Craaaack!

The moment Kwon Oh-Jin’s fist, covered in Black Thunder, struck Enceladus’s chest, the Sacred Ground tore apart like paper. Not only that, but his fist pierced straight through Enceldus’s heart and bore a hole right through him.

“W-What the...?” Enceladus’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief as he looked down.

From below, Kwon Oh-Jin stared up at him with a smirk.

“I-Impossible...” Enceladus coughed out black powder as if a bag of flour had burst open. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

A Celestial was not made of flesh and blood, but of their Stigma’s mana. That very power had been shredded apart, vomited out, and annihilated by the Black Lightning.

No one had seen exactly what Kwon Oh-Jin had done. The flash of Black Lightning had only lasted for a sliver of a second before his fist made contact with Enceladus. This had all happened from an angle that Lee Woo-Hyuk, Sakaki, and Koshiro couldn’t see. Perhaps only Vega managed to get a glimpse since she was closest.

Obviously, this wasn’t a coincidence. Kwon Oh-Jin had spent the entire ten minutes carefully constructing lies. The entire plan had been an act for this single, crucial moment.

Enceladus had believed, no, had been led to believe that Kwon Oh-Jin could never pierce his Sacred Ground without a Celestial’s blessing. Thus, he had no way of dodging the Black Lightning.

“Kugh!” Enceladus continued coughing up black powder.

His legs, which had stood so firmly through the ten minutes of fierce battle, finally buckled. Dropping to one knee, Enceladus’s trident slipped from his grasp.

“Haa, haa.” Kwon Oh-Jin’s condition was far from fine either.

The trident had pierced his stomach and ravaged his insides. If he weren’t an Awakener with a superhuman physique, he would’ve died the moment it pierced him.

In truth, he could’ve dodged Enceladus’s attack.

But I had to do at least this much to deceive Enceladus.

Enceladus was arrogant and overbearing, yet he was careful and detailed in battle. Or rather, perhaps it was more accurate to call him petty. He had laid a trap to lure Kwon Oh-Jin’s group and sacrificed his own subordinates in the swamp.

Even in the ten-minute battle, he kept boasting about the might of a transcendent being. In truth, he focused solely on defense and stalled until the Celestials’ blessings faded.

Lies were always most impactful when hidden between truths. To deceive Enceladus completely, Kwon Oh-Jin had no choice but to suffer a fatal wound himself.

“M-My child, are you all right?!” Vega asked worriedly as she looked at Kwon Oh-Jin’s wounded stomach.

“I’m fine...”

The wound was severe, but he could heal it with the Water Affinity. It would take tons of water to mend such an injury, but that wasn’t a problem with the ocean nearby.

The problem is... we’ve strayed too far from the water.

In order to avoid the swamp, they had gone far away from the shore. Still, if they took care of Enceladus, reaching the sea wouldn’t be too bad.

“Khhh, how dare you...!” Enceladus glared with bloodshot eyes, clutching at the hole in his chest as he staggered upright. He looked at Kwon Oh-Jin in disbelief. “H-How do you have his power...!?”

So, the Heavenly Demon hadn’t told Enceladus that Kwon Oh-Jin also possessed the Black Heaven.

Makes sense.

If word got out that Kwon Oh-Jin possessed an even more complete Black Heaven, the ruler of the Black Stars would be put in a rather precarious position.

“Ugh... damn it!” Enceladus groaned while pressing his chest.

He tried to heal himself by mustering his Stigma’s mana, but the wound refused to close.

“It won’t heal so easily,” Kwon Oh-Jin said.

Black Lightning could break apart and disrupt mana. It was the worst attack for a being whose body was made not of flesh but of mana.

“Don’t... get so cocky!” Enceladus gritted his teeth and glared at Kwon Oh-Jin with killing intent.

Humiliation and rage drowned out the pain from his pierced heart. It wasn’t just because a mere human had severely wounded him.

“You arrogant scrap of a star...!”

The events of the past flooded into his mind—the cold, disdainful eyes of the Celestials who once looked down on him.

He cried out to them and desperately pleaded, “Why? Why won’t you understand?! This is the only way to stop the world from being ruined!”

Not every human could accept a Stigma. Only a rare few could, and even among them, the difference in aptitude was vast. He believed that the answer was to concentrate all their power into the most gifted child. Only this method could avoid the prophesied end.

