[: 3rd POV :]
"S-Stop!" Revan screamed.
With the kind of aura Daniel's oozing out, Revan dropped his butt to the ground.
He was terrified of not only Daniel's aura but also his eyes.
"W-What are you guys doing!? You should protect me!"
The moment Revan screamed, the wind trembled.
"Stop what you are doing slave!" Within a second, Revan guards had appeared before Daniel.
The seven elite guards that earlier on surrounded to protect Revan had stepped forward.
Each clad in enchanted armor lined with runes that shimmered with divine inscriptions, swords resting on their hips, staffs glowing, and at the front stood their Captain.
Gavrix Drelthorn a knight of the Crimson Oath and the personal protector of House Alburn.
He bore the title of Knight through merit and blood, his strength recognized by various nobles.
At Level 500, Sir Gavrix had slayed beings from gates that had reduced cities to rubble and quelled uprisings with a single swing of his greatsword which is his soul weapon, Valgrind.
The others, his squad, were powerful knights and mages of varying races, most of them at Level 200, wielding renowned skills that had earned their reputation.
They had fought in campaigns against Gates and returned victorious.
But none of them had seen anything like this.
Revan's panicked voice cracked as he pointed toward Daniel.
"Kill him! He's insane!"
Sir Gavrix's eyes narrowed. "A slave wielding that kind of power…? You should have silenced him long before this, young master."
But the moment he stepped forward, the atmosphere changed.
Daniel stood still with his body unarmored, his feet bare, but his presence dwarfed them all.
A horn jutted from the left side of his head, his eyes glowing with purplish-black slits, not with life but with calamity.
His skin shimmered faintly like an obsidian dragon hide beneath soft light, and strange glowing energy pulsed through his veins.
Sir Gavrix raised his hand.
"Kill him." He ordered.
The knights reacted instantly.
One lunged with a war cry, his blade alight with a sword skill:
[Piercing Wave]
It was a technique that created an illusionary copy of his slash that struck multiple times in one motion.
The blade collided with Daniel's chest, however it shattered like glass.
"What?!"
Another followed, a female mage with long green hair.
[Chain of Binding Light]
Golden shackles conjured from thin air snapped around Daniel's limbs but were melted away by his passive skill the moment they touched him.
[Crimson Sky Arc]
[Thunderbolt Storm]
[Quaking Reaver]
[Nova Blast]
All kind of skills had been used by them such as sword skills, magic bursts, fire, lightning, earth, wind, even holy skills and they all came crashing upon him like a cataclysm.
They painted the air in devastating arcs.
The air fractured under the force of their strikes, the ground cracked and shuddered from the repeated magical detonations.
And Daniel?
He didn't even blink.
All of their attacks disintegrated the moment they neared him.
Some exploded before reaching him, others were redirected back into the sky or ground as if the space around Daniel was rewriting reality itself.
Sir Gavrix's hand trembled as he stepped forward, finally using Valgrind.
"That's not possible," one of the guards muttered in incomprehension.
"He's a child... a slave... no protection spells, no armor, how are we not even leaving a scratch?"
"H-He's only level 1!?"
"Sir, our swords won't even leave marks!"
"Magic doesn't touch him!"
"Wh-what kind of being are we facing!?"
Fear began to bloom in the eyes of the elite knights.
It was fear unlike any they had felt before. They had slain beings from gates, but Daniel wasn't just resisting.
He was unreachable.
Untouchable.
Sir Gavrix gritted his teeth, muscles tense.
"We're protectors of House Alburn, we stand firm even against Gods!"
He raised his sword and unleashed an ultimate technique.
[Absolute Severance]
It was his triump card that consumed all of his Mana to erase the very concept of 'defense' from his target.
The blade hummed and glowed with a crimson-black light as he brought it down on Daniel.
And yet
*CLANG*
It stopped.
An invisible barrier, soft as air, caught the edge. The impact sent a backshock through Gavrix's body, breaking his wrist and sending him flying thirty meters away.
He crashed into the ground, coughing blood, eyes wide with disbelief.
However, Daniel who had patiently endured their attacks had finally had it.
Daniel raised his hand slowly with his body untouched by any strike and whispered...
"Enough"
His voice wasn't loud. It didn't echo. It didn't scream.
But it shook the very essence of the world.
A wave of destructive force surged outward from his body, silent and invisible yet heavier than any mountain.
The moment it passed, every weapon shattered, every armor fell apart and every spell was dispelled.
The very concept of offense had been nullified.
The force wasn't magic and it wasn't even considered as a 'skill'
It wasn't or shouldn't have been considered as a skill , yet its powers had instinctual rejection of everything that dared to stand against Daniel.
Perhaps, the bloodline wasn't just any bloodline.
It was 'alive' and it had responded to Daniel's rage and acted accordingly to his wishes.
