"After all," Antonio said, his grin stretching wide and unsettling across his pale face, "there’s nothing more valuable than the seed of soone strong."
His voice carried through the thick ocean water, laced with amusent and twisted fascination. The way he said it.. so casually, as if he was discussing sothing as simple as a trade deal made both Maria and Neptunia’s expressions freeze for a mont.
Then Maria let out a slow whistle, her lips curling into a smirk. "I think he likes you too," she said teasingly, her tone dripping with sarcasm as her gaze flicked toward Razeal. "Seems like this place really likes you, huh?"
Razeal turned his head slightly, his dark eyes narrowing sharply at her. That single look was enough to make her shrug and lift her hands half-heartedly in surrender. "Alright, alright," she muttered. "Just saying."
Without breaking his cold expression, Razeal’s gaze shifted back toward Antonio. His tone stayed level, almost bored. "What’s the other deal?"
Antonio blinked, tilting his head. "Yooo, yooo, boy!" He spread his arms wide, theatrically offended. "Why so hard on yourself? This was the easiest choice, you know!" He looked genuinely dismayed, though his grin never faded. "It’s just giving so sperm! What’s the big deal?"
His voice echoed through the water like an echo of mockery.
But when he noticed Razeal’s face remained completely emotionless eyes cold, posture unmoving.. the Sea Lord suddenly brightened as though he’d just realized sothing.
"Ohhh, I get it," Antonio said, snapping his fingers with exaggerated understanding. "You’re not shy, are you? Don’t worry, boy! I’m not the one who’d be, uh, extracting it from you."
He raised both hands innocently, the sa crooked grin on his face. "Believe , it’s only a hobby or an interest of mine..to collect sperm.. a little collection thing. I’m not into that sort of play myself. So don’t get wrong if you are saying no for that reason, I’m a connoisseur, not a participant."
He spoke with an almost codic seriousness that only made the situation more bizarre.
"Still," Antonio went on with a fake sigh, "a pity for you..And too, Well? Since girls don’t produce sperm, so even I can’t ever make myself a beautiful woman to help you out." His grin widened into sothing openly perverse. "So you’ll have to do it yourself."
He leaned forward, lowering his voice just slightly. "I can give you so space if that’s hard for you, of course. Or..." His eyes glead with a teasing glint as they flicked toward Maria and Neptunia. "...you could always ask for help from one of these two beautiful ladies beside you. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind helping soone as handso as you, hm?"
He said it with a mock-serious tone, as though his suggestion was perfectly reasonable.. a reasonable offer from a "great and cooperative" Sea Lord such as himself.
The words hung in the water for only a heartbeat before
"Kill him."
"Kill him."
Maria and Neptunia spoke at the exact sa ti, their voices flat and edged with rage.
The very next instant, both raised their weapons.. one glowing golden, one gleaming blue and fired simultaneously.
The two arrows cut through the dense sea like streaks of lightning, slicing through the water with frightening speed. They aid straight for Antonio’s grinning face ..twin projectiles of fury and pure insulted pride.
But before the arrows could reach him, two enormous orcas erged from the shadows of other sea creatures crowd.. apearing in front of Antonio. Their sleek, massive bodies shimred under the faint light filtering through the water. They were easily sixth-rank beasts, enormous enough to dwarf even the shark Antonio stood on.
The arrows struck their armored hides, one golden, one made entirely of water and both attacks simply stopped. The orcas didn’t even flinch. The water around them vibrated slightly, but their skin, dark and glossy, didn’t bear a single scratch.
Maria’s eyes widened slightly, while Neptunia’s jaw clenched.
Antonio sighed dramatically, resting one hand under his chin with exaggerated elegance. "How not so woman-like of you both," he said, his tone suddenly soft and mock disappointed. "So violent... can’t even take a good joke?"
He shrugged his shoulders in a deliberately flamboyant way, flipping his wrist casually as if brushing off dust. "Such a sha. I was only helping."
The orcas glided back obediently, returning to circle lazily around their master. The Sea Lord smiled at them briefly before turning his gaze back to Razeal and the others.
"Dry humor," Maria muttered darkly, eyes narrowing. She raised her bow again, a glint of determination in her expression.
This ti, she didn’t hold back.. her next arrow ford instantly, shimring blue light compressing into a sharp point. She loosed it without hesitation.
The mont the arrow left her bowstring, another massive orca appeared this one even larger, erging from Antonio’s left side in a flash. It absorbed the full force of her attack head-on, its body taking the blow like it was nothing more than a splash of water.
