Chapter 163: Silent!

At the same time, in the Crescent Moon squad’s lounge, Karin stood frozen.

She had been standing before the screen with her arms crossed, ready to point out the flaws in a skill that Erik’s body clearly could not endure.

But when the wings fully spread, every tactical evaluation vanished from her mind. This was no longer a few accelerating sparks around his ankles or a punch wrapped in Lightning Element.

Erik had turned the entire guard station into a domain of lightning storms, and all of that energy obeyed a man who had only just broken through to Bronze.

One subordinate softly asked, “Captain… is that really a man?”

Karin did not answer. Her hand on the armrest clenched so tightly that a crack appeared in the wood. In her life, she had respected powerful warriors, but she had never been so overwhelmed by a man’s strength that she forgot how to speak.

What frightened her even more was that she did not merely want to know whether she could defeat him. She wanted to step onto that battlefield, witness those wings with her own eyes, and make certain that the person beneath them was still alive.

“Um… Captain?”

“Be quiet.”

Karin spoke very softly. Her face was burning, but her eyes never left the screen.

Another soldier unconsciously blurted out, “Lord Erik looks like a god…”

“Who gave you permission to call him a god?” Karin immediately shouted, but froze the instant the words left her mouth. She could not find another way to describe the sight before her.

A man covered in blood, standing amid ruins with wings of thunder behind his back, making the whole battlefield seem to retreat and make way for him.

She gritted her teeth and sharply turned away to hide her flushed face.

“I only said not to praise him too soon! He has not won yet! Besides… he belongs to the other side. Remember that clearly!”

A subordinate spoke quietly. “Then why did Captain stand up?”

Karin looked down and realized she had left her chair at some point. Both feet stood close to the screen, as though one more step would bring her nearer to Erik.

“I want to see the skill clearly! Do I need to explain that too?!”

No one dared answer. Yet the soldiers standing around her could all see Karin’s hands trembling slightly. She turned back to the screen, telling herself that she was only curious about an unusual opponent. That explanation could not stop her heart from pounding when the lightning wings spread wider once more.

Just try dying after showing me something like this, idiot.

Karin immediately pressed her lips together, irritated by her own thoughts.

At the western Silver Moon garage, Corvina stood frozen as well. The motorcycle she had been dismantling lay right behind her, but the eyes of all six Succubi were fixed on the screen.

One underling who had been pointing at the screen slowly lowered her hand, her mouth hanging open without a word. Another instinctively grabbed her friend’s arm. Corvina did not hear any of those sounds.

With the instincts of a Titan Succubus, she knew exactly what it cost to keep muscles functioning under such terrifying pressure. None of Erik’s bursts of acceleration came free now. Every bolt of electricity running through his body was pushing him closer to his limit.

Yet he still stood straight. The wings behind him spread wide, each lightning feather trembling in the wind, while his left fist slowly tightened.

Corvina had once believed a powerful warrior needed a body that could not be brought down. Erik showed her the opposite: someone could be strong precisely because they knew they might fall, yet still chose to rise again. Her heart pounded, and an undeniable feeling of admiration surged past all her worry.

“Boss…” an underling whispered. “I… I feel like I want to kneel.”

Corvina did not scold her. Her own knees were beginning to weaken too, a realization that startled her. Her oil-stained hand unconsciously pressed against her chest, where her heart raced in time with the lightning on the screen.

“It is not because he is a man,” she said quietly, as though explaining it to herself. “It is because he fought that hard.”

One of her underlings turned to look at her. “What did Boss just say?”

Corvina did not answer. From now on, every time she thought of Erik, she knew the first image in her mind would no longer be of a gentle man inside a warm room, but of a warrior standing amid a storm with wings of thunder spread behind his back.

Across all of Silver Moon, magic screens displayed the same sight.

A beautiful mature woman dropped her fan but forgot to bend down and pick it up. A female soldier who had once commented that men should not go to the battlefield slowly sat down, her eyes still wide.

In a tavern, someone who had been about to argue with her friend stopped in the middle of her sentence. Inside a shop, several Succubi stood beneath the awning and watched through the glass window, and even the sound of magical decorative rain could not drown out the crackling electricity from the screen.

The comment feed, which had been so heated that moderators needed to intervene, began to slow.

[Are those… wings?]

[Can a man use Lightning Element to this extent?]

[I do not even know what to say anymore…]

Then even those short messages stopped appearing.

For several breaths, the number of viewers continued to rise, but almost no one posted another comment.

They only stared at the eagle wings spreading across the ruined guard station, at the stone slabs floating under the pressure of mana, at Dark Mist being forced back by a man whom many had previously thought only needed protection.

On the screen, the black woman had raised every defensive tentacle she possessed. Even the one who had mocked Erik’s injuries no longer dared to move forward.

Erik slowly raised his head. Beneath the silver-violet light, his eyes remained cold, his left fist clenched amid dancing lightning.

No one could hear his heart beating far too quickly inside his chest. The viewers only saw a bloodstained warrior pouring everything he had into one final moment.

He growled:

“Thunder… Eagle!”

A piercing cry rang out from the wings. It was followed by a second, a third, then dozens of raptor cries at different pitches overlapping like an entire flock of eagles screaming within a storm.

The sound echoed through the magical recording system, making several devices shake violently. Lightning from both wings gathered at once, surging forward as a silver-violet radiance so bright it hurt the eyes.

The screen turned white.

For the first moment, no one could speak.

Mirielle still had her hand against the crystal, tears silently flowing down her face. Karin held her breath, forgetting to release the cracked armrest.

Corvina stood in the middle of the garage, her feet seemingly nailed to the concrete floor. No one knew what that light had swallowed, or whether Erik was still standing after that attack.

Then the comment feed exploded.

[THUNDER EAGLE!!!]

[OH MY GOD! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!]

[I am actually kneeling… I do not have any strength left in my limbs.]

[I have watched so many battles, but I have never seen a man like this!]

[Who said he did not deserve to be on a battlefield? Come say it again!]

[I take back everything I said.]

[Do not deify him too much! No one has confirmed whether that skill is even real!]

[Are you blind?! Was the whole outpost and Dark Mist fake too?!]

[This is special effects. Something like this cannot be real!]

[Keep doubting, then. To me, from today onward, he is a god!]

[I do not know whether he is truly a god. But I want to stand by his side.]

[STOP ARGUING! CAN ANYONE SEE ERIK?!]

Not only on the screens, cries of shock and reverence rang through the rooms, taverns, clubs, and barracks following the broadcast.

Some people burst into tears. Some laughed while calling Erik’s name. Some immediately saved images of the lightning wings to use as profile pictures.

One group even declared they would establish a society to honor him, despite others mocking them for temporary fanaticism.

But no one could deny that something had changed.

Before tonight, most viewers knew Erik as a beautiful, gentle, and unusual man. After witnessing him fight amid blood and thunder, many found in him an image they had never believed a man could become: someone they wanted to protect, follow, and even kneel before out of reverence.

To those people, Erik had become a god from the moment the Thunder Eagle wings spread open.

And those same people were now staring desperately at the white screen, waiting for any sign that their god was still alive.