After a bout of impotent fury, Garling Saint barked out his order.
"Seize him!!!"
The roar was hoarse, stripped of any trace of elegance—nothing left but the madness of a beast.
"Remember! Don't kill him!!"
"I want him alive!!!"
Garling Saint slashed his hand downward.
A kill-on-sight command.
"Yes, Garling Saint!"
Behind him, the remaining members of the God's Knights—along with those ominous, humanoid demons—responded instantly.
BOOM!!!
Dozens of figures surged forward like a flood of black and white, converging from all directions on the lone figure at the center.
White—was the God's Knights' suits, symbols of so-called justice.
Black—was the sinister aura exuding from the humanoid demons.
Black and white intertwined, killing intent colliding.
They had only one objective:
Tear apart the criminal who dared blaspheme a god.
Lucian still stood where he was.
His hands remained in his pockets, his posture unchanged.
The fastest blade was already less than three meters from his face.
At last, he reacted.
He didn't dodge.
Didn't even raise a hand to block.
He simply let out an almost inaudible breath through his nose, filled with utter impatience—
"…So slow."
The voice was light.
Buzz.
A golden aura expanded outward from Lucian.
This wasn't the violent impact of Conqueror's Haki—it was more like a domain unfolding.
"Ugh!"
"Argh!"
The leading Knights and one humanoid demon froze mid-charge, their bodies locking up three meters from him.
The savage intent on their faces twisted instantly into extreme shock and agony.
Then a terrifying, irresistible force surged in from all directions and hurled them away.
Crack! Crack!
Their bodies were blasted backward at several times the speed they'd charged in.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
They smashed into the distant ground like rag dolls, twitched twice—and fell silent.
Instant kill.
The entire assault formation was brought to a dead halt.
Everyone was seized by a pressure that felt as though it would grind even the soul into dust.
The mindless humanoid demons let out deeply uneasy growls—they had instinctively sensed the presence of a natural predator.
Silence fell across the field.
"A bunch of ants."
Lucian spoke again, his tone utterly flat, merely stating a fact.
"Perfect. I'll use you to warm up."
The moment the words left his mouth—
The invisible domain around him began to sparkle with golden light.
At first, it was like scattered fireflies in the night.
Then, in the next instant, a wildfire.
"W-What… what is that light?!"
From the rear, Garling Saint—who had been watching the battlefield with a cold, predatory stare—felt his heart violently clench the instant he saw that glow.
A visceral, blood-deep sense of rejection surged through him—an instinctive loathing and repulsion, like venom flooding his veins.
It made him feel profoundly unwell.
As if that golden radiance were the natural enemy of beings like him—of "gods."
The light intensified.
Before everyone's stunned eyes, Lucian was completely enveloped by flowing golden flames.
His hair lifted in the glow, each strand burning like sunlight itself.
The pure white mask gleamed with an even more sacred, mysterious brilliance.
A presence—overbearing, majestic, holy, and utterly free—erupted from within him.
It stood in stark contrast to the cold, blood-soaked battlefield around him.
A god had descended upon the mortal world.
[Primordial Sun God Manifestation]!
The instant the transformation completed, Lucian vanished from where he stood.
No—he became a streak of golden light, too fast for the naked eye, charging head-on into the enemy ranks that were still frozen in disbelief.
Fast.
Unimaginably fast.
An elite Knight had just shaken off the crushing pressure and instinctively raised his famed blade.
Before he could even lift it halfway, his pupils shrank.
A flash of gold cut across his vision.
Crack!
The blade shattered on the spot.
Then an indescribably violent force slammed into his chest.
He felt no pain—his entire chest simply caved in as his organs were pulverized in an instant.
Like a baseball sent flying, he was launched backward in a spray of blood, crashing into the ranks behind him and snapping the bones of three or four comrades as they fell.
Elsewhere, a massive, muscle-bound humanoid demon roared in fury, its hardened claws ripping through the air as it swiped at the golden blur.
The light didn't even glance at it.
At the instant the claws were about to connect, the golden figure shifted at an impossible angle.
A casual back-elbow.
BOOM!!!
Lucian's elbow struck the demon square under the jaw.
The force detonated on impact.
The creature's head snapped backward at a grotesque angle, its neck releasing a sickening crack.
Its enormous body was flung away as if hit by a speeding train, crashing violently into the ground far off—never to move again.
Slaughter.
This was absolute, one-sided slaughter.
Lucian's movements were clean, with not a trace of excess.
No flashy techniques. No wasted motion.
Only the most basic punches, kicks, elbows, knees…
Yet every strike precisely targeted the weakest point in an opponent's defense, erasing each so-called elite with ruthless efficiency—sweeping them aside like trash.
Clearing out a swarm of ants foolish enough to stand in his way.
From the rear, Figarland Garling Saint could only watch.
He watched his most trusted subordinates.
He watched those inhuman demons.
Falling in droves before that golden figure.
In barely a dozen seconds, the expression on his face shifted again and again—
From overwhelming fury…
To stunned disbelief…
To incomprehensible confusion…
Until finally, all emotion collapsed into a glacial darkness.
A monster.
That man in the white mask was a monster through and through.
Sending subordinates to wear him down was nothing but a joke.
Even if they could revive—
They couldn't even delay him.
They were simply… wasting lives.
"Trash… all of you are trash…"
Garling Saint raged inwardly, though his outward demeanor grew eerily calm.
After the peak of fury came absolute cold.
He knew—he had to act personally.
And he had to seize the one possible opening and end it in a single strike.
His gaze locked onto the golden blur, his mind racing, analyzing every motion, every habit, hunting for even the smallest flaw.
At last.
An opening.
As Lucian unleashed a whip-like kick, obliterating the head of the final resisting humanoid demon like a bursting melon, his body experienced the faintest pause in mid-air—a momentary lapse after over-extension.
Now!!!
Blood-red light flared in Garling Saint's eyes.
"DIE!!!"
A roar torn from the depths of his soul.
His figure vanished from where he stood.
In the next instant, he appeared behind Lucian.
Fast.
His blade was already drawn, coated in pitch-black Armament Haki—along with an even darker, more ominous power that writhed along its edge.
"Divine Judgment: Final End!"
A feral, ecstatic grin twisted Garling Saint's face.
In his mind, he could already see it—the blasphemer cleaved apart, body and soul annihilated by his ultimate strike.
Die.
Die, you piece of trash!!!
The sword's edge was less than a centimeter from Lucian's back—
And yet.
At that razor-thin moment between life and death—
The golden figure, suspended mid-air and seemingly defenseless, the Lucian who had never once turned around—
Suddenly… tilted his head.
Through the pure white mask, a pair of eyes blazing with golden fire met his gaze—carrying a trace of amusement, a hint of mockery, and an unmistakable touch of pity.
As if saying:
You finally took the bait.