Vali Lucifer, the great-grandson of Lucifer Morningstar and Lilith.
Grandson of the mad devil Rizevim Livan Lucifer.
Adoptive son of Odin Allfather, raised under the chaos-touched skies of Asgard.
Fostered by Azazel, the fallen Watcher, the mind behind the Grigori.
And above all—current wielder of the Divine Dividing.
The Vanishing Dragon.
Albion.
The White Dragon Emperor.
A title that carried weight. Power. Fear.
He was known as the strongest weilder in recorded history. A genius without rival. A prodigy molded for war.
So why—
Why did his heart seize with something dangerously close to panic when her eyes met his?
Those heterochromatic eyes. Emerald and amethyst. Stark. Apathetic.
Not cruel. Not mocking.
Just cold and empty.
Like the void had learned to walk and taken the shape of a woman with sugar-slick lips and fingers that could command extinction.
He hovered just above the arena, outside the broken rim of the Game Field's upper barrier—or what was left of it after the vortex collapsed.
Below, the crater still smoked.
And in its center lay Riser Phenex, a ruin of ego and ash.
Vali had fought gods. Banished spirits. Outwitted monsters with blood older than time.
But that… that was something else.
He could still feel it.
The echo of that magenta fire.
It gnawed at his draconic soul, whispering warnings Albion had never spoken before.
> "Caution."
"Unnatural."
"She is beyond measured strength."
"Beyond cycle. Beyond balance."
> "That is not fire."
"That is judgment."
And yet, even with his instincts screaming, Vali descended.
A ripple tore through the barrier wall, like reality politely stepped aside to let him in.
He landed softly in the charred dust, his silver hair fluttering behind him like frost-kissed silk. His gaze never left her.
Hespera Eveningstar.
She stood at the heart of it all, lollipop between her lips, wings folding behind her like a queen finished with the ceremony.
He didn't speak immediately.
Didn't threaten. Didn't charge.
Instead, he studied her.
Carefully.
Measured.
"…You're the one who erased Ddraig," he said at last. No accusation. Just fact.
She tilted her head slightly, sucking on her pomegranate candy with a soft pop.
"Well, if his new host wasn't such a disgusting beast in human skin," she said mildly. "I wouldn't have needed to… clean this world of such filth."
Vali's eyes narrowed.
"You obliterated a Heavenly Dragon."
"Yes I did." She smiled then—just a little. "What of it, my little great-grandnephew."
The wind howled through the broken arena. The audience didn't speak. Even the Phenex clan dared not interrupt.
Vali stumbled back.
Not from a blow. Not from a spell.
But from her words.
"My little great-grandnephew."
His boots stumbled against the Dimensional "floor", eyes wide—not with fear, but something more dangerous for someone like him.
Uncertainty.
"What… did you just say?"
Hespera didn't move.
Didn't explain.
Just smiled.
That same quiet, unsettling smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. The kind of smile predators wore before revealing just how long they'd been watching you.
"You heard me," she said, voice as smooth as silk laid over razors. "You're family, Vali."
She took a step forward. He didn't retreat this time, but his muscles tensed—every inch of him alert.
"My brother," she continued casually, "was very good at spreading his seed. Especially among mortals and fallen alike. Though Lilith was... unique. I liked her. Just enough spite to keep things interesting."
She tilted her head, that eerie, motherly sweetness oozing into her tone.
"Which makes you… what? Fourth-generation? No matter. Blood's still there. A spark of mine hidden under layers of delusion and daddy issues."
Vali's jaw clenched.
"You're lying."
"I don't lie," she said, her gaze sharpening like a blade. "It's such a mortal thing to do." (Yes, we all know she lies.😔)
"But you're not—"
"Not mortal. Not devil. Not dragon. Not bound." Her voice lilted, a musical quality threading between the syllables like a lullaby composed in a burning cathedral. "I was born before your little pantheon had names. Before Lucifer crawled from the Pit and claimed it as a throne."
"Ask Ophis. Ask Azazel. They knew."
Then she blinked—slowly, deliberately—as if catching a stray memory drifting by like ash on the wind.
"Ah, that's right," she murmured, eyes bright with mock realization. "You can't ask the latter."
A pause.
Then her smile widened—too wide.
"He's… sleeping in my personal Dimensional space at the moment."
Vali froze.
Not from fear.
From the sudden impossibility of what he was hearing.
But Hespera didn't stop.
She leaned back, fingers twirling the melting lollipop between two delicate fingers, the surface glinting with magenta fire that reflected too many things at once—ruin, memory, something like grief—but mostly, delight.
"He's been such a naughty little brother~" she purred, sing-song and sweet, like she was talking about a boy who stole cookies—not a Fallen leader who tampered with godhood. "Playing creator on his poor big sister. Me, of all people."
Her lashes lowered.
"Experimenting on my beautiful, divine, sleeping body like I was a prototype. A puzzle. Tugging at the seams of my being, prodding where even angels feared to look."
Vali's breath caught, his instincts screaming that every word she said was true.
"Father's 'death,'" she went on, her tone wrapping around the word like velvet stretched over thorns, "wasn't enough to unseal me. Not even he could undo the slumber he placed on me with the help of the Original Seraphim. No…"
She raised her eyes to Vali again, and this time there was something behind them—something old.
"But the place—the hidden chamber, tucked into the folds of an untraceable dimensional veil where even Lucifer couldn't sense me, where he wouldn't be able to find me and use our twin-born connection to merge our souls for more power… that was breached."
Her smile returned—this time sharp enough to draw blood.
"And of course… it was dear little ZayZay who found it. Who else? Centuries he spent. Centuries, trying to replicate the sacred gear system with flesh and divine spark. Trying to craft a humanoid Sacred Gear."
