Under the indigo hush of night, faint glimmers of starlight lingered, a bruised sky holding back the dawn. Fading chorus gave way to hollow stillness as the night began its slumber.
Yet before the day could awaken and the forest begin its symphony anew, a crunch on the gravel fractured the quiet.
A voice–annoyed and tired–filled the air, "Did you have to wake us up so early for this?" Nyra questioned, her arms hanging limply by her side, a single strap of her bag hanging off her shoulder.
"It's not that early, Nyra, it's the perfect time for some physical activity."
"Of course, you would say that you muscle brain normie."
"Really." Aria looked at her arms crossed. "That insult is so last century, literally."
"Yeah to—"
"Now's not the time for this, girls. We should hurry up or we'll miss it." Riven interjected, turning back to face the bickering girls.
"Miss what exactly?" Nyra questioned
"Yeah, you haven't told us why we're climbing this mountain so early in the morning," Aria added.
Riven smiled. "My father, when he was… still with us, would take Herta and me hiking every year on the first day of school."
"Wait, we know Aunt Herta was a supreme-level genius who finished college at nine, and that you finished at ten, but still went to high school. So what was the point?" Aria interrupted, finding it weird to climb a mountain on the first day of school if you weren't in school.
"My father believed that by facing the sunrise, whatever the dawn may bring, you could face it head on, standing tall at your strongest."
"At the top of a mountain?" Nyra asked, her brow rising in confusion.
"In the darkness, you climb blind. But when the sun rises, its light shows you paths you never knew existed. Even if dawn knocks you down, you'll already know you can rise again. "
Nyra raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like something out of a cheesy old book."
Aria, though, smiled faintly. "No… I like it."
"Your father sounds very philosophical, My lord." Lazaria chimed in from the back of the group.
"Yeah, for an eight-year-old me, he was the coolest dad. And even if we don't know the truth, I wish to follow that tradition and bring you girls to the peak as well."
"Then let's hurray up, the sky is starting to brighten," Nyra said, passing him with renewed energy.
The rest of the climb passed relatively quickly; it wasn't that they climbed it fast, but more so, the mountain wasn't that tall, and the path was straightforward.
Some would say it was more of a hill than a mountain, you know who you are, but that was only cause it was surrounded by flatter land.
He had wanted to go to a different mountain at first, maybe even the same one he had climbed in the past, but Herta seemed weirdly assertive when suggesting this one. However, she refused to join herself and forbade April from joining as well.
He didn't know why, but he had a suspicion why. No, he knew why. To their left, he could smell, feel it, slumbering, harboring a secret not belonging to it, not deserving of it.
But he couldn't walk away now, not with dawn so close. It was luck for now, but not for long.
"Mr Riven, is everything alright? You keep looking in that direction. Is there something there?" Nyra looked to their left but couldn't spot anything out of the ordinary.
"Huh, Oh, it's nothing, I was just lost in thought."
"Well, we've arrived at the peak." Aria pointed out.
As Riven glanced down at his watch, the ticking seconds seemed to echo in the stillness. He turned his gaze toward the eastern horizon. "Should be any moment now."
As his voice fell, a single ray pierced through the violet haze, and like a brush, painted the sky hues of gold and pink.
"Whoa, it's wonderful." Nyra stood there, her mouth hanging open in awe, completely captivated by the breathtaking sight before her.
"Yeah, this was totally worth it," Aria said with a smirk, the scenery etched into her gaze.
Riven smiled. The last time the dawn had risen, his back held its gaze, his shadow stretching forward, swallowing the path before him. That day, he had been forced to walk alone, his future bound to the darkness he cast.
Now, he stood facing the sun, its light spilling across the horizon. His shadow still clung behind him, as it always would — but now it was only that: a shadow. The path before him belonged not just to him, but to the girls at his side.
Yet the dawn only lasted for so long, and once the light slumbered, the path would return to darkness. But perhaps that was what balance meant — not the triumph of light over dark, but their endless exchange.
Just like he once said atop that mountain, one last time with eyes filled with unending sadness. Riven's lips moved with a whisper meant for no one. "What was it that made you so sad, Father?"
'No,' Riven thought, shaking his head. 'This is their dawn.'
He gazed at the girls, still lost in the scene that had long passed. Clapping his hands, he turned their attention to him. "Alright, girls, let's have a snack before heading home to get you ready for school."
"Ok." Both girls nodded, setting their bags on the ground. Inside their bags was an assortment of items that they may or may not need: water bottles, bandages, and plenty of snacks.
"Alright, girls, I'll be back. I just want to check something." Looking toward Lazaria, he gave her a nod, which she returned with one of her own.
Walking off to the side once he was sure his figure wasn't visible, he let out a sigh. "Sorry, girls. I'll tell you the truth someday."
In a heartbeat, he sprang into action, sending a flurry of leaves dancing into the air where he had just been. His figure was a blur of motion as he moved through the forest. Whether he was hopping and swinging between branches, flipping through the air, or running on the ground, he focused solely on the disturbance he felt.
"It's here." With a powerful push from the branch beneath him, Riven soared through the air, twisting gracefully before landing firmly on the ground, his feet striking the earth with determination.
'Where is it?' His eyes scanned the surroundings, not finding a trace of the disturbance he felt, but that shouldn't be possible; nothing on this planet could possibly hide from him… unless it wasn't.
"Hiss"
"Great." His brows furrowed tightly as he turned around. "It just had to be a snake."
