A towering waterspout punched to the heavens, flinging the last dozen giant black sharks like dark spears; the Black Dragon Battleship rode that column too.
With its shield like a glass shell, the Black Dragon Battleship dropped back to the sea almost unscathed.
Panic hit like cold spray; Aileaf gripped the rail and scanned the churning sea, worry pooling in her eyes.
That torrent and shockwave, braided with chaotic mana, would fell even a Sixth Rank if it struck head-on like a hammer of storm.
She looked and she reached out with mind-sense like a net; at last she found Baili, unconscious, draped on a giant black shark split in two.
Relief washed over her like a warm tide; Aileaf checked him and found no grave wounds—just stunned by the blast.
She lifted his head like cradling a lantern, poured two potions past his lips, and carried him back aboard the Black Dragon Battleship.
A ripple of unrest ran through the knights and crew like wind over grass, then settled; the ship’s shield had stayed up during the hunt, so nothing broke.
“What in the seas just happened…”
Anxious heat pricked her brow; Aileaf ordered the knights to pilot the ship for seabed sweeps, salvage shark remains, and search for beast cores.
The Black Dragon Battleship, lean on holds and space gear, kept only usable parts and the beast cores, like fishermen picking pearls from a net.
They burned most of the carcass shards like offering to smoke, so blood-scent wouldn’t summon greater hunters.
Unease still ebbing like a receding wave, Baili woke, learned the tale, and sought Aileaf on the deck, her face set like stone.
“Miss Cerqin and Miss Silver Luan won’t be in danger… right?”
Three hours had flowed since they dove to hunt high-rank prey in the deep; that towering spout and shockwave clearly rose from the fight below.
Worry pooled as minutes dragged; they hadn’t surfaced. Thoughts turned like gulls toward mishap—no, with a blast like that, mishap felt certain.
Calm anchored her chest; Aileaf trusted Silver Luan’s Seventh Rank strength, and she trusted the current of fate.
“There’s likely no mortal danger. That deep-sea blast felt like self-detonation—wide bloom, no aim, just a flower of force.”
The blast’s push likely flung Cerqin and Silver Luan to who-knew-where like leaves on a surge.
“For now, we wait,” she said, like setting an anchor in a storm.
Fear still pricked like needles; though her words were steady, worry drew a pale shadow across her face.
Her mind kept probing downward like a lantern beam in black water.
“Anything on the Black Dragon Battleship’s scans?”
With the behemoths dispersed, the ship’s arrays sang again; its wide-area scans outmatched a lone Sixth Rank like a lighthouse over a torch.
Baili’s answer was a slow shake, like a leaf in slack wind.
“This water’s abyssal,” he said, voice low as surf. “Huge reefs lace the floor, scrambling mana. We can only probe tiny vertical points, barely.”
He paused like a held breath, gazed toward the continent’s haze, then spoke on.
“Eastern Sea City’s support ships need a day more, maybe longer, to reach us,” he said, like counting slow drops.
If they could talk live to Eastern Sea City, they could dispatch warships and strength fast, sweeping these problems like a net through minnows.
But that was a mirage on the horizon; long-range comms don’t work at sea, like words swallowed by waves.
A sigh slipped from Baili like steam; Cerqin’s face rose in his mind like a moon in fog.
Anxiety gnawed like salt on a wound; without Aileaf’s steady keel, he’d have lost his calm.
Claustrophobia pressed like cold silt; in the deep dark, Cerqin opened her eyes to nothing but night.
Warmth cradled her like a current; Cerqin whispered a name into the dark.
“Silver Luan?”
Silence answered like a closed cave, yet the gentle warmth on her skin told her Silver Luan still lived.
No reply meant a sleep like a stone—she was likely unconscious.
Urgency clenched like a fist; she had to know where the currents had cast them.
She eased her head free like slipping from kelp; water hugged her, and her mind-sense went out—only to strike an unseen wall.
They were sealed inside a round shell of unknown make, smooth as pearl; her mind-sense couldn’t pierce it.
Fear fluttered like trapped birds; in mind-sense, Silver Luan slept deep, life-force rich as spring sap, yet her spirit flickered faintly.
Cerqin called the Love God’s grace like lighting a lamp, to restore her spirit, but the sleeper didn’t stir.
