Clang!
The sound of shattering metal thundered like a lightning strike at the heart of the battlefield. The greatsword, a long companion that had weathered countless impacts, a blade that had fought through battles together since the first major conflict. finally surrendered to fate. It snapped in two like a dry twig caught in a gale.
The blade of a Red Cross Knight descended without mercy.
It tore through the dented, crumbling armor and ripped open an old wound at Knight's side. A gout of crimson spray painted the air. Agony, sharp and absolute, lanced into his brain until his vision detonated into a blinding white void.
Knight's body slammed backward. His spine hit the massive timber doors of the cathedral with a sickening thud. The wood splintered in the shape of a handprint; the stone saints carved above the lintel shuddered, their chiseled eyes looking down upon the dying man with cold indifference.
[Soul Fusion: 99%]
The golden numbers hovered there, mocking him with a perfection that lacked one final spark. It was as if the universe were jeering at the dying man: So close, yet too late.
Knight slumped to his knees. One hand clutched the gash in his abdomen that had nearly disemboweled him. Warm blood pulsed through his fingers, unstoppable. His breath came in shallow, broken hitches; every lungful felt as if his chest were being twisted apart. His eyelids grew heavy, as if burdened by the weight of the world.
A dozen Red Cross Knights raised their weapons. The shadows of their blades fell across Knight's face, who offered himself a bitter, final smile.
'Is this where it ends?'
The blood pooling from his wounds began to collect in the cracks of the stone floor. He looked down at his own reflection in the crimson mire, a gaunt, pale face, blood-stained lips, eyes slowly dimming. Then, he let out a soft, rasping chuckle the laugh of a man who knew he had lost before the game even began.
But in the second that darkness prepared to swallow his consciousness, something buried deep within the darkest abyss of Uriel detonated like a volcano that had slumbered for an eternity.
It wasn't just a memory. It was a sensation.
The bone-chilling cold as white wings were ripped from her back by the very hands she had loved and served for a lifetime. The bitterness accumulated over millennia as the world condemned the one who gave them light spitting on the name they once prayed to. And the most agonizing part of all...
The unquenchable rage against the injustice of the High Gods, who cast her down simply because she "fulfilled her duty" too well. She gave humanity more light than the heavens could tolerate. For a human with light is a human who will not kneel.
"If this world has no room for the truth..."
A whisper echoed through his mind low, cold, and saturated with a destructive power condensed over eons. It was a voice he had never heard in this life, yet recognized as deeply as the first sound he ever heard upon entering the world.
"...Then I shall burn it until only ash remains."
The blood soaking the stone began to boil.
Not with heat, but with something deeper, something nameless in the tongues of men. Silver bubbles rose from the pool of blood, evaporating into a thin mist that swirled around Knight's body like ancient spirits awakened from a hundred seals.
The runic tattoos on his back did more than glow. They began to consume his skin.
They burned deep, agonizing tracks into his flesh. Skin peeled away layer by layer as symbols no one had ever decoded manifested clearly, as if carved by a white-hot knife upon living parchment. Yet, that agony did not weaken him. It became fuel steel forged in the hottest fires until it grew too strong for any force to break.
[Soul Fusion: 100% — Complete]
[Skill Synthesis: Eyes of Judgment + Flames of Judgment]
"Ugh..."
The first sound was that of a mortal taking his final breath. But the sound that followed was not.
"Aaaaaaaaaghhhhh!!!"
A roar shook the valley to its foundations. It was no longer a human voice, but the cry of something shackled for an eternity. It was a sound that sent birds fleeing from the forest, caused the warhorses of the Red Cross to collapse in terror, and shattered the clouds above the cathedral as if a giant hand had swept them aside.
Shockwaves of silver energy detonated from his body in endless concentric circles. They slammed into the surrounding knights, crumpling their steel plate like discarded paper. Bones snapped with a sickening crunch; bodies were hurled away like ragdolls thrown by a vengeful child. Some hit the stone pillars until the rock cracked; others were blasted beyond the walls, utterly broken.
Then, absolute silence.
Knight knelt amidst a graveyard of shattered armor and swirling silver vapor. An army of ten thousand stood frozen. No one dared to breathe, as if the very air feared what was happening.
The transformation began in eerie quiet.
The jagged wound at his side began to close itself. Radiant silver light flowed into the edges of the torn flesh, suturing veins and muscle like a master goldsmith soldering precious metal. It was a pain beyond screaming, yet Knight made no sound. That pain was transforming him into something more than human.
More than he had ever been. More than he had ever dreamed.
His soot-black hair, soaked in blood, began to pale strand by strand. It was as if an invisible hand were washing ink from paper with pure celestial water.
Whiter and whiter.
