“You handing it over yourself, or do we pry it out of you?” The giant crabs ringed Eli like a rust-red wall, the lead one scowling.

“Tsk. I only wanted to ask the time. Why come at me like a storm?” Eli shrugged, helpless, and squatted as if at a tide pool.

“Seafood’s plentiful.” He stuck out his tongue and rolled his shoulders, eyes flicking over shells glinting like knives.

“So you’re not cooperating.” The lead crab’s sneer clicked like its mandibles.

“What then? You wanna throw down?” Eli smiled, light as spray on a reef.

“What do you think?” The crab flexed its great claws, and the swarm rushed in like a dark current.

“Since you won’t cooperate, remember this is the deep sea. Land folk don’t get to speak here.” Its voice was cold, and the army’s killing aura crashed toward Eli like a black wave.

Eli felt the pressure thicken, almost tangible as iron sand. He clapped softly, amused by the storm’s edge.

“Not bad. Seriously impressive. Disciplined, all veterans with scarred shells. Looks like a real army.”

“Know to beg now? Too late.” The lead crab’s laugh was a brittle shell.

Eli straightened. In water, his body moved like a ribbon of silk, no clumsier than on land.

“Let me try this power for real and see how it’s meant to be used.”

His right hand traced the water like a brush. Pale-blue energy gathered in his palm, condensing into a thumb-sized bead, cool as moonlight.

Eli lifted his hand. The bead drifted upward like a star escaping a net.

The swarm crashed over him, shells piling like a landslide. Claws raked down, sharper than swords, a hail of steel.

He was about to be drowned by that tidal rush—then the air turned strange, as if the sea paused to breathe.

The bead hung above like a frozen drop. When the crabs drew near, it erupted with brutal gravity, a silent black hole in a blue lantern.

The rushing swarm jerked off the seafloor as if on hooks. Eli pointed up with his index finger, calm as moonlight on water.

“Gravity Vac,” he said, a whisper cutting like wind.

The bead felt like a door to elsewhere. A giant crab was swallowed, its flesh shredded to slurry by colossal shear, then poured into the bead and vanished.

The lead crab and the ranks stared, stunned, their beady eyes wide as bubbles.

The chief recovered fast, snapping orders. Mage crabs raised their claws, hurling bolts at the hovering star.

Eli’s smile thinned. His silhouette faded into shadow like ink, then reformed amid the swarm in a flicker.

He spread both hands, palms toward the left and right, heart surging like a drum in a storm.

“Shinra Tensei!”

Once he knew he could tug on magnetism, an old anime from a past life flashed back like lanterns in fog. A classic move he’d longed to feel.

He grinned, a knowing curve, finally tasting the thunder he’d imagined.

The sea blasted away from him, Eli as the eye of the cyclone. Water sheeted outward, spinning up vast whirlpools like grinding wheels.

The force kept swelling, a ring of power expanding like dawn over waves.

Crab ranks broke and scattered, shells tumbling like pebbles in surf.

The chief crab braced and squinted, its round eyes darting like minnows, tracking the flow.

“This is… repulsion?”

The pressure faded like a retreating tide.

Eli stood and caught his breath, chest rising like a bellows.

He touched his nose, thoughtful. “Well… close enough. But I should pick my own name.”

He tapped his forehead and winced. “Call it Starrealm Kinetics. Ugh.”

“These names can wait. For now, solve what’s right here.” He shrugged off the moment like rain.

“These big ones aren’t simple.” He eyed several human-looking beings who had appeared, smiling as if at masks in a market.

“In the Far East we say, ‘If you want a thousand-mile view, climb one more floor.’ That’s why we’re here.” Liqianyu wiped sweat, eyes on the lush jungle like a green sea, and swallowed.

“…Fish poor owe mile mother?”

“You really have no culture.”

“Come on. I can’t learn your Far East sayings.”

“Tch…”

“Enough chatter. Where are we now?” Angela surged forward like a storm front, grabbing Liqianyu’s collar with a glare.

“Uh, Little Angela, don’t rush. Haste makes waste. See, wandering mountains and waters is its own good.” Liqianyu’s smile was paper-thin.

“We were supposed to help.” Angela’s eyes held a soft grievance, like rain about to fall.

