'Resolve'
The essence of the Earth Soul Note, unshaken, unbending, unbroken.
Those who carry the mightiest will shall bind themselves to this Soul Note, and become its living embodiment.
The Earth is not fierce like Fire, nor free like Wind. It does not flow nor shine, it endures.
It stands when all else falls.
And no one embodies that more than Marcus Theron.
A man whose will could bear the weight of a thousand deaths.
Whose gaze never wavered, even as comrades fell and the ground itself burned.
Through sheer resolve alone, he ascended to what many mercenaries and soldiers could only dream of,
Grade V.
At that stage, one could transcend the limits of their Soul Note, shaping it, refining it, making it their own.
And from the essence of the Earth, Marcus forged his version,
'Steel'
A manifestation of unbreakable resolve, forged through battle and pain.
Unlike most Grade V, who took posts as generals, scholars, or mages in the Great Wizarding Academies, Marcus Theron chose differently.
He led a mercenary company of his own, 'The Band of the Eagle',a family of blades forged by shared scars.
***
The air shook with chaos.
The five monsters had fused into one colossal abomination, a towering, half-skeletal mass of screaming faces and beating organs.
From its spine extended black tendrils that conjured smaller, twisted spawn, lesser beasts that swarmed like ants.
"Shit they're multiplying!"
cried one of the soldiers.
"Knights, hold the line! Protect the mages!"
Marcus's voice thundered through the chamber.
The knights raised their shields as smaller creatures lunged from the shadows.
Steel met claw, flame met darkness.
At the center of it all,
Marcus and Nathaniel stood side by side,
the unbreakable shield and the guiding light.
Marcus pressed his hand to the ground.
The stone trembled beneath his touch, veins of molten orange light spreading outward like cracks in a forging anvil.
"Steel"
His armor groaned and transformed, skin fusing with mana-forged metal.
His body shimmered like living iron, his breath turning into steam.
He swung his sword, and the air cracked.
Each strike carried the sound of hammers against an anvil, each step left the ground fractured.
A black tendril lashed at him, he caught it mid-air, and with a single pull, ripped it clean off.
"Come on then!"
Marcus roared.
"Bring your altar. I'll stand on it and save you the trouble of looking!!!"
Nathaniel raised his staff, light gathering at its tip.
He chanted softly in Vocemantica, each syllable echoing with celestial resonance.
"Luxa, Origo Spei"
"Let Hope become Armor."
Golden sigils formed mid-air, weaving into radiant chains that wrapped around Marcus's armor.
His steel now glowed with divine brilliance, light and metal fused as one.
"Those are my strongest protection spell for now"
Nathaniel said, steady but strained.
Marcus grinned.
"Thanks, Nathaniel"
Together, they stood against the towering monstrosity, Steel and Light, two forces of creation against the madness of corruption.
Behind them, Samantha and three other mages stood in a tight circle.
Their hands trembled as glowing runes circled around them, a massive ritual array known as Harmonia Magus, the combined spell of synchronization.
Sweat dripped down Samantha's face as she poured her Fire Soul into the circle. Her flames burned white, pure and violent.
"Just a little longer… hold them off a little longer!"
she shouted.
"We'll give you all the time you need!"
Nathaniel replied, forming another barrier of light between the mages and the beasts.
Dozens of lesser monsters slammed against the knights' shields, the clang of metal echoing like a war drum.
One by one, knights fell, replaced by others stepping forward without hesitation.
The smell of burning flesh and ozone filled the air.
The colossal creature lunged.
Marcus intercepted, his blade colliding with its claw, the impact sent shockwaves that split the ground apart.
He was pushed back, boots grinding against stone, but he held.
Always held.
"Nathaniel!"
"On it!"
Nathaniel raised his staff, seven spears of light materialized above him and shot forward, piercing through the monster's body.
It roared, its flesh knitting back together unnaturally fast.
Marcus spat blood, wiped his mouth, and smirked.
"Regenerate all you want. I'll keep breaking you until there's nothing left to heal."
He lunged forward, his sword glowing crimson-white, each strike in perfect rhythm, a hammer beating on molten iron.
The mages' ritual circle flared.
Samantha screamed, her voice mixing with the roar of fire and wind.
"Harmonia: Infernum Lumina!"
"Harmony: The Light of Hell"
A beam of intertwined fire and light exploded from the center of the array, a sun-forged blast that consumed the entire chamber.
Marcus and Nathaniel covered their faces as the radiance engulfed the abomination.
