In the Agarthan Era, a time where magic reigned and the blood of gods defined a person's worth, Lucard was born into the prestigious Caelum family, a name steeped in history and divine lineage. But unlike his sisters, who bore the glow of awakened Olympian Blood, Lucard's veins ran cold and silent. The power never came.
Branded as Plebian, a failed noble, Lucard became an object of scorn within his own home. Even his two elder sisters, radiant and cruel, looked down on him as if he carried a curse. Whispers in the household blamed him for their mother's death. And when their father vanished mysteriously, the Caelum name was stripped from Lucard's name like a crime.
Without power, without love, and without a future in his homeland, Lucard left. He carried no noble crest, only a letter of recommendation, a mask, and his hatred for being a lowborn.
He journeyed to the distant nation of Britianna, a nation known for its opulent power and strict noble hierarchy. There, under a new name, Lucard Evangeline, he became the youngest butler in the service of House Grimon, a family renowned for their beauty, influence, and unshakable pride.
Acceptance did not come easily. Only the grace of the Caelum head butler's letter granted him entry into the ranks of the elite servants. Yet even as Lucard performed his duties with quiet precision, he remained an outsider, a masked phantom gliding through halls of marble and fire. His presence was marked by the soft glint of tinted goggles that veiled his eyes, and a mouth sealed behind a sleek, zippered mask. Not even the curve of his lips saw daylight; to eat or drink, he merely unzipped the mouth of his mask in silence, like a machine maintaining function rather than a man indulging need.
***
"Where's that masked plebian?"
Lady Zaneya Hecate Grimon, scion of the house and heiress to its legacy, sat like how princesses should as her maids attended to her. With her wavy pink hair cascading down her back, eyes like molten citrine, and skin unmarred by even the gentlest of time, Zaneya was the embodiment of nobility.
"Madam Diona summoned him earlier," a maid replied meekly.
"Tch. Auntie's taste for charity is pitiful." The young lady scoffed, her voice sharp. Her disgust for Lucard was no secret. She saw him not as a man, but as a stain beneath her feet.
It had been a year since Lucard's arrival. Rumors of his status had spread like wildfire. Some servants mocked him. Others pitied him. But none dared defend him.
***
Thud!
Lucard hit the ground. Blood filled his mouth. His masked face cracked against the stone floor of the Grimon estate's garden.
Frederick von Maximilian stood over him. Another noble. Another predator.
"You plebians should never have been born," Frederick sneered. His hunter's eyes burned with blue and green contempt.
Lucard said nothing. He knelt in silence, his hands trembling, fists clenched, the taste of iron filling his mouth.
Inside, however, thoughts raged.
If the gods truly lived in noble blood, why do they act like demons?
What is divinity worth if it breeds only cruelty?
But still, he endured. Because he had nowhere else to go. No home. No sanctuary. Only duty and the cold embrace of solitude.
***
Once, the world had belonged to science and steel. But when the Celestial Nailes fell from the sky, everything changed. Rifts to the underworld tore through the continents, and monsters spilled forth. Humanity's weapons failed. Their cities burned.
And then the myths proved real.
They came wreathed in stormlight and myth, a host of radiant figures descending upon a dying earth like a final benediction. Cloaked in the grandeur of forgotten legends, they called themselves Olympians—gods of old reborn in flesh and fire, returned not in temples of marble but in the ashes of a crumbling world.
At their head strode one who named himself Zeus, thunder-eyed and imperious, bearing a voice that could shatter silence like a bolt from the heavens. Around him, Poseidon walked with the weight of oceans behind every step; Athena's gaze cut through lies and darkness alike; Ares breathed war into broken men and turned them into steel-hearted legions.
Hope followed them like a shadow, wide-eyed and desperate. And so did ruin.
For a time, the world believed salvation had come. The gods battled the monstrous tide—creatures born of the void, forged in the black fire of the Cataclysm. Their enemies were legion, mindless yet driven, feeding on faith, on memory, on the very bones of reality. The gods clashed with fury, radiant and terrifying. But they were not invincible.
The Celestial Nails fell from the heavens—shards of some unknowable force. Where they pierced the land, the divine unraveled and utterly changed the environment. The Nails drank power. They corrupted essence. They remembered the names of gods and made those names into eulogies. Olympus bled. One by one, the immortals dimmed—burning out like stars swallowed by dusk.
And so the gods fled.
They vanished into myth once more, cloaked not in glory but in shame. Yet they did not leave the world empty. In their final act, they turned to the remnants of their blood—mortal children touched by divine legacy.
The Demigods.
From the ruins rose those who bore the flame of Olympus in fractured, flickering veins. Some had the blood of Zeus in their bones, others of Hades or Hera or Hephaestus. In some, the divine spark burned bright, fierce as dawn. In others, faint—but even that was enough to defy the Celestial Nails. They alone stood immune to the unraveling.
To humanity, they became more than saviors. They were hope and legends. Monuments were raised in their honor, songs composed with their names woven into every verse. The old gods were worshipped in silence and sorrow—but the demigods were hailed. In flesh and breath, they stood where Olympus had failed.
But divinity, even in fragments, was a cruel inheritance.
The world soon measured nobility by the purity of one's divine blood. The more clearly it shone, the higher one rose. Cities were built on bloodlines. Thrones were forged from genealogy. And those born to noble houses but showed no sign of awakening? They were cast aside, pitied and scorned.
Plebians—children of the gods without the gods' favor. Broken links in a golden chain. Powerless reminders of a heritage that meant everything and nothing.
Lucard was one of them.
***
That night, after cleaning his wounds alone in the servant's quarters, Lucard stood by the window and watched the moonlight bathe the courtyard.
He felt nothing but cold.
No place was home.
No one would stand by his side.
"Fuck this life," he muttered, a whisper swallowed by the night.
But deep in his heart—beneath the scars, the pain, and the silence, something stirred. Not power. Not wrath. But a purpose. A whisper of defiance. A thread of fate that the world had long tried to sever.
And though they had called him Lowborn…
They had no idea what blood truly meant.