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

Celina crashed through one wall, then another, her body flung like a ragdoll by the force of Lukas' kick to her side. Dust and fractured stone clung to her armor as she slammed into the floor, gasping, her limbs slow to obey.

The Divine Knight was no longer fighting to win. She fought now only to survive—only to delay the inevitable. Every second counted. Every heartbeat was a blade driven between Celina's fate and Lukas' fury.

But Lukas had grown tired of the chase.

A roar echoed through the cathedral's halls—not from his throat, but from the sea itself. Water surged behind him like a living creature, bursting through doors and corridors, dragging debris and remnants of the Church's sacred relics in its wake. The living constructs—the twisted creations born of Celina's desperate magic—were swept away and shattered against the walls like nothing more than ash in the tide.

Celina forced herself up, armor scraping against broken tile. Her lungs burned. Her vision blurred. Still, she ran.

Behind her, the waves thundered.

She twisted just as the ground beneath her feet gave way—spikes of pressurized water shooting upward with deadly precision. Celina slammed her blade into the ground and channeled what strength remained. The sword flattened, metal rippling like silk before it widened into a broad shield. The spikes struck but did not pierce the steel of her blade now turned shield.

Lukas kept moving forward. He did not speak and each step he took cracked the floor beneath him. His body moved with impossible grace and power, not rushing—only advancing, like the tide that pulled ships to their doom.

Celina stumbled onward. The Divine Knight reached the cathedral doors and shoved them open with the last of her strength. A great chamber stretched before her, stained glass painted fractured light across the floor. Stone pillars reached toward the vaulted ceiling and lining the sides of the cathedral—statues: Dragons. Kings. Saints. The Hero From Another World. All of them silent sentinels, watching from the shadows.

This was where Celina had once brought Lukas and showed him around the Church; the night of the fight that had taken place between her and Rosalia to put an end to the One Year Challenge.

In that moment, they had stood together for a singular purpose. And that was to ensure that they looked over Rosalia as she grew into the person that she had always wanted to be.

Now, Celina stood alone. Her breath caught. Her legs trembled.

There was no more room to retreat. There was no where else to run.

The Divine Knight dropped to her knees and pressed her palm to the marble. Her lips moved with bitter urgency as she called upon the last of her strength, summoning every drop of magic left within her veins.

The floor pulsed beneath her hand as white light bled from the eyes of the statues. But they did not move like puppets. Their heads turned and their forms shifted with slow, deliberate awareness. These were not mindless creatures like all the minions that had come before them. Celina had given them thought, she had given them will and intelligence.

Celina had given them purpose.

Lukas watched them rise. But he did not wait for them to fully gain consciousness. He shot forward in a blur, water twisting behind him. Celina's blade barely came to the Divine Knight's rescue when his fist collided with it, slamming into her side with enough force to drive her backward. Her boots slid across the stone, grinding sparks from the marble, and her teeth clenched against the pain.

The statues surged toward him. Dragons made of ancient stone. Knights carved from marble. They all moved with weight and power, their magic burning white-hot in their cores.

But the Seas answered for him. The water all around rose again, spiraling upward, shaping itself into towering forms. Giants of liquid force, arms and legs sculpted from the sea itself. The tidal guardians crashed into the statues with a deafening roar—stone against wave, magic against magic.

The cathedral shook.

Celina breathed hard, her shoulders sagging, one arm still gripping the handle of her blade tight. Her eyes never left him.

She had nothing left now, nothing but the hope that she had bought enough time.

Lukas stood among the wreckage, eyes fixed on her. There was no hesitation left in him. The man she had once believed to be human—was anything but that. Celina knew then that she would not survive this but she would not go down without a fight. She had made her choice. Escape was no longer an option.

The Divine Knight would face him head on—even if it killed her.

Celina lunged forward and slammed her hand against Lukas' chest, her palm gripping the soaked fabric of his robes. He felt the spell ripple through the threads instantly. His clothes writhed, twisting around his body like serpents. They constricted with crushing strength, trying to squeeze the life out of him, trying to break bone and collapse his lungs. But this did not faze Lukas for a second. He tore the fabric from his body with a single rip, the enchanted cloth screaming as it was ripped apart. Threads fluttered to the ground, lifeless once more.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The Dragon Lord stepped through the storm of cloth and blood and brought his fists down.

Each strike echoed like thunder. Her silver armor, blessed and battle-worn, cracked and broke beneath his blows. A shoulder plate shattered. Then the chest piece split. With every strike, another piece fell away. And Celina gritted her teeth through it all, her breath coming in painful gasps, refusing to scream.

Then he struck low.

An oblique kick to her knee sent her stumbling backward, her leg folding beneath her.

Celina hit the ground with a dull thud, sliding to a halt across the fractured marble.

