Chapter 449: The Real Terror
"Shadow domain."
The words left Razeal’s mouth quietly, but the effect was immediate. The air around him grew heavy, as if the weight of the world had shifted and settled over that single point. It wasn’t visible, and most of them couldn’t sense what it truly was only Razeal and Maria could feel the nature of it but everyone present felt the pressure. As It pressed down on their bodies, subtle at first, then undeniable, like gravity had suddenly multiplied. Several of the weaker soldiers nearby dropped to one knee without understanding why, their bodies refusing to hold under the strain.
Nyssa stiffened slightly, her brows narrowing.
"...What is this pressure...?" she murmured, more to herself than anyone else, steadying her footing as she adjusted to it. It wasn’t hostile, not directly but it carried something deeper. Something vast.
Before anyone could fully process it, the battlefield changed.
Miles away, something fundamental shifted, abrupt enough that even those struggling under the pressure noticed it immediately. The shadows cast by the golems massive, scattered across the battlefield began to stretch. At first, it was subtle, like the sun had shifted unnaturally. Then it accelerated. The darkness bled outward, spreading across the ground in all directions until the terrain itself turned into a vast, ink-black surface.
Within seconds, the entire battlefield spanning over a hundred kilometers was swallowed.
The ground no longer looked like earth. It resembled a living mass, thick and viscous, like blackened muscle slowly pulsing under a thin surface. Then it moved.
From that darkness, tentacles rose.
Not dozens. Not hundreds.
Millions.
They erupted upward in an instant, ranging from several meters to towering lengths that stretched hundreds of meters into the air. They swayed, not randomly, but with a slow, deliberate rhythm, like something breathing beneath the battlefield had extended its limbs into the open world. The scene was wrong in a way that instinctively unsettled anyone who saw it.
It didn’t look like magic.
It looked like a nightmare made real.
Across the walls of Silver Shield City, soldiers froze where they stood. Some forgot to breathe. Others tightened their grips on their weapons without realizing it. Far beyond them, hidden observers spies from other cities, agents sent by powerful factions watched through various means, and even they couldn’t mask their reactions. What they were witnessing wasn’t simply overwhelming it was incomprehensible.
It felt as if the ground itself had split open. As if something beneath it had been released.
"The abyss..." someone whispered, though no one responded.
Because that was exactly what it resembled. Not metaphorically, but in presence. Like a gate had opened beneath the battlefield, and whatever lay beneath it had begun to surface, intent on swallowing everything above.
The tentacles moved higher, denser, blotting out the light. For a brief moment, it even seemed as though the sun itself dimmed, its presence smothered by the sheer spread of that unnatural darkness.
Razeal watched it all unfold, and a faint smile formed on his lips.
This was the first time he had allowed himself to use his ability on this scale. Until now, he had always held back measured, controlled, restrained. But here, with no need to limit himself, he let it expand fully, allowed the shadows to take shape without suppression.
There was no hesitation in him.
Only quiet satisfaction.
He liked this.
With a subtle shift in focus, he exerted control. The countless tentacles responded instantly, their movements aligning with his intent as they surged toward the golems scattered across the battlefield.
The reaction from the constructs was immediate.
They fought back.
Massive fists swung with enough force to shatter stone fortresses. Giant weapons hammers, blades, reinforced limbs struck down at the incoming tendrils. But the moment those attacks connected.
And nothing happened.
The tentacles didn’t bend. Didn’t break. Didn’t even tremble.
It was like striking something that could not be moved something fixed in place beyond force or impact. Every blow that should have crushed them simply... stopped against them, as if the shadows possessed an unyielding structure that ignored strength entirely.
In the next instant, they reached their targets.
The tendrils wrapped around the golems’ bodies, coiling tightly, layer upon layer. The moment they constricted, cracks began to spread across the golems fine at first, then widening under the pressure.
The grip tightened.
