Henry couldn’t see from one eye, while the second was seeing things he couldn’t… interpret.

  Something was very wrong. The worst of the pain had passed, but it only left a dreadful confusion in its place, and Henry couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. Or what was happening.

  What had he been doing? What—

  A prodigious amount of mana flashed toward his stomach and brains. His flesh knitted and repaired instantly, a burning and reinvigorating feeling. As it healed he got an idea of what had happened, and somehow, that made everything even more confusing.

  It was as if a giant had caught him, then tried to tear him in half along his middle.

  Henry’s sight returned. Below him, the dolphin was preparing another attack, just like the one which had reduced his brains to mush. The two green walls would each pull half of his body in different directions and frankly, Henry didn’t have the kind of mana to afford for that to happen more than once. Plus, he didn’t want to sense that dreadful state of mind again. If he could even call it that.

  With the arm arm tightly gripped around the dolphin, he sent a Lightning Discharge, hoping it would delay the attack, while at the same time, he channeled mana into the leviathan tooth before he he plunged it down at the grey, thick skin below him. He couldn’t see his angle of attack that well, but he still accelerated his stab with Evershifting Strike.

  As long as he punched through the skin, he’d be doing damage.

  The dolphin seized as electricity coursed through his powerful frame, but only for a second. It was nowhere near enough to allow for Henry’s followup attack to land. As the leviathan tooth was less than an inch from the dolphin’s flank, a green hue appeared between the fang’s tip and the skin, reminding Henry of Stormsong’s defensive ability. His attack was thrown to the side, unable to maintain its trajector, while his grip on the dolphin was powerfully challenged, right as a newly summoned green current tried to throw Henry away.

  Henry couldn’t have that. If he lost his grip, his plan would fail. He didn’t have the mana for another Blink, and the dolphin wouldn’t allow him to land another arm on him ever again.

  Henry’s mind screamed with pain as the wall of green tried to rip him away from the dolphin’s back. The two arms he was using to grab on were threatening to tear as he channeled more electricity into them, and the dolphin twitched and seized, but it was more of an annoyance to Sundots than an actual threat.

  The green magic continued pulling at him, so Henry changed tactics. With the suckers still making contact along Sundots’ skin, he began unloading every venom he had at his disposal. Paralytics, relaxants, numbing, and especially his anti-coagulants. He couldn’t dump them all at once because his suckers’ bite was barely cutting into the dolphin’s skin, but at this point, every little thing helped. He even got a couple of notifications from Magic Mimic, but he couldn’t pay them attention at the moment.

  “[Filth. Let go of me.]”

  Henry didn’t respond—instead, he redoubled his efforts. Channeling more mana into the dark leviathan tooth, Henry stabbed down once more. This time, he activated most of the effects of Evershifting Strike. All but [Whipping] and [Cutting]. He didn’t need his arm to cut, the fang was here for that. And he didn’t need the whipping motion. He was stabbing down. And he needed that movement to be nearly unstoppable.

  The [Accelerated] effect made the strike flash down in the blink of an eye. [Unimpeded] and [Heavy] tore through the water that sought to rebuff the attack, but the fight wasn’t won yet, and his Octominds were the only reason Henry was able to make sense of everything that happened next.

  The dolphin dropped the magic that had been trying to pull Henry off of him while the flowing barrier surrounding his body flared to life. A moment later the magic corona grew more vibrant, and Henry perceived conceptual impressions coming off of it. The unstoppable power of waves. The inescapable pull of the currents.

  The unyielding push of the ocean.

  Henry’s heart dropped. He wasn’t going to be able to break through. He hadn’t empowered his own attack with a concept. But then, he saw the leviathan tooth reach the green hue. He expected it to be flung aside, and in a way, it did. He felt the tooth be pushed away slightly. But it still hungrily tore through the concept-empowered barrier with its own thirst for destruction.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The eerie, black leviathan fang bit deep into the dolphin’s lower flank. The strike had been at an angle, so it created a deep groove in the dolphin’s flesh. The impact detonated, but that part of the strike didn’t do much damage to the empowered dolphin.

