[UNIVERSAL ANNOUNCEMENT]

Quinlan Elysiar - the Primordial Villain, the Harbinger of Ruin, the Godslayer - has authored a new class.

[Bloodfather].

A class born not from systemic evolution, but from will, blood, and bond.

The Bloodfather has established his family: his Beloved and his Champions.

They are recognized under divine covenant. Should they endure and ascend, they will stand as a pantheon unto themselves.

...

In the Vraven Kingdom.

Alexios read the golden window with the face of a dead man.

At his side, Felicity giggled.

Then she read it again, her purple eyes catching on his Beloved and his Champions, and the giggle curdled into a pout so thorough it scrunched her whole face.

"Not fair!" she declared, crossing her arms. "I wasn’t included!"

...

In a tent pitched a full ride from the Ravenshade siege lines.

The golden window carved itself into the air between the canvas walls, and every woman in the tent saw it at once. Scar read the name at the top before the others had finished blinking, and the whisper that left her mask carried more reverence than the Scarlet Lilies had heard from her in four centuries of fighting beside her.

"Master... Just what did you do while I was away...?"

Lilith read the announcement twice without speaking. Her hand stayed on Void’s back, her gaze fixed on the bright script, and nothing came out of her mouth either time.

Until...

"Scar..."

...

In the depths of the dwarven heartland.

Ragnar read the window from the chair he had not left in hours, his bandaged hands flat on the armrests and his face lit by script he did not understand.

"He authored a new class?" He spoke the words as if they had arrived in a language he had never learned. "What does that even mean?!"

Nobody in the room answered him, because nobody in the room knew.

"Call that cunt over, she might know! She’s been dealing with this nonsense for longer!" he shouted at his attendants, overwhelming panic rising in his chest all over again.

...

In the primordial dimension, in Luminara’s garden.

"Your Evil Boy!!!" Liliyanna hissed, complaint notebook open to a page so dense the ink had started layering, "walked into my world, stood in front of my magistrates, and told them a story."

She held up a finger.

"He told them he was the son of the First Elf, and that he loved the elven people with all his heart, and that he had come to save them from the treachery of their own council as if he was a great hero!" A second finger. "He was so convincing that my elves wept! Grown magistrates! Battle-hardened matriarchs! They pledged their swords on the spot! That’s manipulation! Corruption!!!"

On the grass, Luminara went still. Beside her, Mearie’s hand paused mid-reach for her cup.

The corruption mark on her cheek flared.

Liliyanna’s hand shot to her face, palm pressed flat over the burning patches as if she could smother it through sheer indignation. The dark lines pulsed beneath her fingers, feeding on the very word she had just spoken, and the Goddess of Purity’s composure buckled as she fought the thing back with her teeth bared.

"Not... now!" she hissed at her own skin, shoving divine radiance into the mark until it dimmed. She straightened up, puffing, her cheeks flushed and her dignity in ruins. "How dare he corrupt me too?! Your son knows no shame at all!!"

Luminara and Mearie exchanged a look across the grass, and neither of them had the decency to look upset.

Mearie covered her smile with the back of her hand, but it was already showing, warm and unapologetic. "My son did that? I’m so sorry..." she said with zero intention to look sincere.

Luminara did not bother hiding her grin. The First Elf regarded the flustered goddess with a pride so open it bordered on smug.

Liliyanna caught the look and the sound that left her shook the pages of her complaint notebook.

"You two are proud?!?! He corrupted ME! Your goddess! And you two sit there smiling like he brought home good marks from the academy!"

"He is very talented," Mearie offered.

"Boys will be boys... Our Quinnie tries his best, and that’s all that matters." Luminara waved dismissively.

Liliyanna puffed through her nose twice at that, in utter disbelief. She flipped to a fresh page in her complaint notebook and began scribbling with furious strokes, her quill scratching so hard the ink bled through to the other side. Her eyes lifted between every line to glare at the two mothers, who sat on the grass with their hands folded and their smiles unchanged, watching her the way one watches a cat hiss at its own reflection.

She finished, underlined something twice, and snapped the notebook shut.

A third finger came up, and her voice climbed even higher.

"He said he did it all out of the kindness of his heart, but we all know! It was a business deal! He wanted soldiers! And the Soul Records agreed with me, because it gave him a [Cultist] class for the performance! Your son is running a cult in my world!"

She leveled the notebook at Luminara.

"He’s using your descendants to achieve his own goals, doesn’t that bother you at all?"

The smugness left Luminara’s face, and what had been sitting beneath it since the first finger exploded to the forefront.

The First Elf looked Liliyanna dead in the eyes.

"Bother me...? No, Goddess of Purity, it does not ’bother’ me. In fact..."

Her hands clasped before her chest, and her eyes danced with pure happiness. "As a mother, and as the progenitor of all elves... my heart knows only unbridled joy."

Every word landed with the weight of a woman who meant it down to the marrow, and Liliyanna’s notebook sank an inch in her grip.

Mearie’s hand rose to her own chest, and the soft sound she made was pure warmth.

Then the golden window appeared between all of them.

Liliyanna’s notebook quivered in place. Luminara’s eyes found the golden script, and her lips moved around Bloodfather, and the pride already warming her face deepened into a joy so fierce it changed her entirely.

"She blessed him..." Liliyanna whispered, her fingers tracing the air before the script. "I can feel her hand in this..."

Mearie’s eyes were already wet. Her hand found Luminara’s on the grass and held tight, and neither mother tried to hide what was happening to their faces.

"Quinnie officially established his family, Miri." Luminara’s voice cracked on the name. "Our boy did this."

They read the announcement together, over and over again, lips moving around the same words, and the tears came for both of them.

"He needs to reach the threshold and come back!" Mearie’s voice came out wet and fierce, shaking with a need too large for her body. "I need to hold him in my arms. I need to kiss him and tell him how proud his mother is, because I can’t just sit here and read about it, I can’t..."

She pressed her forehead into Luminara’s shoulder, and Luminara’s arm came around her, and the two mothers held each other on the grass while the announcement hung above them.

Liliyanna watched two primordial beings cry over the man she had been filing complaints about for the last year.

"You... Whatever the Evil Boy does, you just tear up and start crying! Where’s the motherly strictness? Gods know that boy needs it!"

Two pairs of eyes found her at once, landing on the goddess in the same heartbeat, and the death in those looks stopped her mid-word.

"Liliyanna." Luminara’s voice dropped low, and every syllable carried weight. "Instead of running your foul little mouth, why don’t we address something?"

The Goddess’s lips trembled suddenly. "Yes?" she asked with an innocent expression, blinking twice.

Luminara leaned forward, prompting the goddess to lean back. "We do owe you an earful, don’t we?"

"You came all this way to complain about our Quinnie," Mearie added, getting on her knees, full mother bear aggression pose, "but what about our complaints?"

"You kidnapped our son," Luminara said.

"And almost killed him," Mearie finished.

"Liliyanna."

The goddess’s spine shook. Her notebook closed with a loud clap, and she scuttled backward, then again, and then she turned to run because every instinct in her body had been overridden by the part that recognized two overly wrathful mothers about to deliver consequences.

But the mothers were ready.

They pounced.