The Lord of the Seas - An Isekai Progression Fantasy [ Currently on Volume 2 ]

Their battle began without any further words needed.

The Divine Knight did not charge straight at him—she knew better. Celina had heard of Lukas' prowess as a combat mage but also his skill when it came to close quarters combat. Instead, she reached for the nearest thing she could find: A wooden bench.

It flew through the air like a missile, but halfway through its arc, something impossible happened.

The bench twitched. It sprouted eyes—wide and blinking. A mouth stretched open on the polished grain, screeching as if it had always been alive and only now remembered how to scream. Wooden limbs burst from its frame with a creak of splitting bark, flailing wildly as it lunged for him. But Lukas did not move from where he stood. Instead a wave of water rose behind him like a serpent rearing to strike. It crashed into the bench with brutal force, reducing it to splinters and soaked sawdust.

His eyes narrowed. Like Lukas had taught Rosalia, during the first few seconds of a fight, it was all a game of observation.

Act on impulse and that would be his downfall.

Celina's gaze never wavered from him, but one hand held her drawn sword and the other danced from object to object like a painter brushing a canvas. Shelves. Tables. Wall hangings. Chandeliers. Anything her fingers could reach.

Each time, all five fingers made contact, intentional and deliberate.

Lukas commanded the wave of water to follow her every move but Celina weaved through his strikes like flowing wind, slashing through blades of water and dodging geysers with the ease of someone who had danced through wars. With each passing moment, her other hand touched more—never stopping, never resting.

Within seconds, the entire room shifted. Lukas felt it before he saw it.

The air thickened with vitality. Objects began to move. Things that had no right to speak began to laugh.

The candleholders rattled their stems like blades. The other wooden benches bent their legs into grotesque animalistic postures, crawling forward with clacking joints. Even the chandelier above moaned and twisted as dozens of jewel-like eyes blinked open along its curve. Worst all was the statue of Oceanus, encased in marble; once cold, still, and reverent. It was alive. The divine figure twisted its neck, letting out a deep, gravel-laced breath as cracks formed across its face. Its hands tightened around the trident. And then, with a roar, it leapt down from its pedestal, stone feet crashing against the ground like thunder.

Lukas stood, taking it all in.

So this was the true Divinity of the Divine Knight.

The Divinity of Granting Life Itself.

Lukas had heard all about her feats—of the lives she'd saved, of the battles she had won. But the Church had always attributed it to her blade, her body and her genius when it came to warfare. He had always wondered what magical power Celina might be capable of but this went beyond his expectations.

It wasn't just creation. It was animation. A twisted, brilliant resurrection of all things that had once been still and dead. The very world bent to her whim, and it loved her for it.

The living swarm surged toward him—furniture and fabric, metal and marble—screaming in voices that were not real but echoed like ghosts. They moved with shocking speed, each and every one of them a servant of Celina's will.

Her plan was clear. Overwhelm him. Distract him. Suffocate him in movement and sound—until the moment came when her sword could find its mark. Because Celina only needed a single blow to cut him down. And she was betting everything on it.

What followed was a wave of movement, shrieking with unnatural voices—clattering, growling, creaking, sprinting across the chamber like a tide of madness. Tables with legs like wolves. Curtains that whipped like serpents. The statue of Oceanus let out a bellowing war cry as it charged, trident raised high.

But Lukas was done observing.

Now was the time to act.

From the wave of water he had summoned, his answer surged forth. Golems of water erupted in an instant. Human in shape, yet ever-shifting. Their limbs bent like rivers, their forms held together only by sheer will and intent. For every abomination Celina summoned, Lukas met it with one of his own.

The clash was immediate and violent. Wooden jaws snapped at watery throats. Stone limbs hammered against liquid torsos. Splinters and spray flew in every direction as the two forces collided with unrelenting momentum.

The chamber echoed with the sounds of unnatural war—a choir of things that should never have had voices.

Even amidst the chaos, Lukas noticed it. The flaw in this particular spell of Celina's Divinity.

These creatures of hers were strong, unnaturally so. But they were also mindless, fighting with brute force and no strategy, no thought behind their actions. They lunged, slammed, crushed—but only followed a single order: attack.

On the other hand, Lukas' constructs adapted. They were essentially extentions of his own mind, shifting and reacting accordingly to the battle they were engaging in.

But the Divine Knight had not become the Church's most feared blade through spectacle alone.

A scream tore through the noise, cutting through the very thoughts in his mind. The Kraken roared to life as it screamed and tore his attention away from the swarm of Celina's minions. This wasn't a war cry—it was a warning. A sudden wrench from his familiar jerked Lukas backward, just as a blade sliced through the air where his head had been.

Instead, the blade cut through the sleeve of his right arm. The fabric fell away and the Kraken was revealed. Twisting black tendrils, eyes blinking along the surface of unnatural flesh, and something that pulsed beneath—something older, something wrong. His entire right arm warped and coiled like a living shadow, an eldritch horror born of pressure and depth.

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Celina stood on the far end of the chamber, her blade hovering in midair beside her. That sword she wielded was not still—it twisted like a snake tasting the air, its tip elongated, shifting in shape and size.

