The sudden failure of the Water Breathing Spell caught Starlight off guard. He choked on a large mouthful of freezing seawater, a dense burst of bubbles escaping uncontrollably from his mouth.
The briny wetness and a powerful sense of suffocation intertwined, causing Starlight’s mind to cloud instantly as his vision began to blur.
As the air in his lungs rapidly depleted, his body felt unnaturally heavy. His limbs were as if bound by shackles, unable to move, and the sea surface that had seemed so close moments ago began to drift further and further away.
“Damn it... Is this the Cursed Body Uncle Evan talked about? Master... Noah... I’m going to fail you both...”
“Po Kong... Moen... I wonder how they’re doing now...”
In this unprecedented state of despair, countless thoughts flashed through Starlight’s mind, but none could change his reality. He could only watch helplessly as he sank toward the dark depths of the ocean.
In his final moments of consciousness, he thought he saw a nimble figure swimming rapidly toward him.
Was it a mermaid? Or a human? Starlight reached out weakly toward the figure before plunging into endless darkness.
...
“Puh... Wah...!”
Starlight suddenly spat out a mouthful of seawater and jolted awake from his coma. After his struggle on the brink of death, the familiar sensation of air made him feel as though he had been reborn.
He inhaled the fresh air greedily, but accidentally sucked in some remaining seawater he hadn't finished coughing up, triggering a violent fit of coughing.
“Cough... Cough-cough-cough...!”
“Careful now~ Relax! Deep breaths... nice and slow!”
A lively female voice rang in his ear. Starlight struggled to turn his head toward the sound and found that the speaker was Lian, the Night Elf girl he had met briefly the night before.
Lian was currently crouching beside him, her watery silver eyes looking at him with curiosity and a hint of joy.
“You’re... Lian...? Where am I? Just now, I was...” Starlight shook his head somewhat blankly, his panicked heart gradually steadying as he asked his questions.
He could tell now that he was lying on the deck of a large ship, but he had no memory of anything else.
“Yay~ You actually remembered my name~ That’s wonderful!”
Seeing that his mind was intact, Lian flashed a happy smile, her eyes curving into beautiful crescents.
“It’s all thanks to the Lady’s great mercy. Otherwise, a member of a short-lived race like you would have drowned in the ocean long ago! You’d better show some gratitude!”
A cold voice came from the other side. The leader of the Night Elf squad he had seen last night was looking down at him, his face filled with disdain.
“Lira, I won't have you speaking to him like that. He’s a good person! Right, right? Human guy!” Lian turned toward the elf man with a look of annoyance, clearly disagreeing with his words.
“Sigh~ That’s just because you’re too naive, Lady. He bought you off with a single dinner... I’m honestly at a loss. Who knows what filthy thoughts are hiding in this guy’s head?!”
Lira sighed, his words cutting off Lian’s prepared explanation before she could even start. He then turned his back and stopped looking at her.
“Hmph!! You jerk!” Knowing she couldn't win the argument, Lian pouted and turned her attention back to Starlight.
“Did you save me? I... thank you!” Starlight ignored Lira’s mockery and looked at Lian with gratitude.
“Mm-hmm, no need for thanks. You just have to make me a few more delicious meals!”
At the mention of food, Lian, who had been slightly upset a moment ago, immediately perked up and spoke with excitement.
Looking at the girl before him, Starlight noticed her dazzling silver hair was still soaking wet. Her gauze clothing clung tightly to her body from the seawater, revealing her graceful curves in vivid detail.
Faced with her alluring, semi-transparent silhouette, Starlight reacted immediately, turning his blushing face away as he continued to ask.
“That thing at the bottom of the sea... What happened to the giant whale and the mermaids? How long was I unconscious?”
“A whale... You still think that was just a common whale? Heh... You foolish human! Do you really have no idea what you encountered? I must say, you certainly have incredible luck!”
Upon hearing Starlight’s question, Lira let out a cold laugh and pointed toward the distant sea.
Hearing this, Starlight forced himself up on his still-numb limbs and struggled to move to the edge of the deck, looking in the direction Lira was pointing.
He didn't even need to look closely. Even from several kilometers away, he could clearly see massive amounts of bubbles constantly rising from the surface, as if the entire region of the sea was boiling.
At the same time, a thick black aura was slowly condensing above the water.
“Is that... some kind of magic? Is it the mermaids’ doing... or?”
Starlight squinted at the rising black mist and keenly noticed that it looked like a product of condensed dark elements, though it didn't seem particularly pure. It carried an inexplicable, overwhelming pressure.
Based on his experience fighting the mermaids, they shouldn't have the ability to use such magic. As for the giant whale, it hadn't shown any intent to use magic at all, as its physical body alone was enough to overcome almost anything in the world.
“That’s the precursor to Hitral’s attack. Luckily, the mermaids helped hold him back, giving us the chance to escape that dangerous area.”
Lian walked quietly to his side and spoke softly, but for some reason, Starlight could hear a faint trace of... sadness in her tone.
“Hitral...?!”
Starlight repeated the unfamiliar name in his mind, but he quickly realized he had glimpsed it once on the final pages of a commission at the Adventurers Guild.
The Devourer of the Great Abyss, the Sea Demon King—Hitral.
Like Phoenix, he was bestowed with the title of Demon King. Starlight had just never imagined his true form was a massive whale, so he had never made the connection.
Compared to the incredibly mysterious Heavenly Demon Phoenix, Hitral’s name was actually more famous across the continent.
As the Sea Demon King who ruled the oceans, he spent almost the entire year roaming every body of water surrounding the continent. Almost no one could accurately predict when or where he would appear, but the destruction he brought with every appearance was unparalleled.
In a battle centuries ago, the human kingdom had once assembled a fleet of twenty massive ships and an army of hundreds of thousands, intending to use them to counter-attack the Demons in the Land of the End in the west.
But on the second day after the fleet set sail, they encountered the Sea Demon King head-on.
In less than a single morning, that invincible fleet, capable of sweeping away anything in its path, was completely destroyed. Tens of thousands of human experts all perished in the ocean.
The most recent record of him was during the war against the Demons seventeen years ago.
At that time, the humans had already crushed the main Demon army in a frontal assault. Just as they were pursuing them to wipe them out at sea, this pitch-black behemoth appeared before the humans once again.
In the very center of the ocean, the Sea Demon King once again demonstrated his absolute dominance. The human army only managed to retreat back to the continent after losing nearly thirty percent of its forces.
To cover the retreat of the main force, three Saint Rank experts in the human alliance lost their lives fighting him, and two others were heavily injured, losing their ability to fight ever again.
It was precisely because of Hitral’s existence that the people of the Leon Continent almost never attempted deep-sea voyages, as no one was willing to risk being swallowed by him.
Rate on N.U.