Her blade fell from her hand. But even then, the weapon struck with a mind of its own. The sword twisted unnaturally on the floor, snaking toward Lukas like a living thing. It lashed out from behind him, aiming for his spine.

Lukas caught it mid-thrust and his two fingers closed around the blade. With one brutal squeeze—he shattered it. Shards of metal fell like silver rain around him. The core of the weapon, its spirit, its life—gone in the blink of an eye. Something in the Divine Knight broke as she watched. Celina stared at the broken blade with wide, empty eyes. She had had that sword for years. Trusted it. Fought with it. Bled with it. It was not just a tool. It had been a part of her.

Now it lay dead on the floor.

But still, Celina did not give up. She crawled away from him, dragging her body inch by inch across the ground. Her arm trembled as it pushed her back and away from Lukas.

Then she stopped. Her back pressed against a cold marble wall. She truly had nowhere left to run now. Her head lifted as if to plead to the heavens itself and it was then when she saw what she thought to be her saving grace: The statue looming above her—the one that stood untouched at the edge of the cathedral.

Not just a hero. Not a king. Not a dragon. But the Goddess Styx herself, the eldest daughter of Oceanus. The likeness was uncanny—elegant, powerful, beautiful, all of it carved in perfect detail. The statue of the Goddess of Unbreakable Oaths, rendered in polished obsidian and white-veined marble. Lukas stopped moving as he followed Celina's gaze and his breath caught in his throat. He knew that face, knew line and every feature. He had touched that cheek, had held that body and whispered sacred promises into her ear by the fire.

Celina casted her spell once again, hand clutching at the statue's feet in sheer desperation; bringing the statue that had been carved from her likeness to life.

The eyes of Styx's statue glowed bright white.

Lukas hesitated.

And in that moment—the light in the statue's eyes changed. The soft white glow bled into shadow. It turned black.

The magic that Celina had channeled into the statue vanished in an instant, as if it had been consumed by something far older.

Something far more powerful.

And Lukas felt it. He felt her, it was presence.

It was Styx. The Goddess of Unbreakable Oaths herself.

But Styx was not here for him, that much he knew. She was here for Celina.

The immortal was here to pass judgement on the Divine Knight who had broken an oath sworn on her very name. In this very room, long before the storm and the blood and the ruin, a quiet conversation between Lukas and Celina had once taken place.

Celina had sworn an oath on the River Styx. An oath that the Divine Knight would not reveal the true nature of Rosalia's gift. Celina had promised that the Church—Daerion, the High Priests, all of them—would never learn what the girl was truly capable of. Even if Rosalia herself revealed flashes of her strength to the world during the Duel by wielding two Divinities, Celina had sworn to protect the one secret that mattered most: that Rosalia could speak to Mana itself.

And Celina had told them everything. Thus, the Divine Knight had broken her oath.

When one swore an oath on the River Styx, those words were more than just an empty declaration. There was a reason why people regarded it with such meaning and weight. If one chose to break that oath, if one chose to go against their own word, then one must stand before Styx herself to pay the price.

Celina had said she feared only Oceanus. Yet even the gods feared the Titan's eldest daughter.

The statue of Styx was silent in her delivery of judgement, swift and divine. It drew back its marble foot, and without warning, drove it into Celina's back. The force of the kick launched her forward, her body lurching through the air toward Lukas.

Lukas moved at the same time, with his shoulder angled forward, rushing forward with immense momentum.

The two collided with bone-shattering violence.

The blue jewel embedded in the center of her chest plate shattered on impact, releasing a burst of cracked light before the armor gave way entirely with the metal caving inwards.

The sound was sickening. Celina's body folded around the blow before crashing to the ground. She did not rise again.

Lukas stood over her, chest heaving, eyes flickering to the statue once more—but Styx was already gone. Her presence had vanished like a gust through the ruins of a temple. There was no voice, no farewell. Styx could not overstay her welcome in the land of the living, no matter how much she wished to do so.

Lukas would see her again. But not now. Not yet.

His gaze returned to Celina. The Divine Knight lay on her back, mouth opening and closing as she fought for breath. Her chest had collapsed inward, bones shattered, lungs punctured. Blood bubbled at the corners of her lips with each wheezing gasp. Her sword was gone. Her armor broken. Her strength—spent.

Lukas stepped forward. He bent down and propped her head up with one hand, gently, as if the moment required some sliver of decency. Her eyes fluttered weakly, trying to focus on him.

If she had any last words, he would hear them. He did not forgive her for everything she had done. He would never forgive her. But this...this was something he could offer her; a final kindness before her soul was sent to the Underworld. The Divine Knight had always known the mage they call Klein was stronger than her. But she had never realized that the gap between them would have been so large.

The fight was over and Celina let out a sad laugh, "I never stood a chance…did I? It wasn't even a battle. You obliterated me. You were just...too strong."