Even the twenty Great Saint–level golems each towering hundreds of meters tall were unable to defend against. They reacted faster, struck harder, their movements more precise, yet it made no difference. Their attacks auddenly passed through the tentacles as if they were really just shadows, as though they were trying to fight something that existed outside the rules they understood.
For a moment, the battlefield looked unreal.
Like a dream that had lost its logic.
Or worse
like reality itself had been replaced by something else.
As the golems’ attacks passed straight through the shadow, the substance itself reacted shifting, flowing, adjusting like a living liquid that refused to be struck. It didn’t resist in the way matter should; it simply moved around every impact and closed in from all directions. In moments, the massive bodies of the golems hundreds of meters tall were engulfed. The shadow climbed over them, wrapped around limbs, torsos, joints, tightening with quiet precision until their movements were completely restricted. They tried to respond. Their cores flared, drawing on the earth element beneath them, attempting to expand their forms, reshape their limbs, force their way out but the shadow followed every change, adapting instantly, sealing over them again. Within seconds, their entire bodies were covered in that viscous black substance, leaving only their faces exposed, frozen in place.
Then it hardened.
What had moved like liquid became something else entirely dense, immovable, absolute. Even the half-step Great Saint-level pressure radiating from the stronger constructs did nothing. They couldn’t move. Not even a fraction. And with the ground itself already consumed by shadow, their connection to the earth was severed. No control. No reinforcement. No response. They were simply... held.
There was no counter to it.
Not because they hadn’t tried but because there was nothing to counter.
They weren’t living beings in first place.. They didn’t think beyond their purpose. They followed commands, reacted within the limits of their cores. And now, for the first time, they had reached something outside those limits something they had no framework to understand, no mechanism to fight against.
It took less than half a minute.
Thirty seconds.
That was all it took for the entire battlefield to be consumed. Where there had been earth, movement, chaos there was now only black. A vast, ink-like surface stretching as far as the eye could see, every golem locked in place, encased and silent, like statues carved from some unnatural stone. The scale of it didn’t settle immediately. When it did, it felt unreal.
From the walls, no one moved.
Soldiers, civilians, even distant observers who had been watching the battlefield all of them stood still, trying to process what they were seeing.
"My god..." Lord Kharvek murmured under his breath, his eyes fixed on the battlefield. His hand had tightened around the stone railing without him realizing it, fingers digging in until faint cracks spread beneath his grip. He didn’t notice. He couldn’t look away.
Nyssa’s gaze remained locked forward, unblinking. "...What unbelievable strength..." she said quietly, her voice low, controlled but there was a shift in it, something she couldn’t quite suppress. Her brows had drawn together, not in doubt, but in disbelief she couldn’t resolve. One sentence. That was all he had said. One quiet invocation and an entire army, including twenty halfstep Great Saint-level constructs, had been neutralized without resistance. Not slowed. Not fought. Just... stopped.
Her mind tried to break it down, to analyze it, to find structure in what she had just witnessed but there was nothing to hold onto. No pattern she understood. No known system of magic that could explain it. For the first time in a long while, her knowledge felt insufficient. Not lacking irrelevant.
She exhaled slowly, steadying herself.
Even as a Great Saint, even with everything she had learned, she felt briefly, sharply like some pessant who was seeing real magic for the first time.
Above the battlefield, high in the sky, Lord Kael paused mid-motion. He had been intercepting the flying golems massive constructs hurling boulders toward the city but even he stopped when the change below caught his attention. For a brief moment, he simply watched.
Then he laughed.
A sharp, unrestrained burst of amusement cut through the air.
"Hahaha... so the kid does have the right to have the audacity to speak that way," he said, his voice carrying easily despite the altitude. "Saying he can stand against a pillar family... no wonder he wasn’t the least bit concerned about this war."
