The silence on the shore exploded with the roar of beast and aura.
With the chaos of purpose.
From the dark shallows, the Galuga surged like a tidal beast uncoiling its limbs. Their forms tore across the waterline in synchronized bursts, claws flashing, tails slicing, crystal tips humming with pressure-bound Spiritual power.
Twenty-five of them.
All different, yet bound by one will.
The ground shook beneath Seraph's feet as they closed in. Their charge was bestial, driven by blood lust, a wave of snarls, war cries, and spiraling red spiritual energy that tore through the night.
Flesh-path Galuga led the front: the warriors, hunters, and assassins.
Behind them came the rest, casting spells with their tails, reinforcing strikes of the warrior, waiting to finish the kill.
This wasn't a mindless swarm.
It was a formation.
A martial tide.
Seraph inhaled once, smiled, then with slow and deliberate movement, his twin greatswords hummed faintly at his sides.
Grey aura coiled tighter around him, drawing close like smoke thickening before a storm. The moon above bathed his form in silver, simmering along the contours of his wings and shoulders, painting him like a statue carved of storm light and steel.
His eyes, glowing silver-blue, fixed on the front line.
He did not step back.
He stepped forward.
The moment his foot sank into the damp shore sand, time seemed to fracture.
There was no fear.
His heart beat like a war drum.
Alive And Awake. Like a Legend Told In The Story.
His sword gleamed with aura, his body ablaze with excitement and fighting intent.
And then, he charged.
With a flap of his wings, his speed surged, and he met the front line like a bolt of divine steel.
The first Galuga barely raised its claws before Seraph's blade sheared through its neck.
With no pause nor mercy.
The head fell and the body followed.
Ignoring the decapitated friend, another Deep Warrior lunged, claws raised, its tail whipping to strike.
Seraph moved with brutal elegance, ducking low, dragging his blade upward in a sweeping arc that cleaved the creature from navel to neck.
Before the corpse hit the ground, his second sword spun into a reverse grip and met another foe mid-leap, catching the Galuga through the chest and driving him into the earth with a crunch.
Steel laden with Aura met flesh.
Ribs cracked.
The beast was driven into the earth with a wet crunch.
Still in the midst of the sequence.
Another attacker, a Sea Blessed, sent a spiraling jet of deadly condensed water spear toward him.
Seraph twisted, using the corpse of the last Galuga as a shield. The impact blasted both body and sand into a steaming burst. Yet, before the mist cleared, Seraph was already moving, diving through the gap with both swords drawn wide.
His aura flared in sync with his steps.
He carved through the mist like a thought given shape.
Two more fell.
One had been cloaking himself, a Sea Assassin, whose stealth shattered the moment Seraph's [Extraordinary Senses] locked on.
A single glance. A single step. One sword buried deep in its throat.
The other, a Deep Hunter, rushed from the side, arms wide open, aiming to tackle him and sink fangs into his neck.
Seraph had to release the sword and caught the beast's jaw with one hand, then aura-wrapped fingers crushing its cartilage and bone. Then used the beast's momentum to slam it sideways into another charging warrior.
Sand flew and blood splashed.
And still, they came.
More than twenty Galuga were rushing him, each unique, each honed by multiple classes, and each are a predator in its own right.
But Seraph, he stood at the eye of it all.
Excited, as his heart pounds and drives more power to all parts of his body.
Grounded, feeling the aura and spiritual power wrapping himself.
He was a single force pushing back the tide.
His aura set ablaze like fire, it weighed like gravity well pulling the world around him into alignment.
The ground around him cracked and trembled beneath each deliberate step.
They circled. They struck. They adapted.
So did he.
And the storm had only begun.
Then, the air changed.
Like the sea had exhaled.
The battlefield froze, just for a heartbeat.
Seraph's blades halted mid-motion, his breath catching in his chest as a pressure descended, not from spell or weapon, but something deeper.
He turned his gaze toward the still figure at the edge of the tide.
The Warlord had not moved.
But its eyes were open.
And its Battle Intent Surged.
Something unseen lashed out.
It wasn't magic in the way Seraph knew it. It was presence, a psychic tide surging into his mind like a riptide from the deep. With no chants and no cast time. Just intent, pure and ancient, honed through eons of obedience and command.
A Mental Attack.
The weight of a being obeyed by the sea itself.
The battlefield trembled.
Seraph staggered.
His blades faltered, not from pain, but confusion. For an instant, the world twisted. Sand became water. Shoreline became void. He was sinking again, not physically, but spiritually. Like a memory from a time that wasn't his.
The Mystic Sea opened beneath his thoughts.
He saw a throne of coral and blood, vast and endless, rising from a trench so deep the sun had never touched it. He felt chains, not on his body, but on his soul, dragging him down, whispering in the voice of a forgotten king.
