"I don’t want to do another lap."
"You said that three laps ago."
"Because I didn’t want to do those laps either."
My mother somehow kept walking beside me without looking even remotely tired. Meanwhile, I was fairly certain my legs had stopped functioning several minutes earlier.
"Just a little further," She laughed.
I still remembered the sound of her bright and warm smile.
When I eventually collapsed onto the grass and declared myself officially deceased, she hadn’t scolded me or ordered me back onto my feet. Instead, she had simply sat beside me and handed over a bottle of water.
Then she ruffled my hair.
"You’re doing well, Billion."
At the time, those words had meant more to me than I was willing to admit. A quiet smile found its way onto my face.
There had been countless moments like that growing up.
Not grand moments or life-changing revelations. Just ordinary pieces of life.
The days my parents visited the academy. The embarrassment of having everyone stare at me because my parents were supporting Steve against me. The pride I pretended not to feel whenever they complimented my progress afterward.
I remembered examination days that ended with celebrations. Family dinners that stretched late into the evening. Lazy weekends where nobody had anywhere important to be. Small moments that had seemed completely ordinary at the time.
Now they felt priceless.
Perhaps that was the cruel thing about memories. You never realize which moments matter most while you’re living them.
Only afterward.
A strange heaviness settled in my chest as I watched the distant figures moving across the mountain.
For years, those memories had been all I had left of them. I had accepted that reality long ago. My parents belonged to the past. The people in those memories were gone, leaving behind only stories and fading recollections.
Yet now they stood less than a step away from me.
Alive and working. Laughing with their friends. The thought still felt unreal.
I was so focused on them that I almost missed the sudden change sweeping through the valley below.
A pulse of soul energy rolled across the mountain.
Instantly the atmosphere shifted.
The construction teams stopped what they were doing. Scouts abandoned casual conversations and turned toward the eastern approaches. Formation arrays along the ridges began to illuminate one after another, filling the surrounding water with overlapping layers of protective light.
My father reacted immediately.
One moment he had been discussing something with his group. The next he was staring toward the darkness beyond the mountain.
My mother appeared beside one of the defensive formations almost instantly, issuing orders as nearby teams rushed into position.
"What happened?" I asked.
Roland didn’t look particularly worried.
"Looks like one of the locals came to complain."
The answer arrived a second before a deep roar shook the surrounding sea.
The mountain trembled.
I narrowed my eyes toward the source of the disturbance.
At first I thought part of the underwater landscape was moving. Then I realized the truth.
The creature was simply so enormous that my mind had mistaken it for terrain.
A colossal serpent emerged from a distant canyon, its body winding through the darkness between mountain peaks. Black scales reflected the ambient light of the Soul Sea while rows of crystalline spines ran the length of its body. Each movement displaced vast quantities of water, creating currents powerful enough to uproot entire sections of underwater vegetation.
The pressure radiating from it was immense. Even from our position, I could feel it. It was a transcendent creature.
Several of the weaker humans immediately retreated behind prepared defensive barriers. The beast opened its jaws.
Soul energy began gathering inside its mouth. The surrounding water distorted under the pressure.
Before the attack could be unleashed, six figures launched from the mountain.
My father was at the front.
Five other transcendents followed close behind.
The entire group accelerated through the sea like streaks of light, crossing enormous distances in moments.
The serpent roared.
Power exploded outward.
The surrounding currents twisted violently. Entire streams of water reversed direction. The mountain itself seemed to shudder beneath the force gathering around the six of them as they prepared to engage the beast.
Beside me, Roland folded his arms. There was entirely too much satisfaction on his face.
"Perfect timing."
I glanced toward him.
"Perfect timing?"
The old man nodded toward the approaching battle.
A grin slowly spread across his face.
"You wanted to meet your father."
His gaze never left the battlefield below.
"Before that, let’s watch him remind everyone why the Alliance keeps sending him missions like this."
The serpent reacted the instant my father entered its territory.
The enormous creature twisted through the water with surprising speed for something so large, its body weaving between submerged peaks as soul energy gathered inside its open jaws.
The surrounding currents began spiraling toward its mouth, dragging loose debris, shattered stone, and entire streams of seawater into a rapidly condensing sphere of destructive power. I could feel the pressure building as the beast prepared to unleash an attack powerful enough to erase entire sections of the construction site.
My father didn’t attempt to avoid it.
Instead, he accelerated directly toward the creature.
While the other five immediately spread out to establish positions around the battlefield, my father continued forward alone, drawing his sword in one smooth motion as he closed the distance.
The moment the blade left its sheath, the sea responded.
At first the change was subtle. Currents that had been flowing naturally through the mountain valleys began shifting direction. Streams of water that should never have intersected started converging toward a single point. Then the phenomenon expanded outward until entire sections of the ocean appeared to be moving according to his will.
The longer I watched, the more it felt as though he wasn’t forcing the water to obey. He was guiding it. Directing it. Moving alongside it.
The sea wasn’t resisting him.
It was flowing with him.
By the time the serpent released its attack, an immense spiral of water had already formed around my father.
The beast’s breath erupted across the battlefield in a torrent of compressed spiritual energy, carving a trench through the ocean itself as it surged forward. Before the attack could reach him, however, my father stepped into the advancing current and raised his sword.
"Sea Breathing: Leviathan Breaker."
The surrounding waters exploded into motion.
A massive rotating current surged forward from the path of his blade, gathering speed and power as it crossed the battlefield.
What began as a crescent-shaped slash rapidly transformed into something resembling a living tidal wave, a colossal mass of spiraling water infused with sword force that tore through the serpent’s breath attack without slowing in the slightest.
The collision shook the entire region.
The serpent’s attack disintegrated instantly.
A fraction of a second later, the tidal strike crashed into the beast itself and launched its enormous body backward through the sea.
The creature smashed through one mountain peak, then another, before finally disappearing into a distant ridge amidst an eruption of stone and sediment that spread across the ocean floor like a volcanic explosion.
Beside me, Roland watched the devastation with the relaxed expression of a man observing someone perform a routine household chore.
"Good start," he remarked.
"He is good," I nodded.