The Death Announcer in its mythical creature form was certainly terrifying, but standing beside Silas was a true angel.
Before its curse could fully take effect, Antia Trois stepped forward and lightly tapped the air before her with a finger.
"Shhk!"
Unseen, the underlying rules of the world shifted at once.
The curse that had once carried such overwhelming force had, by the time it reached Silas's ears, become soft and faint, gentle as a spring breeze.
"Ahahahahaha!"
The Death Announcer let out a wild burst of laughter, its twisted cackle laced with utter terror.
Its all-out strike, delivered in the form of a mythical creature, had been effortlessly blocked by the angel, and from its spiritual instincts down to its rational mind, it felt the most extreme dread.
"Splash!"
Beneath the waterline of this nearly hundred-meter sailing ship, a pair of enormous bat wings suddenly burst forth.
They beat violently against the air, and the ship rose on the wind, flying away from Silas and the Black King.
But Antia had no intention of letting it get away.
"Boom!"
An invisible force struck down upon the Death Announcer from above.
No sooner had it taken flight than it was slammed back down, crashing heavily onto the sea. After that, no matter how fiercely it struggled or beat its wings, it could not break free of the whirling currents beneath it.
"So, do you want to graze it?"
Antia turned back and asked Silas, a smile on her face.
Graze a Sequence 3?
He had to admit, Silas's heart skipped for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure.
"That's a tempting offer... but the Death Announcer isn't a creature with a soul. I can't graze it."
Grazing required a soul; even a marvelous item with a living characteristic could not be Grazed.
The angel only smiled faintly.
"Heh... are you underestimating me?"
she said. "All you need to do is tell me whether you want to graze it or not."
"If I can graze it, of course I want to."
Silas answered without a second thought.
Thinking about it, he couldn't help but feel that he seemed to have some kind of running feud with devils: many of the Lambs were devils, there was a devil inside Mr. A's soul as well, and now he was even about to graze a Sequence 3 devil...
"Then watch closely."
Antia flashed a brilliant smile, then turned back around.
The next instant, a spiritual pressure so heavy it was suffocating spread out from her. Some manner of overbearing, twisted, irresistible, incomprehensible rule rapidly took shape over the sea.
"Entropy increase."
Silas heard Antia murmur softly.
"Ahahahahahaha!"
The Death Announcer let out a shattering roar, its laughter carrying pitch black despair and the most extreme agony, and at the same moment its hull underwent a shocking transformation!
It was as if a pair of enormous, invisible hands had reached down from the sky, seized it, and viciously crushed and flattened it!
"Splurch!"
"Splurch!"
The Death Announcer's magnificent hull floated in midair, the entire ship like soft dough, endlessly folded, squeezed, and kneaded by some unruly child.
Wherever it was crushed, black red blood gushed out at once, and the pirates who had been aboard, along with the corpse of the King of Immortality, were mercilessly flattened and pressed deep into the hull.
Hull, flesh, blood, splintered wood... everything fused together in chaos, no longer distinguishable!
At the bow of the Black King, Antia gracefully worked her slender hands, forcibly blending everything together, throwing it into utter chaos at the level of spirituality and soul.
"Entropy decrease."
she said softly again.
Then the once chaotic mass fell back into order.
The jumbled souls and characteristics fused together on their own, and it once again took the shape of the great ship... except that every crew member aboard had vanished.
It was as if it had been crushed under immense pressure and then restored, its outward form the same as before, but its essence utterly transformed.
"This time, it has a soul."
Antia withdrew her hands, a trace of weariness on her exquisite face, and said to Silas with a smile, "I blended the pirates' souls together with its characteristic..."
Silas took a deep breath.
So this was the might of an angel...
That she could handle a Sequence 3 demigod was not hard for Silas to understand.
But that she could unleash a concept level ability, forcibly blurring the boundary between the living and the dead, was something almost beyond his imagination.
Truly terrifying!
Though inwardly astonished, Silas knew that the stronger this angel was, the better it was for him. So he quickly accepted the reality of it and flew over toward the ship instead.
"Ha, ha..."
The now souled Death Announcer let out broken, feeble laughter, as though its life were about to run dry, no longer capable of inflicting any real harm.
Riding the air currents, Silas released shadow the moment he landed on the deck, letting it spread and envelop the entire ship in his own darkness.
"Ahaha!"
The Death Announcer made one last struggle, but it was futile. It could only fall completely into ruin within Silas's shadow, losing all life.
Silas spread his palm open on the deck.
"graze!"
he shouted.
A bone chilling current of air swept through, forcibly drawing out the soul that had been fused into the Death Announcer.
Silas saw countless points of spiritual light streaming out in the cold wind, gathering together, and the soul that emerged was truly dreadful.
At first glance, its shape faintly resembled that of a ship, but on closer inspection, he realized that what made up the hull were countless illusory human bodies, forcibly twisted and warped...
This was chaos on the level of the soul itself.
For a ship of devilish nature, and the pirates aboard it who had committed every manner of evil, Silas naturally felt not the slightest sympathy.
He simply seized their souls by force, swallowed them into his body, and imprisoned them in the last slot within himself.
The Death Announcer, successfully Grazed!
Witnessed with their own eyes by every pirate attending the conference, the Blood Reverend had Grazed the King of Immortality.
"Long live the Captain!"
The sailors aboard the Doe erupted at once into excited cheers, celebrating their captain's latest victory.
"Splash..."
The materials that had made up the Death Announcer's hull immediately collapsed, as though, once Silas had drawn out its characteristic and soul, they had lost whatever force had held them together.
Silas hovered above the sea, and just as he was about to try out the power of the Blatherer, he heard a piercing shriek that echoed across the entire island.
The Divine Abomination, Suah!
The vast, black, oozing tree was still rampaging across the island. Having witnessed the King of Immortality downfall and realizing it now fought alone, it let out a furious roar!
Silas narrowed his eyes, watching.
Queen Mystic was being besieged by the angel and unable to break free; his own strategic objective had not yet been achieved.
After a moment's thought, he drew an item from within his coat. It looked like the head of a staff, carved with numerous mysterious runes.
A strange artifact that could borrow power from his past self!