He remained suspended thousands of meters above the ground, the wind pulling at his clothes as he looked down at the frozen battlefield, still smiling. Then, without hesitation, he turned and drove his fist forward, smashing through another incoming flying golem. The construct shattered under the impact, fragments scattering through the air as he resumed his movement, his laughter fading but the grin still present.
Even then, he still wasn’t confident the kid could make them win this war. But an ability like this one that could completely cover a battlefield stretching hundreds of miles, handle millions of medium and high-ranking golems, and even restrain twenty half-step Great Saint level constructs like it was nothing was beyond shocking. That alone was a feat that stood far above anything he had seen before.
Not to mention the fact that the kid was only said to be an early-stage Great Saint... someone who had just recently broken through to this realm. And that too, before even becoming a full adult. Where could one even find such a level of talent? It didn’t make sense. It didn’t fit into any known standard.
This might very well be the beginning of a new era.
Down on the wall
"You always find new ways to surprise me," Sofia murmured, shaking her head slightly, a faint smile forming on her lips.
It wasn’t that shocking for her not completely. She had already seen Razeal deal with billions of sea monsters with just a few strikes. Not to mention, each of those creatures had been stronger than the average golem present here. And those attacks he used back then... even one of them would have been enough to erase this entire city if not half the kingdom from existence entirely.
Still... this was different.
This wasn’t about overwhelming destruction.
This was something else.
This was control.
She had already seen his shadow abilities before, had seen him use them in smaller ways but not like this. Not on this scale. Not with this level of precision. The way the shadows moved, adapted, restrained... it was far more practical than brute strength. This kind of ability had far more applications. It could control a battlefield, not just destroy it.
Beside her, Maria wasn’t even looking at the battlefield anymore.
Her eyes were fixed on Razeal.
Completely.
Others couldn’t see or feel it. To them, it was just pressure, just the weight in the air, something they could barely explain.
But she could.. As a half-demon... and a Sin now... her perception wasn’t bound the same way.
She took a slow breath, her chest rising slightly as she steadied herself.
From her perspective, Razeal didn’t just stand there.
He was surrounded.
No immersed.
Her eyes reflected a figure completely covered in dark mana, not leaking, not dispersing, but contained so densely around him that it almost felt like it was pressing inward instead of flowing outward. It wasn’t just thick. It wasn’t just vast.
It was overwhelming.
The amount of dark mana around him was so immense that her mind couldn’t put a limit on it. It didn’t feel like a reservoir. It didn’t feel like a measurable pool.
It felt endless.
Like standing at the edge of something with no bottom.
Like he carried an entire universe of energy inside himself, and what was leaking out was barely a fraction of it.
She exhaled quietly, not even realizing she had been holding her breath.
Nancy, standing to the side, was the most visibly shaken.
Her mouth hung slightly open, her eyes wide, locked on the battlefield and then shifting back to Razeal, unable to stay still on one thing.
How...?
How could a sixteen-year-old have this kind of strength?
Her thoughts didn’t move smoothly. They stumbled, collided, tried to make sense of something that didn’t align with anything she knew.
This wasn’t just talent.
This wasn’t just growth.
This felt entirely... wrong.
Not in a moral sense. Not in a dangerous sense. Wrong in the sense that it didn’t belong to reality as she understood it.
"...No wonder..." she muttered under her breath, her voice low, almost lost in the noise around her, her eyes settling on Razeal’s back.
"No wonder he had the audacity to speak like that... even in front of a Supreme..."
As remembering ..The way Razeal had stood and spoken to Riven spoken without hesitation.
Back then, she hadn’t understood it. Had thought it was arrogance.
Now... it didn’t feel like arrogance anymore.
Even Riven someone whose strength she couldn’t even begin to imagine had treated Razeal differently. Taken him seriously in a way he didn’t with others.
She swallowed, her throat dry.
Just howww?
Obiously It had only been a month ago.
Since she had seen him then.
Back when he couldn’t even properly match Sylva in a duel. When he had lost.
