"Hishhh…" Neptunia exhaled sharply through her nose, trying to steady her nerves. Her chest rose and fell as she looked at Razeal, who stood eerily still ahead of her completely silent, unmoving. The faint light from the ocean's depths shimmered off his figure, casting long, sharp shadows that danced across the seafloor.

"What happened? Scared?" she asked quietly, taking a few cautious steps forward. Her tone wasn't mocking.. just uncertain. The pressure of the approaching army was suffocating for her.. So she thought as Razeal he jus.. well..

He stood like a statue, facing the endless swarm of monsters closing in from the distance. His eyes were fixed forward, unreadable.. lost.. She Maybe thought he just blanked out as he was just staring blankly as ofcourse not aware Razeal was busy with system..

But then, finally, his voice broke the silence.

"Umm, no… I'm not," he said, his tone low and steady. "It's just… I got a new plan."

He turned slowly to face her, his expression utterly composed, almost disturbingly so. The faint, pale glow from the approaching creatures shimmered against his sharp features as he spoke.

Neptunia frowned. "Plan? What plan?"

Her arms crossed unconsciously.. While still holding her bow, her frustration bleeding through her composure. She tilted her head slightly, her long yellow hair swaying with the motion. How can someone look so unbothered right now? she wondered bitterly.

The weight in her chest grew heavier. The army ahead was approaching millions of monstrous silhouettes now visible through the faintly lit water. Every beat of her heart seemed to echo louder than the waves around them.

She sighed inwardly. She couldn't help it; the tension was too much for her to take.. She was genuinely stressing...

"Well," Razeal began, raising one hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Nothing much. It's just… we'll have to finish all this in four days. Less than ninety six hours that is." He said.. And well..

Neptunia blinked.

"What?"

"Four days?" Maria stepped up beside Neptunia, her expression incredulous. Her hair floated gently in the current, her eyes sharp but filled with disbelief. "Why? Why four days?!"

Her voice came out louder than intended, echoing faintly in the water. She took a quick glance toward the horizon.. the wall of monstrous shadows moving like a living tsunami and then back at him.

Has he lost it? she thought, gritting her teeth. The distance between them and the swarm was shrinking fast. The pressure alone from that many creatures was enough to make the water hum.

She clenched her jaw, her tone snapping slightly. "This… this isn't the time for jokes. I get it, you want everything done fast and always in hirry, but four days? What kind of nonsense..Lets not be stupid and risk our lives.. how about playing safe as no matter how much time it takes. Just be safer can w...."

She stopped mid-sentence, realizing she was nearly shouting. Her frustration melted into exhaustion as she sighed, dragging a hand down her face. "Ugh, whatever. Leave it. I don't even want to know the reason. The question is…" She looked at him again, her eyes narrowing. "Can we actually win?"

She spread her hands out helplessly, her voice rising in disbelief. "Because if you haven't noticed.. that's not a few thousand monsters coming for us. It's millions! Billions or whatever.. I can literally feel their eyes from here!"

Razeal, however, simply nodded. "We will."

That was all he said. No emotion, no hesitation. Just calm certainty.

Neptunia and Maria exchanged a quick glance.

He wasn't even looking at them now. Just lost in his own thoughts as thinking Whatever it was going on.. Just able to stay calm even now..

But Neptunia didn't share that calm. Her eyes darted back toward the approaching swarm, the tremor in the water now strong enough to be felt through her feet.

"They're close," she said sharply, her voice tightening. "It's not the time to stand around. Do something! We can't let them get close or surround us. If they box us in from all sides, it'll be suicide. We need them in front.. one direction, not all as that way it be safer we will have to only protect ourselves in one direction..."

Maria snapped her head toward the direction Neptunia pointed, her heart skipping.

"Wait…" she whispered. "They're already that close?"

Her voice trembled as her eyes widened. Through the dense blue, she could see massive forms closing in.. serpentine bodies coiling, fins glinting, teeth flashing like jagged blades under the dim light.

Her pulse quickened. "Shit…"

"Give him the sword again," Neptunia said suddenly, her voice snapping with urgency. "He'll need it, just like before."

Maria blinked, startled by the command, before her eyes lit with realization.

