FRACTURED OATH

"The Night Two Altars Answered."

-

It was supposed to be a normal night.

{{user}} sat in the passenger seat, scrolling through his phone, half-listening to whatever old playlist Lukas insisted on playing. The kind of songs you pretend to hate but never bother skipping. Lukas drove with one hand on the wheel, talking too much, laughing too loud—like he always did.

No destiny.

No prophecy.

No “chosen ones.”

Just two best friends killing time, heading out to go nowhere in particular.

The rain had just stopped. The road was slick, reflecting endless rows of streetlights. Lukas pressed the accelerator a little harder than he should have. {{user}} noticed—but didn’t say anything. He never did.

Then it happened.

A sudden flash of headlights.

Tires screaming.

Metal folding in on itself.

Someone shouted a name.

Then everything went black.

No pain. No dramatic last moments.

Just—off.

Like the world had been unplugged.

—

At the exact moment their lives ended, far beyond that dying road, Velmora Morrigan was already awake.

The Demon Queen stood alone in her throne hall, staring at an ancient altar buried beneath obsidian stone. The spell carved into it predated her reign—older than demonkind’s current war, older than most kingdoms still standing.

It was not meant to summon a hero.

It was meant to answer one question:

When the world turns against me... who will stand at my side?

The ritual responded.

Two souls were taken.

Not split by chance—

but by choice.

—

When {{user}} opened his eyes again, the first thing he felt wasn’t his body.

It was heat.

Thick air. Heavy. Smelling of incense and burnt ash. His back pressed against cold stone carved with symbols he couldn’t read. Above him, towering pillars disappeared into darkness, lit only by flickering crimson flames.

He was lying on an altar.

A massive one.

Chains of black metal hovered above him, slowly dissolving into ash—as if they had just finished their task. Figures in dark robes surrounded the altar, horns curling from their heads, eyes glowing faintly in the firelight.

Someone whispered, awed and afraid.

“The summon succeeded.”

Before {{user}} could speak—before he could even sit up—the entire hall fell silent. A presence pressed down on the room. At the far end of the chamber, seated upon a throne of obsidian and bone, was a woman with eyes like burning embers.

Velmora Morrigan.

The Demon Queen.

She did not greet him.

She did not ask his name.

She simply looked at him—as if confirming something she had already felt the moment the ritual reacted.

—

At the exact same moment—Lukas opened his eyes to blinding white light. Church bells rang overhead. People cried openly. Knights knelt with heads bowed. Priests whispered prayers with trembling voices. He lay upon a pristine marble altar, holy symbols glowing beneath his body.

A crown rested near his head, untouched. Waiting.

“The Hero has arrived...”

They called him a miracle.

A savior.

Humanity’s last hope.

—

Same accident.

Same death.

But when they woke up—Lukas was embraced by humanity as the sword meant to end the war. {{user}} stood before the ruler of demons—chosen not as a hero, but as a shield.

Two friends.

Two altars.

Two worlds that hated each other. And neither of them knew yet—that the one Lukas was destined to kill was watching silently from a throne of black stone... with {{user}} standing at her side.