Antonio sighed again, louder this ti. "So mad at jokes, huh?" he said, shaking his head like a disappointed teacher. "Look, bro, I was trying to help you here.. on my best behavior, even! But these girls..."
He gestured lazily toward Maria and Neptunia, smiling like a child who’d been scolded unfairly. "Seems like they don’t really like you very much." He clicked his tongue dramatically. "Tsk, tsk."
Then his grin returned, playful and cutting. "And beware of this one," he added, pointing at Neptunia with mock caution. "The blue.. haired girl doesn’t seem to like you at all.. And rather she’s so violent that i wonder if she’ll kill you in sleep because of just this... Such a harsh rejection..."
He sighed theatrically again. "Tragic, really... And here i eas think soone as pretty as you would have better luck with won."
Maria’s eye twitched. The blood in her face flared.
Her hand froze mid-draw, bow still raised.
And then, as Antonio laughed.. an easy, carefree sound that only made it worse Maria’s lips pressed together tightly.
Her expression changed. The fury on her face softened into an exasperated, why kind of look. Slowly, she placed a hand over her face, dragging it down as if trying to physically wipe away the embarrassnt of being grouped into this circus of nonsense.
"Oh, for the love of.." she exhaled, lowering her bow.
She sighed almost..
Then, Maria turned her head slightly.. toward Razeal, who was standing just beside her.
His expression hadn’t changed at all.
No anger. No amusent. No irritation. Just that sa, utterly flat and emotionless look that sohow made it worse.. She tried to read if he was angry and might go berserk.. But again him face shows nothing..
Maria felt her mouth twitch slightly. She coughed once, awkwardly, trying to break the tension.
"Believe ," she said after a second, holding up one hand half-defensively, "I really didn’t an it that way."
Her tone carried the faintest nervous laugh as she added, "So, uh... don’t take it to heart. And definitely don’t kill for it."
Neptunia blinked at her, montarily distracted from her own rage.
Razeal though looked at Maria.
For a brief mont, their eyes locked.. his calm, unreadable gaze against her awkward, half-apologetic one. There was tension, unspoken words, but also the faintest glint of understanding. She exhaled quietly, shoulders lowering just slightly as if relieved.
"Whatever," Razeal said flatly. His tone carried no weight of irritation nor forgiveness .. just the sa expressionless face that doesn’t show anything
After saying that, he turned his head back toward Antonio.
The Sea Lord was still grinning, standing proudly atop his shark, chin lifted high as if this was all so performance ant to amuse him. Around them, the sea was unnervingly still. The creatures that had once filled the waters now drifted restlessly but didn’t move forward.. as though awaiting a command.
Razeal raised his sword slowly.
The motion was calm, deliberate. The weapon.. cracked and nearly spent glinted weakly in the dim blue light filtering through the depths. The faint lines of damage across the blade shimred like veins of dying energy.
Each crack pulsed faintly with his killing aura, struggling to hold itself together. The weapon’s lifespan had long been over, but it still kept on.. As if saving so dignity for maria..
"I wasn’t trying to make much sound before," he said quietly, the tone more like a confession than a threat. "Didn’t want to attract attention... or cause problems with Sea Lords."
His gaze sharpened, locking onto Antonio.
"But alas," he continued, tightening his grip around the hilt.. The killing aura started to bind around sword and his whole body very densigly as if preparing for sothing big, "it seems I don’t have a choice anymore."
The surrounding water began to shift just because of the killing aura..slowly at first, then faster. Tiny streams of bubbles spiraled upward, the pressure distorting slightly as if the ocean itself was responding to his intent.
Antonio’s grin faltered as feeling sothing weird.
The two orcas flanking him stirred, sensing the shift in energy. Their massive bodies moved defensively, drifting in front of their master, forming a living barrier between him and Razeal.
"Drifting Sea Slash," Razeal murmured.
His lips barely moved, but the weight of the words pressed through the water like thunder rolling beneath the waves.
Then, without warning.. he swung it down gently...As if gentlest thing in the words but
No one saw it.
Not even the afterimage.
The movent was too fast, too clean.. a flicker of motion that existed for less than a fraction of a heartbeat.
A mont of silence followed.. so brief it was almost nothing.
Then the sound hit.
A deep, echoing BOOOOOOM like the roar of a collapsing world tore through the ocean. The shockwave that followed shook the waters violently, making even the colossal sea creatures around flinch backward.
A piercing blue light erupted from the path of Razeal’s sword, cutting through the sea in a perfect, straight line.
And in that instant, the blade in his hand ..already fractured beyond repair disintegrated into cosmic dust. It crumbled away from the hilt, dissolving into glittering fragnts that shimred like stardust before fading completely into the water.