"Ah.. right! Yes!"

She lifted her hand and focused, looking at her spatial ring's storage. A faint blue shimmer appeared on her palm but then her expression changed. Her face stiffened.

"…I don't have one," she said quietly.

Neptunia's head turned sharply. "What?"

"I.. I don't have another sword." Maria's voice cracked slightly as she looked up, guilt and panic mixing in her eyes. "I just had one, and it's already gone!"

The silence between them was sharp enough to cut through the ocean current.

Neptunia pressed a hand to her forehead, exhaling sharply. "Then how the hell is he supposed to fight.."

She stopped, thinking fast. Her eyes darted toward the quiver on her back. "Wait. What about trying the sword swing with one of my arrows? He can channel it with whatever he did, right? It won't be as strong, but.."

Before she could finish, Razeal finally turned to face them again.

"I don't need them," he said quietly, his tone final.

Both women looked at him.

Razeal's expression remained calm, his voice unshaken. "Keep them to yourself."

Neptunia frowned deeply. "Then what are you going to.."

"I have better weapons than that."

He reached into his coat pocket.

Neptunia blinked. Maria frowned.

Razeal's hand moved slowly, deliberately and then, to their utter confusion, he pulled out two small, perfectly round apples.

The bright red of their skins glowed faintly in the dim light, almost mocking against the dark sea.

For a moment, the world went completely still. Neither Neptunia nor Maria said a word.

They just… stared.

Maria's brow twitched. "Are… are you serious?" she finally managed, her tone somewhere between disbelief and irritation.

Neptunia's lips parted slightly, but no words came out.

She didn't understand what he meant or what even that was.. but one thing she know was that.. That thing definitely wasn't a weapon..

"Don't tell me those are your weapons.. Like seriously?"

Maria's voice carried the exact mix of disbelief and frustration she felt as she stared at the two red apples in Razeal's hands. The faint shimmer from the distant sea army reflected across her face, making her annoyance even more obvious.

She blinked, waiting.. expecting for him to say something logical. Maybe a hidden blade inside? Maybe enchanted fruit? Something.

But no.

Her face fell. "You've got to be kidding me…"

She sighed heavily, dragging a hand down her hair's like she gonna pull them out. The gesture was tired, hopeless. "I swear, this guy…" she muttered under her breath, shaking her head.

Her mind ran back to their time on the ship days and days of seeing him eat nothing but apples. Morning, afternoon, night that was all he ever touched. She had even thought once that if the world ended, he'd probably still take a bite first before saving himself.

And now, this situation? Life and death? The literal end of the line and what did he bring out?

Apples.

She wanted to scream. "Why can't this guy ever be serious?" she muttered again, this time louder.

Her chest tightened with irritation and disbelief. The army in front of them was closing in, the water vibrating with the collective motion of millions of bodies. Their scales shimmered like stars in the dark water a galaxy of death moving toward them. And yet, the man who stood between them and annihilation was holding fruit.

"He's really gonna eat them, isn't he?" Maria whispered to herself, her voice cracking slightly as her brain started to short-circuit. "He's actually going to eat them…"

The weight of the moment pressed on her shoulders, heavy and cold. Her jaw clenched. Her mind screamed. We're about to die, and this fucking idiot is..

Her thoughts cut off as Razeal finally moved.

He didn't respond to her outburst, not even a glance in her direction. Instead, he turned silently.. smooth, deliberate until he was facing forward again.

Before him stretched the sea's endless army, a wall of life so vast that it seemed to replace the horizon itself. Every direction his eyes could see, there was nothing but the glint of teeth, the shimmer of scales, and the faint, hungry light in the creatures' eyes.

He inhaled slowly.

A deep, steady breath that seemed to pull the very water around him closer.

Then he closed his eyes.

Maria frowned, her irritation breaking into confusion. Neptunia, standing slightly to the side, noticed it too the sudden stillness that fell around Razeal. His body was calm, posture straight, one hand still holding the apples loosely at his side.

Then, softly, he spoke.

"Flow Sense."

The words left his lips like a whisper, but they rippled through the water like an invisible pulse.

Instantly, the surrounding pressure shifted. It was subtle at first.. the water around them vibrating, almost humming and then it expanded outward in waves, gentle yet all-encompassing.

