Chapter 169: The Parted Sea

The Azure Sea was no longer an obstacle.

Elias stood at the prow of the golden flagship. He looked down at the dark, churning water with an expression of profound boredom.

The frantic reports from his surviving scouts about iron sea monsters deeply annoyed him. He did not want to waste time playing naval games with primitive submarines.

He was a Level 80 Otherworlder. He did not adapt to the world. He forced the world to adapt to him.

"Holy One," the ship’s captain whispered, bowing deeply.

"The sonar mages detect massive metallic signatures directly beneath our fleet."

"The sea is for beasts," Elias declared softly.

He raised his right hand. A colossal broadsword forged entirely of blinding, divine light materialized in his grasp.

The Level 80 conceptual weight of Divine Wrath flared around his body, violently pushing the natural clouds out of the sky.

Elias swung the blade down.

He did not cast a spell at the submarines. He aimed directly at the ocean itself.

A terrifying shockwave of absolute holy pressure slammed into the water. The sheer conceptual force cleaved the Azure Sea perfectly in half.

Two towering, impossible walls of water rose thousands of feet into the air, held back by an invisible barrier of golden magic.

The wet, rocky seabed was completely exposed, creating a massive, dry trench that stretched all the way to the distant horizon of the Monster Continent.

The Holy Empire fleet gently settled onto the mud.

Elias casually stepped over the wooden railing and floated down to the exposed seabed. He looked back at his army of fifty thousand Paladins.

"March," Elias commanded.

---

High on the cliffs of the Eastern Seaboard, the air smelled heavily of ozone and sulfur.

The Vanguard had spent the last twenty four hours turning the beautiful coastline into a graveyard of hidden explosives.

I stood near the edge of the cliff, my glowing red visor scanning the pristine white beaches far below us.

Nyssa stood beside a machine that defied all logical engineering.

It was a massive railgun forged from black iron and glowing blue Mana Steel. The barrel was eighty feet long and mounted on a rotating starmetal chassis.

Thick, pressurized steam pipes connected the base of the weapon directly to the exhaust vents of three different coastal foundries.

"The structural integrity is holding, Master," Nyssa grinned wildly. She pushed her thick glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"The kinetic friction alone would melt standard iron, but the Mana Steel actively absorbs the thermal backlash."

I stepped up to the massive brass firing lever.

"Let us see the yield," I rumbled.

I grabbed the heavy lever and forcefully slammed it forward.

The entire cliff violently shook. A deafening, apocalyptic crack echoed across the coast. The recoil was so massive that the heavy iron gears shrieked in protest.

A hyper pressurized slug of solid starmetal shattered the sound barrier instantly, leaving a glowing blue trail of ionized air in its wake.

The slug crossed ten miles of open water in a fraction of a second. It slammed directly into a small, rocky island on the horizon.

There was no explosion. The kinetic force was simply too absolute. The rocky island ceased to exist. It was instantly vaporized into a massive cloud of gray dust and shattered stone.

"Perfect," I nodded, crossing my massive arms over my chest plate.

Ramona stood beside me. She wore her luxurious black fur cloak over her stunning curves, but she was trembling. Her molten gold eyes were fixed on the distant horizon.

A faint, sickeningly bright yellow light was beginning to pierce through the natural fog of the ocean. It was the absolute aura of a Level 80 Lightbringer.

"That light," Ramona whispered, her elegant obsidian horns pulsing with terrifying heat.

"It is the exact same frequency. It is the magic that slaughtered my clan and buried me in the dark."

The ambient temperature around her skyrocketed. The intense sorrow and rage of an ancient Calamity leaked from her core.

The sand beneath her bare feet instantly melted, turning into smooth, glowing glass.

Thanks to my new Calamity’s Hearth buff, the apocalyptic heat did not even singe my tailored clothes.

It felt like a gentle, comforting breeze against my skin. I reached out and wrapped my heavy armored arm firmly around her waist, pulling her flush against my side.

"You are not in the dark anymore, Queen," I stated softly, letting the heavy weight of my Domination Aura completely envelop her.

"And that boy is not a god. He is just a trespasser on my beach."

Ramona looked up at me. The ancient trauma in her eyes was instantly replaced by a feral, jagged smile. She rested her hand over the massive brass plating of my chest.

"Let me melt his halo, Husband," Ramona purred, her reptilian tail swishing aggressively behind her.

"You will have your turn," I promised.

I looked back out over the edge of the cliff. The horizon violently shifted.

The natural blue water of the Azure Sea was suddenly bisected by two impossible, towering walls of churning ocean.

A blinding, golden path of dry land stretched directly from the deep water all the way to our heavily mined shores.

Tens of thousands of Paladins marched in perfect, terrifying unison along the exposed seabed. Their pristine white armor gleamed in the unnatural holy light.

At the front of the massive army, floating casually a few feet above the wet sand, was Elias. He looked incredibly bored.

He had completely bypassed our submarines and assumed the primitive monsters waiting on the cliffs were already terrified by his divine miracle.

He had absolutely no idea that Rolf and the Vanguard had buried thousands of tons of highly volatile Mana Steel directly beneath the sand he was about to step on.

I raised my right hand. The pure white and pink Flame of Life violently shifted back into the pitch black and molten gold Flame of Death. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

"Welcome to the Forge," I growled.