With a violent crash, Lucian drove his elbow into the Rot Vessel and slammed it deep into the cliff wall.
The Vessel was clearly in terrible condition. Bones throughout its body had shattered, and its chest had caved inward.
Yet despite taking such a devastating blow, it acted as if nothing had happened.
A claw shot forward with startling speed.
The talons effortlessly tore through Lucian's armor, leaving massive gashes across his body.
Though the creature appeared gaunt and emaciated, its physical strength was terrifying beyond measure.
The Dragonscale Armor was completely incapable of withstanding such an attack. It shattered apart in midair, fragments scattering before crumbling away.
And thus, the armor that had accompanied Lucian for so long was effectively ruined.
Bare-chested now, his body covered in burning embers, Lucian's muscles bulged beneath his skin. Molten-hot blood spilled from his wounds like streams of lava.
Wrapped in blazing residual flame, he looked less like a man and more like a demon clawing its way out of hell.
Without realizing it, the repeated increases to his attributes, especially Strength, had gradually transformed his physique.
And now, after enlarging himself with the power of a Great Rune and pushing those attributes beyond their limits, the changes had become impossible to ignore.
At this moment, Lucian possessed a build comparable to Godfrey, or rather, Hoarah Loux himself.
He paid no attention to his injuries.
Nor did he care about the destruction of his armor.
So what if some early-game equipment had broken?
How could armor compare to a body forged through endless battle?
What mattered now was smashing the enemy before him into pieces.
At this moment, Lucian had only one thought:
'Tear this thing apart.'
Combat.
Felt.
Amazing.
The Rot Vessel slashed again.
Lucian met the attack head-on with a punch, shattering the creature's arm. Bone burst through flesh as the limb twisted into a grotesque shape.
Before it could react, his fists descended like a torrential storm.
Punch after punch.
A relentless barrage.
Each strike heavier than the last.
The Rot Vessel found itself unable to catch even a moment's breath. It could only desperately raise its arms and broken scepter in defense.
But the scepter could be broken.
Its arms could be crushed.
Against Lucian, none of that mattered.
The cliff wall behind it fractured continuously.
Cracks spread outward in every direction, spiderwebbing across the mountain face.
Lucian drew back.
A savage light gleamed in his eyes.
The momentum accumulated from his endless assault condensed into a single strike.
"Kaiko Bakuhaken"
[Sea Tiger Explosive Punch]
The blow detonated against the Rot Vessel's body.
Its form burst apart and splattered across the already-pulverized rock face like a mass of rotten mud.
The next moment, the cliff itself finally gave way.
The mountainside collapsed, and together with it, the Vessel disappeared beneath a cascade of falling stone.
Lucian drifted backward and shook out his hand.
"Whoo—"
"That felt good."
Of course, he didn't actually know any Sea Tiger attacks.
Nor did he possess any magnetic-force powers.
He just thought shouting attack names was fun.
And honestly, it really did feel better when you called out the move.
Especially now that he'd enlarged himself.
At the very least, the intimidation factor was perfect.
Floating silently in the air, Lucian stared at the place where the Rot Vessel had been buried.
He knew it wasn't an opponent that would go down so easily.
Especially not here, on its home turf.
For the moment, he decided to wait.
It was also a good opportunity to recover.
The wounds he'd accumulated while relentlessly pummeling the Vessel had cost him a considerable amount of blood.
Ordinarily, with his Vitality attribute pushed beyond its limits, injuries of this level wouldn't even qualify as serious.
The Scarlet Rot lingering in the wounds was being incinerated by the residual flames.
Purely physical injuries would heal quickly.
The problem was that Lucian had pushed his Ember state to its absolute maximum in order to resist the Rot.
The blazing flames consumed his body relentlessly, granting tremendous attribute boosts while rendering him nearly immune to corruption.
It looked as though Scarlet Rot had no effect on him whatsoever.
But that illusion only existed because the flames were burning at such an extreme intensity.
The moment he relaxed and lowered the heat, the Rot would immediately begin eating away at his flesh.
At this level of combustion, the amount of life force consumed every second was staggering.
So much so that there was barely any surplus left to dedicate toward healing.
Of course, that was also because he wasn't using any healing incantations.
With healing magic, he could probably push the flames even harder.
