Shadow Monarch in DC Chapter 399: The Prison of the First Mother

Chapter 399: The Prison of the First Mother

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Arthur hovered high above the city, violet lightning faintly arcing along his body. Below him, the streets of the infernal capital were already occupied.

His shadow marshals stood at every major crossing and spire, unmoving guardians. Legions of lesser shadows patrolled the avenues like disciplined phantoms. Any demon that had remained awake after Morpheus’s action had already been dealt with.

Efficiently and decisively.

Arthur lowered his gaze slightly, focusing past the city.

There, the thread, it was faint, but it was there.

The dark magic he had felt through Neron’s body had not vanished, it had retreated.

Arthur angled himself toward it and accelerated.

The city fell behind him in seconds, shrinking into a distant silhouette against Hell’s crimson horizon. The terrain beyond Dis was harsher, twisted plains of blackened stone, forests of petrified bones and rivers of molten rock.

And rising from that desolation, ruins. an altar of so sorts and It pierced the sky.

The structure dwarfed the Tower of Dis itself, though it was in catastrophic decay. Massive slabs of black stone leaned at different angles. Entire sections had collapsed into dust and fossilized rubble. The topmost spire jutted upward like a skeletal finger pointing toward the sky.

Arthur slowed.

"...What is this place..." he murmured.

He descended and landed upon the cracked surface of the altar.

The stone did not crumble beneath him.

Even though it was old beyond asure.

He began to walk and his eyes glowed violet as he scanned his surroundings. Ruler’s Authority stretched outward in invisible waves, probing for traps, distortions, hidden presences.

At first glance, the structure was barren.

Then he saw them. Remains, not exactly scattered, they were arranged.

Skeletons lay embedded within the stone itself, humanoid and demonic alike. So were colossal. So impossibly small. Their bones had fossilized to a degree that suggested an age beyond comprehension. Many were partially fused into the altar’s surface as though the structure had grown around them.

Arthur crouched briefly beside one.

The bone texture was strange, crystalline in places, tallic in others.

This very place felt older than most places he had encountered in Hell.

His jaw tightened slightly.

The faint thread of dark magic pulsed stronger here.

Then

A voice. It blood inside his mind.

Clear and feminine, and utterly devoid of demonic rasp.

"Welco, child... to my keep."

Arthur stilled, he did not reach for his spear imdiately.

He stood slowly instead, turning his head slightly as though listening to wind that did not exist.

"Keep?" he repeated, gaze sweeping across the shattered monolith and its fossilized graveyard.

"This ruin?"

The voice answered at once, smoothly.

"Yes."

"Looks can be deceiving."

Arthur’s expression did not change, but sothing behind his eyes sharpened.

"But you already knew that."

He closed his eyes.

The violet glow intensified beneath his eyelids.

When he opened them again

The world shifted.

Not visually, but layered atop the ruin were faint impressions, echoes of sothing grander. Pillars not broken but whole. Vast archways arching toward a sky. And whispers threaded through the air, faint voices. Chanting, crying, worshiping.

Arthur exhaled slowly.

"So," he said quietly, "Lilith."

"Am I correct?"

A soft laugh filled his mind.

Amused.

"Very good."

Arthur turned fully now, scanning the highest point of the altar.

"I followed your trace through Neron," he continued, tone steady. "You were never hiding behind him for protection.."

The whispers intensified slightly.

"He was just another pawn to you."

His gaze hardened.

"If you have sothing to say, say it plainly."

Silence stretched for a mont.

Then

"Such impatience," the voice replied gently.

Arthur’s cloak stirred in an unfelt breeze.

"Let

ask you directly," he said instead, "What is it you truly want from all of this?"

When Lilith spoke again, there was no mockery in her voice. "You seek to impose order upon a realm that thrive in entropy, that’s your first mistake child."

Arthur was listening calmly.

"You disrupt hierarchies that existed long before your kind learned to crawl."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"And you," he replied, "stand at the root of those hierarchies, and it’s funny that you speak this way.. You were once human too."

A faint ripple of approval.

"How insightful."

Arthur’s voice hardened.

"If this ends in violence, I’d prefer to know why, because you clealrly don’t care much about that stupid throne."

The laugh that followed was softer and sharper.

"Oh, it will end in violence."

The whispers around the altar grew louder, layering into sothing almost lodic.

"Oh, how refreshingly direct, Arthur. I do admire that in a man.. especially one so young and full of fire." Lilith continued. "Very well, I’ll indulge you. But only because your end draws near, and it would be a pity for you to perish in ignorance."

Arthur’s grip tightened around his spear as it materialized into his hand in a crackle of violet lightning.

His voice remained calm.

"You speak with confidence."

Another ripple of amusent.

"I speak with mory."

Then

Darkness gathered overhead, like ink spreading.

Arthur did not move.

His spear rested loosely in his hand.

The darkness condensed.

Then it descended.

It flowed downward in spiraling ribbons, twisting around each other.

The ribbons struck the stone before him, and rose.

They sculpted a body from nothing.

First wings, vast, elegant, in black.

Then horns, curving upward from a regal brow, smooth and obsidian-dark.

Then a figure stepped forward from the cocoon of shadow.

Lilith.

She erged fully as the darkness receded into her, a cloak settling across royal shoulders.

She was beautiful.

Not in the soft, mortal sense.

She looked sharp, perfectly ford.

