The Demon of The North-Chapter 138 - 137. Far Greater Power

All the humans on the next ship stood frozen, shock carved into their faces as the last fragments of the Calonian warship rained into the sea. They had known that at least two hundred gray orcs were packed inside that vessel. Two hundred of the monsters they could barely hold back even with full battalions and fortified positions.

Those are the creatures who shrugged off spells like rainwater, whose grey, stone-tough skin rendered most magic into little more than a faint itch. Even their simplest infantry spells, the ones meant to tear through armor or scorch through scales, barely left a scratch.

And their physical strength was unmatched. It took ten seasoned knights bracing together just to slow one down, and even then, they risked being thrown aside like dolls. Their strongest spell only managed to make a scratch on them, not completely wound them.

So when the humans watched the majestic omega with silver hair, not knowing who she was, a small, floating omega with white-lit eyes raised one hand, and then they felt the air twist, pressure tightening until their ears ached.

And when they witnessed an entire warship split apart in a single impossible stroke, its infamous soldiers sliced cleanly in half as if they were nothing more than wet parchment, every human on the neighboring ship went silent. Shock rooted them where they stood.

Those are the same gray orcs who had ruined kingdoms in their continents, the same monsters whose skin turned spells into sparks and whose bodies could tear through shield walls. The same warriors who slaughtered battalions even when outnumbered ten to one.

And yet, they had died in less than a heartbeat. Just one sweeping arc of wind, and two hundred horrors fell apart mid-motion.

The humans stared at the floating omega, the small, delicate-looking woman whose white eyes still shimmered with residual power, and their worldview trembled.

No omega in their entire continent had ever displayed power even remotely close to that. Omegas were precious, protected, and revered symbols of fertility, diplomacy, and divine favor.

But never destruction. Never apocalypse. They were not meant to be weapons. They were not meant to be something that could erase a warship by breathing wrong. Yet they had just watched one do exactly that.

The realization hit them all at once, a wave of collective disbelief that rippled across the deck like a fever. Men who had fought Calonian raiders for months, who had watched comrades die under gray fists and cracked bones against unbreakable skin, could only stare with hollow eyes.

Whatever came from the continent before them, whatever empire lay across that shimmering sea, is far stronger than the Calonian scourge. This force was stronger than anything their histories, tomes, or prophets had ever warned them about. Strong enough to unmake threats their greatest generals could only flee from.

Then another truth settled in, slow, creeping, and terrifying. She wasn’t even the emperor. Because now, descending from the sky like a shadowed star, her alpha had come to retrieve her. And the pressure rolling off that figure, dark, immense, and ancient, is so overwhelming that even the elves felt their knees weaken.

If the omega is a calamity, her alpha is something far beyond that. Something powerful. Something terrifying.

-

Meanwhile in the port,

"Are they that weak?" Mara asked at last, disbelief cracking through her usual cool composure.

She’d always known, everyone in the empire knew, that their empress held the kind of power only spoken of in ancient myth. The woman could command spirit kings. The entire spirit world bowed when she called.

But the horror stories the refugees brought, the dread that lingered in every whispered retelling, and the shadow of Calonia’s monstrous armies had stained the empire’s mood in the past weeks. No one knew what truly lurked across the sea. Their people prepared themselves for a battle on the scale of legend.

And yet, all that terror evaporated in an instant, wiped away as easily as Vivianne had cleaved that colossal ship apart.

Mara let out a low whistle, still staring at the settling mist of pulverized debris. "Sweetheart, you and I could deal with them by ourselves."

Marvessa shot her a flat, unimpressed look, as if Mara had just announced she could punch the moon out of the sky. "My love, you’re a mixed blood. I’m just a beta werewolf."

"You say that like it means something," Mara muttered, bumping her shoulder against Marvessa’s. Then, with a grin, "But you have the blood of Elderglen in your veins. You’re special."

Marvessa rolled her eyes so hard even the knights around them snorted. "Special enough to tear a ship in half with wind magic?"

"Not that," Mara admitted. "But special enough to tear the orcs limb from limb if you felt like it." Marvessa smacked her arm, but her lips twitched, as if she were trying not to smile.

Around them, the royal knights stirred, restless energy sweeping through the ranks. They’re not ordinary soldiers. They’re the empire’s chosen: pure-blooded beastmen, werewolves, demons, and the mixed blood selected to guard the imperial family.

They’d faced horrors most people only had nightmares about. They had fought spirit beasts, corrupted titans, and the remnants of ancient curses. And yet even they had tensed at the idea of the Calonian orcs.

Until now.

One of the beastman knights stepped forward. "Shall we track another ship and destroy it? It would be wise to thin their numbers before they reach the coast."

A werewolf knight snorted, cracking his knuckles. "Wise? Sounds fun. I want to see if those gray bastards bleed the same as the ones from the mountain tribes."

"They bleed," Mara said confidently. "Her highness just turned two hundred of them into confetti. I’m certain they do."

