All of this—from the activation of the Golden Seraph Embrace to the rising tension now pressing on the air—had occurred in the span of a single breath.
In the eyes of the soldiers, it was almost too fast to follow.
A wide, confident sneer curled across guro’s face, pride blooming in her chest like a poisonous flower. She had been monts away from mocking Damien, certain that his attempt on her life had failed... spectacularly.
But then—her expression froze.
Her pupils constricted.
A cold shiver ran down her spine as a suffocating pressure gripped her heart like an invisible hand.
Out of nowhere, an overwhelming sense of death slamd into her like a tidal wave, so heavy and oppressive it made her knees weaken slightly. Her breath caught.
What... is this feeling?
Beneath the radiant golden glow of the Golden Seraph Embrace, she had felt invincible. A walking fortress wrapped in divine light.
Who can threaten ? Who dares to make feel like this?
Her thoughts scrambled for answers, panic starting to seep through her ironclad composure.
Every passing millisecond made the sense of doom stronger, more unbearable. The world around her seed to tilt—her balance shifted, and reality itself felt distant, fragile.
"Just... how...?"
She wanted to ask aloud, but her words crumbled on her tongue.
Her vision blurred, the colors of the world warping, fading. Sounds beca distorted. The chatter, the gasps, the frightened murmurs of the crowd lted into a rising, chaotic cacophony.
And then—
Screams pierced the air.
"What is that?!"
"The Crown Prince—what is he doing?!"
Panicked cries echoed from all directions, as if those watching had just witnessed sothing unfathomable, sothing that shouldn’t exist.
Damien hadn’t moved like a warrior. He hadn’t lunged, roared, or drawn a blade.
He had simply stood there—and yet the world seed to react to his will.
The atmosphere trembled.
The pressure deepened.
And guro’s heart, for the first ti in her privileged life, pounded with genuine fear.
.....
One second ago.
"Fearing the consequences...?"
Damien almost laughed aloud, unable to contain the ripple of amusent surging within him as he caught the worried expression on the Iron Dungeon Stronghold leader’s face.
Consequences?
He wasn’t the one who needed to fear them.
No, the Blue Hamr Kingdom had already sealed its own fate the mont it dared to trespass upon his spiritual field.
From that mont forward, there was no retreat.
No forgiveness. No diplomacy.
Either the Blue Hamr Kingdom would cease to exist by sunset—
Or he would.
It was do or die, and Damien had long discarded the fear of either gods or the so-called god-forged treasures of this world.
His gaze shifted slowly to guro, still standing tall within her radiant cocoon of golden light, head held high like a haughty empress overseeing insects.
Arrogant. Untouchable. Proud.
To Damien, she looked like a painted peacock, feathers unfurled in defiance. Her lips were silent, but her cold, narrowed eyes spoke volus:
"Kill if you can."
Damien’s expression changed—not to a scowl, not to rage—but to a smile.
A calm, carefree smile.
The smile of a man who held the script to the play everyone else thought they were improvising.
"Fine," he murmured under his breath, the words almost like a whisper carried on a blade of wind.
"Fine. If that’s what you want..."
His fingers adjusted their grip on Epoch Breaker—not with hesitation, but with purpose.
He had been itching to test the Soul Wepons true power. The single ability that made it SSS Grade.
But he never had the chance... until now.
Then, Damien did sothing strange.
He didn’t aim at guro.
Instead, he pointed the gun at seemingly empty air, slightly off from her position.
His mind, under the effects of Accelerated Cognition, spun like a divine engine, calculating and simulating. He recalled, with crystal clarity, the subtle shift in guro’s footwork—the split-second retreat she made just before the Golden Seraph Embrace had activated.
That was the key.
With his supercharged mind running thousands of simulations in the blink of an eye, Damien rewrote the very concept of reaction ti.
And now, it was ti to act.
The crowd stirred with confusion as his strange actions beca apparent.
"What is he doing?"
"Why isn’t he aiming at her?"
Anek furrowed his brow, trying—and failing—to comprehend Damien’s intent.
"Has the Crown Prince finally lost it?" soone whispered.
But not everyone believed that.
The Iron Dungeon Stronghold leader’s face twitched as he watched Damien’s every move with clenched fists.
He didn’t see the desperation of a man folding under pressure.
No—he saw the quiet certainty of a predator mid-hunt.