She giggled—quiet and mad.
"But he didn't make one."
Her voice dropped, eyes shining.
"He made something… more."
Vali's heart thudded like a war drum in his chest.
"You…"
She stepped forward now, slow and graceful, every motion effortless and sovereign. She was no longer speaking to him—she was unveiling.
"I wasn't born from a gear. Nor shaped by it. I was the experiment. The sealed divinity. The forgotten sister in the dark."
"ZayZay thought he was creating the next evolution of Sacred Gears."
"He was actually awakening me."
She grinned.
"Oops."
Albion stirred deep within Vali's soul.
> "We must retreat."
The voice, normally steady—commanding—now trembled like a whisper at the edge of a storm.
> "She is not born of order. Nor bound by law. This being... this Hespera... she is not a concept we dragons were meant to face."
Vali gritted his teeth.
"I'm not running."
> "You misunderstand—this isn't about pride. She is not a challenge, Vali. She is an inevitability."
Then Hespera blinked.
And smiled.
A soft, serene thing—like a mother who'd overheard her children whispering secrets they thought were safe.
"You know," she said, voice bright and amused, "it's quite rude to talk about someone behind their soul."
Vali froze.
No. That wasn't possible.
But it was.
She turned her hand slowly, tracing a sigil in the air—one not born of magic or devilcraft or draconic legacy.
It was something else. Something deeper. Older.
Chaos.
The symbol rippled across reality, made of ink and starlight, warping everything it touched.
And then—
Vali screamed.
Not from pain.
But from absence.
Albion's presence was ripped from him—severed not by force, but by something more elegant. Precision.
Light burst from Vali's back as the Divine Dividing wings evaporated into particles of silver, pulled like thread unraveling from a tapestry. The arena darkened as those particles twisted into a singular point above Hespera's outstretched hand.
And from that point...
Albion.
Not his full form—but a spectral echo. Pale. Disoriented. Detached.
Floating helplessly above her palm.
"Don't worry," Hespera cooed. "I haven't harmed him. I just wanted to say hello. For now."
Her eyes narrowed.
"To the dragon I left orphaned."
Albion shuddered in the air.
> "You... you took her…my mother. It was you?"
"Oh," Hespera said with mock sweetness, "you remember now? Don't worry, she is in a better place. I believe she is still with the Seelie fairies attending that Yggdrasil tree. By Chaos's left eye, what is with trees needing guardians. I swear."
Her voice darkened—no louder, but carrying weight like tectonic plates shifting beneath a cathedral.
"By the way, I didn't kill Ddraig."
"I claimed him. He's mine now."
And then—she summoned it.
A sharp crack in the air.
Reality hissed as magenta fire split the space beside her, and from it emerged a blade—long, elegant, pulsing with chaotic light.
Pandemonium Noctis.
Her soul-bound katana.
It shimmered with layered energy—Void, Flame, Nihility. Its blade curved like a crescent moon carved from the throat of a dying star, wrapped in glowing runes and smoldering threads of chaos-stained silk.
A slit of light peeled away from the blade, widening like a tear in reality. From that fracture, she emerged.
The sword spirit of Pandemonium Noctis.
She stepped towards her Mistress—silent, graceful, ancient. Then bowed.
Her hair was an endless fall of silver moonlight, cascading like liquid starlight down her back, shifting with every breeze as if remembering celestial winds long forgotten. Not a single strand out of place, and yet not a single lock felt tethered to this world. It flowed like memory.
Her kimono—black as collapsed stars—billowed with the elegance of a mourning goddess. Intricate golden lilies bloomed across the hem like constellations blooming in death's garden, delicate and solemn. Pale ivory sleeves, wide and ethereal, caught the glow of the katana's lingering aura, soaking her in a melancholic twilight.
She held no weapon, since she was the weapon.
Her eyes were unseen, her face turned in profile, as if she regarded the world only from the edge of memory—never fully present, never fully gone. And yet, in her stillness, power thrummed.
She was not merely a spirit. Vali could tell by that much. It was instinctual.
And when she raised her head—just slightly—the silence of the Aether of the Dimensional Gap deepened. Time stilled. Light held its breath.
"Mistress. Noctis, is here. Serve always." Hespera smiled softly and reached out to caress the spirit's head, as she continued speaking.
"I am their Blessed," she said, raising the blade. "Signed on the dotted line~. Born again through them. The Primordial Chaos, my dear new parent gave me lots of cool toys to play with in this new life."
She grinned, turning the blade over in her hand.
"I must admit. I'm really liking the upgrade."
The sword twisted—shifted.
It unraveled into flame and starlight, reforming around her arms, winding like divine serpents.
And when it stopped—
She was wearing gauntlets.
Obsidian and violet, elegant and primal, jagged with divine edges.
They pulsed with familiar rhythm—like the Boosted Gear, but darker. Older. Perfected.
"This is what happens when you feed a Heavenly Dragon to a sword," Hespera murmured, flexing her fingers, the gauntlets igniting with a whisper of the Eternal Pyre. "And then forge that sword into yourself."
Vali stared, speechless, as Albion hovered beside him—silenced, powerless, broken free from the host he had trusted.
Hespera turned to him again, a half-lidded gaze locking onto Vali's as her voice dropped to a whisper.
"You don't understand, little dragon prince. I'm not your opponent."
She leaned forward, the gauntlets glowing brighter.
"I'm your inevitable conclusion."
~~~
Hey readers, I need some help! After finishing the DxD arc, I want Hespera and her lovers to travel to a magic-based world so she can deepen her understanding and control of her powers. Got any suggestions?