World Keeper

Chapter 437: Sea God’s Play

Leowynn, I’m going to need to ask you to stay inside while we do this. I muttered inwardly to Leowynn. I couldn’t take the risk that this creature would be capable of absorbing her the same way that it had absorbed the world spirit of Earth.

Alright, father. Thankfully, Leowynn seemed fairly understanding of that point, and didn’t put up any resistance.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and selected where I wanted to descend. The warm, blue light of the system surrounded my body for a brief moment, before I was able to smell the salty air above the ocean. The warmth of the sun beat down on my back while my eyes opened, watching the massive shadow beneath the waves.

The form was only very vaguely humanoid, with a thick tail that spread out behind its back for at least a kilometer, simply judging by the shape of the shadow. Though the fact that I was even able to make out that much was admittedly worrying. How are you coming with the Sea Princes, Bihena?

Just finishing up. As she said that, I could feel a disturbance in the surrounding energies. The water beneath me began to shift, crashing together in large waves. Thick shadows emerged around the body of the Sea Terror King.

Immediately, the monster seemed to spring into action. One of its massive hands reached out far more quickly than its frame would indicate. Capturing one of the Sea Princes, I could see it bringing it in to devour the struggling beast.

Next to me, I could see Bihena materializing in the air next to me, her spear aiming down towards the sea as she held it in one hand. Her short, blonde hair blew in the wind, her eyes piercing down towards the monster. “Okay, it should be distracted enough for you to do whatever you need to.”

I gave a small nod, pulling the pen out. After closing my eyes, I opened a small hole in the air, connecting it to the Underworld before aiming the pen at it. Activating the suction feature of the pen, I quickly wanted to fill it to full capacity. What I had in mind would require a lot of energy.

Down below, the water darkened with the blood of numerous beasts. The Sea Princes struggled in vain to escape their natural predator, while the Sea Terror King was enjoying the feast of a lifetime. Although the creatures could no longer provide any real sustenance for him, that did not mean his instincts would turn down his species’ favorite meal.

More and more, I could sense the pen filling up, until the energy simply stopped absorbing into the pen. After that, I began to move, a golden mirror forming behind me with the image of the elven Goddess of Magic. “Mirror the Archmage.”

After saying that, and allowing the mirror to shatter, I could feel the knowledge of magic welling up inside of me. With my focus on the pen again, I began working. Typically, the pen was used with written words, but I had something different in mind. I wanted to use the pen to draw out a large spell diagram.

As Bihena watched Ryone work… or rather, watched the Keeper work with Ryone’s form, her eyes glanced down towards the Sea Terror King. She knew that she had not simply been tasked to come here and present bait for the monster.

Bihena was not simply the Goddess of Oceans. No, that was only a title that had been given to her out of convenience, due to the need to eliminate aquatic undead. As the feeding of the monster below began to stir, glowing red eyes aiming upwards, she gripped her spear and prepared herself.

After all, she was the Goddess of Battle. That was her true, primary domain. While the Sea Princes might be its favorite food, it was impossible for the distraction to last forever. Especially when the meal it truly craved was energy. Even with the water saturated with blood, it could still feel that pulse of energy from the growing spell diagram above.

The Sea Princes were only meant to delay the inevitable, causing it to hesitate when choosing between meals. But, as the pulse of energy from above grew stronger, so too did the monster’s desire to consume it. Soon, that same clawed hand that had been entrapping the Sea Princes shot out above the water.

Each finger was utterly enormous, dozens of meters long and covered with green scales. When it rose out of the water, the waves crashed like a storm, and the Goddess of Battle began to act. They still had to worry about the possibility of divine energy being absorbed, so she pulled hers in, not letting a single drop leak out.

Her body shot forward, leaving a brief, sonic boom behind herself. With such a large target in front of her, she did not need to worry about accuracy. It would be hard for her to miss even if she wanted to.

Before its wrist had even managed to make it halfway to Dale, Bihena had already arrived. “First Form – Wrath of Storms!” Her spear shifted as she spoke, almost like a liquid metal. The form that it settled on was that of a lightning bolt, which she thrust forward into the wrist of the Sea Terror King.

Although the weapon was so small that such an attack did not even register, what happened next certainly did. As the tip of the blade pierced into the monster, it crackled with electricity. On the other side of the monster’s wrist, a blinding flash emerged, a burst of light shooting out like a laser.

A dull, muffled roar rang out through the ocean when the Sea Terror King experienced pain for the first time. A crater had been blown out of its wrist from the inside, ten meters deep and twenty wide. Although the creature had no true blood, being composed of energy, it was still a gruesome sight.

Bihena’s spear did not emit ki, spiritual energy, natural energy, or even mana to create its effects. As a product of Tubrock’s craftsmanship, the lightning was created internally before being fired outwards through the tip.

This did, however, serve to draw the creature’s attention, and its ire. The gruesome hole quickly began to close up, energy being redistributed to fill the gap as its hand then began sweeping towards Bihena.

