Conquest Path Of The Prince Of Darkness

The chatter and murmurs from the crowd continues as Lucien walked towards his seat, Meghan was behind him but with a disappointing look on her face which she hid professionally.

Lucien leaned back, adjusting his white collars. To his left, Nyx and Dahlia sat in rigid silence, their expressions tightly composed but marred by deep, venomous frowns.

Their eyes and the one behind the blindfold were fixed entirely on the primary central screen, where a devastating tempest of dark and volatile mana was currently tearing the rocky arena apart.

"Why the grim faces?" Lucien asked, his low, gravelly voice cutting through their focused silence. "The exam is reaching its climax. You should be entertained."

Dahlia didn’t look at him, her jaw clenching so hard the muscles jumped. "Entertained? Those two bastards fighting over there, they hate each other’s guts, but they share one thing in common, they are our absolute enemies. I can’t believe they let them escape the seal. They are just like their fathers."

She spat the words out like poison. "The only tragic difference is that they unfortunately chose to walk the devil’s path this time around."

Lucien’s mismatched pair of eyes flared with a cold curiosity. "So their fathers are fallen angels."

Dahlia gave a curt, solemn nod. "The highest tier of them."

Intrigued, Lucien leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he focused on the projection. The sheer scale of destruction on the screens was staggering.

Shockwaves of compressed air and jagged crimson lightning routinely shattered boulders into dust. Wanting a precise metric, Lucien quietly invoked his ’Rank Vision’, letting his synchronized mind overlay the system’s data across the figures.

[RUFUS SEMJAZA]

Ethereal Hierarchy Rank: Late-Stage Exarch

Devil rank: Late stage Grand Devil

[LUKE RAMIEL]

Ethereal Hierarchy Rank: Late-Stage Exarch

Devil rank: Late stage Grand Devil

```

"That’s crazy," Lucien muttered under his breath, a genuine spark of malicious appreciation in his tone. "They are pretty strong, their late-stage foundations actually surpass Nyx’s base form slightly."

Sitting just beside him, Nadia leaned over, her soft voice laced with a heavy, uncharacteristic anxiety.

"Yes, they are. Those two used to be practically inseparable back before then. We still don’t know the exact thing that caused them to fall out, but their departure from one another only made them more lethal. The one with the blood-red hair is Rufus. His hatred for I and my sister is nothing short of a psychotic obsession. Now that he’s broken the seal, he’s going to pick up right where he left off."

She paused, her blue eyes shifting to the second figure on the screen, her fingers tightening against her lap.

"And the other one... the one with the deep blue hair. His name is Luke. He carries himself with a far more matured, composed demeanor than Rufus, but he is exponentially worse when it comes to raw malice." She paused again.

Then continued, "He looks perfectly gentle, almost noble on the outside, but he is utterly deadly on the inside. And... he is an obsessive freak."

Lucien didn’t move a muscle, but the temperature around the Student Council tier plummeted instantly. His aura flared, heavy and suffocating. "What do you mean?"

Nadia swallowed hard, though a small, fiercely loyal comfort filled her eyes at his possessive reaction.

"Luke was completely obsessed with me, Lucien. When my father was still alive and ruling the Cosmos, Luke would constantly beg him for my hand in marriage."

"He claimed that I belonged to him. Back then, any boy who so much as muttered a casual word to me... well, they ended up in pieces. I only hope those sick feelings died out during his time in the abyss, because I am now completely in love with someone else. Someone who isn’t him."

Lucien turned his head slightly, his red and greenish-blue pupils locking onto Nadia’s face with absolute, unyielding dominance.

"Don’t worry," Lucien murmured, his voice smooth, cold, and entirely promising. "I’ll deal with him."

Nadia offered a fragile, hopeful smile. "I hope so, Lucien. He isn’t a normal adversary."

"Look," Riley interrupted suddenly, her hand pointing toward the primary display as a massive localized explosion of gravity leveled the center of the wasteland. "Luke won."

A heavy, calculating silence settled over the students council spot. Nyx leaned back into her throne of shadows, her golden eyes narrowing to slits as she evaluated the aftermath. "That’s pretty remarkable. He’s significantly more powerful than he was before he was locked away."

She turned her gaze toward Lucien, her voice dropping into a warning tone.

"This is the first time Luke has ever actually bested Rufus in open combat. Rufus might have severely underestimated him today. Luke Ramiel is the most cunning, deceptive person I have ever encountered. Lucien, you might possess a raw, primordial strength that can crush mountains, but if you underestimate that blue-haired bastard for even a single second, he might actually find a way to win."

Down within the heavily scorched, dust-choked arena of the exam grounds, the final echoes of shattering stone finally subsided.

Standing amidst the debris, his uniform torn but his posture impeccably straight, was Luke. His deep blue hair shifted slightly in the hot wind, and his cold, translucent blue eyes stared down at the crater before him.

A faint, elegant smile touched his lips as he deactivated his mana. "I finally beat you, Rufus," Luke said, his voice entirely calm, devoid of the frantic panting one would expect after a death match.

Down in the dirt, the red-haired, black-eyed Rufus lay sprawled, his heavy armor cracked to pieces. He choked on his own blood, desperately trying to push himself off the ground, but his body was already beginning to dissolve into the bright crimson particles of the academy’s exam atmosphere.

The computerized voice of the instructor boomed across the entire simulated sky. "Rufus Semjaza: Eliminated. The supreme winner of the Dominion Entrance Exam is Luke Ramiel."

Before the crimson light could fully claim his form and teleport him to the medical bay, Rufus lifted his head, his black eyes burning with a rabid, unhinged fury as he glared at his former friend.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, Luke," Rufus snarled, his voice getting lower as he continues dissolving. "It’s only the first time. I’ll make sure it never happens again."

Luke didn’t reply. He simply watched the space where Rufus had been, his smile widening into something entirely hollow and terrifying.

A/N: If you’re enjoying the novel, please consider supporting it with your Power Stones and Golden Tickets. Every vote helps the story reach more readers and motivates me to keep releasing new Chapters.

Also, don’t forget to leave an honest review. Whether it’s praise, criticism, or suggestions, I read every review and appreciate the feedback. It helps both me and future readers.

Thank you once again for your support, and I’ll see you in the next Chapter!

— Author ^⁠_⁠^