Chapter 479 The End

'Did we still fail...?'

Intense agony wracked Lorraine's body, scattering her consciousness and washing her vision in waves of black. Even her eyelids felt impossibly heavy, every blink draining what little strength she had left.

Her chest felt like a punctured bellows, her breaths rattling with a wet, hollow wheeze. The sharp, metallic stench of blood flooded her mouth and nose.

She did not know the extent of her injuries, nor did she have the energy to parse exactly where the pain was coming from.

As her life force rapidly bled away, her consciousness began to sink.

Lorraine had been an adventurer for years; this was not her first brush with death.

She could smell the murky scent of demise thickening in the air, could feel the shadow of the reaper's descending scythe draping over her face.

Yet in all those past times, whenever she had been pushed to the brink, she had always found a glimmer of hope to turn the tide.

Whether it came as timely backup from her teammates or an enemy just as badly battered and near death... she had always survived.

But now, where was the hope?

Lorraine could not see it.

Aken had taken a direct punch to the chest from the Shark Beast. Even though the unique Path of his Barbarian class kept him from dying on the spot, he was barely clinging to a single thread of life. Let alone standing up to fight, it was uncertain how long he could even maintain that state.

Sasha's injuries looked even worse. His arm was snapped, his leg bone twisted out of its socket. Even if he woke from his coma right now, just standing would be a struggle, let alone continuing the fight.

And the only variable left on the field—the black-haired young man named Xia Nan, who had joined the team as a "temporary member" and displayed combat strength far beyond her expectations—she did not even know if he was dead or alive.

Just moments ago, briefly launched into the air by a torrent of water bursting from the cracked ground, Lorraine had watched the Shark Beast's thick, iron-whip of an arm smash directly into Xia Nan's crossed arms as he tried to block.

She had also seen how his Fine-grade Plate-Chain Composite Armor twisted and deformed under the monster's overwhelming force. To the crisp crack of breaking bones, scarlet blood and mangled flesh had sprayed from his mouth.

She had suffered these catastrophic injuries just from being caught in the aftermath of that blow.

Taking a direct hit from the thoroughly enraged Shark Beast, his injuries had to be even worse than hers.

She could not even hear a groan of pain from Xia Nan now.

Assuming the worst, he was probably already...

"Thump, thump, thump."

The heavy footsteps of the Shark Beast drew closer, sending faint tremors through the ground.

The monster's gruff, ragged breaths echoed from its massive frame, thickening the foul stench in the air.

Lorraine lay silently on the ground as blood pooled beneath her, her fading hazel-red eyes staring up at the sky.

At this moment, she could already foresee what would happen next.

With the core members—including herself—gravely wounded and out of the fight, only Hein, Alton, and Ryan were left standing.

Even though the Shark Beast was heavily injured itself, it was clearly not something those support-oriented team members could handle.

The most rational strategy would be to turn and retreat, flee to the port, and sail away, praying the wounded Shark Beast would not give chase.

But...

Lorraine knew Hein would not run.

The seemingly composed druid had not changed on the inside.

She possessed a flight ability rarely seen among low-level Class Holders, which would have guaranteed her a safe escape.

Given her personality, facing this desperate, near-wipeout situation, she would only charge the enemy like a moth flying into the flame, fighting for that last shred of impossible hope.

Perhaps thinking of exactly that, a faint smile surfaced on Lorraine's bloodstained lips.

Maybe because death was imminent, the female captain's thoughts drifted like a kite with a snapped string. Blurry memories from her past suddenly sharpened, flashing continuously before her eyes.

Lorraine suddenly remembered the pitiful little girl from many years ago, standing by the pier with a woven rattan backpack taller than she was.

With her ill-fitting, oversized robes and her wet, stubbornly sensitive gaze, she had looked like an abandoned stray puppy.

Today, she might appear steady and calm to outsiders, but Lorraine knew that was just a deliberate front she maintained as the team's core spellcaster. She had faked it for so long that her personality seemed to have genuinely molded into that shape.

Only occasionally, when they were alone, could Lorraine still see the shadow of that stubborn little girl.

Then there were Ryan and Gordon.

Truth be told, these were the two team members Lorraine felt the most guilty toward.

Even though they had been with her the longest, they were always saddled with the tedious chores—managing the crew, tallying supplies, guarding the ship. Yet the two brothers never complained, silently bearing the burden and executing every order perfectly.

She had originally planned to pass the captain's position to Ryan once she retired, but now that chance was gone.

As for Aken, the good news was that she would not have to deliver his death notice to his family in person, nor would she have to face those disappointed, sorrowful eyes back at his tribe.

And Sasha. She had intended to mentor him for a few more years, teaching him how to read the weather and face the storms. It was not easy for a Tabaxi, inherently afraid of water, to carve out a living at sea. But now, that opportunity was gone too.

Her consciousness frayed further, her mind sinking into a lightless abyss. It felt as if her very soul was drifting away from her body.