He believed there could be no salvation without sacrifice. However, the other Celestials trampled on that conviction and tore it to shreds.

“Enceladus, Celestial of Seahorse.”

Those fools claimed the world could be saved without even a single sacrifice.

“You are hereby banished from the Sanctum.”

Thus, they banished him from the realm of the stars and branded him a False Star.

“I won’t lose to you of all...!”

And so, against the head of the arrogant stars who had cast him out, he couldn’t afford to lose to the child of the North Star Celestial.

Woong!

A black mass of light erupted like an explosion.

“Kraaaaa!” Enceladus’s agonizing scream tore through the air.

Crack! Crack!

He began to split apart like fractured glass.

Kwon Oh-Jin’s expression hardened. “That’s...”

Black light spread around Enceladus. Kwon Oh-Jin had seen this before.

“H-He’s activating his Sacred Ground!”

This wasn’t the faint shell of protection that barely clung to him before, but him actively creating a Sacred Ground using his authority as a Celestial. The very same kind that Vega had opened to stop the Heavenly Demon in the past.

“R-Run quickly, my child!” Vega cried out in panic.

Activating a Sacred Ground was not easy. Even within the Sanctum, free of the Law’s restrictions, creating a Sacred Ground remained difficult. Precisely because it was so difficult, a Celestial possessed overwhelmingly absolute power within that space.

“H-Hehehe. It’s too late to run now!” Enceladus bared his teeth with a twisted grin and flung his arms out wide.

The black light around him spread outward, encircling Kwon Oh-Jin.

Even Enceladus, who was rather free from the restrictions of the Law, seemed to struggle with activating a Sacred Ground, leaving him out of breath.

“Haa, haa, haa!”

Nonetheless, he had successfully caged Kwon Oh-Jin within his Sacred Ground.

“Prepare yourself, human.”

The ground shook as water exploded from the black light.

Rumble!

“This is what a Celestial of Seahorses Sacred Ground looks like! The Dragon Palace!”

The water, which had barely reached their ankles, instantly welled up past Kwon Oh-Jin’s waist and chest. Soon, it swallowed him whole.

In the blink of an eye, it seemed like they were inside an ocean. This miracle went beyond the laws of physics.

However, Enceladus scowled at Kwon Oh-Jin’s expression. “What the hell?”

Kwon Oh-Jin, trapped inside the Dragon Palace, should’ve been writhing in agony and unable to breathe.

“Why... are you smiling?”

Kwon Oh-Jin looked maddeningly calm underwater. Rather, the corners of his lips rose into a mocking sneer.

Enceladus frowned at Kwon Oh-Jin’s attitude as if he weren’t trapped in the Sacred Ground.

“Ah ah, can you hear me now?” Kwon Oh-Jin said. He moved his lips soundlessly for a bit, but soon figured it out and used his Stigma’s mana to speak underwater. “Dang... I didn’t expect you to go this far.”

He glanced leisurely around the Dragon Palace. True to its name, a huge temple made from Enceladus’s Stigma’s mana stood tall. Countless seahorses, armed with weapons, surrounded Kwon Oh-Jin.

Their movements in water looked sharper and deadlier than what he had seen on land.

“Of all places, you just had to choose the sea,” Kwon Oh-Jin said.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember Sosuke?”

“I do...”

Although he had died, Sosuke had been one of the more promising children who had inherited Enceladus’s Stigma.

“Do you know how he died?” Kwon Oh-Jin asked.

“I don’t.”

He knew Sosuke had once been called an executor who led others, but the restrictions of the Law were still too strong at the time. Enceladus had never learned the details of his death.

“Really?” Kwon Oh-Jin shrugged and reached down to grab the trident still lodged in his abdomen.

With a savage twist, he yanked it free. His shredded organs tore loose with it and scattered through the water.

Enceladus's eyes widened in disbelief. “What are you doing?”

Even delicately removing the weapon could end his life, yet Kwon Oh-Jin had torn it out carelessly like pulling out a nail from wood.

“Are you trying to kill yourself even before the battle.... Huh?” Enceladus paused, and his expression hardened.

The gaping, fist-sized wound in Kwon Oh-Jin’s abdomen had healed instantly. Not only that, but every small and big injury on him vanished as though they had never been there.

“Well, it's okay if you don’t know how he died...” Kwon Oh-Jin savagely grinned as he chuckled. “Because I’ll show you how.”