Razeal's breathing steadied. The faint tension in his shoulders faded as a strange calm overtook his body.

Then, slowly, he opened his eyes again.

The world around him changed.

The dim light enviornment of the deep sea exploded into color thousands upon thousands of threads appeared before his vision, bright and radiant, each one a different hue, each one alive. They flowed, intertwined, curved, and stretched infinitely through the reality itself. Some spiraled around him like ribbons, others slashed through the water in violent arcs.

It was beautiful. Terrifyingly beautiful.

Thousands of invisible streams of power.. the flows all moving in harmony yet never colliding, never touching. They existed together but apart, like the veins of the universe woven into a single infinite tapestry.

Razeal's gaze flicked between them, his mind quieting completely. His pulse slowed. Every heartbeat matched the rhythm of the invisible movement surrounding him.

He could feel them.. the density, the velocity, the force behind each one. Just sensing them made his skin prickle and his head feel heavy. The sheer energy these flows carried… one wrong step, one wrong connection, and his entire body would be erased from existence in an instant.

His eyes narrowed as he looked deeper, scanning through the colors. Each had its own distinct presence.

There.. a deep, dense brown line cutting downward like a waterfall of molten stone. Its presence alone made the water around it heavier, dragging everything down.

"The gravity flow," he whispered under his breath.

He turned his head slightly, his gaze falling on a faint, thin emerald thread.. almost invisible yet impossibly sharp. It stretched endlessly forward, so fine it looked like a tear in space itself. Just looking at it made his instincts scream.

"That's…" His expression tightened. "…The flow of time."

Even thinking about touching it made his fingers twitch.. He was curious but then again even old man had said not to touch it..

His eyes continued to dart across the colors. Threads of silver light drifted gracefully around him.. electromagnetic flows. Faint spirals of orange and white danced nearby air pressure and current balance. Even the rotational pull of the planet itself the Coriolis flow moved around him like the breath of an unseeness.

Everywhere he looked, there was something deadly. Something vast. Something incomprehensible.

But he wasn't here to admire them.

"I need to concentrate on just one," he muttered remembering what old man had said ofcourse..

His pupils constricted slightly as he willed his perception to narrow. One by one, the countless colors around him began to fade away silver, brown, emerald, gold, violet until only one hue remained.

A soft, aquatic blue.

The color of the sea itself.

"This one," he said quietly.

As the last of the other flows vanished from his vision, the entire world seemed to shift into a different hue. His surroundings turned an oceanic shade of blue, brighter and more vivid than reality. He could see every line of current, every motion of the water.. from the tiniest ripple to the immense drag of the ocean's tides.

It was breathtaking, in its own way.

The entire sea every drop of it was moving in one direction. Slow, steady, but unstoppable. It wasn't just current; it was a colossal conveyor belt of planetary momentum. A machine of nature that had been moving since time itself began.

Even though it looked gentle, Razeal could feel its power. His instincts screamed at him not to touch it not even brush against it ..or he'd be vaporized under the pressure. The force carried by this flow was immeasurable. It wasn't just strong; it was absolute.

"The flow of the whole ocean's movement…" he murmured, half in awe, half in fear... His voice was calm, but his mind was razor sharp.

"If I touch that one," he thought grimly, "I'll be torn apart by quadrillions of joules of force."

He exhaled. "So lets not do that."

Instead, his focus shifted again. His consciousness scanned the overlapping layers of the ocean's natural flows, searching deeper not for the strongest, but the weakest.

The smaller streams, the gentle ones. The ones that doesn't come in planterary moment atleast..

And then, just as he was about to give up, he saw it faint, delicate, almost invisible. The same soft blue as before, but thinner, smoother, flowing in lazy, uneven spirals.

"There you are," he whispered.

It wasn't part of the planet's grand circulation. It wasn't the colossal motion of the sea's mass or the gravitational pull between celestial bodies. This one was simpler.. natural, spontaneous.

"The local current," he realized. "Maybe created by uneven temperature or the push of the wind at the surface…"

Weaker.. Safer and definitely Usable.

Perfect

"Alright… let's do it," Razeal whispered, his tone low, calm almost too calm for what he was about to attempt.