That memory was still clear.
And now...?
Now it felt like she was looking at a completely different person.
No.
Not different.
Just... something that had been hidden.
It was obvious now.
He stood far above that level.
Above Saint King.
Even if Sylva gathered every spirit she possessed, even if she used everything she had, pushed herself to her absolute limit..
Nancy was certain.
It wouldn’t be enough.
Not even close.
She’s sure Sylva in no way even have any.. Spirit half step Greatsaint not to say.. twenty of those.. which Razeal just took down without even seemingly putting any efforts into it.
Her ice-white hair shifted softly behind her ears as the wind moved across the wall, but she didn’t react to it. She just stood there, staring, trying to accept what she was seeing.
Trying, and failing.
While Razeal stood at the edge of the wall, the battlefield below already stilled under his control, he let out a quiet breath as if he had just finished something mildly inconvenient rather than overwhelming. His gaze lingered on the frozen expanse of black for a moment longer before he turned around.
"Well... it wasn’t that hard," he said, almost casually, as if what had just happened hadn’t rewritten the battlefield entirely. He slowly turned around, his gaze settling on Lady Nyssa and Grace, who were still standing there in stunned silence, their eyes fixed on him as if they hadn’t fully processed what they had just witnessed. "So... what do you say? Should i finish it?"
His voice pulled them back.
Both of them blinked, as if waking from a daze, turning toward him. Their lips parted, ready to respond but nothing came out. For a moment, neither of them knew what to say.
What were they supposed to say?
Was he mocking them? Reminding them of their earlier doubts? They had believed he was strong, yes but this? This wasn’t something they had imagined. Not even close.
They had no words for it.
Before the silence could stretch further, Sofia stepped forward.
"Husband..." she said quietly, her tone calm, but there was a clear intent behind it. "How about you let me finish this?"
Her eyes were already on the battlefield.
"You’ve shown enough... now I want to test myself a bit too. I need to get used to moving on land you know... and this is a good chance."
There was no hesitation in her voice. She wanted this.
After all, she finally had open ground. A real battlefield. She didn’t know when she’d get another chance like this.
Razeal looked at her, slightly caught off guard.
"...Huh?"
For a brief moment, he just stared.
Truthfully, he had never actually seen her fight seriously. Not once. He knew she was fast faster than him in speed, at least back then, from what he had glimpsed during the Atlantis competition but beyond that? Nothing concrete.
He didn’t know what she could really do.
And now...
He was curious.
Not just him everyone else, too.
A biological daughter of a goddess.
What did that even represent in terms of strength
Razeal’s gaze stayed on Sofia for another second, then he gave a small, casual nod.
"Alright," he said. "I’m curious too... let’s see what you can do."
The moment those words left him
Everything changed.
The pressure in the air vanished.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
The suffocating weight that had been pressing down on everyone the kind that forced weaker soldiers to their knees disappeared like it had never existed. The atmosphere lightened so abruptly that a few people instinctively staggered, their bodies adjusting to the sudden absence of resistance.
At the same time, across the battlefield, the shadows began to recede.
The vast black surface that had swallowed the land started to withdraw, pulling back like a tide reversing. The massive tentacles dissolved into nothing, unraveling without resistance. The restraints around the golems loosened, then vanished entirely.
And just like that
The entire army was free.
For a second, nothing moved.
Then confusion hit.
From the walls, soldiers stared out in disbelief, their eyes darting across the battlefield, trying to understand what had just happened. The same golems that had been locked in place seconds ago now stood motionless, as if equally unsure.
What the fuck? Why would who did this do that?
The battlefield had already been decided.
There was no need to release them.
Yet it had.
Without hesitation. instantaneously??
Nyssa’s head turned sharply toward Razeal, her brows pulling together. Lord Kharvek did the same, his expression tightening, though he said nothing.
Just moments ago, the outcome had been absolute.
Now
It was reset?
