The SSS class adventurer is a divine cleric
Chapter 99: Owe me a father

Chapter 99: Owe me a father

The moment the light of teleportation faded, he was already sprinting.

Heat still surging through his veins, not just from the elixirs, but from <Sanctified Wrath> burning through every cell in his body like wildfire. His limbs felt weightless, faster, stronger, more alive than they had ever been.

The wind screamed in his ears as he shot through the ravaged forest. What used to be towering trees and dense canopy was now a battlefield of shattered trunks, splintered roots, and gouged earth. The very ground trembled with distant booms, like the sky itself was falling.

He wasn’t even breathing hard. He couldn’t feel fatigue.

But his heart pounded for a different reason.

"Dad... please hold on."

He could hear the distant sound of blades and claws clashing into one another and for a moment everything turned silent. And this was not good news at all. His heart raced like never before, his blood pump even harder, and the next instant he disappeared.

The avian-headed monster towered over the battlefield like a statue of death. Its feathers glistened with blood, but not its own. The once-shining chains lay broken and scattered at its feet, twisted like vines. Smoke curled around its legs. Its four arms still spun, blocking and parrying in a deadly rhythm.

And Derek was still standing.

But barely.

He was bleeding from his shoulder, his ribs, his temple. His shadow-wrapped armor was cracked. One arm hung limp. His blade was gone again. He was down to pure grit now, dodging blow after blow, body moving on instinct alone.

Right at this moment Kaelen saw it.

The monster raised all four arms.

Three of them spun in a feint. The fourth was aimed straight for Derek’s chest.

And in that split second, Kaelen saw it with his own eyes.

"NO!"

Kaelen’s voice ripped out of his throat like thunder.

And the monster’s fist came down.

Derek knew it.

The moment the monster shifted its stance, when its foot subtly pivoted and its center of mass dipped low, he knew it.

He had walked right into its rhythm. Bit down on the bait. And now, the fourth arm blurred in perfect sync, no weapon but the claws were more dangerous than any weapon.

There would be no dodging this time. No counter or clever escape.

Only the silence of acceptance.

And this was the end.

His lips moved, but no sound came. There wasn’t any need.

"Sorry, kid I couldn’t give you a proper childhood," he whispered in his heart.

Kaelen... That stubborn, reckless boy who always rushed in without thinking. Who never stopped trying.

"Sorry, Neal. Sorry, Alira..."

The kids he promised to protect and raise as his own. His burdens. His pride.

"I couldn’t protect you all. I’m sorry... for leaving you behind."

And then the world softened. The sounds faded. The forest and the monster and the battle... they all slipped away.

Because in that final breath, his mind drifted to ’her’.

The wind was warm in his memory. Sunlight poured over a green hill where wildflowers danced in the breeze. And there she was, barefoot, laughing, spinning in the grass, hair catching the light like strands of fire and silk. Her voice carried like music through the air, humming an old tune he had long forgotten.

He remembered lying beside her, their fingers entwined, watching the clouds drift by. He remembered the way she always stole his food when she thought he wasn’t looking. The way she scolded him for every reckless stunt. The way she whispered promises to the stars, ones he swore to keep.

"We’ll grow old together, alright?"

"You promise?"

"I promise."

He hadn’t kept it.

His hand twitched, fingers curling in regret.

"And you..." his heart whispered, aching, "my love..."

"I’m coming home now."

His lips turned up in a small, tired smile. One of peace and surrender.

Like a man who had made peace with the end. A man ready to sleep.

Ready to see her again.

The wind shifted.

A faint warmth tickled the edge of his perception.

Then...

Boom.

A figure flashed past him in warm comforting light yet creating strong shock waves due to sheer speed.

Derek blinked and the pressure disappeared. The monster was now gone... blasted away into the trees like a ragdoll hurled by the gods.

And standing where death should have claimed him...

Was Kaelen.

Burning with divine light.

When Kaelen saw his father surrender to fate, unable to do anything against the monster, his heart ached. His proud father whom he had always looked up upon. Lying there hopeless, he could not take it anymore.

And he moved.

He didn’t think. He didn’t calculate. There was no time for any. His adrenaline rushed and he launched forward with everything he had.

<Blink> 5x

His body exploded with golden light. Holy wind surged around him, propelling him forward like a cannonball of divine fury. The terrain blurred. The monster’s fist was a few inches away from Derek’s chest too close.

But not too late.

Kaelen slammed into the monster’s stomach.

<Divine Judgement>

The impact cracked like a thunderclap.

Its eyes bulged.

The bird-beast screeched as Kaelen drove his shoulder into its core, all of his buffs stacked, all his mana focused. It went flying, launched like a missile.

He kept pushing mid-air, channeling every last drop of strength into the hit, until he felt it give way.

The monster broke through the tree line, shattering trees like glass, snapping trunks like twigs, branches flying like debris in a storm.

The monster crashed into the forest beyond, toppling a dozen trees, plowing a trench into the earth that went on for meters.

For a second, nothing moved. Not even the wind, it was completely still and silent.

Then a voice behind him, broke that silence.

"...You damn fool."

Kaelen turned and Derek was staring at him, his expression caught between furious and relieved. He slumped against a broken root, blood dripping from his chin.

"Kaelen," he rasped, "I told you to stay out of it."

Kaelen grinned, panting.

"You also told me not to scam nobles," he said, "and look how that turned out. I’m stronger than any nobles of my age."

He actually chuckled and shook his head slowly.

"Damn son, just like your mother... You hit that thing like it owed you money."

"It almost owed me a father," he whispered.

And Derek blinked.

Then nodded, just once.

The silence didn’t last long. The ground trembled again in the distance.

The monster wasn’t done.

But neither was Kaelen.