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.
The Olympians descended: Zeus, Apollo, Athena—gods of old reborn into the crumbling world. With them came hope... and ruin. The gods fought the monstrous tide, but the Nailes drained them, threatened them, broke them. So they left, entrusting the world to their offspring: the Demigods.
The blood of Olympus ran deep in some. In others, faint. Nobility was measured by the clarity of that divine essence. But not all nobleborn awakened. The rare few who failed to do so... became known as Plebians.
They were the scorned ones. The broken lineage. The noble-born without power.
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.