“How’s the situation?”
“…Not good. There’s been severe damage to the port. Quite a lot of casualties as well. Jophiel’s condition also appears to be rather severe.”
“Hmm.”
Two figures stood at the port, gray coats billowing in the wind as they took in the devastation before them. The area was in complete chaos. Shattered ships littered the water, storefronts lay in ruins, and bodies were strewn across the ground.
It was safe to say that the damage was quite extensive.
“What exactly happened? Do you have any idea?”
Raphael asked, his expression clouded as he looked at the scenes. It had been an entire day since the incident had occurred, and he, alongside Dante, had been sent over to investigate the situation by the Goddess Sanctum, the main temple of the Goddess of Light.
“I’m reviewing the reports, and it seems Jophiel was investigating Anne, one of the seven lords, following a tip about her and a few others being targeted by the Great Primordial One.”
“….Right, I did read about that.”
Raphael’s brows furrowed momentarily.
The situation felt a little weird.
Something about it felt somewhat off.
“Who exactly was the one who gave the tip?”
“It appears to be Sylas.”
“Sylas?”
Raphael had to rack his brain for a few moments before recalling who it was.
“Captain of the Crimson Wraiths?”
“That’s right.”
“Him…?”
The frown on Raphael’s face deepened.
“And where is he now?”
“Unsure. He was supposed to have been detained, but because of the chaos that unfolded here, a lot of the people stationed by the temple to look over him left to help. He was able to leave without any problems.”
“That so?”
Raphael clicked his tongue.
It wasn’t just his gut feeling that told him he was somehow involved; all the clues also pointed to the case.
The only thing he was curious about was why Jophiel would want to get involved in such a case.
He could’ve handled things better.
But after a little bit of thought, the answer became obvious to him.
‘He wanted more.’
Jophiel wasn’t satisfied with his current position. He wanted more. He wanted a greater saying within the Goddess of Light’s Sanctum.
As such, he took this chance to get rid of one of the seven lords of the seas.
This had been his primary goal.
If he could control the seas, then he could most likely gain enough momentum and power to rise even further.
“Raphael, there’s another interesting thing I’m picking up.”
“Oh?”
Raphael leaned his head to look at the documents in Dante’s hands.
His brows rose shortly after.
“Wait, so the reports ended up being true? The targets in question were indeed targeted by Xa’ruhl?”
“Yes, it appears so…”
Dante’s voice grew grave in that moment.
It couldn’t be helped. If the great primordial one had truly targeted them, then Jophiel’s actions were understandable.
That was because…
Once the great primordial one set its eyes on someone, there was no escaping.
The only thing they could do was wait for its inevitable arrival.
If the targets ended up staying within the city, then…
“This situation is a lot more complicated than I previously expected.”
Raphael mumbled, his face equally grave. He had originally thought that this had been some sort of power trip from Jophiel that had gone wrong, but very clearly, the situation was a lot more complicated than expected.
Raphael grabbed several files from Dante and looked through them.
Four files appeared.
Anne, An’as, Sylas, and Lazarus.
Three of the pages were filled with all sorts of information, except the last one.
“Merchant traveling from afar…”
Raphael’s eyes narrowed further as his gaze fell on the profile. There wasn’t much information on the file besides the fact that he came out of nowhere, sold unique items, and was the one responsible for rendering Jophiel into his current state.
It was precisely the lack of information that made him unsettled.
But for him to be able to handle Jophiel and push him towards such a point…
“He’s at least Black Grade.”
“….Yes.”
That was the highest grade that they could give to individuals whose powers neared the very top of the Mirror Dimension.
Raphael slowly turned his head to stare in the direction of the sea, which was currently calm.
He made a decision shortly after.
“They might be targeted by the great primordial one, but just in case, set up a bounty for them.”
“A bounty? For how much…?”
“The highest possible level.”
“This…”
Dante raised his head to look at Raphael, unsure of what to make of his words. However, thinking about the current situation and the mess that had occurred as a result of their actions, he soon nodded his head.
“Understood. I’ll quickly report this to the Sanctum. And…”
Dante’s gaze fell on another profile.
“What about Sylas? What do we do about him?”
“Sylas? Hmm.”
Raphael thought for a moment before eventually mumbling,
“Same. Black Grade. We can’t afford to play games with this situation. Either part is guilty of something, and I won’t have them make a mess within the Land of Light.”
Raphael’s gaze pulled away from the documents and back towards the sea, his eyes narrowing.
That was until he recalled one of the profiles, and his lips pursed.
“An’as…”
Why did that name sound familiar?
He had read his entire profile, and while his path was interesting, he was a nobody.