"Drown, heir of despair…"
The Warlord's Will crashed into his mind again. Images, commands, history not his own, trying to overwrite him with the belief that he belonged to the sea.
That's all things he did.
That he was an intruder standing before the tide.
His knees buckled.
And with a low roar of command from two war general, the Galuga struck.
Eight of them, coordinated with precise attack. Warriors moved to flank him. Hunters leapt to bind. Magicians surged spells through overlapping lines of attack. Two assassins shimmered behind him, their tails crackling with cursed crystal.
He tried to raise a sword.
Too slow.
One tail cracked against his side and his ribs cracked.
A claw raked his shoulder, then his wing snapped backward, the pain blooming like lightning through his spine.
Another tail caught his leg, tearing his flesh, dragging him half-spun into the sand. An open mouth lunged for his throat, he caught it with his palm but the strength behind it was monstrous.
He could barely breathe.
He was no longer at the center.
He was prey.
The Warlord didn't need to give commands.
Its attention was enough.
And under that gaze, the Galuga fought like a single creature, cold, calculating, merciless.
Seraph's mind rang like a bell under pressure. His soul shuddered, resisting that drowning pull.
'No…. Not again!'
He bit his tongue, drew blood, and forced himself to move.
A twist of the waist. A shift of footing. A blade dragged up in raw desperation, slicing through one assassin's chest and forcing a gap.
Breath returned to him in a gasp.
He staggered back, one knee dipped in the wet sand, blood trailing down his side.
His aura pulsed, flickering like a flame caught in windstorms.
He looked up, eyes locked once more with the Warlord's.
'You want to drown me?'
Then you'll have to drag me beneath the waves yourself.
The Warlord noticed his defiance.
Then with a big roar that echoed through the battlefield, The Warlord moved.
Its muscles shifted like tectonic plates beneath its scales, slow, terrible, but felt inevitable. It stepped forward, and the very sea behind it receded as if unwilling to touch its back.
The Galuga army fell into formation.
And Seraph, still bloodied, still reeling from the sudden mental attack, braced himself for the storm.
The Warlord lunged.
Its three tails struck with terrifying precision, two lashing to trap, one aiming to pierce. Seraph blocked one, evaded another, but the third slammed into his chest like a falling meteor. He was hurled across the sand, breath ripped from his lungs, the shoreline cracking from the impact.
Before he could stand, the Warlord was already upon him.
A claw tore down. Seraph raised a blade to parry, barely, but the force sent him skidding back. A second swipe followed, then a tail sweep, he was struck again, rolled across the beach like driftwood.
Every hit was precise and measured.
The Warlord wasn't enraged.
It was dissecting his movement.
And the Galuga mages began their work, launching barrage after barrage of elemental pressure. Spiraling water, freezing bursts, vibrating air blades, each crashing against Seraph's battered form with relentless rhythm.
He gritted his teeth, barely able to move, let alone counter.
'The water are annoying,' He thought with irk.
But he kept breathing.
Keep channeling his aura.
From somewhere deep inside, his Aura churned, stubborn and raw, but also desperate. He wasn't letting it fade. Not now.
Level 2 Aura Control: Condensation.
Just like the name implied, Aura had to be condensed, not merely expanded like a flood or fire, but focused like a blade, compressed into form, weight, and presence.
His Aura began to condense violently, surging tighter around him like a second skin.
Then, he grabbed one of his greatswords.
His fingers wrapped tight around the hilt.
Aura flowed into it, too fast and too much.
The sword cracked.
Lines split along the metal as his Aura overloaded it.
But Seraph didn't care.
He roared and swung.
The blade screamed through the air, crashing into the Warlord with everything his condensed Aura could deliver.
It struck true.
Steel split scale. And the flesh tore.
A massive gouge opened across the Warlord's chest, leaking thick black blood that hissed against the sand.
The beast staggered back, the first time it had done so.
And for a heartbeat, the battlefield paused again.
The other Galuga faltered. Their instincts felt it, something had shifted in the air.
Seraph stared at the ruined blade in his hand, left with a handle, smoking, and the edge shattered.
Then he dropped it.
The broken sword landed in the sand with a soft thud.
He spread his wings, and rose.
The wind curled around him as he took to the sky. His body still screamed from impact. His ribs ached. One wing faltered slightly from earlier damage. But above the battlefield, he could breathe.
That was at least what he was thinking.
Up here, something felt right.
Mobility returned to him like a long-lost sense. He could feel the air around him yield to his movements. Wings weren't just for show.
But then,
The Warlord looked up.
And the mental attack struck again.
This time, it didn't drown him.
It mocked him.
