“Wilsar, it’s been six months—why is there still no trace of that seal, not even a shadow in the fog?”

Half a year in a seabed black as ink; the weight of it sat on Molor’s chest like a stone mill. Yes—even the Former Demon King felt his edges grind down.

The Endless Sea is the world’s greatest ocean, a horizon without end; Molor had plunged into it before, slipping through trenches like knife cuts in the earth. He’d gone to its dimmest abyss hunting a Divine Elixir, and never felt this wrongness.

But this stretch of water pressed in from every side, a black tide squeezing the breath from their lungs; without the crystal orb Xiyue gave Wilsar—the warded shell infused with a faint Primordial Source—they wouldn’t have lasted.

“No choice. Space here’s a cracked mirror; no way to set a heading. We can only creep toward the orb’s coordinates, inch by inch.”

Wilsar shook his head, sour as brine; the words weighed heavy in his mouth. For someone in the Law Realm, six months should pass like a blink; down here, each day stretched like a year under wet iron.

“Yeah. It’s strange to the bone; that crushing pressure—could it be coming from the seal’s direction?”

Molor’s sigh shivered like a reed in wind; he was just as helpless. Return to the surface, and the Mizumi Clan’s blades would be waiting like wolves at dusk; keep following Wilsar into this maze, and who knew when the end would show. Worse, the sealed one was an Origin Realm existence; time bred change like mold, and they didn’t even know friend from foe.

“Could be. Anywhere that can bind an Origin Realm is a reef of danger beyond our maps. Don’t rush—follow Lord Xiyue’s coordinates, one footprint at a time. At this point, there’s no path back—only forward through the dark.”

He said it steady, but when Wilsar broke the wall ahead and found they’d looped back to the same dead reef, he almost snapped; this was the tenth time, on the third day. At this pace, another six months would be more circles in murk.

“Mm… you’re right; impatience is a fire that burns nothing but the hand.”

Seeing the same bleak cave mouth, Molor exhaled, a long string of bubbles; acceptance hung like cold fog.

“Forget it. Rest first. There are no laws or elements to draw on here; if we want to recover, we’ll have to lean on bare-bones meditation.”

Wilsar pointed out a nearby seabed cave, a shadow in the current.

“Yeah. I’m a bit worn too.”

Molor followed Wilsar inside; he picked a dry ledge, sat, and slid into meditation like a stone sinking through still water.

The cave was strange: deepest sea, not a sealed chamber, yet no water touched the floor; the air was dry as old bone.

“When I first came to the Prime Realm, I thought it was a sweet commission; this world seemed behind the Inner World, so I figured even as a hegemon, the Mizumi Clan wouldn’t be that strong.”

Silence gathered for half an hour like frost; then Wilsar spoke, voice low as a tide at night.

“I don’t know how far the Inner World’s progressed,” Molor answered, words steady as a cliff face, “but any clan that monopolizes the entire Central Continent won’t be weak.”

“Right. The fact that Lord Xiyue still can’t open the Worldgate means she has no answer for the Origin Realm existence behind the Mizumi Clan—Xinuo. With that kind of shadow overhead, what can we do, two specks in the surf?”

Whether it was the deepsea pressure or the grind of time, Wilsar’s mood sank like an anchor.

“Hard to admit, but overthrowing the Mizumi Clan is a dream on thin ice; without an Origin Realm stepping in, it’s impossible.”

He paused, then let out what had choked him for long months; each word fell like a pebble into a well. “If war breaks out, even your demon descendants would likely stand with the Mizumi Clan; the other three races, even more so. Add Xinuo—someone even Lord Xiyue can’t move—and any unknown Origin Realm beings won’t risk standing against her.”

“Does any of this really matter? Look at the Dark Demon: hundreds of years underground, and then gone in a single call to arms from the Mizumi Clan—snuffed like a lantern in rain.”

Think it through, and the Prime Realm won’t see the Mizumi Clan toppled; not unless someone stronger than Xinuo rises, a mountain above a mountain. But even Lord Xiyue, strongest of the Inner World, falls short; the result speaks like thunder.

Even if they managed to free the sealed Origin Realm, Wilsar felt it would only buy a few more breaths; survival on borrowed time, grass under frost.

“…Don’t spiral. Do what’s in front of us; that’s the one rope we can hold.”

Molor hated the Mizumi Clan to the bone, and he knew Wilsar spoke truth; but the road behind had already crumbled. They could only push forward through the cold current.

“You’re right. Sorry—I let the tide drag me.”

“Let’s finish Lord Xiyue’s task first; maybe a break in the clouds will come.”

“Let it be so.”

The cave fell quiet again, a hush like moonlight on deep water; only the sea’s pulse and the rush of currents whispered at the door.

The calm broke fast; the ground heaved like a waking beast, and a hoarse roar rolled through the rock in waves.

“What’s happening?!”

The pressure slammed down heavier than before, a mountain laid on their backs; Wilsar and Molor gasped, ribs tight as iron hoops. Even as peak Law Realm powerhouses, they felt small—two motes in a maelstrom.

Under that despairing weight, they were a skiff in a typhoon, tossed and useless.

“…Gulp. Something’s walking out there.”

Wilsar swallowed; cold sweat ran like rain. He heard thick footfalls, each thud a hammer, and the seabed quakes likely rose from that path.

“If walking alone shakes the earth, it’s a giant—a body like a cliff.”

That terror-laced aura drew closer, a storm closing its eye; Wilsar and Molor held their breath by reflex, afraid a whisper would bring the beast’s gaze.

Hours bled by like long tides. Those heavy steps came and went, never far, with low snarls threading the dark, like a hunter sniffing for prey.

“Molor, you’ve lived in this world for tens of thousands of years—do you know what that is?” Wilsar wiped sweat from his brow, each drop cold as brine.

“…I’m not certain. But there’s a legend about the Endless Sea.”

“A legend?”

“Yes. They say in the deepest trench lurks a terrible leviathan named Minglos, a bulk like mountain peaks; it’s lived since the world’s first dawn, millions of years unbroken. Its strength brushes the Origin Realm, terror close to the source; one of the oldest beings alive, called ‘the mightiest beast of the sea.’ Judging by this, the tale is real.”

“…Well, that’s trouble—the storm’s eye just found us.”

“Why?”

“I think it noticed us.”

“…”

…