In this final moment, the last figure to surface in Lorraine Morton's mind was the one buried deepest in her heart. He was the reason she founded the "Blade of Vengeance," and the goal she had ceaselessly chased across the seas all these years.

"Father..."

Whoosh—

Overhead, the sound of a Short-Tailed Albatross flapping its wings briefly dragged her consciousness back to reality.

Then came the sound of someone being casually swatted away, followed by Ryan's cry of pain, the abrupt stop of the lute's music, and the abrasive rush of feathers tearing through the air as the bird, struck by a sudden blast of water, plummeted from the sky. The cacophony forced Lorraine's attention to focus once more.

She squeezed out one last drop of strength from somewhere unknown.

A faint fiery glow surfaced on her scorch-marked skin, and her fiery red hair, caked in dirty mud, swayed gently.

Like a terminally ill patient bedridden for years, Lorraine's body trembled violently. With immense effort, she rolled over, shifting from her back onto her side.

Blood dripped from her fingertips onto her scimitar's blade, instantly evaporating into mist.

Her right hand gripped the hilt tightly, driving the sharp blade deep into the ground to use it as the sole support for her body.

Panting heavily, she wobbled onto her knees, slowly and excruciatingly forcing herself to stand.

Blood flowing from her forehead dyed Lorraine's vision red, reducing everything before her to a blurry scarlet silhouette.

She tilted her head up slightly.

Filling her sight was the massive, mangled, and distorted figure of the Shark Beast. Its thick left arm was slowly raising, muscles bulging and expanding as it gathered power for a crushing downward strike.

And just as everything was about to meet its end.

Between Lorraine, who stood rooted in place waiting for death, and the giant Shark Beast winding up its massive fist—

"Rustle."

A small cluster of fine, warm fragments drifted down through the air like falling leaves.

'Is it snowing?' the delirious Lorraine wondered.

But immediately after, the fleeting, silently burning sparks in the wind made her realize what those tiny fragments truly were.

"Oh. It's ash."

Thump... thump... thump...

A heavy heartbeat, loud as a beating drum, echoed from behind her, steadily accelerating.

Distinct from the scorching heat of her own flames, a dry wind—not scalding, but carrying an inexplicable sense of sorrow—whipped her fiery red hair up in fluttering waves.

Lorraine could not see what was happening behind her.

All she could glimpse was the Shark Beast's body freezing up, as if it had encountered its natural predator, and the increasingly intense fiery glow reflected deep within its dead, black fish eyes.

Without suffering a single attack, without facing any tangible threat.

This terrifying monster, which had nearly wiped out the entire Blade of Vengeance Squad, took an instinctive step backward—the first time it had retreated since the battle began, despite the enemy standing right in front of it.

The moment its heavy, webbed foot hit the ground, the Shark Beast seemed to feel humiliated. Driven by a mix of fury and underlying cowardice, it roared furiously at whatever stood behind Lorraine.

Answering it was an ethereal wolf's howl—a sound Lorraine was intimately familiar with, yet this one was far deeper and more resonant.

Awooo—

Time and space seemed to freeze at this moment.

The Shark Beast maintained its roaring posture. Inside its bloody maw, packed with razor-sharp teeth, the squirming throat muscles were visible, spraying thick saliva mixed with blood.

A black wolf wreathed in flames brushed past Lorraine from behind.

Molten light fractured across his body like shattered porcelain; a scalding straight sword glowing from pitch-black to a searing orange-red; messy black hair thrashing wildly amid a shower of sparks...

And those pitch-black eyes, ringed with flickering flames like a solar eclipse.

"Boom!"

In the next second, the scalding gale generated by his high-speed movement pushed the heavily injured Lorraine away from where she stood.

Her feet left the ground as her frail body was launched high into the air. Just before she hit the ground, it felt as though an invisible hand gently caught her from below, cushioning her fall so she landed softly.

On the other side, having entered the Ember state, the straight sword [Ember Fall]—originally dark as the night sky but now glowing a sunset orange under the molten light—finally revealed its full glory as a purple Unique-grade weapon.

Sizzle—

A perfect crescent phantom, trailing embers, abruptly flashed through the air.

The 33 percent attribute boost provided by [Ember Echoes] caused Xia Nan's physical limits, which already vastly exceeded those of adventurers at his level, to skyrocket in an instant.

[Fang Hunt], [Spinning Slash], and even the Perception-driven [Heavy Tide]—all of their power received massive enhancements from the explosive surge in his base attributes.

It was not that Xia Nan had not tried attacking earlier, but the Shark Beast's absurd physical toughness and the thick, resilient hide covering its body meant that even if he struggled past its outer defense, he could not cut deep into the muscle and bone beneath.

The [Heavy Tide] effect carried by his slashes had not triggered the slightest reaction from the Shark Beast.

But now, the sword strike delivered in the Ember state yielded a completely different result.

