Rokk's eyes remained wide for a brief moment. A human had just crushed a void empowered chieftain with a single strike. No prolonged clash. No visible strain. One blow.
Then his expression hardened. The human was not ordinary. He radiated controlled power. And he spoke Orcish without accent.
Around the clearing, thousands of warriors drew their weapons. Steel scraped free. Shields lifted. A low growl rolled through the camp like distant thunder. Rage mixed with shock.
But Rokk did not let emotion rule him. He measured the situation.
One human stood calmly in the crater he had created. The other commanded a colossal undead construct that towered over the camp like a siege god. The skeleton's green flames burned steady, patient, unafraid.
These two were not ordinary. They were monsters of a different scale.
Even with thousands of orcs present, even with rage burning hot in their chests, victory would not come today. Not with only one chieftain standing. Not against opponents who felt equal to Thavuk.
Rokk lifted his axe high. "Lower your weapons!" he roared.
His voice cut through the noise.
The warriors hesitated. Then, one by one, axes lowered and shields dipped. The growling faded into tense silence.
Rokk turned his gaze toward the man standing atop the giant skeleton. The human watched calmly, hands folded behind his back. Then he looked back at the one before him, the one who had killed Forcar.
He pointed the edge of his axe toward the human. Then he gestured toward the heart of the camp.
"Let's talk."
Bernal, the human smiled. he inclined his head slightly, as if accepting a formal invitation rather than standing in the middle of a battlefield. Without fear or hesitation, he stepped forward.
Rokk turned and walked toward his command tent. The circle of orc warriors parted to create a path. Every eye followed the human as he entered the camp's center.
Behind them, the massive skeleton remained standing, silent and watchful with the other human standing on its head.
…
Leo and Elna stood side by side at the railing as the ship pitched and yawed over the restless sea. Waves struck the hull in steady rhythm, spraying salt into the air. The wind pulled at their clothes and carried the scent of brine across the deck.
The past few days had brought clear progress.
Elna no longer struggled the way she had after awakening her new power. At first, combining it with her older illusion and shadow techniques had strained her control. The energies clashed inside her, resisting coordination. Now her movements flowed with far less hesitation. She could shift from illusion to shadow reinforcement without losing stability. The power still demanded focus, but it was no longer out of her control.
She was adapting.
Leo, meanwhile, had spent most of his time searching for a solution to his own problem.
He had reviewed every spell he could think of in the Codex Arcanum. None of them offered a clean answer.
Corruption occurred when the soul expanded in a direction it was not prepared to sustain. The structure fractured under pressure. Once the fracture began, the rule responsible for the distortion did not remain passive. It pulled.
In his case, the shadow path tugged at him constantly.
He felt it even now, an undercurrent beneath his thoughts, subtle but persistent. It wanted alignment. It wanted dominance. To remain balanced, Leo had to actively resist. He had to anchor himself to his other paths and maintain internal structure through force of will and his own rules in his domain.
That required energy. And energy ran out.
When the next large scale battle came, when his reserves dropped too low, the restraint would weaken. If that happened, the shadow rule would drag him fully into itself. He would not simply lose control. He would transform.
The conclusion remained the same. His only viable path forward was expansion.
If his domain grew, his soul would gain the capacity to stabilize the additional rule instead of resisting it. Acceptance rather than suppression. Integration instead of constant opposition.
And the only method capable of that scale of controlled expansion lay within the circle of magic above his throne room, the structure designed to channel and harmonize multiple paths at once.
It was the only mechanism that had ever allowed him to wield more than three paths without losing himself.
Without it, the end was only a matter of time.
A few days earlier, Leo had modified the Red Rose.
He had constructed two large engine like fans along both sides of the hull. Each consisted of layered blades formed from reinforced mana structures, anchored to rotating cores. When activated, they pushed compressed air backward in powerful bursts, driving the ship forward at unnatural speed.
The system consumed his mana steadily, but the improvement justified the cost. The ship now cut through waves instead of struggling against them. What once required careful navigation and patience now passed in long, fast stretches of open water.
Even so, the journey felt slow to him.
It had taken little time to reach the Kingdom of Magic. Reaching Alad had required effort but remained within predictable limits. This was different.
They had sailed for weeks.
And he still did not know how long it would take to reach Zahhak in the underworld once they found a way in.
After several more hours, Selina approached them from the stern. Her boots sounded lightly against the deck as she stopped beside them.
"We've already passed the location where we defeated Osara," she said. "But the ocean stretches too wide. There's no clear sign of where the serpent rests beneath all this water."
Her gaze swept across the horizon. Nothing broke the surface.
Leo smiled slightly. "Don't worry," he said. "I have a way."
From Leo's outstretched hand, a vast sphere of mana expanded outward, distorting the air for a brief moment before spreading invisibly across the ocean as he slowly closed his eyes and allowed his senses to travel with it. He did not need the exact location of Leviathan, because a creature of that magnitude could never truly hide; the sheer density of mana surrounding her would betray her position long before he reached the limits of his perception, so he carefully controlled the expansion of the sphere to avoid draining himself unnecessarily.
For nearly an hour he stood there without moving, the wind tugging at his clothes while the crew kept their distance, until at last he opened his eyes and spoke in a calm voice.
"We're here."
With a simple gesture, the engine like fans he had created on both sides of the Red Rose dissolved into fading particles of mana, and without their force the ship slowed and came to an unnatural stillness, causing several sailors to stumble slightly at the sudden stop. Selina, who had been inside her cabin, felt the change immediately and stepped back onto the deck before walking straight toward him.
