The SSS class adventurer is a divine cleric
Chapter 104: Kaelen’s rage [2]

Chapter 104: Kaelen’s rage [2]

All he could hear was the echo of that blast... and the sound of his best friend’s voice in his head, laughing like an idiot while calling him the worst names of all, but he wasn’t annoyed or angry.

Kaelen clenched his jaw, blinked behind the monster, and drove his fist into its back.

The fight was far from over.

But for the first time since the beginning.

Kaelen was no longer holding back.

He blurred into motion, a streak of gold and rage.

The monster struck first, its talon-like claw sweeping in a vicious arc.

CLANG.

Kaelen’s forearm collided with the blow, a holy barrier blooming just in time to intercept it. The impact cracked the ground beneath him. His boots sank into the churned soil. His knees buckled but didn’t give way.

He spun.

Momentum carried his leg upward in a sharp arc, a kick that slammed into the creature’s thigh with a booming thud. The monster flinched.

He blinked then vanished.

Then reappeared behind the beast, his fist already cocked, divine light coiled around it like a burning halo.

CRACK!

His punch landed against its ribs, and this time, it didn’t bounce off.

The hide dented.

Another flash, another blink. Another fist. Another parry. Another counter.

Claws sliced the air, he bent backward, narrowly dodging a swipe that would’ve torn through steel.

He retaliated with a hammering elbow, then a flurry of body blows that made the monster stumble back, screeching in pain.

This was no longer a battle of equals.

Kaelen wasn’t just fighting.

He was breaking the monster, denting, cracking and deforming it.

Every strike was a punishment, holy wrath shaped into fists and driven by grief.

Its sleek greying skin like armor that had turned red, once unbreakable, was now splintering under the weight of his rage.

But there was no triumph in Kaelen’s eyes.

Because even as he pushed the tyrant back, step by step, his soul was slipping further into darkness.

Fifteen seconds.

His breathing came in short, ragged bursts. His shoulders steamed, mist rising off his body like a forge on the verge of eruption. Divine energy pulsed around him like an overclocked engine, barely held together.

His heart beat faster.

But it wasn’t adrenaline.

It was panic.

Ten seconds.

The monster let out a deafening roar and charged, throwing everything it had left in a reckless, hateful charge.

Kaelen didn’t dodge.

He didn’t blink away.

He met it head-on, divine aura bursting outward like a nova.

Fist met claw. His raging light against the monster’s savage claws.

Each impact was a blast of holy retribution. The air shattered with every clash. The forest floor was gouged by invisible shockwaves. The sheer pressure turned leaves to ash midair.

He drove the monster back. Blow after blow. Step by step.

Five seconds.

His muscles screamed.

His vision swam.

And his heart still wouldn’t believe what he knew deep down.

Neal.

That explosion. That divine flare.

It wasn’t just power. It was a sacrifice.

"Please..." Kaelen whispered, his voice cracking. "Please let me be wrong..."

He didn’t know who he was pleading to.

He didn’t even know if he ever believed in the gods from the beginning but he still prayed.

He had to believe in something, anything, besides that gut-splitting, soul-breaking certainty clawing at his chest.

Three seconds...

He threw another punch. The monster reeled.

Two...

His body felt like it was disintegrating from the inside. Divine power flaring at its peak.

He couldn’t hold it back anymore.

He let out a scream.

A sound that wasn’t a battle cry, but a raw, broken roar.

Of heartbreak. Of fury. Of helplessness.

Of a soul split in half by grief.

And then.

<Sanctified Wrath: Final Benediction>

Golden rings spiraled outward.

Five radiant phantoms of his fist materialized in the air behind him, burning with divine brilliance. Each one was perfectly shaped, gleaming with the weight of his despair and anger.

"<Instant Burst>!"

The first phantom surged forward, Kaelen’s real fist thrown in tandem.

BOOM.

A crater formed beneath the monster’s feet as the punch drove it back.

"Again!!"

BOOM—BOOM!!

Two more phantoms struck in brutal succession. Holy light burst with each impact, each one hitting harder than the last. The monster stumbled. Its body warped and caved in, like metal under a god’s hammer.

Then Kaelen did something insane.

He gritted his teeth. Repeat the same moves he had just used again but this time with <infinite stack>. And mimicked something he was never taught.

Something he’d only seen many times before.

The Dallas Secret Technique. Jered’s signature move, impossible for most to follow.

Kaelen didn’t know the exact steps. But he didn’t care.

He’d seen it enough. Felt it in his bones.

He forced it into existence with raw instinct.

Four of the five phantoms merged, compressing down violently into two larger fists, pulsing with unfiltered divine pressure. The fifth, untouched, flickered like a ghost behind him, still waiting for his commands.

Then he moved.

One punch from his real arm.

One punch from the phantom.

One from the second.

And the third from the lingering fifth, delayed by a second.

A threefold collision.

CRACK—BOOM—KRAA-KOOM!

The monster’s chest caved in completely. Bones snapped beneath its hide. Its jaw cracked open in a scream it couldn’t finish. The shockwave blasted through the clearing, flattening trees, uprooting stone, and sending the dying tyrant flying backwards like a ragdoll launched from a divine cannon.

It hit the earth hundreds of meters away, bouncing once, then landing still.

Unmoving. Dead.

But Kaelen didn’t stand still. He casted <Holy Reversal> on the monster immediately just to be sure and in a second or two the system voice rang in his mind.

[You have killed a peak gold tier mutant.]

Rewards : +2 levels, one skill upgrading book, 100 mana crystals.

His chest heaves up and down.

His hands were shaking.

Not from weakness. But from the silence that came after. The battlefield was still again.

And all Kaelen could do... was fall to his knees.

"...Neal..."

He didn’t cry.

The light still lingered around him, fading slowly like the echo of a miracle long spent.