Their eyes followed his attention.
Toward Sofia?
"Husband...?" Nyssa murmured under her breath before she could stop herself.
The word lingered for a second.
She hadn’t known he was married?
Neither had Grace.
But that wasn’t what unsettled her most.
It was the fact that Razeal had withdrawn that kind of control.. for her. What level of stupidity?? Is he taking it as some kind is game??
But again.
Nyssa narrowed her eyes slightly, shifting her focus fully onto Sofia now. She took a step closer, not physically, but in attention trying to reassess her.
Trying to understand.
She extended her senses Carefully.
There was nothing.
No aura.
No mana.
No pressure.. Just like Razeal.
Her expression tightened almost imperceptibly.
That
But If Razeal had willingly released such overwhelming control of the battlefield... just to let her step in...
Then she had to be capable of something on that level.. Right?
All of them were confused now, and not just a little the kind of confusion that made the entire situation feel absurd for a moment. Razeal had just released complete control over a battlefield he had already won, and for what? To let someone else try? It didn’t make sense on any practical level. Even the soldiers, who had just witnessed something beyond comprehension, now stood there unsure whether to brace for another attack or simply wait.
Nancy, standing slightly behind, was in complete shock but not for the same reason as the others. Her eyes were locked on Sofia, her thoughts racing far faster than the battlefield below.
He’s married? The thought hit her harder than anything she had seen so far. But.. He’s just sixteen... isn’t he? Her gaze ran over Sofia again, unconsciously measuring her presence, her posture, her calm confidence. She looks... older. At least in her twenties. The confusion only deepened.
When did this even happen? Who is she? And then the more pressing thought followed. Is she strong too? Can she actually face that army on her own? The questions stacked one over another with no answers in sight.
Maria, however, was the only one whose reaction was not confusion but irritation. Her expression tightened as she looked at Sofia, her eyes narrowing just slightly. The word husband still echoed in her mind, sharp and unwelcome. Now everyone knows this.. Fucking bitch. There was no ambiguity left, no room to ignore it. She didn’t say anything, but the annoyance in her face was clear enough.
Sofia, on the other hand, seemed completely unaffected.
She chuckled softly, a light, almost playful sound, clearly pleased that Razeal had agreed so easily. "Thanks, darling," she said, her tone warm, almost teasing. "Let your wife help you now... trust me, you’ll love me more after this." There was no hesitation in her words, no concern about who was listening.
Before anyone could react to that, she moved.
She stepped past Razeal, brushing by him with quiet confidence, giving him a brief sideways glance sharp, deliberate, almost teasing before her feet left the ground. It wasn’t abrupt. She rose slowly, smoothly, until she hovered a few feet above the stone wall, as if gravity simply didn’t apply to her anymore.
The shift in presence was subtle, but it was there.
Then she turned.
Her gaze settled on Maria.
"It was a problem for me when I first came to land," Sofia began calmly, as if they weren’t standing above a battlefield moments away from chaos. "As.. Water is my strength... and there’s not much of it here. In Atlantis, it’s everywhere around me. Here?" She shook her head lightly. "I had to adapt."
Her arms moved slightly as she spoke, relaxed, unhurried.
"Unlike you i have no Magic," she added, her tone still even but edged with something faint, "I can’t just create water with magic. I had to search for it... Find the particles in the air, gather them... and even that wasn’t enough. I wasn’t used to it."
She paused, then slowly spread her arms, her body turning slightly in the air as if feeling something invisible around her. A smile grew across her face wider this time, more certain. "But then I found it."
Maria let out a short, unimpressed breath.
"Underground?" she shot back immediately, her tone edged with sarcasm. "Yeah, good luck with that. Even if you find it, pulling that much water up through layers of rock and ground isn’t simple. It’s not just depth it’s resistance. That’s why water users don’t bother unless there’s a massive source close enough to reach. Otherwise, drawing from the atmosphere is easier."