The world turned dark again, and in the hollow of his mind, he saw the Winged Lord, draped in feathers of arrogance, smiling with condescension.
"This is what you call power? You're nothing but a shadow wearing borrowed wings."
The voice slithered around him, not quite loud, not quite soft, just there. Always there.
"You act like you've overcome me, yet here you are. Weak. Alone. And Pathetic."
Seraph clutched his head.
The pressure built. His anger twisted with pain. He couldn't tell what was real, the battlefield, the Warlord, or the echo of the Myth within him.
Then, the mages struck again.
A barrage of elemental magic surged into the sky, dozens of spells converging. Water bullets. Pressure waves. Ice lances. Runes screamed as magic carved into the heavens.
And the Warlord opened its mouth.
From deep within its throat, Aura surged. Condensed and Vibrating with power.
A breath attack.
Not flame. Not water.
But a Condensed Aura.
It fired, a spiraling beam of raw spiritual destruction. A spear made of pressure and memory and violence.
Aimed to the sky.
Hitting Seraph square in the chest.
And the explosion bloomed like a falling star.
In a crater of light.
The sky cracked open.
At the center of it all, Seraph was flown away by the attack.
Fallen to the sand below.
His wings were torn. His body ragged. His Aura shroud shattered. Blood leaked from his nose, mouth, and ears.
His head felt split into three.
One screamed in pain.
One boiled in anger.
One simmered in contempt.
In that void of thought, amidst the swirl of aura and agony…
He heard a whisper.
"...Pathetic."
It wasn't loud.
It wasn't clear.
But it cut deeper than the spells ever could.
And as the world burned around him, Seraph's fury changed.
His anger twisted into wrath.
Dark. Cold. And Insane.
His Aura, still pumping, still gathering, had not stopped.
And it was the only reason he hadn't died.
Even as the smoke curled and the world spun, something inside him refused to fall.
His body was battered.
But his wrath had only just begun.
…
Roar!
A guttural roar tore from Seraph's throat, low, ragged, and definitely not human.
The Galuga did not flinch.
But the sea…
The sea fell silent.
As if the tides themselves recoiled.
His battered body shimmered faintly, no longer just grey or silver, but golden. Radiant and Divine. Mystic energy, a force far beyond normal system-bound power, bled from his pores in rippling threads, coating his limbs like warpaint.
He activated it.
[Mystic: 5 / 9]
One point. Out of only five.
[Mystic: 4 / 9]
His most precious reserve. His last resort.
It regenerated slower than he thought, but this time, it was his only answer.
The moment it surged, his head screamed, pain blooming behind his skull like fractured lightning. Voices echoed within. Not a mere whisper, But Cries, Screeches and Accusations.
And beneath it all, the wrath rose.
All that rage. All that fury.
But he felt something… something ancient. Something wrong…
He didn't know where it came from.
But it clawed its way up from the bottom of his soul, cold and merciless, like a truth he had buried too long.
it hurts.
How dare they.
These things. Those creatures.
Lowly… vermin… trying to kill me?
Voices rang in his mind, some his, some not. Twisting. Layered upon his will.
"Kill them!"
"Burn!"
"Rip them apart!"
He clutched his head, staggering, one hand trembling.
He couldn't tell which voice belonged to him anymore.
His sanity began to slip, his focus warping under the pressure of wrath and mystic energy both.
But somehow…
He still knew what he had to do.
With a final breath, Seraph closed one eye, the right one, still human, still blue eye of William.
But the left eye… opened wide.
Fully Silver and piercing.
But no longer round. No longer gentle and human.
The iris had changed, narrowed, become reptilian, bestial eye.
A vertical slit now cut through the silver eye, reflecting no ocean, nor moon.
Only hunger.
He blinked once, and for a moment, his vision warped, edges of the world bent, and the shapes of the Galuga flickered like prey outlined in glowing heat.
The Mystic inside him roared, not as power, but more as an instinct.
It surged through his veins like wildfire, divine, yes, but untamed like a wild beast. Primal Power.
He tried to hold onto something.
A name.
A reason.
Or… A thought.
But the voices were louder now.
"Tear them apart!"
"Break their spine!"
"Let them drown in their own blood!!"
He couldn't tell if they were echoes from the Warlord…
…or from something deeper inside himself.
His breathing grew heavier.
His movements are more erratic.
Where once his steps were calculated and his swings deliberate, now they were twitching bursts of violence.
The aura in his hand warped to claws and it moved before he thought.
His wings lashed without command.
He wasn't fighting anymore.
He was hunting.
The more he moved, the more the world bled in color, replaced with reds, blacks, and golds.
Enemy positions.
Aura trails.
Weak points.
And more…
Spiritual power.