With a smile, Bihena’s body shot off to the side to evade the creature’s claws. Although it was remarkably fast for its size, it could not compete with her in terms of speed. Her smaller form was able to quickly escape long before the claws of the monster closed around her location.

“Yeah, that’s right, big guy. Big bad battle goddess right here.” Bihena taunted with a feral grin. She saw the second clawed hand reaching up to grab towards her as well, but managed to similarly evade that with her quick speed. “All eyes on me. Pay no attention to the man behind the woman.”

In order to keep the Sea Terror King in the range of whatever spell Dale was cooking up, Bihena could not afford to draw the monster away. She had to simply annoy it until he was ready. “Fourth Form – Split the Seas!”

Once again, the head of her spear seemed to melt and shift. This time, however, it turned into a long sword-like blade. Placing one hand at the base of the spear, and the other near the blade, she held the weapon behind herself. Then, with a full twist of her body, she released the hand holding near the blade, causing it to quickly whip out.

As the blade tore through the air, a crescent slash followed behind it. An attack made with such condensed air pressure that it remained solid even after striking the monster’s wrist. A fact that made Bihena’s grin turn far more wicked when the slash passed through the wrist entirely.

Carried by the momentum of the previous swing, the clawed hand fell forward, severed at the wrist. When it hit the water’s surface, it seemed to break apart into blue and silver lights, which sank into the water again to be reabsorbed by the Sea Terror King. All in all, that meant that Bihena had done no true damage. But man, was she sure that it hurt.

The furious scream that seemed to make the ocean itself rise was more than enough proof of the creature’s pain. As Bihena watched, the monster grew larger and larger, dispersing its energy out more in order to rise above the waves. First was its head, with six slanted eyes staring hatefully at Bihena, sheltered by thick, scaled ridges. Its mouth was elongated, its jaw distended and only held together by relatively thin strands of muscle.

Then came the shoulders, full of spines and hanging webbing, titanic masses of muscle and flesh. Down its back were triangular spines, silver in color as opposed to the natural green. Now, it looked more like a creature standing in a swimming pool than a beast in the depths of the ocean.

“Eww, you’re even uglier up close.” Bihena grimaced, pulling her spear back once again. “Final Form – Sea God’s Fury.” Her body plummeted downwards as she called out her next attack, the tip of the spear moving to rest beneath the water.

A swirling vortex appeared beneath Bihena as the spear seemed to drink up the water, sucking in the ocean itself. When she lifted it up again, the golden trim had entirely vanished, leaving only a sparkling blue, three-pronged tip.

However, just as she was pulling back to position herself for her attack… just as the monster’s hands were rising to perform its own strike… Bihena’s eyes flashed. I’m finished.

The voice echoed in her head like thunder, and she flashed backwards as quickly as she could. The Sea Terror King looked as if it were preparing to give chase, before it faltered. Its eyes glanced upwards, seeing a brilliantly glowing diagram littered with runic spheres. Standing above the diagram, Dale looked coldly down upon the monster with Ryone’s eyes.

“Underworld Erasure.” Ryone’s voice boomed down from above as the diagram flared to live. A pale white beam cut down from the air, striking into the center of the creature’s forehead.

Bihena watched, her divine vision able to see exactly what was happening. The spell, constructed with the divinities of both Ryone and Irena, was seeking out every trace of spiritual energy within the body of the Sea Terror King. Once found, those traces were swept away, destroying the very soul that held the monster together.

Desperate, the Sea Terror King resisted, trying to consume the spell faster than the spell could consume it. However, such a thing was useless at this point. Even if it consumed a small portion of the spiritual energy that composed the spell, that energy would then be directly washed away by what was left.

The entire process only took a matter of moments, before the red glow of the monster’s eyes faded to a dull grey. This grey then seemed to spread out from its eyes, stretching out to cover the monster’s head before gradually heading down towards its shoulders and covering the rest of its body. Finally, like dust, it began to scatter away on the wind.

I let out a long sigh of relief when I saw the spell successfully slay the monster. In truth, I was concerned that it might not work. But… this was the only spell I could come up with using Ryone’s experience that had the highest chance to utterly destroy the Sea Terror King. If it did not work, it would have at the very least drastically weakened it.

“Sorry for stealing your thunder.” I called out with a smile, my form shifting back to my own as I lowered my body to meet Bihena.

She shook her head, her face returning to its almost neutral mask. “It’s good that it is over. I’ll keep a closer eye on the waters from now on in order to prevent a similar creature from appearing.”

I only gave a small nod at that. In truth, if this thing had appeared in Lorek or Spica, then it would have been far more difficult to deal with. But, as it appeared here, we were able to attack it with our full power.

“Let’s go home.” I said softly, closing my eyes and choosing to ascend once again. It would take a few hours before the world spirit of Earth was once again able to fully materialize, so there was no point in waiting around.