[Third Person POV]

“I don’t get it…” Annabeth muttered, her sharp gray eyes fixed on the clash between Thalia and Luke. The air practically vibrated with the power those two were unleashing. Her lips parted slightly, not in fear, but in awe. “Luke didn’t even use half of these moves when he fought you back at camp.” Her voice was hushed, yet it carried clear amazement.

“He was too scared to,” Lucian replied with a crooked grin. His arms remained raised above his head, muscles taut as veins of energy rippled through him. Beneath his will alone, the massive cruise ship groaned and lifted, its colossal weight defying gravity. The sea gushed off the hull in waterfalls as he suspended the several-ton vessel effortlessly above the water. The casualness in his tone contrasted with the impossible feat he was performing.

Annabeth scoffed and shook her head, her blonde curls bouncing with the motion. “I’m being serious, it’s weird. It doesn’t add up.”

“I was being serious too.” Lucian’s grin didn’t falter, though his eyes narrowed, sharp with memory. “Back at camp, right before I fought Luke, he was right beside me when my [Dread Presence] ability slipped out of control. The moment when you told me what he did to Lady Hestia.”

Annabeth’s expression shifted, the corners of her lips twitching downward as she recalled. “Yeah… I remember. It was terrifying. Your presence quite literally became a physical force capable of crushing someone, thick with despair. Everyone could feel it crushing them. Some even went mad just standing near you.” Her words trailed with a faint tremble, her arms folding as though to ward off the memory. “I can still feel it crawling up my spine if I think too hard about it.”

Lucian’s gaze was fixed on Luke. “Well, Luke didn’t just feel it. He took the brunt of it. As much as his willpower is impressive, despair doesn’t care about strength. Dread seeps in, corrodes, and drowns you until you’re fighting yourself as much as your opponent. He was disoriented. He could still fight, yes—but not at his fullest.”

Annabeth’s brow furrowed, understanding dawning.

Meanwhile, Luke floated in the churning waters, his form rising and falling with the restless sea. Sparks still danced across his twitching body where Thalia’s thunderbolt had struck, the burns raw and searing. All around him, lifeless sea creatures bobbed to the surface—fish, eels, even sharks—all fried in the storm of electricity she had unleashed. The water stank of ozone and charred flesh.

“You made a grave mistake, Luke,” Thalia’s voice rang out like a hymn, carried effortlessly by the winds that swirled around her. Her blue eyes glowed with the storm’s fury, lightning arcing within them. “You should have never left camp. If you wanted to change the status quo, there were other ways—better ways—than this path you chose.” She raised her head, electricity flashing along her eyes. “Now look at what you’ve become.”

Luke’s jaw clenched so hard it looked as though his teeth might crack. His hand trembled around the hilt of his sword, knuckles white with effort. Pain ravaged his body, his limbs twitching with every lingering spark of lightning still crawling across his skin, but his rage gave him fuel enough to stand against it. “What would you have me do then, Thalia?!” His voice was raw, torn from his throat. “Keep playing the gods’ perfect little soldiers? Keep groveling and pretending we’re satisfied being their pawns? Because that’s all we are—just toy soldiers. Puppets to amuse them!”

Thalia hovered high in the air, suspended by the very currents of wind she commanded, but her [Wind Sense] carried his every word to her ears as if he’d whispered them beside her. Her expression hardened, but there was no hesitation in her reply. “That’s where you’re wrong, Luke! I won’t deny that many gods are like that, but not all. To lump them all together, to blind yourself with hate, that’s your ignorance speaking.”

The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, and night fell heavy across the sea. Yet the darkness deepened further as storm clouds gathered at Thalia’s words, smothering even the stars. The winds howled in tandem with her rising fury, the storm reflecting every ounce of her conviction. “And don’t you dare act like you’re some martyr! You’re no saint, Luke—you’re no better than the gods you claim to despise. You twist words like a knife, deceive others to follow you, and when they don’t? You cut them down. You turn innocent people into monsters!”

Her voice cracked like thunder itself, shaking the waters below. Bolts of lightning danced violently across the sky, illuminating her silhouette as the storm reached a fever pitch. Even the sea seemed restless, waves crashing with the weight of her power.

“You’re so consumed by your hatred for the gods—by your envy of Lucian—that you can’t even see the truth anymore. You’ve become exactly what you swore to fight against. The Gods that you despise so much… is the man you’ve become!”