A white that the first snow of winter could not match. A white that made the brightest star feel dull. It became a pure, stainless white erasing the blood, erasing the traces of a hard life. Each strand forgot the burdens it once bore, returning to what it was always meant to be.
Then, it began to grow.
Time seemed to reverse for this body alone while the rest of the world stood still. It fell softly over shoulders, past shoulder blades that were shifting in form, until the ends reached the small of the back and continued further. It was like a waterfall of sacred light, each strand shimmering as if containing tiny stars. When a phantom breeze passed, the hair floated weightlessly, billowing like silk woven from moonlight.
The rugged, masculine features began to soften.
The hard angles of the jaw and chin once as stern as granite softened into exquisite curves. Cheekbones rose with a grace that would make the world's greatest sculptors drop their tools in submission. The mouth, once set in a grimace of pain, became smaller and more delicate lips as red as peony petals at dawn. The corners curved upward slightly in a shape that could only be described as Beauty, for even in stillness, it looked like a smile.
Brows arched thin like a crescent moon in a cloudless sky. The nose became slender and straight, a perfect line drawn by a divine ruler. And the skin... it changed. It was pale from blood loss, yes, but not the pallor of the sick. It was the white of the finest linen, of spring blossoms, of untrodden snow. It was slightly translucent, as if a light within was too bright for the skin to fully contain.
It was a face of terrifying beauty.
A beauty that stole the breath, that the eyes craved to touch yet the soul knew it had no right to behold. It was a beauty not meant for mortal proximity, a beauty that announced, without words, that she hailed from a place further than any imagination could reach.
The heavy armor encasing the body began to crack from within. Not from destruction, but rejection like a butterfly breaking its chrysalis. Pure white flames erupted from every fracture. Not a fire of heat, but of Purity. A flame that did not consume but cleansed, vaporizing iron into mist in an instant, burning away rust, blood, and trauma. In its place, layers of thin white fabric drifted around the body like morning fog, moving with every breath, as if alive.
And the once-rugged frame transformed.
The height decreased slightly, yet she did not look smaller. Instead, she possessed a geometric perfection humans never achieve. Dense muscles smoothed into a different kind of strength like steel tempered at a higher temperature. Harder. Purer.
A flat chest curved outward with slow grace; a wide waist tapered into an elegant line. Hips curved into a perfect symmetry drawn by a celestial compass. Every change felt inevitable, as if the previous form had been the abnormality, and this was a correction thousands of years overdue.
When the dust settled, the figure standing amidst ten thousand enemies was no longer a youth from the slums.
It was her. As she was meant to be. As she had always been.
The eyes that opened were not human. The right was a radiant gold, like a sun burning away all darkness so deep that looking into it felt like falling into a brilliant abyss. The left was a cold silver, like a full moon in a winter sky so piercing it felt as if it saw through flesh, bone, and into the secrets one hides even from themselves.
Neither eye blinked. Both stared at the frozen Red Cross Army with a gaze devoid of mercy, anger, or hate.
There was only Judgment.
She stood motionless in a field of ash and silver mist. Her long white hair drifted upward against gravity. The gossamer white robes draped her form like a living cloud. The silver runes on her back continued to glow with a quiet, lethal light.
The nearest Red Cross Knight tried to step back, his legs shaking. Because this was not a "woman" standing before them. "Woman" was too small a word. This was a Being that came before the word, before language, before the world. Something that flew in the void before the first ray of light ever existed. And now, it has awakened.
She looked down at the shattered greatsword on the stone floor. She looked long enough to acknowledge it had been a part of her long enough to offer a silent thanks for every time it refused to break until it could do so no more.
Then, she left it there. She no longer needed it.
She extended an open palm toward the Red Cross host. Her pure white fingers moved through the air slowly, as if she had all the time in existence. Because she did.
"Sanction."
Her voice was low and quiet, yet it resonated in every corner of the battlefield simultaneously. It was a sound the world had heard once before and still remembered. It was cold, emotionless, and unarguable.
A ring of pure white light manifested above the heads of ten thousand soldiers. It did not thunder; it did not flash. It simply appeared, as if it had always been there and was only now being perceived. Its faint shadow fell upon the earth cold and resolute.
She snapped her fingers.
Pillars of white light descended from the heavens in unison.
There was no sound of explosion. No struggling. No begging for life. No crying. There wasn't even time for fear. There was only a light that swallowed everything silently and completely. And then, it vanished.
Leaving only silence. And ash, scattering on the evening wind as if they had never existed.
She stood alone in the empty battlefield. Her white hair drifted again as a cold breeze passed. Her white robes fluttered like wings that had yet to grow. Eyes of gold and silver looked up at the sky, which cleared as the clouds dissolved.
The afternoon sunlight touched her face cautiously. As if even the sun knew what it was touching.
[Congratulations! You have obtained the Divine Origin Skill: "Uriel"]