The remnants of his aura flowed forward, rging with the slash that had already been unleashed.
[ 1 Killing Point]
[ 1 Killing Point]
[ 1 Killing Point]
The attack.. that single swing had birthed sothing monstrous.
From the point of impact, a massive blue arc of water itself carved through the water, Pushing expanding and accelerating with terrifying speed. The very flow of the ocean bent around it. The force behind the strike carried the velocity of billions of joules compressed into a single motion, dragging along with it a fragnt of the ocean’s natural current ..the drifting sea flow.
In an instant, everything in front of Razeal ceased to exist.
There was no explosion of gore, no scattered blood.. just erasure.
For hundreds of ters ahead, everything within the slash’s width.. a clean, narrow corridor through the sea was completely vaporized. Creatures, coral, debris all of it vanished. Even the strongest of the monsters, those on the edges of the strike, were left half-severed, their bodies sheared apart so smoothly they didn’t even realize they were dead.
The water itself seed divided.. a shimring wall of emptiness standing where a horde of beasts had been seconds ago.
Behind him, Maria and Neptunia froze, both barely comprehending what they had just seen.
They hadn’t even registered the swing itself ..only the blinding flash of blue light that followed it. And when their eyes adjusted, the horde that had front of them... was gone.
Utterly gone.
Maria swallowed hard, the sound barely audible under the rumble still echoing through the ocean.
"He used that swing again..." she whispered under her breath, her voice almost lost to the current.
The scene before her felt like déjà vu.. too familiar. She rembered vividly that sa kind of attack, the one he’d used during the arena battle against Sylva.. when he’d split her colossal wooden construct in half with a single swing.
The mory sent chills crawling down her spine.
Though this ti... this attack felt different.
Weaker, perhaps. Less condensed. But still beyond comprehension.
Even if the energy behind it wasn’t as overwhelming as that day, the damage was still unrealistic for.. a boy her age able to do..
Maria’s lips trembled slightly as she exhaled. Her heart thudded once, hard.
How... she thought, staring at Razeal’s back. How can a man with no bloodline do sothing like this?
The jealousy that rose in her chest burned.. not from hatred, but from awe. She was a noble, born with lineage, training, and power. Yet the bot in front of her.. who by all rights should’ve been nothing special..Even when from childhood never having mana, aura or even able to use bloodline.. wielded strength that defied logic... Not to say now he literally doesn’t even have his bloodline.. Shouldn’t he get weaker after that?
Her fingers trembled on her bowstring.
Neptunia, standing beside her, was even worse off.
Her face had gone pale, her pupils shrinking as her brain tried to process what she had just witnessed.
"What..." she whispered, breathless. "What was that?"
Her voice cracked slightly, and she blinked rapidly, as if trying to make sure she was awake.
All she could see was devastation.
The horde that had once filled the sea was now gone. The creatures that had filled her vision seconds ago were reduced to fragnts, scattered across the ocean like dust.
And in the distance.. far, far ahead she could see a corridor of light cutting through the depths. A perfect path of emptiness.
No creatures. No coral. No stones. Not even the faint shimr of plankton remained in that line.
It was as if reality itself had been erased in that direction.
Neptunia’s lips parted slightly, a chill crawling down her spine.
"The ground..." she murmured faintly.
Even the seabed had been split open. A deep, long cut.. impossibly clean ran straight through it, stretching far beyond what the eye could see.
The water trembled faintly, struggling to fill the vacuum left behind by the force of the strike. The ocean current itself seed to hesitate, rushing back slowly as if afraid of the energy that lingered there.
Her thoughts raced wildly.
The strength behind that slash... it might be enough to reach the Second Sea’s border Right? she thought, a bead of cold sweat forming at her temple. Can it really be?
Culd it have actually cut into the Second Sea itself? Destroyed sothing there?
"It can’t be right...Hahh yes yes it cant be" Neptunia whispered, her voice trembling faintly as her wide eyes stared at the distant devastation. "It’s still kiloters away from us... it can’t possibly"
Her words trailed off. She was trying to convince herself that what she saw wasn’t real, that maybe her vision had played tricks on her. But the sea before them.. the corridor of utter emptiness stretching for miles was very, very real.
The sheer scale of destruction had left her speechless. She didn’t even know how to react.
The water still trembled faintly, rippling from the aftershock of Razeal’s strike. Small vibrations echoed through the ocean floor. Even the light filtering down from the surface shimred unevenly, as if the sea itself was afraid to settle again.
And at the center of it all mont, Razeal stood silently.
He hadn’t moved an inch since the swing. The hilt to whole sword of his has long gone, turning into nothingnwss.