Wrapped around a branch, a snake, obsidian in color, watched him. Its eyes, a familiar shade of violet, flickered with molten embers. As it unraveled and slithered down the tree, its full length came into view.
"Well, aren't you a big guy. Eighteen feet, pretty impressive." His voice dipped into a sinister growl, while his expression twisted into one of sheer revulsion. "But not impressive enough for what you've been given, Spillborn."
The snake hissed angrily, its body coiling slightly, ready to pounce.
"You're still a ravenous beast. It seems the only thing that ichor was good for was teaching you the derogatory terms of the Divine."
With a sudden burst of energy, the snake lunged forward, wisps of steam curling up from its glistening fangs as it prepared to strike.
Riven sighed, whether in disappointment or annoyance, it was hard to tell. "The blood of the strongest Paragon flows in your veins. An honor like no other. But…"
Like a glitch in reality, Riven's form skipped—there one moment, behind the serpent the next. "That's all it is."
"I'll be taking this back." his hands, veiled in faint crimson, held tightly a droplet purer than the purest of golds.
An audible thud sound behind him as the snake's body crumbled to the ground. "Now I have somewhere to be," he finished, disappearing from sight as the snake's body dissolved into the air.
And then he was back at the peak, just out of sight. Wiping the residual blood off his hands, he walked back over to the girls.
"Hey, girls," He shouted, waving. "Let's get you down the mountain before your mother calls to yell at me."
Packing up their belongings and erasing their presence at the top of the mountain, swiftly head back down. The girls needed to be ready to officially start school in two hours, and Riven, well, he needed to have a little visit to his Sister's lab.
***
The lab breathed in cold sterility—steel walls, humming consoles, the sting of chemicals. Scattered notes and half-finished mechanisms lay in deceptive order across the desk.
The faint scratch of a pencil followed by her sporadic mumbles echoed in the oppressive silence.
Riven materialized from the shadows, his voice slipping into the silence like a draft through a cracked door—calm, but charged with an unsettling weight. "Hey, Herta."
"Riven, didn't you say you wouldn't use your powers anymore?" She questioned, looking up from writing on her clipboard.
"Already had to use them earlier, so let's call it a cheat day." His tone darkened, the weight in his voice enough to press the air thin. "Now… tell me about our snake friend you had me kill."
With a soft hum escaping her lips, she meticulously jotted down notes on her clipboard. "So you killed it."
"You should've expected as much when you put such sacrilege in front of me."
"A pity"
"A pity, huh?" He mumbles softly, his head nodding slowly, as a faint shimmer of purple slithers across his hand. Suddenly, his palm strikes the desk with a sharp thud. "Don't give me that, Herta! Tell me whatcha been doing with my blood!!"
"Relax," With a deliberate motion, Herta places her clipboard onto the table, her gaze locking onto his with unwavering intensity. "It was just a small experiment."
"Small experiment? In what manner does this count as a small experiment! The blood of the Divine is not a toy for your twisted desires!"
"I'm telling you, Riven, relax. I only used a small bit from what you gave me, and I didn't use it on any humans, just animals, so it's—"
"How many?"
"Hmm," Herta's head cocked to the side.
An invisible pressure burst out of Riven as he shouted, "How many Damn spillborn did you create with my blood?!!"
She sighed. "Twelve. Only twelve."
"So eleven more of those things are running around with my blood. My Divinity!!!" He roared as the lights flickered from the pressure he was releasing.
"Correction," clicking a button on her remote, a projector lit up, showing a black wolf resting within a cage. "Ten of them, one remains here as the only successful subject. In my opinion."
"Heh, your opinion. What would a mortal truly know about the divine, but." He gazed at the wolf with a bit of interest; he was sure this wolf was more than a success. "I will let you keep this one. I think my niece would love it as a pet."
"No!" Herta firmly shakes her head. "I would much rather you kill it."
"Too bad, you should've thought about that when you used my blood. Don't worry if it's truly a success as you think it is…" he trails off, but his meaning couldn't be clearer.
"Riven, calm down, you wouldn't hurt your niece." Herta's voice took on a more urgent and pleading quality, filled with genuine concern.
"You're right, I wouldn't. But did you ever have that thought, that you wouldn't hurt your own nieces?"
Herta paused, her gaze frozen on his. "Riven, I…"
"No, I've heard enough." As if reaching through a window, his hand broke through the fabric of space and grasped hold of something before he pulled it back.
Opening his palm, golden liquid flowed through the air, twisting and turning with otherworldly grace before condensing into a golden marble. "I've removed all the divine blood from the samples I've given you."
"I…I understand."
"Next time we meet, I hope you have a proper explanation for putting those two in danger." He said, walking away, his figure vanishing in the darkness.
Herta exhaled, leaning back in her chair, hair falling into her face. "I'm sorry, Riven. I wish things were as simple as they seemed."
----
{Chapter 14 Preview}
Next time on Daily Life of the Strongest…
The first day of school should have been simple—new faces, new halls, and a chance for Aria and Nyra to just be themselves. But one slip of a teacher's tongue changes everything.
"Damocles… Aria Damocles. Nyra Damocles."
A silence sweeps the classroom, whispers following like shadows.
"So it's true… you're his daughters?"
Eyes heavy with expectation, envy, and doubt turn toward them. The weight of a name settles, and for the first time, the sisters realize this school year won't be theirs alone.
Next Chapter: "The Weight of the Name."