The Sea-Melded

The creature was holding the half-eaten remains of a human arm.

The flesh at the severed end of the arm was jagged and torn from bites, with bone fragments jutting out, still clinging to bits of unchewed tendon.

His mouth was stretched into an irregular circle, revealing triangular, cone-shaped teeth that all pointed deep down his throat.

He bit off a chunk of flesh and chewed twice, the bone fragments crunching loudly between his teeth.

As Ethan walked into the cavern, the creature had just swallowed the mouthful of meat.

“Hehehe.” He casually tossed the half-eaten arm onto the ground. The arm rolled halfway across the stone floor, the blood from its severed end dragging a dark red streak across the stone. “A wizard in the tiny Thorn Empire? How interesting.”

Ethan frowned as he looked at the distorted face.

Octopus tentacles, ribbonfish arms, and a starfish tail.

Only members of the Sea-Melded branch would look like such a bizarre combination.

The Sea-Melded were a notoriously mongrel branch of the Sea Race. They were so crossbred that even the Sea Race themselves couldn't tell how many different bloodlines were mixed within them.

But despite their mongrel status, the combat strength of the Sea-Melded was by no means weak among the branches of the Sea Race.

“A branch of the Sea-Melded from the Sea Race?” Ethan said. “How very interesting.”

The Sea-Melded stood up from his stone chair.

Once he stood fully upright, Ethan realized the creature was just over two meters tall, more than half a head taller than him.

The starfish tail dragged out from behind the chair, its five arms spreading out behind him. The tip of each arm was lined with a ring of fine, tooth-like bone plates that clamped open and shut in the air.

“Hehehe, little wizard.” His voice squeezed out from deep in his throat, the air making a hissing sound as it passed through his triangular, cone-shaped teeth. “Judging by the frequency of your mental power fluctuations, you just advanced, didn't you? I advanced thirty years ago. Have you decided how you want to die?”

The moment he finished speaking, the Sea-Melded's octopus tentacle suddenly ballooned in size.

Every suction cup on the surface of the tentacle flew open, shooting out dozens of finger-thick, dark purple tendrils from deep within, each covered in fine, dense barbs.

The tendrils whipped through the air at high speed, creating sharp, whistling sounds.

His ribbonfish arm rose at the same time.

The five fused fingers spread open, and the row of bone spikes at the tips detached, floating in front of him.

The surface of the bone spikes glowed with a dark green fluorescence, their tips pointing directly at the space between Ethan's eyebrows.

Behind him, the five arms of his starfish tail pressed against the ground, propping his body up.

The sea urchin ornaments at his waist began to glow, and dark purple spines detached from the shells, floating around his body in a dense, tight circle.

Ethan watched his display, a flicker of mockery flashing in his eyes.

Vines erupted simultaneously from every inch of the cavern floor, every stone wall, and every section of the ceiling.

These vines were only as thick as a strand of hair, their numbers too vast to count.

They emerged silently from the cracks in the rock, like quicksilver seeping into sand, or mist rolling over the ground.

Before the Sea-Melded's tendrils could even touch Ethan, the vines had already coiled around the dark purple appendages.

The barbs on the tendrils dug into the vines, but the vines were not severed.

They were too thin.

So thin that the barbs couldn't find any leverage, and they simply slipped through the gaps between the barbs before tightening.

Dozens of tendrils were instantly strangled into multiple segments in midair.

Dark purple blood sprayed from the severed ends, sizzling as it splashed onto the stone floor with a corrosive hiss.

The vines continued to spread.

Before the Sea-Melded could retract his octopus tentacle, a dense swarm of fine vines had already wrapped around it.

The vines burrowed into every single suction cup on the tentacle, emerged from deep within, looped around, and burrowed back in.

In less than half a second, the tentacle was bound into a dark green cocoon.

The bone spikes shot from the ribbonfish arm hung suspended in midair.

The hair-thin vines wrapped tightly around each bone spike, covering them from base to tip.

Under the crushing pressure of the vines, the dark green fluorescence on the bone spikes flickered wildly before shattering one after another.

Before the sea urchin spines could even be launched, they were completely engulfed by the vines.

The dark purple light on the spines flickered under the squeezing pressure of the vines before shattering simultaneously.

The fragments fell from midair, clattering softly as they hit the stone floor.

The Sea-Melded was lifted entirely into the air by the vines.

Every inch of his skin was bound by the vines.

Legs, waist, chest, arms, and neck—the vines tightened from all directions, squeezing him into a distorted human cocoon.

The five arms of his starfish tail were wrapped individually and pulled in five different directions, stretched completely taut as the joints at their bases creaked under the immense strain.

Under the constriction of the vines, the tooth-like bone plates on his tail clamped shut. Several were crushed outright, their sharp fragments digging deep into his own tail.

His asymmetrical face was warped by the tightening vines. His bulging eye was pressed deep into its socket, while his sunken eye was squeezed outward.

His mouth was distorted into an irregular curve, his triangular, cone-shaped teeth gnawing at the vines, but the vines remained completely unyielding.

Ethan walked up to him.

“Useless trash.”

The Sea-Melded opened his mouth to speak, but the vines immediately strangled his throat.

A few muffled, gurgling sounds escaped his throat, and the suction cups on his octopus tentacle contracted and expanded frantically, but they could grasp nothing.

Then, more vines surged forward, wrapping the Sea-Melded completely and leaving not a single gap.

Ethan continued forward.

At the back of the cavern was a hidden door. The door panel had been torn from its frame by the vines, revealing a passage behind it.

Along both sides of the passage was a row of prison cells. Their iron bars were rusted, and shadows huddled behind them.

The vines surged into the passage ahead of him.

The iron bars were wrapped by the vines and ripped down entirely.

Six people were locked inside the innermost cell.

The cell was larger than the others, lined with moldy straw and with a broken wooden bucket sitting in the corner.

Six youths huddled against the base of the wall, their clothes tattered and their faces covered in dirt and terror.

As Ethan entered, they shrank back into the corner even further.

The massive commotion had pushed their nerves to their absolute limit.

The sound of tearing iron bars, stones crashing to the ground, and the earlier screams of the guards had all blended together, flooding their ears.

Colin stood at the very front.

His clothes were more tattered than the other five, his face was covered in black and blue bruises, and a dried scab of blood still clung to the corner of his mouth.

His left eye was swollen shut to a mere slit, but his right eye was wide and alert.

He stood at the base of the wall, refusing to shrink, tremble, or cover his head.

“Colin?”

“Y-yes, it's me.” Colin's Adam's apple bobbed.

With a casual wave of Ethan's hand, the vines wrapped around the iron bars of the cell, tearing the entire gate and its frame completely free.

Debris and rust crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

“Let's go. I'm taking you home.”