Another knight hummed thoughtfully, eyes still locked on the distant waves where splinters of the Calonian ship drifted. "If that was a standard assault vessel, they must have larger ones. Possibly armored."

"Armored or not," a demon knight added, "if the Empress can channel a spirit king’s power like that, we’re simply escorting her. She doesn’t need us."

"That’s not the point," Mara said, crossing her arms. "The emperor will want us in formation. And the empress—"

"—will try to fight alone," Marvessa finished with a sigh. "Like always."

The original Borgia knights shared a tired, affectionate groan. "She does that."

"She definitely does."

"Remember the Luthen incident?"

"Don’t remind me." But beneath the banter ran something deeper: the raw, undeniable truth of what they had witnessed.

-

Back at the other Calonian vessel,

Strength was always the foundation of Calonian pride. From the youngest warrior to the oldest chieftain, their world revolved around one law: the weak serve the strong. It was their creed, their compass, their measure of worth. Power shaped their hierarchy, guided their diplomacy, and even decided their right to breathe.

So when the scout ship, their iron-ribbed leviathan, crewed by two hundred of their finest gray orcs, silently cleaved apart in the distance, the shock that rippled through the Calonian fleet was not merely surprise.

It was sacrilege.

The commanding warlord on the nearest vessel felt the tremor of disbelief crawl through his tusks and settle into a cold pit in his chest. He stood frozen at the prow, massive hands gripping the railing as the remains of his vanguard sank beneath the waves like a discarded toy. His troops looked to him for a reaction, but even he, bred for brutality and hardened by war, couldn’t tear his gaze from the impossible sight.

"That ship..." one of the officers whispered, voice hoarse, "it carried our berserkers... the elite division."

"And they died without raising a blade," another muttered, as if afraid that speaking too loudly would summon the same fate.

Calonians never fear death. They feared insignificance, the idea that their strength could fail, that their ancestors would turn in shame. Yet nothing in their long history had prepared them for this kind of humiliation.

Their mightiest warriors, creatures whose skin repelled magic and whose bones could withstand boulders, had been reduced to drifting scraps in the sea. Cut down by a single being.

Whispers slithered across the deck like smoke. "What weapon was that?"

"No weapon, no siege magic can slice steel like fruit."

"Then what? What did this?"

And the deepest question, the one none dared voice but all felt: "What kind of monster lives beyond that veil of storms?"

The Calonians had always believed the continents farthest from them were the weakest of all. That belief wasn’t just confidence; it was doctrine. Their predecessors preached it in grand halls of stone. Their warlords shouted it across the training pits, teaching every soldier that the outside world was soft, overflowing with weak magic and weaker flesh.

To them, attacking Aerthysia was not a gamble but the smartest choice their empire had made in generations. Their own land was cursed; they had accepted this long ago.

A continent where mana twisted, poisoned, or devoured; where only the strongest bloodlines survived past childhood. But Aerthysia? Aerthysia was rich, lush, and overflowing with mana and life. The legendary Tree of Life, the world’s beating heart, stood on Aerthysian soil. The very center of existence was there.

So when the Aerthysian fleets fled their advance, fearfully abandoning their homes, the Calonians felt their certainty solidify. Yes, the expedition was correct. Yes, the world beyond was fragile. This first wave was merely to test defenses, map sea routes, and capture the omega or beta females they assumed would be trembling and helpless.

That was what the scout ship had been meant for. Two hundred elite gray orcs, brutes specially bred and magically fortified to resist blades and shrug off spells. Warriors whose thick gray skin could endure siege-grade mana bolts. No nation had ever defeated them without bleeding for it.

So when the flagship saw the scout ship cut cleanly in half, no clash, no roar of battle, no resistance, the Calonians felt something cold coil at the base of their spines. Silence descended across the decks. Not discipline. Not reverence.

Fear. A deep, choking, ancestral fear they’d never felt before.

The halves of the ship drifted apart like broken toys. Two hundred orcs were neatly severed without spilling a drop of blood into the sea. There had been no fire. No spell imprint. No impact wave. Only the unmistakable signature of a single, impossibly precise strike.

One attack, from an omega female. That fact spread through the Calonian ranks like a sickness.

On the deck of the second warship, the commander’s hands trembled as he gripped the railing. He had once killed a mountain titan barehanded. He had bathed in the blood of dragonspawn. But never, not once in his entire brutal, glorious life, had he witnessed a power that didn’t make sense.

Strength was the foundation of the Calonian world. Strength determined rank, destiny, and the worth of one’s very breath. And now, before them, stood a force that broke their entire doctrine.

"If one omega could annihilate a ship of their elites, then what of her alpha? And what of the nation she came from?"

For the first time since their race began its expansion, the Calonians felt the unmistakable sensation of standing before something stronger, far stronger, than themselves. Their hesitation thickened the air. Their certainty crumbled. And the dread that coiled through their commanders began to spread down the ranks like a shadow.

They had come expecting prey. Instead, they had awakened a continent of monsters far greater than themselves.