Still, Lucian had no intention of casting Blessing of the Erdtree in a place like this.
Sunlight had unusual interactions with Scarlet Rot, and he wasn't entirely sure whether those effects would be beneficial or disastrous.
Fire, on the other hand, required no such considerations.
Just burn everything.
Lowering the intensity of his Embers slightly, Lucian finally allowed his enhanced Vitality to show its true value.
His wounds healed at a terrifying speed.
Within moments, they had completely closed.
As the flesh regenerated, he deliberately expelled some of the blood around the injured areas.
Those traces had been closest to the Rot.
The flames had effectively sterilized them already, but there was no reason to take unnecessary risks.
Besides, he'd regenerate that blood in seconds anyway.
Drops of blazing blood fell onto the shoreline.
Where they landed, Scarlet Rot was scorched into blackened ash.
Yet the surrounding Rot immediately surged forward, devouring the blood remnants.
Lucian frowned.
The sight filled him with an inexplicable sense of unease.
Without hesitation, he conjured a mass of flame and hurled it downward.
The fire spread across the shoreline, purging the Rot completely.
At the same time, enormous quantities of Scarlet Rot surged from the lake toward the buried Vessel.
The pile of rubble was swallowed by crimson corruption, transforming into a red grave mound.
Then—
BOOM!
A beast coated entirely in Scarlet Rot rose from the tomb and glared at Lucian.
Its body was wrapped in flowing crimson corruption, gradually swelling until it regained its original size.
With one swipe of its claws, the crimson mantle tore apart.
The Rot Vessel emerged once more.
Thanks to the healing power of Scarlet Rot, it appeared virtually unharmed.
Only a slight decline in strength hinted at the damage it had suffered.
The broken scepter, however, remained destroyed.
And now, the immense Lake of Rot had visibly receded.
Even for the God of Rot, restoring a beast approaching the level of a god or lord required a tremendous expenditure of power.
After all, it remained sealed.
How much power it could freely access was anyone's guess.
Seeing the Vessel rise once more, Lucian grinned.
What a durable punching bag.
Fine.
Then he'd keep hitting it until the bag ran out of stuffing.
He landed on the shore and faced the Vessel directly.
Imitating Hoarah Loux's grab attacks from the game, Lucian spread both arms wide, hands open toward the creature.
Then he lowered his stance and charged.
The Rot Vessel answered immediately.
Dropping to all fours, it lunged forward, driving its massive antlers toward him.
The moment it expected a contest of raw strength—
Lucian suddenly shifted.
His arms dropped beneath the horns, slipping around the creature's head and seizing its shoulders.
What should have been a push instantly became a throw.
With explosive force, he hurled the Rot Vessel high into the air.
The creature kicked against empty space, using remnants of its ancestral powers to stabilize itself almost instantly.
But for Lucian, that brief opening was all he needed.
He appeared beside it.
Locked both arms around its body.
And dove.
Man and beast spun together as they plummeted upside down toward the earth.
Power Bomb.
Only moments before impact did Lucian release his grip.
The Rot Vessel crashed downward.
The shoreline, already sparse around the Lake of Rot, shattered beneath the impact.
The creature was driven straight into the crimson waters.
Lucian floated overhead and waited.
This time, the response came quickly.
The lake began to churn violently.
Scarlet waters surged and roared as though some terrible existence was awakening beneath the surface.
Then—
A gigantic crimson flower bud emerged from the center of the lake.
Formed entirely from concentrated Rot, the bud pulsed and expanded like a living heart, gathering power with every beat.
At last, it bloomed.
And Scarlet Rot exploded outward.
Rot Butterflies filled the underground cavern, circling behind the Vessel.
As the Rot Vessel slowly rose from the lake, Lucian's expression finally grew serious.
This was no longer the Vessel's own power.
The God of Rot itself had become involved.
Realizing that the Vessel alone could not defeat Lucian, the sealed deity had apparently decided to pour every bit of accessible power into its champion.
What the Vessel was releasing now was true divine power.
As that orange-red essence spread across the Lake of Rot, even Lucian's fiercely burning Embers began to show signs of corruption.
The moment he sensed it, he abandoned any thoughts of continuing the fight for fun.
Enough games.
Anything that showed its head would be erased.
Lucian raised a hand.
A Great Rune materialized before him.
Drawing upon the solar power contained within Radahn's Great Rune, he summoned a blazing sun into existence above the underground world.
A true subterranean sun had descended.
Its radiance swept away every trace of Rot.
Floating before the star with his arms crossed, Lucian looked down upon the Vessel and pronounced its sentence.
"Begone."
"Cruel Sun—"
"Pride Flare."
The newly empowered Rot Vessel looked up toward him.
But with Lucian standing before the sun, all it could see was a silhouette.
A dark figure outlined by impossible radiance.
And within that shadow—
Two burning eyes.
That image became the last thing etched into its bewildered mind.
Blinding white light stole its vision.
The overwhelming solar fire erased its body so completely that not even ashes remained.
—
The sun slowly faded from the underground world.
But its passing left undeniable proof that a supreme power had once descended here.
In those brief seconds, nearly every Rot creature in existence had been annihilated by the merciless star.
Even the waters of the Lake of Rot had visibly withered away, reduced to little more than a thin layer.
And yet—
Lucian still had not managed to eradicate the Rot completely.
It wasn't that Lucian couldn't do it.
He was simply worried.
The seal here operated on a conceptual level, seemingly revolving around the ideas of flow and stagnation.
If he were to completely evaporate all the Rot in this place, such a drastic alteration might trigger consequences he couldn't foresee.
Until he was absolutely certain he could solve the Rot problem once and for all, Lucian had no intention of taking that risk.
It was then that he noticed something strange.
At the spot where the Rot Vessel had once stood.
There should have been nothing left.
The solar flare had struck directly. By all rights, everything should have been erased.
Yet there, suspended in the air, floated a tiny flower bud made of brilliant orange-red light.
As time passed, its color gradually dimmed, shifting toward a dark crimson-black.
The aura of Rot slowly spread from it.
A line of text appeared before Lucian's eyes, revealing its nature:
[Divine Essence of the Outer God of Rot.]
Lucian frowned.
Its existence wasn't what surprised him.
When he thought about it carefully, the appearance of a Divine Essence made perfect sense.
The Outer God of Rot had possessed the ancestral spirit's body and infused it with a portion of Its divine essence, transforming it into the Rot Vessel.
Now that the Vessel had been destroyed, if that essence wasn't reclaimed, naturally it would remain behind.
The problem was...
Lucian had no good way to deal with it.
When it came to the powers of Outer Gods, the most reliable countermeasure was still the Unalloyed Gold Needle.
Regardless of the entity involved, under the laws governing the Lands Between, Unalloyed Gold possessed the ability to restrain and seal them.
Even if it wasn't a perfect solution, it was still probably the best one available.
Unfortunately, Lucian himself did not command the power of Unalloyed Gold.
And the person he was most familiar with in that regard, Leda, was nowhere nearby.
Which meant sealing it with an Unalloyed Gold Needle wasn't currently an option.
Rubbing his chin, Lucian considered his choices.
Perhaps...
Destroying it with the power of the sun really was the answer.
Both were divine powers, after all.
And the sun's authority far surpassed that of Rot.
There was no reason it shouldn't be capable of erasing the God of Rot's Divine Essence.
A flame appeared in Lucian's palm as he reached toward the glowing bud.
Yet almost immediately, something unexpected occurred.
As the essence was burned away, its coloration gradually shifted toward gold.
Lucian's expression changed.
He immediately stopped.
Ordinary Scarlet Rot only reacted like this when exposed to sunlight.
Against the true power of the sun, it would simply be vaporized.
But this Divine Essence was different.
It didn't seem particularly afraid of solar power.
No—
It almost seemed... attracted to it.
The sun's power manifested in Lucian's hands in two forms.
One was warm sunlight.
The other was destructive solar flame.
And yet even though he was currently using the latter, the Divine Essence still displayed signs of affinity.
That was clearly abnormal.
His thoughts drifted back to Caelid.
There, when he had used sunlight, Scarlet Rot had shifted toward a state of abundance and fertility.
At that moment, Lucian found himself wondering whether, before the sun had withdrawn from the Lands Between, the two powers had once shared a close relationship.
At least from one side.
Plants needed sunlight.
That was a fundamental truth of nature.
If abundance and rot existed as two extremes of the same cycle, then perhaps the Divine Essence occupied the midpoint between them.
Toward abundance, it became gold.
Toward rot, it darkened into crimson-black.
That would explain why it was turning golden even under the influence of solar flame.
Most likely, the Divine Essence could withstand levels of sunlight that ordinary Rot lifeforms could never endure.
Staring at the Divine Essence of the Outer God of Rot in his hand, Lucian hesitated.
Should he test it?
The moment the question arose, the answer followed naturally.
Abundance and Rot?
Test it.
It was only a fragment of Divine Essence, after all.
He had already destroyed the Rot Vessel.
Without a host body, what was there to fear?
Calling upon the power of sunlight, Lucian continued the experiment.
As expected, the God of Rot's Divine Essence transformed completely into a radiant golden color.
Not a trace of Rot remained within it.
Seeing the process proceed so smoothly, Lucian let out a relieved breath.
After a moment's thought, he drew Euporia.
He didn't possess any weapon directly associated with Rot.
But if there was a weapon remotely connected to abundance and growth, Euporia was probably the closest thing he had.
He pressed the blade against the transformed Divine Essence.
Golden radiance immediately flooded through the entire weapon.
The weapon shone brilliantly.
Then, along its damaged blade, fresh buds began to sprout.
New growth spread rapidly across the metal.
The missing portions repaired themselves.
Euporia was restored to its complete, perfect state.
Just as Lucian thought everything was over—
The unexpected happened.
The light covering Euporia began to separate.
One side grew increasingly brilliant, shining with pure golden radiance.
The other side dimmed.
And dimmed.
Until its glow darkened into crimson.
Scarlet Rot began creeping along that half of the blade.
In the end, the twinblade became something entirely new.
Two opposing powers.
Completely different.
Yet born from the same source.
Lucian gripped the transformed weapon.
Immense power pulsed through it.
Simply holding it allowed him to feel the energy surging within.
He gave it a few experimental swings.
Then nodded in satisfaction.
From this day forward, it's name shall be:
"Euporia: Wilted Heaven"
—
[T/N: Time for a few reference explanations by the great me, Umu!]
Sea Tiger Explosive Punch
The attack is repeatedly listed as one of Bai Junlang's signature techniques in Sea Tiger, alongside 海虎爆破腿 (Sea Tiger Explosive Kick).
Bai Junlang (白軍浪) is the fictional protagonist of the manhua Sea Tiger (海虎), created and written by lyricist and author Huang Junlang. The character embodies the story's central themes of martial power, idealism, and rebellion against corruption.
In Sea Tiger, the characters use an internal power system called magnetic force (magnetic field power). The stronger the user's magnetic force, the more power they can channel into their body and strikes.
The idea behind Sea Tiger Explosive Punch is condense immense magnetic power into a punch, then release it all at the moment of impact. The force doesn't just hit the target, it erupts through them like an explosion, creating devastating shockwaves and internal damage. The "explosive" part refers less to fire or bombs and more to a sudden violent discharge of concentrated power.
Think of it as a combination of a heavyweight boxer's knockout punch, a cannon blast, and an underwater pressure explosion.
The "Sea Tiger" part isn't describing water powers. It's Bai Junlang's title and fighting style.
Power Bomb
Hoarah Loux's Power Bomb is a devastating grapple attack used primarily in his second phase. The move involves him pulling both arms back, leaping forward to grab the player, and slamming them into the ground, which can result in a brutal chest-ripping death animation if the player falls.
Attack Variations
Standard Power Bomb: Hoarah Loux leaps with arms raised, grabs the target, and slams them down.
Running Power Bomb: A faster variant where he charges with arms crossed, dealing increased damage.
Execution: If the player dies from the fall, Hoarah Loux will brutally rip the Tarnished's chest open
Cruel Sun
Escanor's signature technique, where he creates a miniature sun that radiates immense heat capable of melting armor and can be controlled or ridden like a vehicle. Its power and size scale with his physical strength, which peaks at noon
Pride Flare
A follow-up attack that detonates the Cruel Sun, releasing heat so intense it can instantly vaporize a large lake or incinerate opponents completely. This combination was notably used to dry up Lake Penace and severely wound Estarossa.