Razeal stood just as how he was... The blood covering his whole body.. from there prospective.. As his face and to down.. As sothing had exploded one side of his body..
Is he alive?.. Neptunia genuinely wondered
But as the faint haze of water bubbles around him faded, sothing else caught both Maria’s and Neptunia’s attention.
His right arm.
Or rather... what was left of it.
The entire limb, from shoulder to fingertip, was gone. Completely obliterated by the recoil of his own attack. Only the dark black skeleton structure of his right arm remained attached to him.. pale bone outlined in faint shadows, sohow both eerie and unnatural on him.
Both there eyes widened at that..
Though, even with his arm missing, Razeal didn’t look surprised. He simply stared down at the limb or the skeletal remains of it ..and exhaled slowly.
"The sea is really helpful when using flow ability," he muttered softly, his voice oddly casual.. "Though honestly it coulve been better.. Maybe i need more practice of using flow within water.."
He raised the skeletal arm, flexing his remaining fingers as if testing it. The black bones clicked faintly as they moved, each motion unnervingly precise. Then, slowly, his muscles began to reform.
Veins crawled across the bone, flesh knitting together like silk weaving itself anew. Blood flowed through the freshly forming tissue, followed by muscle, sinew, and finally.. skin.
In just monts, his arm had completely regenerated. Brand new, smooth, and unmarred, as though nothing had ever happened.
Razeal flexed his fingers again, the faintest smile flickering across his face.
Maria and Neptunia stared.. both frozen, both equally speechless.
At first, they’d been shocked at his missing arm, of course. But the destruction he’d caused made it... understandable. That kind of power would have torn most n apart. Losing an arm in exchange for that level of devastation almost seed like an fair .. Or maybe unfare trade from his side rather.
They could accept that.
What they couldn’t accept.. what their minds refused to imdiately process.. was watching that arm grow back.
For Maria, it was a strange mix of awe and familiarity. She’d seen his regeneration before so she knew what he could do. So she was less shocked, even if the sight still made her speachless and full of awe..
But Neptunia...
Neptunia was completely floored.
Her mouth opened slightly, her eyes flicking between Razeal’s newly healed arm and his calm face. He can do that too...? Just how.. how is that even possible? Can all humans do that?
Neptunia’s thoughts spilled from her lips before she realized it. The words ca out in a rush, her voice trembling with genuine astonishnt. The scene before her was too overwhelming.. Razeal’s missing arm, his casual composure, and then that impossible regeneration. The sight defied everything she knew about her world view..
But as soon as she heard her own voice echo through the water, panic flashed across her face.
Her eyes widened slightly. Wait.. I didn’t just say that..?
In a hurried attempt to cover it up, she quickly added, her tone stumbling into forced curiosity, "I an... what kind of relica does he have?"
Her voice dropped lower and lower as she spoke, her last words almost a whisper. There was a faint, nervous laugh that followed the kind one uses when trying to undo a mistake that can’t be undone.
Instant realization hit her. She had slipped. She shouldn’t have said that.
Her eyes darted to Maria beside her, silently praying she hadn’t noticed.
Maria, thankfully, seed too focused on Razeal to think much about the strange phrasing of Neptunia’s words. The woman’s expression remained unchanged, her attention still fixed on Razeal’s regenerating arm.
Neptunia let out a soft, shaky sigh of relief. Okay... she didn’t notice, she thought, forcing her shoulders to relax. Good. Just stay calm. He probably didn’t hear it either...
But the mont she dared to think that, her breath hitched in her throat.
Because as she lifted her gaze again .. her eyes t Razeal’s.
He was looking directly at her.
Not casually or curiously. But silently.
Their gazes locked, the space between them heavy with unspoken tension. The ocean felt colder for that instant.
For don’t know what reason neptunia’s pulse quickened. Her fingers twitched slightly, but she forced herself to stay still. Outwardly, her expression remained composed.. a picture of calmness. But inside, her mind was sighing hard.
Did he hear that? He couldn’t have, right? The water Maybe muffled it... or he was just busy in his mont.. right?
She swallowed, keeping her breathing steady, refusing to show even a flicker of unease. But that unreadable, deep look in Razeal’s eyes made her chest tighten.
The silence between them was stretched.
But then, shattering that stillness
Antonio’s voice bood through the water, loud, wild, and manic.
"What was that?!"
His tone was feverish, full of uncontrolled excitent. "That level of blasting power! I didn’t even sense any relica being used... and was that purely physical then?" His laughter echoed, unstable and thrilled.
"Now I want your sperm even more..."
----
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