The Southern Sea had always been a place of chaos-churning, violent expanse of salt and spray that humbled even the most experienced sailors. But today, the Southern Sea was too quiet.
There was no rhythm to the water, no white foam cresting over the deep blue. No waves crashed against the unseen reefs, and no wind moved the stagnant air. Even the atmosphere felt fundamentally wrong, heavy with a pressurized stillness that made the lungs ache, as if the air itself had turned solid.
He stood on the surface of the water, the soles of his boots resting firmly upon the liquid as if it were polished obsidian. He was not floating, buoyed by some magical displacement, nor was he sinking. He was simply standing, a fixed point of reality in a landscape that had lost its way.
His eyes, sharp and practiced, scanned the horizon. There was nothing but the flat, glassy line where the gray sky met the dead water. It's empty, calm and Quiet.
He then send his sense outward his body. Then, a faint ripple spread across the water.
It didn't originate from a leaping fish or a shifting current. It was a perfect, concentric circle that expanded with mathematical precision. It was not natural; it was controlled by conscious mind.
He didn't move his body, but his senses expanded like a physical shroud. His perception stretched outward in an invisible pulse, touching every molecule of water, every pocket of air within kilometers.
Empty.
It was too empty. The lack of life, the absence of even the smallest silver-fin fish or drifting plankton. It's s a scream in the ears of his heightened intuition. Nothing can escape his sense.
"Show yourself," he says. His voice didn't echo, the solid air seemed to swallow the sound instantly, refusing to let the vibration travel. But his sounds indeed travel far away.
There was no answer. Only the ringing silence of a vast calm ocean.
There's reports that really alarming about this place, strange phenomena, entire merchant fleets vanishing without leaving so much as a splinter of driftwood, and even high rank 'Fated' have sense distorted. All that detail information had enough for him to bypass his subordinates and come personally, in case of continent disaster event. He knew the delicate balance of this region's ley lines better than anyone. He knows somewhere in this region used to be where the Portal to Underground World being sealed. If that portal opened once again, He doesn't know if humanity can prevail. The strength of humanity is way weaker then the time this portal being sealed.
Then he felt it.
The threat wasn't lurking on the horizon. It wasn't hovering in the clouds above.
It was below.
The sea began to groan, a deep, tectonic vibration that rattled his teeth. Then, with a sound like a world-tree snapping, the ocean split. The water didn't just move; it was pushed aside by an invisible force, creating a massive, dry canyon in the heart of the deep. Revealed on the muddy, trench-scarred ocean floor was a formation of staggering scale.
Massive symbols, carved into the very bedrock of the world, began to pulse with a sickly, rhythmic light. He stared down at the geometry of the script. These weren't the familiar runes of any known system. They didn't belong to the Wheels of Advancement mythical profession he know, they weren't etched into any artifact he had spent centuries studying, and they bore no resemblance to the World Language commonly use by all Mage. They were alien, haunting, and hostile.
He stepped to the edge of the water-cliff and frowned, his eyes tracing the jagged lines of the unknown power.
"Interesting," he murmured, the word carrying a weight of genuine curiosity despite the danger.
"You came alone," a voice remarked.
The voice was calm, carrying a cadence that hit him like a physical blow to the chest. He turned slowly, his boots clicking on the water's surface.
A figure stood just a few meters away, appearing as if they had been carved out of the very mist. The man stood with an easy, relaxed posture, his hands at his sides, looking for all the world like he was meeting an old friend for tea.
That person was someone he knew. Someone he had bled with on a dozen battlefields. Someone he had trusted with the secrets of his own soul.
He didn't let the betrayal show on his face. His expression remained a mask of cold stone.
"I expected better from you," he said, his voice level.
The figure smiled, though the warmth that usually reached his eyes was replaced by a hollow, flickering ambition. "And I expected you to bring backup. You were always the one preaching about the necessity of backup plan in case something goes wrong."
"Unnecessary," he replied shortly.
Silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating. The sea beneath them pulsed once in sync with the glowing formation below, sending a thrum of energy through the soles of his feet.
He felt It clearly now. The missing ships, the distortions, the silence, it wasn't a mystery to be solved. It was bait. This whole place was a Giant Trap.
"This is a bad schemes" he stated, more to himself than the traitor. "A bad trap."
"Why?" he asked, finally letting a hint of the question reach his eyes. "Why go through all of this?"
"Because your existence is a risk I can no longer afford," the traitor replied, his voice losing its friendly edge. "You are grown to powerful, your prestige already beyond mine."
"So it's about status? After all we've been through together?" He tightened his jaw. "I always thought of you as my brother!"
The figure chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "That was your first mistake. You always think you're the smartest one in the room, brother. You assume your perspective is the only one that matters."
"No," he countered, his energy beginning to hum beneath his skin. "Just the one who is still thinking. The one who hasn't let greed rot his brain."
The air shifted violently. The "killing intent" didn't just fill the space; it saturated it, turning the oxygen into a jagged, electrified haze.
There were no more words to be said. The debt of their brotherhood was settled in that final look.
The traitor moved first.
The Traitor become blurry, streak of murderous intent cutting through the stagnant air. The traitor didn't use any weapon yet, he relied on pure, explosive velocity. The Traitor was fast, direct, and lethal, aiming a fist strike fueled it with lifetimes of envy, jealousy and rage.
He didn't dodge. To retreat now was to cede the momentum of the entire world. Instead, he stepped forward, meeting the fist head-on.