Its roar echoed once, twice, then silence.
When the light faded, the monster was gone.
Only scorched stone and smoke remained.
Marcus stood amidst the ashes, armor cracked and bleeding through the gaps in his Steel Resonance.
Every breath he took came with a hiss of steam and pain.
Nathaniel fell to one knee beside him, exhausted but alive.
"We did it…"
Marcus didn't answer at first.
He simply stared at the glowing runes seared into the ground.
Then he whispered, almost to himself.
"No. This isn't over."
The melted sigils pulsed faintly, a heartbeat of forbidden power.
"Vocem Ascendat ad Turrim…"
"Let the Voice ascend to the Tower."
Marcus clenched his fist.
"They weren't fighting to win. They were completing the ritual."
The chamber trembled, dust raining from the ceiling.
From every corpse scattered across the sewer, human, beast, and mage alike, black veins of mana slithered together, merging in the center of the intersection.
A stench of rot and sulfur filled the air.
Then came the birth scream.
A massive shape clawed its way out from beneath the corpses. Flesh fused with bone, wings formed from giant human hands, a rat's snout warped with human faces, all shrieking, crying, laughing at once. Its eight malformed legs dragged its bulk across the flooded stone, and its eyes, hundreds of them, rolled and blinked independently.
The soldiers froze.
"W-We're all gonna die…"
"F-Fuck, if I knew this, I'd have said goodbye to my girlfriend…"
One by one, men dropped their weapons and knelt. The stench of fear was thicker than the blood on the floor.
Marcus turned to Nathaniel, face pale but steady.
"Get the wounded out. I'll stay."
"You can't—"
"That's an order."
He smiled faintly, a tired, human smile behind steel and blood.
"Tell my son… to live stronger than I did."
Nathaniel wanted to argue, but the tremor beneath their feet answered for them.
He ran, pulling the survivors away, as Marcus turned toward the abomination.
"AGHHHHH!!!!"
Marcus screamed, raising his sword.
The monster let out a grotesque bellow and spat a torrent of acidic fluid.
It splashed across Marcus's blade, corroding it instantly into molten shards.
"Shit…"
Still, he moved forward. One step, then another, unarmed, broken, bleeding, but walking like a man who refused to kneel.
The monster swung. The claw hit like a falling mountain.
Steel shattered. Flesh tore.
Marcus's right arm flew, blood spraying across the stones. His body slammed into the wall hard enough to crack it open.
BANG!
The sheer force of the blow made him spit out blood, splattering across the cracked floor.
"Heh… dying in a sewer. How pathetic."
The creature roared and lunged forward, mouth wide like a gate to hell.
Marcus didn't move. His vision blurred. He saw the stars above through the hole in the ceiling, just faintly.
"Guess I'll see you soon, Selene…"
Then, a flash of blue light cut through the darkness.
A trident struck down from above, piercing straight through the monster's mouth and pinning its jaw shut. The force made the beast's entire frame convulse, its wings thrashing against the tunnel walls.
A voice echoed, calm, composed, and cold as the sea.
"You reek of heresy."
The newcomer stepped forward from the shadows, drenched in faint azure light. His cloak fluttered as if underwater, and his eyes glowed with the serenity of the deep sea.
Each step he took sent ripples across the flooded ground.
"And heresy… must drown."
He snapped his fingers.
The water around them surged violently, forming dozens of spectral tridents that hovered mid-air.
The beast roared, breaking free from the first strike, but before it could move again, the man swung his hand down.
"Aqua: Tridens Domini"
"Water: Tridents of The Lord"
The summoned weapons shot forward like a rain of spears, each exploding into torrents of compressed water upon impact.
The sound was deafening, a symphony of pressure and thunder.
The monster's flesh tore apart piece by piece, its screams mixing with the roaring waves.
Marcus watched through fading sight as the creature's massive body was crushed, drowned, and shredded until nothing remained but red foam and steam.
Silence returned, except for the soft trickle of water.
The mysterious man turned to Marcus, his trident dissolving back into mist.
He approached slowly, crouching beside the fallen warrior.
"You fought well, Marcus Theron. The Empire doesn't make men like you anymore."
Marcus coughed blood, smiling weakly.
"You know my name?"
"I know more than your name."
His voice was calm, like a tide that could pull one into the abyss.
Marcus's eyes widened slightly.
"You... who are you?"
The man gave a faint smirk.
"I am Regalus Winstar Cael Bellator,
I am 'The Unyielding Sun'."
I am 'The GreatOne' One'.