“Oh, Lord Grashe, why are you back?” An octopus-headed Seafolk drifted over, his gaze sliding up and down the giant crab like cold lantern-light.

The giant crab dwindled like a receding tide and became a handsome boy. Behind him, a few crab legs stuck out like bared ribs. The boy held a chain and led a human man.

The human’s head was hooded like a sackcloth moon; his wrists were shackled, the iron links running to the boy’s hand like a leashed current.

“Nothing much. I caught a human slave, figured I’d lock him up first and look after my family.” The boy—Grashe the crab—scratched his head, a sheepish grin rippling like sunlight on water.

“Oh, I see. Shall I escort you in? The road ahead won’t be calm. The Giant Squid’s underlings mean to seize this place, so the waters churn.” The octopus sighed, two huge bubbles blooming like glass bells.

Grashe nodded. “Then I’ll trouble you.” His voice was small, like a pebble sinking.

“Don’t dare, don’t dare. Serving you is my honor.” The octopus’s eyes narrowed to crescent slivers, a smile like a folding fan.

He waved to his companions, and the barrier opened like a rippling curtain of rain.

Through the hood, Eli glimpsed an endless tentacle stretching for leagues, a serpent-road vanishing into blue dusk, and awe burst in him like thunder.

Such leviathans were rare on land, a story-beast walking out of fog.

Grashe tugged the chain, a tug like a bell-rope, and Eli hurried, feet kicking up silt like smoke.

They stepped through a gate built from white bones, an arch like frozen waves, and moved inward into dim green halls.

He couldn’t use power out here; the rule lay on him like a seal of ice. So Eli bit down on the pain and forced his body through the deep, a lone mast in black water.

Grashe watched him with a flicker of surprise, like a fish flashing silver in dusk.

Clearly, the Seafolk youth was spooked, his courage scattering like startled shrimp.

The passage to the Seafolk palace kept raising the pressure, a mountain of water layering down. Even thousands of meters deep, Eli stood beside Grashe, face calm as stone.

The octopus-man frowned. “Lord Grashe… this human slave isn’t ordinary. Under this weight, without a drop of mana, how isn’t he pulp?” His words drifted like ink.

Grashe’s face went stiff, his eyes darting like minnows.

He had no answer; panic clattered in him like loose shells.

Eli hadn’t told him what to say, and doubt gnawed like small crabs on driftwood.

Not exposed… right? If exposed, what then? The Seafolk would brand him traitor and break him like a crab in a pot. Fear steamed up like hot spray.

A thousand thoughts crashed through Grashe’s head like a storm tide; his mouth opened and closed, words snagging like netted fish.

Seeing that, the octopus grew wary, his brow tightening like a reef-line in current.

At wartime, not a grain of sand could be sloppy; suspicion rose like a dark tide.

Was the crab prince consorting with outsiders? The thought flashed like a knife in kelp.

His face changed, and he edged closer to Grashe, every motion slow as a hunting cuttlefish.

“Lord Grashe, please tell me where this slave came from.” He smiled, but the smile floated like oil on water.

Grashe swallowed, throat dry as coral, and glanced up at him.

In those great eyes he caught a thin thread of killing intent, cold as moonlight on a blade, and his tongue froze.

The octopus closed to half an arm’s length, distance thin as a shell’s lip.

Eli’s hands slipped free of the chains like eels from a creel.

The octopus had braced for it; he lunged, a spear of muscle in dark surf, aiming to seize Grashe first.

In the sea, Seafolk moved like arrows; landfolk dragged like stones, so he’d cull the crab, then net the intruder.

But when his hand struck, iron chains burst up before him like iron kelp.

Eli yanked, and the chains wrapped the octopus-man, coils tightening like hungry serpents.

He hauled him close; more links braided over Eli’s fists, a black gauntlet coiling like storm vines.

Eli drove a punch into the octopus’s head; the bulb burst like a rotten gourd.

Blood bloomed through the sea like a crimson flower, spinning petals in the dark.

Eli opened his hand. Chains crawled out of nowhere like living snakes, spilling from a pocket of elsewhere and sealing the water like a cage.

His left hand closed, and the chain-forged sphere shrank, a crushing moon that folded in and took the corpse away.

Eli shrugged. “Sure enough, before you Seafolk manifest a true body, you’re easy kills.” His voice was flat as slate.

“Sir… your weapon’s a chain?” Grashe stared, shock flaring like lanternfish.

Eli smiled faintly and said nothing, his silence coiling like smoke.

Truth was, yes. He’d trained the sword with Zero for long seasons, but the chain fit his hands like rain fits the sea.

“Don’t ask. Move. I’m not here to tour your Seafolk. Follow my call; I need to leave now.” His urgency beat like a drumline.