Nothing noteworthy.
And yet… for some reason, his name felt familiar.
Why was that?
Raphael rubbed his mouth before turning his attention back towards Dante, who was sorting out the papers in front of him.
“One more thing…”
“Eh?”
Dante looked up, meeting Raphael’s gaze.
“Try to find everything you can on the second profile. The one of An’as… Try to dig as much as possible.”
***
Splash! Splash!
The red waves crashed against the hull as the ship cut through the crimson sea.
It was silent on top of the ship, the remaining crew scrambling across in order to fix the damage that it had sustained in several areas while others recovered from their injuries.
Standing at the bow of the ship, Lazarus’s clothes fluttered as he stared towards the horizon, his hazy eyes never looking away from the distance.
It was unknown what his thoughts were as he stood there.
He had been standing like that for the past day, and nobody dared to say a single thing to him.
After everything that they had witnessed, who would even dare to approach him?
At this very moment, his mere presence felt pressuring, and just standing next to him felt suffocating.
But there was at least one person who didn’t appear to be affected.
“What are you doing?”
It was Anne, her voice a little hoarse due to all the shouting she had been doing.
“…..”
Her words were met with silence as Lazarus continued to stare into the distance.
However, his gaze soon turned towards her.
“I’m checking the situation ahead.”
“Oh…”
Anne looked into the distance, but found there to be nothing.
The sea was calm, and the world around was quiet.
“You don’t have to stay here to check. We have several devices that we use in order to detect if there are any monsters within the vicinity.”
There was a reason why she was so carefree while roaming the waters of the Crimson Sea.
Her ship was equipped with all sorts of relics that granted her the ability to detect distant monsters, alongside several powerful cannons and a protective shield that could protect them from the attacks of powerful monsters.
If not for the fact that half of her ship had been invaded by spies, they wouldn’t have struggled so much the day prior with the Luminarch.
They should’ve been able to sail away without much problem.
Thinking about the crew members who had betrayed her, Anne’s teeth clenched tightly.
She had yet to get over that matter.
However, there were more pressing matters at hand.
Her heart grew heavy as she looked at the mysterious merchant.
“Although I don’t believe his words to be true, Luminarch Jophiel mentioned that the great primordial one had set its eyes on us.”
Anne’s face darkened at the thought.
“If that’s the case, the best course of action for us is to immediately find land and get away from the waters.”
“….”
Lazarus remained silent while listening to her words.
“But there’s one problem…”
“It’s that we can’t go back.”
Lazarus finally spoke, finishing the sentence for her.
“Correct.”
Anne closed her eyes and nodded.
“Most of the shores fall within the Goddess’s domain. If we return that way, we’ll be targeted by her forces. But we can’t follow the coastline or move sideways into another region either, those territories are under the Primordial One’s control.
There existed only one safe route that wasn’t controlled by the primordial one.
It was the one that came from Virith-Anash to the Remnant South.
But there was also one problem with that…
“I’m assuming that the temple has set a bounty on us following the events that had unfolded not too long ago. In that sense, we’ll probably be targeted by the other lords of the seas.”
Her heart felt heavy while weighing their current possibilities.
On one hand, they could turn back, only to be hunted by the forces of the Temple of Light. On the other hand, they might attempt to slip into regions beyond Panthea’s reach, but those lands belonged to the Primordial One.
The final option was to press forward, though that path would almost certainly lead to a confrontation with the other lords.
In other words, wherever they went… they’d encounter trouble.
Anne’s heart felt heavy at the thought.
However, Lazarus looked completely unaffected by the situation.
“Head forward. We’ll go to the Remnant South.”
“But…”
“It doesn’t matter if we encounter the other lords of the seas.”
Lazarus’s voice remained calm as he looked ahead, his hair fluttering faintly.
“…It is the only realistic route that we can take. Everything else is just suicide.”
Anne bit her lips, but realized she couldn’t argue at all.
He was indeed right.
Although extremely dangerous, the route ahead was the one they had the highest chances of surviving.
The only thing she didn’t realize, however, was the fact that this was the route that Lazarus had wanted to go from the very start.
The situation…
It had unfolded in a favorable way.
Things could’ve been a lot better, but he took what he could get.
But even then, in his current state, he wasn’t sure he could fight against the other lords of the sea.
His emotive magic had made a qualitative leap, but he was still not capable of tapping into such power freely.
He needed more time to consolidate everything.
In the meantime…
Lazarus slowly turned his head to look at Anne.
“You…”
Anne turned her head, and their eyes met.
His next words left her stunned.
“Train me. Teach me how to fight in the water.”