Luke’s chest rose and fell erratically, his breath shortening as if the very air had turned against him. His heart skipped a beat, pounding unevenly in his chest, and for the briefest instant his eyes shook—wide, raw, as if Thalia’s words had struck harder than any blade. The tremor hardened into fury. A guttural growl ripped from his throat, low and feral, his eyes bloodshot and wild as his body rocked with the violent rhythm of the waves.

“Don’t you dare!!” Luke bellowed, his voice reverberating across the storm-tossed sea. With a violent snap of his wrist, his sword raised high, trembling in his grip not from weakness but from sheer rage. “I’m nothing like them! Nothing like them at all! Do you think I enjoy doing this?!” His voice cracked with rawness, desperation bleeding through his defiance. “Someone has to stand against them, and if it won’t be you—then it’ll damn well be me! And you must be completely delusional if you think—even for a second—that I envy Lucian!”

Thalia’s only response was a sharp scoff, a sound brimming with scorn. Her eyes narrowed with dangerous calm. “You don’t? Then maybe you should.”

Above her, the storm seethed, the lightning no longer random but deliberate, weaving into chaotic motion. Within the clouds, shadows shifted and coiled, massive in scale. The storm flashed, and for an instant the silhouette was revealed—a colossal form writhing within the thunderheads.

Her voice thundered over the roar of the storm: “Because you will never even amount to half the man Lucian is.”

Luke’s teeth ground together until his jaw ached. A snarl tore from his lips, and with a violent surge he launched himself upward, blasting through the air at blistering speed, water exploding beneath him. His aura flared, raw power bursting from every pore as he shot toward Thalia like a bolt of hatred made flesh.

Thalia’s grin spread wide, sharp with confidence. She flicked her wrist downward, her storm answering in kind.

The storm split open, and from its heart descended an eastern dragon of stormlight plunging with a roar that shook the sea and skies itself, its serpentine body twisting gracefully yet violently. Jagged horns crowned its head, its long whiskers crackled like burning wires, and its maw split wide to reveal teeth made of raw thunder. The beast was beautiful and terrifying, a god’s wrath given form.

Luke’s jaw locked as his instincts sharpened. His grip on the sword tightened, knuckles whitening as he invoked [Weakness Exploitation]. His vision narrowed, searching—hunting—for the mythical reverse scale. And then he saw it.

With a roar that ripped through his throat, Luke twisted midair, angling his body against the descent of the beast. At the last second he spun, his blade carving upward. Steel screamed against living lightning as he dragged his sword across the dragon’s side, the strike beginning at its cheek and tearing up in a furious slash.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!” Luke’s scream tore through the chaos, half battle cry, half agony. The lightning beast’s body buckled against the attack, but arcs of raw power surged into his weapon, coursing through the metal and into his veins. His muscles spasmed violently, his body jerking as searing pain numbed him from within.

Still, he pressed forward. With one final, savage swing, he split the dragon in two. The construct exploded into a shower of sparks, fragments of its body cascading like falling stars as Luke hovered in the storm, suspended by sheer will. Lightning still coursed through him, arcs dancing across his skin and leaving him trembling, his breath shallow, teeth gritted so hard he could taste blood.

He looked to Thalia—defiance in his eyes.

Only to find her laughing.

The sound carried over the storm, mocking and cruel. Arcs of lightning still crackled in her eyes, bright enough to cut through the night. “Hahaha! That was so cute~” Her smirk widened, taunting him with every word. “Why don’t you show it to me again?”

The clouds rumbled as though obeying her, and the heavens split wider still. Another form made itself present, vast and furious, lightning weaving into scales and claws. A second dragon emerged, even larger, its roar like a world tearing apart.

Luke’s blood ran cold. His body refused to move—the lightning residue had paralyzed his nerves, leaving his limbs stiff, trembling. He could only watch in horror, his sword shaking uselessly in his grasp.

The dragon descended with impossible speed, maw gaping wide, jagged teeth gleaming like shards of the storm.

“No—!” Luke rasped, but his voice was lost to the thunder.

The beast struck, swallowing him whole in a single devastating lunge. Its body twisted downward, plunging into the ocean below.

The sea erupted with explosive force as the dragon dove, vanishing beneath the waves with its prey still inside. The spray rose high, a geyser of seawater lit by lightning before darkness reclaimed it.

Above, Thalia hovered calmly, her armor dissipating into sparks of wind and storm. She slicked her dark hair back with one hand, her grin sharp and confident, her eyes alight with pride.

The storm raged on, but there was no question in the air. The skies belonged to her. They always had. It was her birthright.

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep