On the stormy Atlantic coast, atop a towering cliff, a squad of fully armored knights sat astride massive warhorses. Wrapped head-to-toe in gleaming silver heavy armor, they stood like steel statues overlooking the sea.
Following their gaze, one could see a large sailing ship several kilometers away, catching the wind as it steadily pushed deeper into the ocean.
Onboard, Alexander Corvinus watched the armored silhouettes on the cliff grow smaller in the distance. For the first time, he felt no fear.
He was far out at sea now. Even if Chen Mo wanted to give chase, he would need a ship—something Alexander had already prepared against.
Since the moment he planned his escape, Alexander Corvinus had been thorough.
Every ship in the surrounding territory—every fishing boat, every merchant vessel—had already been destroyed or burned. It would be impossible for Chen Mo to pursue him anytime soon. And once Chen Mo managed to mobilize a ship from elsewhere, Alexander would be long gone. The ocean was vast and trackless—Chen Mo would never know which direction he had taken.
Just as Alexander finally exhaled in relief, an unbelievable scene unfolded on the cliff behind him.
Andrew, Victor, and the other knights gritted their teeth as they watched the ship recede into the horizon.
For three years—aside from conquest, sieges, and expansion—their sole mission had been to hunt down Alexander Corvinus. Or more accurately, their ceaseless expansion was for the sole purpose of forcing him out.
They had finally trapped him at the very edge of the continent, cornered against the sea…
And yet he had still escaped. Now they could only watch helplessly as the ship vanished into the distance.
Moments earlier, the knights had found a narrow, winding stone path carved into the cliffside, spiraling down to the sea. It was clear Alexander had slipped down that path during the chaos of the siege, boarding his hidden ship and fleeing unnoticed.
But they also discovered something else—
There were no other ships below the cliff.
Even if they reached the bottom, they had no means of pursuit.
Chen Mo, however, showed no anger. Instead, the corner of his mouth lifted in a faint smile—the smile of a hunter who had finally spotted his prey.
He glanced briefly at the steep, twisting cliffside path. It was far too narrow, far too slow. Even he would waste precious time climbing down… and with the prey in sight, Chen Mo had no patience to take the long route.
He swung off his warhorse, stepped forward, and stopped at the cliff's edge.
The powerful sea wind whipped his cloak backwards, revealing the angular, black adamantium armor encasing his legs, gleaming with a mysterious dark sheen under the sunlight.
Because the cliff jutted outward toward the sea, the drop below led straight into deep water—no rocks, no reefs.
Chen Mo nodded to himself.
Then he turned to his knights.
"Wait here."
Before they could react, Chen Mo took a single step forward—and leapt.
Andrew and the others gasped, rushing to the cliff's edge just in time to see Chen Mo plummeting straight down, his black cloak flaring behind him like wings.
In seconds he crossed the hundred-meter drop and struck the sea with a great splash, disappearing beneath the waves.
Their hearts clenched—until Chen Mo's dark silhouette surfaced again.
But before relief could fully settle, something even more shocking occurred:
A small, several-meter-long boat materialized beside Chen Mo—appearing as if from thin air.
No one had seen it arrive. It simply… appeared.
In truth, it was a compact inflatable assault boat Chen Mo kept in his storage space—meant originally for emergency ocean landings in his own world, but now unexpectedly useful.
Before inflation, the folded boat and motor took less than a cubic meter of space; pulling a ring would release compressed gas and deploy the vessel in seconds.
Chen Mo hauled himself aboard, started the engine, and the roar of the motor echoed across the waves. The propeller churned the sea into white foam as the assault boat shot forward like an arrow, slicing across the water toward the distant ship.
On the deck of the sailing vessel, Alexander Corvinus saw everything.
He had barely recovered from the shock of Chen Mo jumping off a 140-meter cliff—
when the sudden appearance of the strange boat struck him like a thunderbolt.
There were no ships left within a hundred kilometers.
He had personally ensured that.
And yet this boat appeared out of nowhere.
Worse—it traveled faster than any vessel he had ever seen, despite having neither sails nor oars.
It crossed the waves with a speed that rivaled a galloping warhorse.
Under the stunned eyes of his knights, Chen Mo's assault boat closed the distance rapidly—
within moments he was less than a hundred meters behind the ship.
Only now did Alexander snap out of his shock. His gaze tightened as he watched the unstoppable craft approaching. On the bow, Chen Mo stood like a dark war god, radiating overwhelming force, his eyes locked squarely onto Alexander.
Alarm flared through Alexander. He drew his ancient ornate sword, his expression tense.
In centuries of life, Alexander Corvinus had encountered countless strange, supernatural, and terrifying things…
But never a being like Chen Mo—mysterious, unfathomable, and terrifyingly powerful.
The great Alexander Corvinus had feared no man.
But Chen Mo…
Chen Mo filled him with dread.
He was something greater, something darker—something Alexander had no confidence facing.
Chen Mo, unaware of Alexander's turmoil, cut the engine. The assault boat continued forward under its own inertia.
Reaching the bow, Chen Mo drew the Sword of Kings. His eyes narrowed as he fixed them on the fully alert, sword-in-hand Alexander Corvinus waiting on the aft deck.
The distance shrank—ten meters—eight—five—
Just as the boat was about to crash, Chen Mo bent his knees and stomped down hard. The force crushed the boat lower into the water—and launched him upward like a cannon shot.
He soared toward the deck with terrifying momentum.
Their eyes met—cold, sharp, deadly.
Just as Chen Mo was about to land, Alexander moved.
He lunged forward, stepping into Chen Mo's landing point, thrusting his sword straight at Chen Mo's chest.
Aiming to catch him mid-air, unable to dodge, unbalanced—
A perfect killing strike.
If Chen Mo failed to block, the blade would punch straight through him.
If he did block, the impact mid-air would knock him off balance—and Alexander could overwhelm him with follow-up blows.
It was a brilliant move.
He had lived for centuries—his combat instincts were razor-sharp.
He forced Chen Mo into a seemingly unwinnable position.
Against any normal opponent, the trap would have worked flawlessly.
But Chen Mo was not "normal."
He was someone who had returned fully armed from the world of Captain America—
Someone with six times human strength, wrapped in an indestructible adamantium battle suit, wielding the peerless Sword of Kings taken from a tomb hiding the Tesseract.
Attacks that should have been impossible to counter…
were trivial to him.
Alexander's exquisite timing made Chen Mo's eyes brighten in interest. The old immortal truly was a seasoned monster—his instincts and technique far surpassed most warriors.
But—
Technique isn't everything.