And sowhere deep inside, an icy chill crept up his spine.
Just as the crowd tried to make sense of Damien’s strange aim, the air itself changed.
A sudden, collective gasp seed to rise from the earth.
The hearts of hundreds of n skipped a beat—not from surprise, but instinctive dread. Their pupils dilated, hands trembling, and beads of sweat trickled down their brows like raindrops before a storm.
An invisible pressure rolled across the battlefield—silent, chilling, and absolute.
In that mont, Epoch Breaker began to hum.
It wasn’t the hum of tal or magic—it was like the grinding of cosmic gears, a clock reversing its rhythm. Behind Damien, a massive, shadowy phantom flickered into existence. It Stood silently like a titan, its arms extended in an endless spiral, ticking backward.
An ancient clock.
A symbol of dominion over ti itself.
Damien’s elent.
He didn’t speak to the crowd. He didn’t pose or shout.
With complete indifference, he pulled the trigger.
The runes etched along Epoch Breaker’s barrel pulsed with soft, broken light, forming a fractured clockwork pattern, like shattered glass trying to realign itself mid-motion.
"Temporal Displacent Shot..."
"Rewind."
A single bullet of compressed mana burst forth—
—but it didn’t travel forward.
Instead, it fractured the very river of ti, shattering it like a cracked mirror. The world distorted for a split second as the bullet carved a reverse fire trail—lightning flowing backward through the air, bending ti’s rules.
Then it was gone.
Vanished.
The crowd stood frozen, staring at the empty space.
"...This is it?" Damien blinked in confusion.
Nothing seed to happen.
For a single heartbeat, silence reigned.
Then—
BOOM!
A thunderous explosion echoed across the battlefield, sharp and horrifying.
Damien’s head snapped toward the sound, only to instinctively flinch away.
Where guro had once stood—
—there was only a mist. Crimson. Dense. Silent.
A red fog.
A heartbeat later, even that fog disappeared. As if erased from the tiline itself. As if guro had never been ant to exist in that space. There wasn’t even a scream—just sudden nothingness.
Only the Golden Seraph Embrace remained, floating alone, flickering with golden light, untouched and ownerless.
It stood there proudly, protecting no one.
A Rank 3 treasure left behind like a discarded coat...
...as its master was ripped from existence itself.
Cold winds howled across the plains like the wails of a vengeful banshee, echoing through the stunned silence that followed.
For a mont, it felt as if ti itself had frozen.
Not a soul dared to breathe too loudly. Even the rustling grass seed to hesitate. Hundreds of warriors—hardened, battle-tested n—stood rooted in place, their minds struggling to comprehend the reality-defying scene they had just witnessed.
The Crown Prince of Valthorn had pointed his strange weapon into the empty air...
...and yet, the heir of the Rosewood family had vanished without a trace.
No scream.
No resistance.
No bloodied corpse.
Just a lingering mist... and a floating Rank 3 treasure left behind like a tombstone.
How was this possible.
The question clung to the air, unspoken yet unanimous.
Just as that thought ford in the hearts of the crowd, a cold, emotionless voice shattered the silence like glass.
"No matter which divine treasures you wield..." Damien said, his voice low but piercing, "there will be no escaping death."
Each word rang out with the weight of judgnt, like a gavel slamming down on fate itself.
And in that mont, it was clear to all—
This was no ordinary prince.
This was a man who could kill through Divine ans.
Then, Damien slowly raised his gaze and looked each and every soldier of the Blue Hamr Kingdom directly in the eyes. His stare was calm, but it carried the weight of absolute finality.
"I won’t kill you..."
The words fell like a thunderclap in the dead silence.
Dozens of soldiers blinked, confused.
Stunned.
Not a single one of them had expected that to be his next move. After all, just monts ago, they had witnessed him execute their commander in cold blood. Then their proud and untouchable vice commander—guro Rosewood—had been erased from existence as if the world itself rejected her.
Yet now... rcy?
"Is he mocking us?"
"This has to be a trick."
"Such a man wouldn’t just let us walk away..."
Whispers of doubt churned beneath breathless stares. Suspicion flickered in their eyes. None could believe soone like him would offer leniency—not after everything.
But before those thoughts could settle, Damien’s next words struck like a blade through the fog, slicing their doubts to pieces.
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