The Shark Beast's reaction was actually incredibly fast. As Xia Nan closed the distance and brought the straight sword down, it had already raised its left arm horizontally across its neck—right above a bloody crater from a previous blast—attempting to block the blow with its own flesh.

After all, that was exactly what it had done before.

And in the very next instant, the Shark Beast paid the price for repeating that tactic.

Having activated [Ember Echoes], Xia Nan already gained a 25 percent Ember damage bonus. On top of that, the [Molten Flow Reshaping] trait of the fully awakened [Ember Fall] straight sword further enhanced the Ember damage attached to his attacks, compounding with his existing "Slash," "Decapitation," and "Mental" damage bonuses.

If this single slash had landed in a game from his past life, it probably would have spawned a screen full of colorful numbers symbolizing various elemental damages.

In reality, it manifested as a molten blade that instantly sliced through the Shark Beast's skin, fat, and muscle, carving viciously into its arm bone.

He retreated instantly.

The Ember swirling across the blade's surface ensured the straight sword met zero resistance on the way out, smoothly sliding free from the enemy's flesh.

The fierce gale unleashed alongside [Fang Hunt] caught a wisp of Ember, transforming into a scorching dry wind. It scraped like blades against the Shark Beast's enormous body, instantly evaporating the viscous slime coating its skin.

Using the recoil from colliding with the Shark Beast, Xia Nan executed [Fang Hunt] once more to dash backward.

Flames flickered across his bone-white leg armor.

He landed lightly on his feet.

Holding the sword in his right hand, Xia Nan used his left hand to carelessly rip off the Plate-Chain Composite Armor on his chest. It had already been mangled out of shape and then melted by the Ember, entirely losing its defensive properties. It clattered by his feet, revealing the thin, dark undertunic beneath.

The metal chain of the [Tears of Spring Breath] necklace was similarly tinged with fire, its pendant dipping deep into his collar. The edges of his clothes seemed to be ablaze, scattering flakes of ash as they fluttered in the currents of air.

He exhaled softly, sparks drifting out with his breath. His pitch-black eyes, ringed with fire, stared straight ahead at the maimed Shark Beast, which was currently wailing in agony under the Ember's burn.

Xia Nan's face remained completely expressionless, devoid of anything save the grim, mournful crimson flames burning ethereally across his body.

[Ember Echoes] only lasted for one minute. The Shark Beast, having exhausted all its trump cards during the party's earlier siege, was already in critical condition.

He no longer needed to figure out any combat strategies, nor did he have to worry about syncing up with his teammates' rhythm.

The only thing Xia Nan needed to do...

Was swing his sword.

"Awooo—"

The drawn-out wolf's howl echoed once more.

Its mane, wreathed in mournful crimson flames, shook violently. The long-limbed black wolf leaped high into the air, stepping on sparks, as its razor-sharp flaming fangs—condensed with crimson-brown light—plunged downward.

Having lost its right arm and covered in wounds, the Shark Beast was already poor at dodging due to its massive, muscle-bound frame. Facing a strike radiating such intense danger, its only option was to trade blows.

Roaring wildly, it swung its remaining left arm, driving its massive fist straight toward the blade.

Just as the knuckles and the sword tip were about to collide.

Xia Nan abruptly twisted his wrist on the hilt, changing his "thrust" into a "slap."

The edge flipped up, and the flat of the blade smacked gently against the back of the Shark Beast's hand.

Vmm-boom—

[Gravity Etching] erupted. The forcefield energy burst into miniature crimson-brown fireworks that swallowed the Shark Beast's fist.

It was just a feint!

Xia Nan did not stop moving. Using the shockwave from the forcefield's eruption, combined with formless gravity, his fire-wreathed body launched even higher into the air.

With a mid-air flip, his leather boots touched down, stepping lightly onto the arm the Shark Beast had just swung out.

Channeling the momentum... [Spinning Slash]!

His core snapped with sudden strength, spinning his entire body one hundred and eighty degrees.

Driven by the combat technique, the molten blade bit instantly into the bloody crater on the Shark Beast's neck, leaving Xia Nan dangling from the monster's body by his sword.

[Gravity Control] activated silently, pushed to its absolute limit.

The gravity applied to his own body in that instant, the brief loss of balance caused by [Heavy Tide], and his physical momentum from executing [Spinning Slash], forced even the Shark Beast's massive, hulking frame to tilt helplessly in the direction of Xia Nan's pull.

Naturally unwilling to be yanked down so easily, the monster instinctively tried to wrench itself upright.

As a result, the blade embedded in its neck tore downward, while the Shark Beast forcibly jerked its neck upward.

Both sides exerted their utmost strength at the exact same time.

"Squelch."

The sound of tearing flesh rippled through the air.

Blood fountained, showering over him.

Xia Nan felt the heavy resistance against his straight sword suddenly give way.

Losing his anchor on the Shark Beast's body, his feet dropped to the ground.

Right in front of him, the gigantic shark head fell, cleanly severed from its neck.