Grashe blinked. “Eh? Weren’t you going to join our war?” His doubt bobbed like a cork.

Eli rolled his eyes, a glance like a tossed pebble, and sighed. “You think I’m that idle? Or think I’m the big bad trying to conquer the world?” His disdain hung like frost.

Grashe thought, head lowered like a penitent turtle, then looked up and said solemnly, “I think you are that big bad who’ll conquer the world.” His honesty fell like a hammer.

Eli: “…” The pause was a flat sea.

“Scram!” The word snapped like a whip.

“Turns out you crabs run pretty fast.” Eli sprawled on the giant crab’s back, fingers hooked on the shell like anchors, while Grashe tore along the seabed like a storm.

“Well… kinda. Otherwise I’d never get out. I’d be snagged at the gate by whatever watchers we post.” Grashe laughed, his human body perched on the shell like a barnacle.

Eli clicked his tongue. “What’s with your Seafolk build? It’s weird. You’re a crab, but after calling out the shell, you haul your ‘real you’ along? That crab doesn’t feel like a mere clone.” His curiosity flickered like a pilot flame.

He’d felt it on land while chasing Grashe; the true body hid like a pebble in a shoal, hard to pick out.

Grashe smiled. “That’s… a racial secret. Not convenient to share.” His coyness slipped like a mask.

“Oh? Little cutie, think again before you don’t.” Eli’s smile looked gentle as spring rain, but the edge showed like steel. He patted Grashe’s cheek, the chain’s end brushing his skin like a cold leaf.

“…” Silence gathered like silt.

“Mm?” Eli’s hum was a pebble in still water.

“My bad. I’ll talk…” Grashe watched the chain stroking his cheek, cold sweat beading like dew on stone.

“Good. Good. Be good.” Eli’s tone landed like a hand on a stray dog.

“It’s just… we split ourselves. Simple. The extra parts turn into energy and sit in the human form. When we fight or whatever, we show the original body again.” Grashe ran full tilt, legs thundering like drums, while he explained.

Eli rubbed his chin and went quiet, his thoughts folding like sails.

That method was good… it felt like avatars, like shadows stepping out of one lamp.

He looked Grashe up and down, eyes weighing like scales, then bit his lip and sank into thought again like a stone in a well.

They turn excess body into energy and only summon it in battle. Maybe he could shape his own vast power into flesh, build other forms to fight. The idea glimmered like fishfire.

Eli frowned. Doubt rose like fog.

Impossible… He was pure energy, a river without banks; how could he grow another body? The thought scattered like birds.

… Maybe not. A spark caught like tinder.

“If I… copy into other weapons, or wrap myself in the shapes of great beasts, and sit as the core inside the energy—yeah, that could work.” His murmur ran like a hidden stream.

He clapped once and started experimenting on the crab’s back, hands weaving light like threads.

Grashe watched, nerves prickling like spines.

What’s he trying to do? He wouldn’t kill me here, would he? The thought crawled like crabs over his heart.

They were tens of thousands of meters deep; the sea pressed like a mountain night. Yet this man lived on flesh alone and moved like a blade. The fact was terrifying, a cold eel around the spine.

Grashe swallowed again, his throat clicking like pebbles.

What if he gets hungry? Didn’t he want to eat me earlier? Panic scuttled like a tide of ants.

Eli glanced at his odd expression and knew the kid was spinning tales, thoughts fraying like kelp.

He ignored him; as long as no one touched the work, he’d let the waves pass. He stirred his inner power, shapes blooming and dying in his palm like foam.

He felt the life-seed inside him tugged by the World Tree, a pull like roots drinking deep. He blinked, and certainty lit like dawn.

They were close. But his place now was crab territory. If the World Tree stood here, wouldn’t the crabs have found it? The question hovered like a gull.

War was on; every resource should sit under Seafolk hands like pearls in a box. His frown sharpened like a hook.

The road had been too calm, the sea too smooth; no one had come to stop them. The quiet rang like a bell in fog.

In war, could your own grounds be this silent? The thought scraped like sand.

Eli lifted his head. They were in water no sun could pierce, a god-dark sea where light died like ash. He felt the endless black and the mausoleum-still hush, and his eyes narrowed like knives.

Wrong. Truly wrong. Even the outer rings sprouted barriers like reefs to keep others out. In here… the stillness felt like a trap mouth.

“Grashe, is your race a bunch of shut-ins? We’ve run this long and I haven’t seen a single clansman.” Eli’s question floated like a buoy.

“Oh… the elders probably saw I was back. So they didn’t send anyone to block me.” Grashe spoke lightly, his words bobbing like drift.

Eli’s eyelid twitched, a ripple like wind on ink. Maybe this little crab carried a weighty name, a shell with a crown hidden inside. Suspicion rooted like a mangrove.