Bro, I'm not an Undead!

What measures Eaniss could have meant, Replicus didn't know.

He assumed that her humanoids were doing something in the ocean, though the thought of Eaniss' creations being potentially more durable than the great ship before him seemed unbelievable.

The look Aurolio had also suggested that he was Eaniss' assurance at the fact that the masked man was indeed still in the ship, but Replicus didn't see a future where the pale man answered his enquiry on the bizarre energy surrounding his eyes and how that proved anything at all.

Thankfully, there was Eaniss.

"What's your plan then? How will you take down the barrier?" Replicus asked.

The Head Faction leader twisted her lips, narrowed her eyes and pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear.

Replicus barely ever paid attention to Eaniss' hair as it was always changing colour. Its velvet shade at the moment was rather distasteful in his opinion.

"It's quite tedious and complicated to enact, let alone explain. I'm being too good to you, Bright Storm. I might just tell," Eaniss said teasingly.

Replicus scoffed.

"You see—"

...

A jaw-rattling cry interrupted Eaniss.

It came not from just ahead, but from behind.

Its source was a greenish-black blast of energy that sent powerful rings of distorted force so violent that they sent several ships hurtling like flung stones into the air, in different directions!

 Eaniss' ship wasn't spared.

The abrupt shift from peace to violence was painfully efficient, as almost everyone was caught off guard!

The result of this, was several Faction members meeting an untimely end after the force that threw them sent them into the clutches of powerful Reverse Clusters that caused their ships to implode in a blink, with barely any impact to be heard or seen.

Some were stretched by the odd spatial forces they got too close to, and were ripped apart before they could do a thing against the circumstances!

Many vessels were lost.

While the destruction and death amounted only to a second at moment, in that time, the more capable among the Factions mobilised their keen instincts quick enough.

The waves of poisonous water roared, rose and rippled madly, joining the dark rain. They shook the vessels unsteady.

If there had been any Scorching Tears to fall, they would have claimed several more victims at this moment.

Replicus' sockets burned bright in the chaos.

Eaniss' humanoids had managed to stabilise the ship quickly and easily.

Neither Eaniss nor Aurolio had been too shocked by the sudden turn of events, but of course, they had more than a little degree of concern and curiosity.

Replicus was shaken, but only because he didn't know the state of his subordinates. His vision crossed quickly to his ship, to see if it was alright along with the people it carried.

...!!!

To his surprise, it was. But not for the right reason.

The ship... his ship... was decked in a greenish-black hue that pulsed everywhere, creating persistent, visible rings that drove the waves from it, causing the ocean to dip where it stood!

His ship was the source of the great disturbance just now!

"Bright Storm...?" Eaniss said questioningly to Replicus while looking at the same scene he was looking at.

The Penetrator couldn't be bothered to answer right now.

'What is... Is it the Paladin Champion?!' Replicus thought quickly. The greenish-black around the ship, lighting everything like a solar flare while battling the red from the barrier ahead, was undoubtedly Undeath as well!

A different brand.

A specific kind!

'Is the Champion being used by the masked man as a thrall? From the remnants of Undeath within him? The Definer of Causality?!'

Replicus had considered these possibilities, which was why he had erected a barrier around the barely-alive Paladin Champion.

He hadn't half-assed that barrier.

It was the strongest one he could make!

But...

Replicus saw his ship groaning, sunken to the very ends of the hull, as though something heavy had sat on it!

The Penetrator would have rushed to the ship immediately, but the recurring coloured rings blasting from the ship discouraged him.

He had a nasty feeling about them.

That if he approached carelessly, he might be killed sooner than he could believe.

"Dammit..." he cursed.

The fact that he couldn't see any of his subordinates on deck alarmed Replicus all the more. He tried to create a mental link with Araeyn.

The damned Apostle didn't respond.

He tried to see through the Unlimiteds' armour.

It was all dark. There was interference.

The Undeath was potent.

'Did I take the masked man too lightly?'

Surely not.

Replicus anxiously took a glance back at the sinking, massive vessel.

The masked necromancer must be controlling everything from there!

Replicus tried to shut away the echo of a few words he had been pondering over.

'If you know what's good for you, throw this man back into the ocean, and turn back...'

The Penetrator groaned in displeasure.

"You said you had a way to get rid of that barrier around the ship. Do it, already!" Replicus yelled at Eaniss.

She raised a brow.

Aurolio scoffed... but then he suddenly frowned as he turned around.

The Head Faction leader deigned to answer Replicus... but paused. Her eyes moved first. She looked behind Replicus.

The Penetrator was smitten by a dark feeling.

He turned to look where Eaniss set her eyes, and he shuddered.

On the deck to his ship, he saw the Paladin Champion standing firm. He was half-naked, his toned, damaged but well-crafted torso on full display. His cherry hair partly covered his burnt face, but with his hand, he pushed it back and took a deep breath.

He spotted a new right hand, somehow, which he looked to flex a couple of times, and then he looked ahead.

The presence of the Paladin Champion and not that of his subordinates caused the Penetrator a greater sense of alarm, but a realisation that shocked his mind that instant... nearly caused him to sink into despair.

No.

No way.

He and Aurolio seemed to see the same thing, but with slightly different degrees of pretext.

The pale man saw the sacred, potent Undeath energy he had seen from the sinking vessel... now brimming within the man standing on Replicus' ship.

The Penetrator... he recognised something from the face of the Paladin Champion.

His eyes.

His piercing eyes!

There was a familiar hazel glow to them that brought his mind back to that time!

That day, when he, Tulnas and his harem were standing before an injured, masked man who carried a most terrifying presence of Undeath!

Behind that mask, he could have sworn...

"It's him..." Replicus found himself muttering.

He hadn't been ferrying the Paladin Champion as he thought he was.

No.

It was... him.

The man with the hazel eyes locked eyes with the Penetrator's sockets.

Those eyes... they were uncaring, cold, and determined.

But so was the might that exploded out of him in the next moment, when he brought his hands together, making the Penetrator feel, for the first time, the staggering magnificence of his unfathomable soul!