Otherwise, Caelira and the others would have been affected.
The knights screamed as their bodies collapsed.
Not from wounds and not from pain.
But from within.
Their souls cracked, splintered, and shattered.
It had been destroyed.
One by one, their eyes turned empty, their minds severed from existence.
They fell to their knees, unable to move, kneeling not by choice but by the sheer weight of Daniel's bloodline authority.
Sir Gavrix's mouth opened as he coughed another mouthful of blood, hands trembling as he knelt, not by injury but by despair.
"W-What are you?" he spoke his last words.
He didn't receive an answer as he had died.
Because there was only one man left standing.
Revan.
His legs gave way, dropping into the mud, hands shaking.
His luxurious clothes were soiled, and from the corner of his robes, a stream of urine leaked as he trembled in fear.
"P-Please… please… I-I didn't mean to…"
Daniel turned to face him.
His eyes were not human.
They were voids of calamity, swirling with primordial force and glowing with the madness of cataclysmic creation.
There was no hatred left in his face.
No emotion.
Just purely destruction.
Destruction that waited for permission to unleash.
"You begged for mercy?" Daniel asked softly, his voice now fused with a deeper, distorted undertone.
"You knew what you were doing when you burned her face," he said, slowly stepping forward.
"You knew what you were doing when you chained me. When you hurt Rika, when you abused Kiel and when you slapped Marnok"
"You always knew."
Revan crawled backward on all fours, sobbing. "I-It was a mistake! I was pressured—!"
Daniel didn't flinch.
"I had always warned you…not once but many times"
His foot pressed into the earth, and it cracked beneath him.
The air thickened, folding in around his body.
"…if you ever laid a hand on them, you would suffer the consequences..."
"But you didn't even listen"
"You took my words as a joke and something that you shouldn't believe from someone who's a slave and weak"
"You didn't even listen and yet now, you're begging for mercy?"
"When they begged for mercy you tortured them for more and for fun, and you even chained them"
"How funny"
He raised his hand and muttered, [End of Epoch]
The ground trembled, and for a moment, everything stopped.
The scenery around him had became black and white.
Birds froze in the sky, the wind halted mid-breath, and even the sun seemed dimmer.
It was as though Daniel had created his domain
And inside this domain, there was nothing that Daniel couldn't do.
"Mercy isn't a word someone like you should used..." Daniel spoke.
"The consequences of your actions shall be condemned to torture of eternity"
At this moment, something within Daniel had spoke.
It was him but at the same time it wasn't.
It was as though the persona of destruction had revealed itself.
The skill End of Epoch had listened to the will of Daniel and suddenly, chains of unknown that appeared thin air had grabbed Revan limbs.
"N-No please I-I beg you! I will listen to you!
I-I'll gladly be your slave!" Revan begged as the chains dragged him into unknown realm.
And his voice echoed until he had disappeared.
On the other hand, across the world, towers cracked, temples shook, hidden realms stirred.
The Dragon Empress, seated upon her throne, opened her eyes wide.
The Demon King, in the Underworld Court, paused mid-sentence.
The dwarf king who was forging a weapon stopped hammering.
The King of Beast, deep within a jungle temple, raised his ears.
The Fairy Queen within her throne of forests had stopped smiling.
The Oracle of Spirit shook in fear.
There were countless races that hid within realms had sense a very dangerous power.
But out of them all, there was one single person who had reacted strangely.
In a garden untouched by time, where roses bloomed.
It was the kind of place poets would have died to describe, where the beauty was not of mortal soil, but of something older, something sacred.
Yet, despite the breathtaking wonder carved into every leaf, there was no warmth here.
No laughter.
No footsteps.
No life.
It was a paradise that had forgotten joy.
At the center of this garden, there was a woman and she sat still and silent.
She wore garments made of threads spun from moonlight and sorrow, yet no crown adorned her and no jewels.
Only a thin veil covered her face, and through it, one could see her eyes, gray like dead starlight, empty, hollow, the kind of gaze that looked at beauty and saw nothing.
She had not smiled or laughed in years.
Her breathing was so faint the winds forgot she was even there.
It was as though she was alive, and yet... not truly living.
But then, there was a flicker and a tremble.
Her fingers twitched as if startled by a forgotten memory.
And then, her chest rose sharply.
A pulse.
Her heart beat.
The moment it did, a faint golden line traced across her wrist, a mark that had once been sealed by time, grief, and silence.
It pulsed again, stronger this time, as if the call had come from across space, across fate itself.
Her head lifted.
And those eyes, those broken, listless eyes—lit with light.
Not warmth, not yet.
But light.
"...son...?"
Her voice cracked like a forgotten lullaby, her lips forming a word she had not dared to speak in over a decade.
It was a signal long forgotten and shouldn't have existed.
A bloodline long thought to be dead.
Yet at this moment, it had awakened.