"You found it?"
Leo smiled faintly. "I found her."
Selina glanced at the endless ocean in front of them, where nothing seemed different from any other part of the sea. "And how exactly are you going to reach… her?"
In response, Leo raised his hand again, and the air began to vibrate as his mana surged outward in a powerful release; then the ocean directly ahead of the ship froze in an instant, the transformation spreading rapidly across the surface until a massive expanse of water had turned into solid ice. The sailors stared in disbelief, and even Miriam could not hide her shock at how effortlessly he commanded such overwhelming force.
A few seconds later, a deep crack split the frozen sea, and the enormous sheet of ice began to part down the middle, creating a vast valley with steep walls on either side while a wide staircase formed at its center and descended into the darkness below.
Leo raised his hand toward Elna with a small smile. "Let's go."
Elna placed her hand in his without hesitation.
He then looked at Selina and said calmly, "We will be back."
With that, space folded around them, and in the next instant they both vanished, leaving behind a silent ship and a crew staring into the frozen abyss.
…
Leo did not teleport them all the way to the bottom; instead, he shifted space only enough to bring them to the middle of the frozen staircase, knowing it would be foolish to appear directly before a creature far more powerful than himself, especially when he did not know how she would react. He also chose to conserve his mana, since wasting too much on a long distance teleport could leave him vulnerable later.
From there, they continued on foot.
They walked slowly down the wide stairs carved between towering frozen walls, their steps echoing faintly in the cold silence as the air grew heavier with each level they descended. The deeper they went, the more noticeable the pressure became, subtle but constant, like standing too close to something vast and ancient.
After hours of descending, the narrow path finally opened into a much larger chamber.
Leo stopped as they stepped inside, he had created it himself when he was creating all this ice.
In front of them stood a massive wall of ice, thicker and more transparent than the others, and behind it rested the enormous head of the Leviathan.
Even through the frozen barrier, her shape was unmistakable. Her skull was long and armored with ridges and backward sweeping spines, faint lines of dim light tracing along them beneath the ice. The surface was cracked in places where her massive form pressed close.
Her mouth was mostly closed, yet several rows of long, curved teeth were still visible, and with each slow breath a thin layer of frost formed against the inner side of the ice before slowly fading.
Leo and Elna kept their eyes on the immense shape behind the ice, and after a long, heavy moment, her eyes opened.
They glowed with a cold and ancient awareness, steady and unblinking, their light spreading through the frozen wall and making it more translucent around her face, revealing only a fraction of her true size. When she shifted her head slightly, the ice answered with a deep creak, thin cracks forming where her presence pressed closest.
Leo bowed his head respectfully. Elna followed.
"Hail, the Serpent and Protector of the Sea," Leo said.
Leviathan moved a little closer, her vast form casting a deeper shadow across them.
"Who," she spoke, her voice calm yet resonant like distant thunder beneath the ocean, "dares to break the slumber of the Ancient Deep?"
"We have come to ask for your aid in the war that approaches," Leo replied.
Her luminous gaze remained fixed on him.
"Why," she asked, each word measured and heavy, "should the Guardian of the sea concern herself with the struggles of mortals?"
"Because it is your duty to protect this world," Leo answered without lowering his eyes.
A low sound rumbled from her throat, not quite anger, not quite amusement.
"You speak to me of duty," she said, the ice trembling faintly with her voice. "I have guarded these waters since before your kind built its first stone walls. I have endured battles you cannot comprehend."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Why should I trust you?"
"Because while you rested, I destroyed a corrupted fragment of Bahamut that was ravaging your sea," Leo said calmly.
The glow in her eyes brightened.
"I entered slumber not from neglect," she declared, her voice deepening, "but to recover from battle against the God of Magic, fought so that your fragile world might endure."
Leo sighed softly, and the air around him began to vibrate as his mana spread outward. At his will, the ice before her shifted and parted, sliding away until nothing stood between them.
He stepped forward calmly, meeting her ancient gaze.
"And now the war has begun again, and unlike before, I, the Creator, am here to end this once and for all," Leo said with ethereal voice, stepping forward until he was only a few meters from her massive jaw.
Leviathan opened her mouth, letting out a deep, resonant howl that shook the ice and reverberated through the chamber, yet Leo remained perfectly steady. Before doing anything further, her eyes fixed sharply on his right hand.
"You bear the mark of Alad," she said, her voice heavy with ancient weight.
"I do," Leo replied.
Leviathan tilted her head back and closed her eyes, remaining still for several seconds before opening them once more.
"If Alad accepted you, then so will I. Raise your hand."
Leo smiled and obeyed. White mist curled from her nostrils and mouth, drifting toward him until it wrapped around his raised hand, warm and alive. Leaving her mark besides Alad's with a bearable pain.
"When the time comes, you may call to me," she said.
Leo bowed deeply. "Thank you."
"From what I see, your next destination lies within the underworld. Be careful, Zahhak will not easily accept you," she added, resting her massive head upon the mountain of ice beneath her.
"I will keep that in mind," Leo replied, turning and beginning to walk away.
Leviathan closed her eyes, but her voice echoed within his mind alone, clear and intimate.
"I can see the root of corruption within you, yet it is not too late. Zahhak is the only one who may be able to help, but be wary, he is wicked."
A faint smile spread across Leo's face. Finally, a solution.