Lucian slowly lowered his arms—arms he had kept raised in that purification stance the entire time.
As his motion ceased, the final thread of golden light wrapped around the clan members dissolved into shimmering motes, vanishing completely into the air.
The sacred warmth that had filled the battlefield ebbed away with it, leaving behind only the thick stench of blood and smoke—so heavy it seemed impossible to breathe through.
"It's nothing serious."
Lucian's voice was flat. He didn't even turn his head to look at Rocks, his eyes still fixed on the unconscious clan members.
"They were 'blackened' by Im's lackey using some kind of wicked power—turned into demonized things."
"Nothing but immortal puppets that follow orders, fearless and mindless."
"Simply put—no self-awareness, only commands. And they can't be killed."
Im.
Immortal puppets.
The moment Lucian spoke Im's name—
"Im…" Rocks repeated it under his breath, rolling the familiar name around in his mouth. A chill, razor-edged killing intent flashed across his eyes.
Of course he knew the name.
He'd even stormed Im's palace before.
But the killing intent didn't last.
It was replaced by something hotter.
More deranged.
More insane.
The next instant, Rocks' face split into a grin—one so wide it looked feral.
Yet in that smile there was no fear for his clan's suffering…
No pure anger at Im…
Only a sick excitement, trembling with thrill.
"Guhahahaha… HAHAHAHAHA!"
He laughed freely, so loud the scattered rubble seemed to vibrate.
"Terrifying… truly terrifying…" he muttered, as if admiring a masterpiece. "To turn living people into monsters like that…"
He licked his cracked lips, eyes burning—not with fear, but with fire.
Interesting.
'If I'd known, I should've tested her strength back in the Holy Land… Zehahaha!'
That reaction wasn't normal.
But for Rocks D. Xebec?
It was completely on-brand.
As he laughed—
The purified clan members on the ground finally began to stir.
With the last wisp of black miasma burned away by divine power, their twisted demonic traits were completely gone.
They looked human again.
But after being corroded by that evil force for so long, their bodies were still weak.
They remained unconscious.
A moment later—
"Ugh…"
A groan.
At the front lay the oldest of them—his features seven or eight parts similar to Rocks', but aged into something more imposing, more severe.
His fingers twitched sharply.
Then his eyes opened.
At first, they were vacant and hazy from long sleep.
But clarity returned quickly, flooding back into them.
He jolted upright—
And what greeted him was hell.
The bisected remains of the God's Knights were strewn everywhere. Blood had dyed the land a deep, dried crimson.
Far off, the cliff face shattered by Lucian's battle with Garling Saint still smoked.
Then his gaze cut through the sea of corpses—
And locked onto a figure.
A man with wild black hair and an overbearing silhouette, chatting casually with a white-masked monster.
Rocks.
The instant the old man recognized his son, his expression froze.
There was no joy of reunion.
No relief of survival.
Only shock—
And anger.
"Rocks?!"
He struggled up, forcing his trembling, weakened body to stand. He swayed violently, but he didn't care.
His hand rose—shaking—finger pointing straight at that familiar-yet-foreign figure as he barked in a hoarse, furious voice.
"Rocks?! You… why are you back here?!"
The accusation came out sharp and raw—cold, distant, filled with undisguised hostility.
Rocks' laughter stopped instantly.
Slowly, he turned to face the old man.
Seeing him turn only fueled the flames in the elder's eyes. He staggered forward a step, voice almost turning into a howl.
"Didn't you swear you'd never set foot on this land again—!"
Halfway through, he stopped himself, lips pressed into a hard line.
But what remained unsaid said everything.
There was no reconciliation here.
This father and son—
Carried a conflict that could not be mended.
A bloody war had just ended…
And an even more suffocating storm had arrived.
"Oh?"
Beside them, Lucian seemed to have found an even better show.
He lazily folded his arms and leaned back against a boulder half his height.
The pure white mask tilted slightly, as though he were sitting front row at a play, enjoying the sudden family drama.
The smile on Rocks' face disappeared too.
He stared at his father. In the eyes that normally burned with ambition and arrogance, something complicated flickered now—
Surprise.
The sting of reopened wounds.
But most of all—
That unbreakable, bone-deep rebellion.
Father and son stood off across a field of corpses.
Even the air seemed to congeal.
"Hmph!"
In the end, it was the elder—Rocks' father—who looked away first.
He stared at his son's unchanged, defiant face, and the anger in his eyes slowly drained into something deeper.
Disappointment.
Heartache.
He wanted to say something.
But when a thousand words reached his lips, they collapsed into a single cold snort.
He turned his head sharply, refusing to look at Rocks again.
Looking any longer would only make his blood boil.
Just then, the rest of the purified clan members began waking up one after another.
Like the elder, the moment they took in their surroundings—and saw Rocks—they all showed expressions filled with conflicting emotions.
There was instinctive awe before a powerhouse.
There was the undeniable pull of blood ties.
But even more than that—
There was distance.
Deliberate distance.
A rift that couldn't be put into words.
No one stepped forward to greet him.
No one thanked him as their "savior."
Instead, they silently rose and gathered behind the old man.
And they stared at the man standing in the center of the battlefield—
Like he was an outsider.
Like he might even be an enemy.
In an instant, Rocks was isolated by his own people.
Between him and his family—
Stood an invisible wall.
This battlefield, still soaked in blood and fire, somehow became colder in that moment than it had been when facing the God's Knights.
Rocks stayed silent.
He looked at his father's unyielding back.
At the wary, distant eyes of people who should've been his own.
The tyrannical arrogance around him… seemed to dim slightly against that frozen wall of kinship.
He stood there.
Expressionless.
For a long time.
Then, in those deep eyes, all complexity drained away.
Replaced once again by that careless, rebellious arrogance—like armor snapping back into place.
Finally, he spoke, voice low but carrying undeniable force.
"Old man."
"We haven't seen each other in ages… and you're still like this?"