“It’s been five months. You dragged me through desert, swamp, and snow peaks. Now a jungle. Another month of wilderness survival here?”

“Uh… no, no. I’ll go check.” Liqianyu chuckled, nerves showing. “Little Angela, grab two fish from the creek. I’ll scout. Don’t wander. Wait for me.”

Angela waved her off, silent as stone.

When Liqianyu had gone far, she patted her small chest, worry furrowing like ripples. “How do I tell Little Angela I lost the map?”

She sat on a branch and dazed out, then slapped her own cheeks. “Focus, focus. Sigh… find a road.”

“Dare I ask where the road lies? The road lies underfoot—”

She sang as power thrummed through her, and her whole body rose like a kite catching wind.

She stared, stunned by the vista unfolding like a scroll.

Arms raised, voice trembling. “Ah! The sea! Past this, it’s the open sea! I’ve got to tell Little Angela!”

She spun back, dove, and scooped Angela up in a rush.

Angela froze, eyes wide as saucers. “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking you somewhere good to cool your mood!”

“Huh—?”

A red light wrapped them like silk, and they shot into the sky like a comet.

As Little Angela gaped, Liqianyu descended like a Celestial God, radiance trailing like banners.

Boom!

They slammed into the beach, carving out a crater like a giant bowl.

Angela still shook, curled in Liqianyu’s arms, mind blank as a white page.

Liqianyu beamed. “The sea! The sea! I’ve barely seen the ocean since I was a kid!”

“Do you have a death wish?!” Angela’s roar cracked like thunder.

Far off, the water answered her shout with a deep boom, as if something in the sea exploded.

Both women flinched, nerves tight as bowstrings.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know the shore was this dangerous.” Liqianyu’s apology tumbled out like pebbles.

“Shut up.”

“Ah…”

Liqianyu shrugged, then gazed at the towering waves, a sigh falling like mist. “Magnificent… Wait. What’s that?”

This was the worst call he’d made.

Eli grimaced at the roiling undersea, a cauldron boiling under black glass.

He had detonated several gravity beads, stirring the whole seabed like a quake.

He’d escaped that pressure, but the volcanic surge still hurled him, a geyser he couldn’t blunt.

He burst from the sea and shot toward the sky, a streak like lightning through salt haze.

“Ah. Where am I flying to this time?” He stared at the stars, eyes dulled like winter water.

He rose too high. The barrier Birand left—the planet’s iron chains—glimmered into view like ghost bridges.

“Not bad. As expected of him.” Eli murmured, a grudging nod to old craft.

It made him think of the awkward days he couldn’t even enter this world, shut out like a stray.

He looked forward. Between two star rings lay an energy wall invisible to the naked eye, a silent flood like glass.

Within that torrent, faint giant chains loomed, half-hidden like whales in fog.

He stroked his chin, thought circling like hawks. These must be Birand’s space-lock chains.

So the lock sealed the planet’s internal space. Other planes can’t intrude, and people inside can’t leave.

No, wait. Eli rolled his eyes. If no one can leave, how did he get out?

Maybe he’s not… human?

He spat the thought out like sand. Enough clutter.

He roused his Stellar Power again, pushing his senses to scan the planet like a lantern sweeping a map.

Beside the world drifted countless pocket realms, each corralled by different forces, their scenes broken like ruined temples.

Eli slipped through them, watching the main world from every angle, a patient scout in silent halls.

At last he stopped. These small worlds had been linked to the planet’s inside, once rivers feeding a sea.

But the chains severed them completely, like dams in a canyon. Or their masters died and never reclaimed them, so they drifted into space like lost rafts.

He gave up the pocket realms and chose to circle the planet, a lone gull on a long wind.

After a long, wandering sweep, he could say one thing for sure.

This busted world—he probably couldn’t get back in now.

“No kidding!” He slammed a fist into the energy wall, temper snapping like dry wood.

A chain thinner than his finger whipped out of the barrier and coiled his hand like a snake.

In the next instant, his Stellar Power was sealed, and a massive rebound flung him like a stone from a sling.

Eli stared, stunned, thoughts scattered like sparks.

Am I getting punted past the atmosphere again? No! Please!

His shout tore out, despair raw as a salt cut.