Sofia shook her head, the smile never leaving her face. "No."
That single word was enough to make Maria frown.
Sofia looked at her and pointed her index finger upward slightly. "It’s above us."
For a second, no one reacted. Then, almost instinctively, several of them glanced up, confusion plain on their faces.
Nyssa frowned, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Air?" she said, trying to follow the logic. "There be more moisture, yes but not enough to.."
The sky looked the same as always nothing unusual, nothing that explained what she was implying. Confused..
But Maria didn’t look up.
Her pupils shrank instead, her expression tightening as the realization hit her all at once. "No way..."
Sofia noticed. Of course she did. Her smile sharpened just a little, satisfaction slipping through.
"I found a enormous source," she said, her voice steady, almost conversational. "Billions of billions of liters of water... right there in the sky." Her ocean-blue eyes glinted, calm and unreadable, while her hair drifted weightlessly around her. "I wonder what happens... if I bring it down."
"That’s impossible."
This time it was Nyssa who spoke first, her voice firm, immediate. She stepped forward slightly, her expression serious now, grounded in everything she knew.
"You can’t just bring clouds down like that. The amount of control alone.. forget power even Supremes would struggle with something on that scale."
She wasn’t exaggerating. If something like that were possible.. if someone could simply drag clouds from the sky and drop them onto a battlefield like that way.. it would be biggest jokes out there. It would be catastrophic. Entire kingdoms could be wiped out without warning. Like yeah sure..
Sofia glanced at her, the corner of her lips lifting in faint amusement.
"Oh?" Sofia said, her tone lightly sarcastic, almost curious. "Is that so?"
Nyssa held her gaze, but something in her expression shifted just a fraction.
Then Sofia turned away as she faced the battlefield.
"Well," she murmured, almost to herself, though everyone could hear it, "let’s see if you still say the same after this."
She said it, then raised one hand slowly, almost casually, as if the motion itself carried no weight.
High above far beyond what anyone present could clearly see something shifted. Thousands of meters up in the sky, a massive cloud began to move. At first, it was subtle, just a distortion in its shape, but then the change became unmistakable. The vapor condensed unnaturally fast, its loose, drifting form tightening into something dense and controlled. It didn’t stay a cloud for long. The entire mass started to liquefy, folding inward on itself before stretching downward, reshaping into structure.
What had once been formless vapor turned into millions of enormous, sharply defined pillars of water, each one suspended in the sky and pointed toward the ground. They were colossal hundreds of meters in both length and width each pillar holding millions of liters within it. And there weren’t just a few. There were millions.
For a brief moment, they hung there.
Sofia’s eyes glinted faintly as she felt the strain and the precision of what she was holding together. It wasn’t just power it was control layered over scale. Every single pillar responded to her. With a single motion, she could release them, send them crashing down like meteors. Mountains wouldn’t hold against that kind of force. Under something like this, even solid terrain would give way in seconds, breaking apart as easily as a soft surface under relentless pressure.
Mountains getting holed in as if cheese under heavy rain.
She lowered her hand.
"Cloudy judgment."
Her voice was quiet, almost indifferent.
The moment she finished speaking, the formation broke.
Thousands of pillars released at once, separating from the mass above and angling toward a single direction the battlefield below, where the golem army stood.
Then they fell.
Gravity took over instantly, pulling the massive columns downward. At first, the motion was controlled, almost slow but only for a fraction of a second. Then acceleration kicked in. Their speed climbed rapidly, increasing with every passing moment until the descent turned violent.
The air tore around them.
Pressure shifted. Sound lagged behind motion as the pillars cut through the sky, their sheer size forcing space to give way.
From below, they no longer looked like water.
They looked like falling structures.
Razeal’s gaze lifted slightly, tracking the descent, his crimson eyes reflecting the falling pillars for just a moment.
"...Ummm?"
A faint glint passed through his eyes as he watched.
——