  Most of the damage was done by the leviathan’s fang.

  Sundots bucked as red blood gushed out in a cloud out of the nasty injury, and instantly, far above, a shimmer of stormy green and blue surrounded the Otodus Giant Shark before it dove.

  Henry let go of the dolphin and began rushing toward the algae stalks while a hail of pressurized bullets followed in his wake. He winced with pain as the bullets tore into his flesh and into the two arms he was using to cover the back of his stomach and brains. The shark was about to show up at any moment—

  The sense of dread heralding the arrival of the monster stole over his chest like the creeping cold of death. The hail of projectiles stopped, and Henry stole a glance backward as his arms pumped to get him far away from the dolphin as all of his arms began to tremble.

  The shark came down from above like a falling rocket. Its jaw was wide open, pointed teeth gleaming while its dead-black eyes showed some white around the edges. The dolphin barely managed to deflect the charge, summoning a wall of current that slightly nudged the shark away before glancing toward Henry.

  But glancing was all Sundots could do. Barely a second later, the shark was back on the charge. Henry was curious to see how this fight would go, but he couldn’t stay. And so he dove, deeper and deeper into this new area while his clones trailed behind. Maybe he could watch the fight through them.

  Henry left the air of dread behind and faced a new one as he camouflaged himself to match the stalk of algae and swam down alongside it. He didn’t know what he would find in the depths he was heading toward, but he couldn’t stay up there. He had to move for a while still before he could bring Maurice and Stormsong out.

  He had to find a safe spot.

  ***

  It took nearly twenty minutes for Henry to find the bottom. When he took in the expanse of sea floor that stretched in front of him, coupled with the overgrown and lush cliff that rose behind him, Henry felt a shiver down his back.

  The seabed was oddly flat. Not that it was empty, or anything of the sort. No. The seabed was crawling with life in all of its forms. Coral reefs, schools of fish, giant algae stalks and much more.

  What drew Henry's attention and made him uncomfortable was how geologically flat everything looked. He’d expected trenches. Some sort of unevenness, especially considering the sheer rock behind him, but all he could see was flat and rolling plains in every direction, while the cliff kept going ahead and behind him. Some rocks had detached. Some holes were dug into it, but from afar, when he looked into the distance, he could see the slight angle. It all said one thing to Henry: this area didn’t look like it had occurred naturally.

  He didn’t know how long it stretched. He didn’t know if the odd energy that permeated the Current had anything to do with it, but this all looked artificial. On a scale he couldn’t even fathom.

  One more mystery added to the list, Henry thought to himself before he broke himself out of the line of thoughts and glanced above him. He saw nothing following him, and he couldn’t hear any clicks, either.

  It seemed like he had successfully evaded the dolphin. Which was fine and all. But as he eyed one of the many roaming shapes, he could only gulp.

  A carpet shark was somewhere below him. It was significantly larger than the specimen Henry had tried to attack a few days ago, and just like him, it was hiding from the dominant species in the area. As Henry looked at the conical shapes swimming and dancing around in this small stretch of the ocean, he could help but feel awed.

  [Orthoceras Squid (C) - Lvl ???]

  Nautiloids…

  The squid was massive, easily as large as he was if not more. Its soft body was hidden in a tall, conical shell that somehow looked like black and white witch’s hat and past it, Henry saw plenty more. B-Ranks were hovering about, each with a bunch of C-ranks following in their wake. The school of squid was swimming around, playfully exploring and interacting with each other while occasionally, one of the B-rank would surge in one direction or another to chase away any curious predator that got too close.

  Were they intelligent? Peaceful? He had no clue, and he wasn’t willing to test it out with so many of them being in the area.

  Still, this would be a huge opportunity. Strong monsters would keep the dolphins away, while this would become a whole new hunting field. But once again, just as when his adventure had started, Henry would have to be careful.

  Once more, he was now one small fish in a big, dangerous sea.

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