Her dark hair fell in waves down her back, contrasting against skin pale as moonlight. A gown of deep, shifting black wrapped her fra, fabric that seed woven from night itself, and her wings folded slowly behind her.

Her eyes t his.

Crimson irises, bright, intelligent and ancient.

She smiled.

Then began to circle him.

Casually.

As though inspecting a sculpture she found intriguing.

"Arthur Blackwynd," she said smoothly, voice no longer confined to his mind.

"Monarch of Shadows."

A faint tilt of her head.

"Lord of Death."

Arthur’s gaze followed her without turning his body fully.

"You are an outsider," she continued. "A variable I did not account for."

She paused briefly at his side, close enough that he could feel the faint chill radiating from her presence.

"And yet... your arrival was welco."

She resud her slow walk around him.

"You have weakened those I intended to break myself. Destroyed pieces upon the board I had grown tired of."

She extended one slender hand toward the ruins around them.

"What you stand within..."

Her voice softened,

"...is the first place I set foot when I was cast into this wretched realm."

The wind stirred her hair slightly.

"My first refuge."

Arthur exhaled faintly.

"Can you get to the point, ’Demon First Mother’?"

His tone was dry.

"I could pretend to be interested in your life story."

A pause.

"But that would be dishonest."

Lilith stopped before him.

Then she smiled.

"Why so eager, child?" she asked lightly. "Patience is a virtue... is it not?"

Arthur crossed his arms.

The spear dissolved into shadow at his side.

Lilith’s gaze flicked briefly to the motion, noting it.

Then she turned her attention outward toward the highest broken pillar of the altar.

"Within these ruins lies an ancient construct," she said, her tone shifting, less theatrical, more contemplative. "An altar raised in desperation."

Her fingers brushed lightly across the stone, and faint glyphs flickered to life beneath her touch.

"It was built as an attempt... to reach Heaven."

Her lips curved faintly.

"To call out to Him."

The air tightened around the word.

"But no matter how I tried," she continued, "the gates remained closed. The heavens remained silent, one that fell from their grace is no longer welco.."

"And this place was becoming... crowded. Sward with the ambitious. The desperate."

Her gaze hardened.

"Fools clawing for power in a realm that devours them regardless. They rise. They slaughter. They conquer..."

She gestured dismissively.

"And it ans nothing."

Her wings shifted slightly.

"In this Hell... they are all insignificant."

Arthur tilted his head slightly.

"So this entire circus," he said evenly, "is because you dislike your surroundings."

Lilith stopped.

Her expression changed.

The faint amusent drained away.

"You reduce it too easily."

She turned toward him fully now.

"This altar did not reach Heaven."

Her crimson eyes darkened.

"It reached elsewhere."

"It opens a rift."

A pause.

"To Earth."

Arthur’s brow lowered slightly.

Lilith’s voice lowered.

"Unlike Lucifer and certain others who can freely move between realms... I am forever bound here."

Her wings flexed subtly, as if testing invisible chains.

"I cannot leave this place!"

Her gaze drifted toward the horizon.

"But Earth..."

A faint, distant longing crept into her voice.

"Earth began to resemble Heaven to ."

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose briefly and sighed.

"I can’t believe this..."

Lilith arched a brow.

"Too much information?"

"No," Arthur replied flatly. "I just can’t believe all of this chaos is happening because soone decided they wanted to relocate."

Her eyes flashed.

"That is a very simplistic interpretation of my suffering."

She stepped closer.

"You cannot possibly understand confinent on this scale."

Arthur’s expression remained unimpressed.

"You’d be surprised."

She ignored that.

"I attempted the ritual once," she continued. "The power was insufficient. The rift opened only partially."

Her gaze darkened.

"It allowed lesser demons to slip through."

"But I remained."

Her fingers curled slightly.

"Still bound."

She t his eyes again.

"To tear the veil fully requires power on a greater scale."

The altar’s glyphs flared faintly around them.

"And if I succeed..."

She did not soften it.

"The rift will remain open and my children and the damned.."

A faint smile.

"They would follow."

Arthur stared at her for a long mont.

Then he sighed again.

"I can’t let that happen... but you know," he said, tone almost conversational, "I can offer a solution."

Lilith’s head tilted slightly.

"You are not an angel," he continued. "So I can do this with you.."

His eyes glowed faintly.

"You could beco my eternal shadow."

A pause.

"And leave this realm behind."

Lilith’s crimson irises expanded.

Then her eyes flooded completely red.

The whites vanished.

Her deanor shifted instantly, regal composure replaced by a furious look.

"You dare mock ?!" she asked softly.

The temperature plumted.

"I have observed you, Arthur Blackwynd."

Her voice deepened, layered with power.

"I understand how your ability functions."

"It is not so different from a soul contract."

Her wings extended slightly, casting a vast silhouette across the altar.

"You bind them."

Arthur’s gaze sharpened.

"I give those that don’t deserve a second chance a purpose," he corrected.

Her lips curled faintly.

"You claim them for your own benefit.. For power.. And you think I would trade one prison for another?"

Lilith stepped closer still, so close their shadows overlapped.

Her voice dropped to a near whisper."Everything becos a prison... eventually."

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If you Like this story! Check out my other stories! Solo leveling in Westeros.

&

If you wish to read more or simply support

than check out my patreon at

"spatreon/FrenzyAren"

You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want