Even though his prowess on soul in match in entire Continent; No entire World. His Profession was that of an All-Rounder type, a master of both close combat or long distance combat. He could decimate an army from many kilometer away with high-tier sorcery or dismantle a dragon with nothing but his knuckles. Yet this time, he didn't reach for a spell first. He reached for a fist. He wanted to feel the bone-deep impact he wanted to punch the smug, treacherous face of the man who had discarded their bond like shit.
Their first clashing split the sea.
When their fists met, it wasn't just a physical collision, it was a meeting of two conflicting realities. The impact shattered the calm surface of the water, sending a titanic shockwave in every direction. A wall of seawater, hundreds of feet high, rose into the air and held there, suspended by the sheer pressure of their radiating energy.
He didn't wait for the traitor to recover. He immediately followed the strike with an incantation.
"Begone!" He shouted, the words weren't the actual spell. The World Language was too potent to be spoken aloud without tearing the speaker's throat, it was merely the activation phrase, the key turning in a lock. The true, complex chant happened within the lightning-fast corridors of his mind, a sequence of mental runes constructed in less than a millisecond.
With the activation, a massive, destructive surge of raw energy of destruction shot through his fist.
The blast was blinding, a lance of pure purple light that bypassed the traitor's initial guard. It sent the traitor skittering backward across the water for hundreds of meters. As he flew, the traitor tried to stabilize, his body suddenly glowing with the golden hue of a top-notch Defensive Fated Artifact, a relic they had found together in the Emperor Tomb of Great Human Empire. But even that legendary protection wasn't enough. Under the sheer density of the destructive energy, the artifact didn't just break; it crumbled to ash, its ancient enchantments snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane.
The traitor wasn't just taking hits, however. He was a survivor. Even as he was being propelled backward, his feet carving twin trenches in the sea, he was already preparing a counter.
With a flick of his wrist, the traitor brandished a sword out of thin air. The blade was a jagged sliver of darkness that seemed to drink the light around it. He didn't swing it normally; he flicked it with a speed that defied the laws of physics.
"Extreme Unmassness!!" the traitor screamed.
A massive, invisible slash tore through the space between them. It moved so fast that the moment the sword was swung, the concept of "distance" ceased to exist. Everything in front of the blade like the air, the rising walls of water even very light itself was bisected with great precision.
Yet, the primary target stood unmoved. The slash whistled past him, missing his body by a hair's breadth, he didn't move, the spaces bend by his will redirected by a subtle shift. Resulting he didn't have a single scratch.
"My turn," he growled.
He proceeded to invoke his Will Core more. He didn't just want to win, he wanted to overwhelm that Traitor. He uses one of his most powerful Martial Arts Mean. Something he forge by hard train, not just take it as granted of Wheel Boon.
"INCARNATION SERIOUS PUNCH!!"
The world went blue.
A massive, fifty-meter-tall humanoid figure, translucent and glowing with the intensity of an azure star, manifested around him. It was a construct of pure willpower, a titan of intent that mirrored his own posture. The Incarnation didn't hesitate. It threw a massive, powerful, and terrifyingly quick punch straight at the traitor.
Just like the traitor move that bypass distance, His attack also happen instantly with his will to attack. The difference is the traitor can't respond it at all.
The traitor's eyes widened. He tried to raise his sword, tried to manifest a hundred more sword technique, but the azure fist was already there. It was the weight of a mountain moving at the speed of instantly.
The traitor was strong. There was no denying that.
But against a man who has stand as pinnacle of humanity for decades, the traitor is not enough.
Three moves.
That was all it took to settle the debt of decade brother hood betrayal.
The punch impact was absolute. The air, already strained to its breaking point, finally yielded with a thunderous crack that echoed across the empty horizon. Sonic Boom isn't even happened because the punch isn't have any speed but an instant thing.
He had broken the traitor's stance with the first blow. He had forced him back with the second. With the third, he crushed his guard entirely, shattering the last of all his defensive mean like glass under a hammer.
The azure Incarnation dissipated into wisps of fading light, leaving only the two men standing on the bruised and battered surface of the sea. The traitor coughed, a harsh, wet sound, and wiped a trail of dark blood from his mouth with the back of a trembling hand. He was a mess, his military uniform were shredded, his skin was mapped with lacerations, and his internal energy flickered like a dying lamp. Yet, despite the ruin of his body, he was still smiling.
"You're weaker than before," he said, his voice cold and devoid of triumph. "Your conviction has holes in it. Your heart is heavy with the past."
The traitor spat a mouthful of crimson into the water. "That's what you think."
The ocean roared.
It wasn't the roar of wind or the natural crashing of waves. It was a cosmic mechanical, ancient sound, the grinding of celestial gears. The massive formation on the ocean floor, previously a dull glow, suddenly erupted into a blinding, incandescent gold. The alien symbols vibrated, the frequency rising until the very water began to boil and turn to steam, even steam is reach critical temperature immediately and turn into plasma.
All of that only for making a barrier.
He finally narrowed his eyes, the realization clicking into place with a sickening finality. He looked at the traitor, who stood there bleeding and broken, yet triumphant in his failure.
"This wasn't meant to kill me," he said, the weight of the trap settling on his shoulders.
The traitor tilted his head, his smile widening to reveal stained teeth. "No."
"It was meant to hold me."
As the words left his lips, the walls of water far away that had been suspended in the air didn't fall but they imploded instead. The sea closed in from every direction, not with the weight of liquid, but with the density of a collapsing star. The glowing formation below became a vacuum, pulling everything into a singular poin, anchoring his to the seabed.
The hot plasma in atmosphere is pushing Him with great force. The plasma somehow also restricting all his power.
The trap activated. The Southern Sea, once quiet, was now a tomb of rushing light and crushing pressure, sealing the one man the world couldn't afford to lose inside a prison of his own brother's making.