Elan’s wings snapped downward with a force that stole his breath.

Far below, the saintess fell to her knees, clutching her chest, blood stirring and trembling as though reacting to Aiden’s awakening.

A shadow spread behind him, vast and ancient, tendrils of velvet darkness curling outward, each glowing faintly red at the tips. This was not a man. This was a storm, an incubus reborn, and the sky itself seemed to bend to contain him.

Elan struggled to breathe. "What... what are you...?"

"I warned you," Aiden’s voice was soft, deliberate, a predator savoring a cornered prey. "I do not obey the rules of this world."

He lifted his hand.

Black-gold fire erupted, coiling and twisting like a living dragon, a power stolen from Catherine yet sharpened to his will. It was no mere flame; it devoured, it consumed, it twisted the very atmosphere around it into molten fury.

"You,..You Monster!!!"

Elan’s cry of shock and pain cut through the clouds as Aiden hurled it like a meteor. The impact tore through miles of sky, the explosion igniting the clouds in a second sun of roaring, molten brilliance.

Before the smoke even cleared, Aiden appeared behind him, golden aura flaring like a lion’s mane, the air humming with the resonance of Flora’s stolen sword-aura.

He swung a limb, and a blade of golden force shaped like a roaring lion erupted, tearing through Elan’s divine barrier as if it were parchment. Blood and divine energy sprayed in a radiant arc, a symphony of destruction and dominance.

Sparks of purple, violet, and black crackled along Aiden’s forearm, hex-lightning borrowed from Sabrina. It did not fall; it hunted. Curved midair, it struck Elan relentlessly, each jolt rending the clouds and tearing at his wings.

And then the world seemed to fracture.

Aiden vanished. Split. Multiplied. Dozens of illusory forms, each whispering truths and lies, encircled Elan. "let me tell you something....man to...boy I guess....She doesn’t love you," one hissed. "She never did," another murmured.

"She was mine the first moment she looked at me." The illusions, real and unbearable, clawed at Elan’s mind, his heart, his very sense of self.

He swung desperately, striking at phantoms, but Aiden remained, real, quiet, patient, wings spreading wide, shadow curling around him like molten silk.

Aiden’s hand shot out, grabbing Elan by the hair, tilting his face up so that silver eyes met golden. "You’re... a monster...a monster, nothing more." Elan breathed.

"No," Aiden said, voice low, silk and steel intertwined. "I am the cheat of this world. The loophole. The exception. The error your fake Goddess fears. You cannot stop me."

Elan’s scream split the heavens. "....THEN I’LL DIE TRYING!"

His remaining power surged, halo ablaze, wings expanding, every ounce of divine fury focused into a spear of starfire. The Goddess’s voice thundered through him:

"SMITE HIM!"

He thrust it forward, aiming for Aiden’s heart.

Aiden caught it between two fingers. The spear splintered like glass under pressure. "You brought a sun," he murmured. "I brought everything else." He crushed the spear; shards of dying stars scattered across the heavens like fallen tears.

Then, with a single motion, he brushed his thumb against Elan’s halo. The divine ring trembled, fractured, and broke. Light screamed into the night. Elan’s cry was a symphony of agony, echoing across cloud and storm.

Aiden released him, drifting backward, watching the shattered Vessel plummet, wings faltering, silver light fading. His voice carried like a storm: "Tell your Goddess—her dumbass chosen is mine to break."

Below, the saintess watched, heart pounding, blood alive and quivering, as moonlight shone down upon the cheat of the world.

Aiden descended slowly, shadowed in stolen miracles, a god beneath no god, the incubus who had bent the heavens to his will. The clouds themselves shivered beneath him, whispering the inevitability of his dominion.

Even as Elan fell, screaming, trailing divine fire like meteor fragments, even as the saintess trembled in awe and fear, Aiden’s golden eyes burned brighter than the moon, and a single thought uncoiled in the depths of his mind:

No one, not goddess nor mortal, can stop me. This world, broken and trembling, is mine to rewrite, mine to own.

And the sky—shattered, bloodied, silvered with fire—seemed to bow in reluctant acknowledgment.

The world had witnessed its cheat. And nothing could undo it.

Elan struggled to rise, hands burning, wings trembling under the unnatural weight of Aiden’s aura. His halo flickered, cracks spiderwebbing across the divine ring like glass under siege. "I... I won’t let you—!"

Aiden’s golden eyes narrowed. A small smile played across his lips. "You already have, little Vessel. I am the cheat of this world. The loophole. The shadow in every law you believe protects you...I know it, I read it and I used it. I’m The one no god or goddess can touch without breaking themselves first....Cause I know the reality, the plot, the fakeness of it all..."

He lifted a hand slowly, deliberately. Black-gold fire, Catherine’s stolen dragonfire, coiled around his fingers like a living serpent. Heat radiated from him despite the icy moonlight, making the clouds hiss and curl around their edges. The fire devoured the air, consuming it before it could even cool.

Elan’s chest heaved. "You... you’re impossible—" His words cracked under the strain of the storm, the impossible impossible truth of the world-bending power before him.

"Yes." Aiden whispered, voice soft yet cutting through the thunder like a scalpel. "Impossible. Undone. Unstoppable. And you, Vessel... are just my first lesson."

Aiden’s hands moved with practiced cruelty. The golden lion’s aura of Flora flared around his arm, manifesting a blade of light that tore through Elan’s shield like paper.

A shockwave of light and roaring energy spiraled across the sky, slicing clouds in jagged streaks. Elan cried out, wings faltering under the combined assault of fire, shadow, and golden force.

"You... you can’t... you’re not meant to—" Elan’s voice broke.

"Not meant to?" Aiden’s words were a caress and a blade at once. "I’m meant for more, meant for fucking your girl, meant for fucking all the bitches I want, even your fake goddess, I will cum inside her one day..."