It was alive, just like the rest of the creatures that she had brought to life…but it was also much more than that. It was aware, it was intelligent. The sword vibrated with restrained hunger, as though it enjoyed the kill it nearly claimed.

Celina's eyes, sharp and unreadable, locked onto the Kraken-arm now fully visible. For the first time, her calm composure broke. Disgust flickered across her face—pure and unguarded. As if she had just laid eyes on something unnatural...something horribly profane.

"What are you?" the Divine Knight whispered in horror.

But Lukas gave her nothing. There was no time for answers.

This was not the time for conversation. It was time to fight.

The battlefield trembled. Her makeshift army still tore into his water golems. But he no longer paid them any attention. They were distractions, all of it just noise. Because now he could see where her true strength was being channeled, where her magic's true power was being focused onto.

The sword. It moved without her needing to guide it, weaving through the battlefield like a silver serpent, striking at weak points with terrifying precision. Sometimes it split into smaller blades, sometimes it grew long like a whip, sometimes it scattered into shrapnel mid-flight only to reform again near her side.

And her armor. Eyes blinked open across its surface, whispering in unison. Mouths shouted warnings, screamed battle advice, bellowed commands that only she could hear. Every time he attacked, they saw. They spoke. They reacted.

And Celina listened.

Combined with her raw physical speed, her years of martial discipline, and the Divinity of Life flowing through her—she was more than a skilled fighter. She was a walking, breathing legion. Every part of her—the armor, the blade, the body—worked as one.

The Divine Knight of the Church was a single, unified force.

Lukas steadied his breath. This wasn't just a duel. It was a siege.

If Lukas didn't break through soon…then like the High Septon said, he would be out of time. But the Divine knight wasn't the only one who was fighting with allies by her side.

For the Kraken had awakened from his slumber, conserving his strength for this very moment. Lukas did not need to give the Cthulhu commands. His familiar had been waiting—starving—for a fight worth his hunger, and now the Kraken's power surged through his veins with wild, reckless delight.

The Kraken's magic roared to life. The air around him shimmered with pressure, thick with salt and intent. And in the depths of his mind, the Kraken's voice growled with frustration: "Her mind cannot be touched." Like Celina had said herself, this was a helmet forged for war against corruption. "The steel around her skull is etched with protection—she is immune to me."

It must have been imbued with wards similar to the one that Anriette believed the Head Mage had placed on him; protecting her from magical effects of the mind.

So Celina continued to weave through her conjured horde, slipping between monstrosities as if they were part of her, using them like a barrier of meat and metal to stay out of reach. But the Divine Knight wouldn't run forever and nor did she plan to.

Celina vanished behind a crashing statue, then she leapt. A silver flash from above—her blade descended, whistling with death as it sliced through the air toward his neck.

But Lukas moved.

He moved than she could have expected. Faster than any human mortal should have been able to move.

One moment, Lukas was still. The next, he was gone. Her sword missed its mark and she landed hard, rolling with the momentum, readying for his counter.

Her breath came heavy as the Divine Knight looked up—

And then she was the one who went deathly still.

Lukas stood before her, uninjured and still unmoving. But he was now holding something in his grotesque hand; its tendrils wrapping around it.

Lukas was holding an arm.

Lukas was holding her arm, severed cleanly at the elbow.

The Divine Knight's sword clattered to the floor. Celina's hand flew to her side, grasping at the gushing void where her limb had once been. Pain twisted across her face—but not from the wound. From the shock. From the weight of reality settling in.

Celina had trained her entire life, had fought in so many wars, had saved thousands and had even battled against the strongest that Hiraeth had to offer.

The Divine Knight was strong. But she was human.

And Lukas...

He was no human. He was something else altogether.

This fight had been over the moment it began.

Their eyes met. And Lukas saw her. Not as the Divine Knight, holy warrior of the Church. Not as his enemy. But the woman he had come to call his friend.

In that look Lukas gave her, there was no arrogance. No cruelty. Only sorrow. A final unspoken warning from one friend to another. Warning her to let the fight end here, to let her know that she had already proven more than enough.

But Celina did not stop. Her jaw clenched as she reached down and gripped the blade with her remaining hand. She raised it—and bit down on the hilt with her teeth, holding it between her lips like a warrior of old.

Blood dripped from her side.

Her armor, once alive, screamed with fractured voices. But her eyes burned with that same relentless fire.

And then—Celina moved.

Her hand slammed against the stone beneath her. The Divine Knight's magic ignited once more. The floor trembled. The very ground beneath her began to shift. Stone turned soft. Threads of green snaked through it. Roots and vines and something new writhed beneath the surface, pulsing with the breath of life.

Celina would never surrender, not until her dying breath.

Lukas rose. A platform of water lifted him into the air, smooth and silent. He ascended slowly, gaze never leaving hers. The room darkened as the golems—his water-born constructs—melted from their battles, their fluid bodies dissolving into one another and reforming behind him.

A shadow loomed. A massive shape took form. Something ancient. Something beyond form.

It towered behind him, cast in silhouette.

It was like water, given wrath.

Lukas looked down at Celina.

This time, there would be no empathy. No more warnings. The Divine Knight had made her choice.

And now—

Lukas was going to kill her.