He exhaled slowly, his breath controlled, steady. The surrounding water vibrated faintly with his energy as his focus tightened. Even though this wasn't the first time he was doing something like this but.. it always felt like the first. The danger never faded only grew sharper with awareness.

Every attempt at manipulating the flow carried the risk of complete destruction. One wrong move, one careless miscalculation, and his body would be crushed into atomic dust. He knew it.

And still… he did it. For most people its like using self explosion thing.. This is crazy but then again..

Because that's who he was.

He didn't turn off his Flow Touch.. instead, he synchronized himself deeper into it, his senses merging with the invisible network of energy surrounding him. Every molecule, every vibration in the water was alive under his perception. The entire ocean breathed, and he breathed with it.

His mind narrowed down on the chosen current.. He made it into a slender thread of blue energy flowing steadily past him. it was looking weak slow and gentle but it was definitely faster than sound, faster than thought. Now just brushing inches away from his right shoulder.. as thats where he put it..for better use even if its the distance between life and death.

He could see it now. That delicate line of moving light a single shimmering thread cutting through the sea like liquid lightning.

Razeal's pupils contracted slightly.

"Hmm…" he murmured quietly, the sound barely escaping his lips. "Now all I need to do… is flow with it."

He slowly raised his right hand.. the one holding the apple his fingers careful, precise. He handled it as if it were something fragile, holy, the tips of his fingers brushing the smooth skin of the fruit. Every movement was deliberate, every fraction of a second measured.

His hand moved closer to the blue thread closer… and closer… until the apple hovered mere inches away from the flow line.

He didn't touch it. Not yet.

His voice came out in a whisper, calm but filled with focus. "Flow with it."

To connect with a flow meant to move exactly as it moved.. to become part of its rhythm, its direction, its speed. To let it think you were a part of itself.

One wrong breath, and it would rip him apart.

His mind sharpened into razor clarity. Every fiber of his being aligned with the motion of that single current. The speed of the flow was immense.. impossibly fast, its power pressing against his consciousness like a physical weight.

He adjusted.. ever so slightly until he felt it.

That perfect synchronization.

And then, in that precise instant, he moved his hand forward gently, delicately as though caressing the air itself.

His movements became fluid, his arm gliding in harmony with the invisible current. And then, when he felt the exact rhythm of the flow match his own hand.. he released.

Just a twitch.

The faintest flicker of motion.

The tips of his fingers let go.

The apple slipped from his grasp.

At the same moment, Razeal cut off Flow Touch completely... detaching himself from the current. His body instantly became intangible to the flow, immune to its force. The current passed right through him harmlessly, ignoring his existence entirely.

But the apple.. that was different.

The fruit, now exposed to the flow, didn't share his immunity. It was caught.

And in the space of an instant everything changed.

The current devoured it.

The flow seized the apple's matter.. its atoms, its molecules and accelerated it beyond comprehension. The moment of release became an explosion of motion. All of the flow's natural kinetic energy.. billions, no, trillions of joules worth of pure oceanic movement transferred into that single object.

The apple vibrated so violently that its entire structure blurred. Then, with a burst of invisible force, it vanished.

All of this happened in less than a heartbeat.

From Maria and Neptunia's perspective, they saw only Razeal raise his arm, move it in an elegant, almost liquid motion.. and then the apple was gone.

Disappeared.

Just like that.

Then came the sound.

"BOOM!"

A deafening explosion tore through the water, shaking the seafloor beneath their feet. The force of it rippled outward in all directions, kicking up massive currents that nearly threw both women backward.

Maria flinched, instinctively closing her eyes as she raised an arm in front of her face. Neptunia did the same, their ears ringing from the shockwave.

When they opened their eyes.. what they saw left them speechless.

The sea itself looked like it had been cut open.

A massive hole had appeared in the oncoming army a colossal, circular tunnel that stretched endlessly forward, cleanly slicing through the monstrous tide.

The explosion had cleared everything in its path.

Where moments ago there had been a suffocating wall of creatures, now there was nothing.. just open space.

The water was filled with drifting fragments halves of bodies, shredded fins, scattered scales. The sea was dyed dark with blood and dust.

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