Life energy.
Different things have different colors.
His world had changed, become color-coded and emotionlessly cold
His lips curled, into a smile, into something more feral.
Another mage tried to cast, but Seraph didn't wait.
He was on them in a blink, tearing the caster apart with one claw swipe, spine cracked and thrown aside like trash.
He didn't speak anymore.
He couldn't.
His voice was drowned beneath the wrath building in his chest, wrath that wasn't just his own.
This world...
This cursed sea...
This fate...
It had all mocked him.
Even the sky seemed to burn as he soared again, wings ragged, one eye shining like a silver moon, while the other shut tight, as if by doing so, he could keep some small part of himself alive a little longer.
But even that was slipping.
He couldn't remember how many monsters he'd killed.
Couldn't remember how many wounds he had.
He barely remembered what his own voice sounded like anymore.
He knew only this:
The Warlord.
It had to die…
…
The golden light around Seraph deepened, from a shimmer to a blazing mantle.
Another Mystic point spent.
His body screamed in protest, his skin cracking in places from the overwhelming surge of power. Yet still, his wings beat with force, dragging him higher, faster, more violently into the storm.
The Warlord did not move to the front, but it slowly slid to the sea.
It simply watched his army getting massacred.
Silent and cold.
Its wounds still leaked dark fluid, but its expression remained calm, not because it underestimated Seraph.
But because it understood him.
That golden energy… this Myth made flesh, was dangerous.
Too dangerous to engage directly.
So the Warlord let its army bleed.
Let its Generals step forward.
Twin roars shattered the battlefield.
The two War Generals moved in tandem, rising from the tide like monsters carved from coral and bone. Each one carried the same three tails, the same deadly elegance, but sharper, faster, more practiced.
They didn't need to speak.
Their movements were a language. And their coordination was flawless.
One dashed low, claws sweeping across the sand like a blade. The other spiraled upward, tail unfurled, matching Seraph's height in seconds.
Seraph's instincts flared. His eyes narrowed.
And he met them both.
Their clash shook the sky. Steel-like claws met mystic-empowered aura, and sand blasted in all directions. The sound of impact was like thunder striking a stone, again and again.
And as he fought the Generals, the Warlord attacked again.
Not physically.
But mentally.
A fresh wave of spiritual pressure surged forward, sharp and cruel, slicing into Seraph's thoughts like obsidian.
But this time… it just bounced.
The golden barrier of Mystic energy shimmered like a divine veil across Seraph's mind.
No more drowning.
No more echoes of the Winged Lord.
No more whispered contempt.
The voice didn't reach him.
The Warlord's eyes narrowed.
It understood now: unless Seraph could be weakened, drained of this golden light, its mental dominion meant nothing.
So it gave the silent command, its entire army surged forward again, this time with greater desperation, coordination, and sacrifice.
The warlord blesses them all with power.
Red aura surged with their bodies.
Galuga leapt from the water, from the trees, from the dunes, fearless, trying to pin Seraph down.
But he was too fast.
Too wild.
His body blurred across the battlefield, every movement erratic, brutal, barely human. He struck with claws, slammed his wings, spun mid-air to dodge, then dive bombed straight through another casting line.
The Warlord charged its throat again, the Aura Cannon forming once more. But the Warlord never shot.
Seraph moved too much.
Never still.
Never predictable.
And no Galuga could hold him in place long enough.
His wrath was untethered.
He became less a warrior, more like a mad beast given form, burning in gold and screaming fury, clawing through bodies, leaping over spellfire. Even bleeding from dozens of wounds and still not caring.
Then…
Seraph heard it.
Soft but distant.
A whisper across the tide and wind.
"Oh Seraph of End… We offer our voice… Strike them down…"
His steps paused.
Just for a heartbeat.
The world was not tainted in red.
But it quickly changed again.
Still the voice… The prayer… Continued.
It didn't sound like the Warlord.
It didn't sound like the System.
It was coming from far away, from distant shores, a voice carried by belief.
The cult.
Zealot Mackerel's followers.
They were praying.
To him.
Not to the Winged Lord.
Not to other beings.
But Seraph, The Seraphim of End.
The golden Mystic energy flared again, brighter this time. Also wilder.
But within that surge, something anchored.
Not much of clarity.
Not that of peace.
But focus.
He was still insane. Still snarling like a beast. Still swimming in power. And his world still tainted in colors.
But now, he knew who he was.
Not a puppet.
Not an echo.
But A Divine of End.
And these beasts had dared mock him.
He Will End Them All…
Then came the deranged laughter.
Sounded like a ragged beast roar. Raw and very wrong. Inhuman even.
It tore from his throat like a madness given form.
"Hahahaha-... HAAHAHA!!!"