“This is a knot,” she breathed, the words sinking like pebbles.
Anxious tide swelled; trapped in this sphere, she didn’t know when Silver Luan would wake, or what predators circled in the dark.
Hope flickered like a firefly—there was a way to reach the surface.
She remembered like finding a dry twig; Spring Tide had given her special talisman slips for sending simple cries for help.
She groped in her space bracelet like in a pocket of night, crushed one, and sent a single message—alive—without adding a plea.
Caution cooled her like shade; the waters were vast and unknown, and this shell’s nature was a sealed book.
A small signal was a reed whistle, not a war drum.
Worry tugged like tide at her thoughts; Aileaf must be anxious above, and who knew if the behemoths had dispersed.
Her mind wandered like driftwood, rising and sinking.
Frustration bit like frost; she kept testing with mind and mana, but a Seventh Rank’s body, even asleep, wasn’t a toy for a Fifth Rank.
Helplessness settled like silt; she stroked Silver Luan’s scales, drank in the lush life-force they breathed, and wondered how to endure the caged time.
Boredom loomed like a cliff; in this cramped dark, killing time became the fiercest beast.
The life-power seeping from dragon scales felt like warm rain, yet it barely scattered her thoughts.
“Huh…” The sound was a spark in the dark.
Curiosity stirred like a fish; after a while she noticed the life-power pooling inside her, not turning to her mana as the Love God once did.
It gathered like a school of light, weaving through her body.
Amazement rang like a bell; Silver Luan’s pure energy, unscented by her own, didn’t resist her at all. It moved as if it were hers.
Any scholar of mana would drop their spectacles like pebbles.
Another’s power flowing under one’s will was a river obeying a stranger.
Soon the borrowed current swelled, scouring her body like tide over stone, hardening it.
The state felt familiar, like training inside a mana-gathering array; Eastwind City’s forced influx of emotion had been a similar storm.
“Uh…” Her breath hitched like a skipped beat.
She sensed her body stride toward a higher tier like a mountain growing, and could only stare, speechless.
For others it was unthinkable—like a higher realm master forging your body for you, hammer and anvil of grace.
Normally, another’s blood and power would make you burst like an overfilled wineskin.
She dropped the thought like a stone and let the energies run; the scales kept pouring life into her, and worry turned—would this drain Silver Luan?
The Dragon Deity’s life-force wasn’t like the Love God’s; it wasn’t endless, but a deep lake with a shore.
Would drinking too much tilt Silver Luan’s state like a boat taking on water?
Anxious thoughts circled like gulls; the scales bled life on their own, beyond her hand.
So she pushed the Love God’s gift to the hilt, feeding warmth back into the arms that held her.
“Feels like I’ve found a brand-new way to train,” she murmured, the idea glinting like a fish.
No one heard that grumble; it sank like a pebble into black water.
Hope rose like dawn; at this pace, she might brush the Sixth Rank’s gate in days.
The life-flow took the helm from her mana like a tide change; at a threshold, a familiar scent touched her mind.
It came from the shell around them, like a heartbeat through wood.
Startled, she nudged her mind-sense outward again, tentative as a hand through reeds.
This time her sense found the boundary like a fingertip on glass, yet it didn’t reject her.
“Is the shell Silver Luan’s work?” The thought bloomed like a lantern.
She guessed she’d absorbed so much of Silver Luan’s unique life-force from the scales that—
—because the energy pooled and moved at her will, her mind-sense had grown akin to Silver Luan’s, like water matching a vase.
Joy flared like a spark; she pushed her sense through the round shell and reached outward.
Terror seized her like ice; what her scan touched made her heart stop for a beat.
Several leviathans drifted in silence, their auras heavy as mountains—true giant beasts.
Luck held like a thin thread; their sense for mind-touch was dull, and they kept floating, unaware.
Her thoughts scattered like startled fish; after the fright, another weight sank her heart.
By the ripple of echoes, she was sure they were in an underground space, a hollow beneath the sea.
Buoyancy pinned the sphere to a stone dome like a bubble; below yawned bottomless dark, and her sense couldn’t find the dome’s rim.
A page turned in memory like a leaf; she recalled a rare terrain.
A sea within the sea—the vast caverns hidden under the ocean floor.
