Chapter 316

A silver star opened its mouth, and the spikes on its surface became sharp teeth. Desire bit into its prey to sate its deficiency. The prey was Arak Ahi, Ananta’s red star shaped like a coiled red snake, which was on the verge of falling apart. Desire broke the star like biting a lollipop.

[Recording the story of Overcoming Deficiency in the Akashic Records.]

[Desire devoured Arak Ahi, the star of the red snake that instilled fear into countless individuals of Nagaroka.]

...

[The Readers show interest in the thickening history of Overcoming Deficiency.]

[200,000,000 Karma obtained.]

...

[Causality accumulates within Desire.]

[Takehaya-Susanoo-no-Mikoto takes the majority of the obtained causality.]

[Slightly enhancing the magnitude of Desire.]

[Magnitude: 7.5 → 7.4.]

...

***

“With this, my debt is gone,” Seong-Hwi said.

“Very well! I would love to use this causality to visit the afterlife!” Susanoo shouted inside his head.

Seong-Hwi examined his condition. Chaos Mana was infinitely surging from somewhere deep inside him.

[Converting Destiny Force to Chaos Mana.]

[00:51:12]

[00:51:11]

[00:51:10]

...

Of course, it wasn’t actually infinite. There were only a little over fifty minutes left to the conversion.

Chaos Transformation... Incomplete Metamorphosis... These things are extremely similar to the secondary transformation of a Bachtasha-rank Chaos, Seong-Hwi thought as he raised his hands.

His left arm was the same as usual, but his right was covered in iridescent, hexagonal scales. He brought his hand to his head and felt a small U-shaped horn sprouting from his right temple, and his hair had grown past his shoulders.

“Hah, it really feels like I’ve become a different race,” he mumbled.

He rested the Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi over his shoulder and looked around.

The other two have fled. They’re good judges of the situation, he thought.

It was no surprise. The momentum had shifted from the moment he had stolen control over the millions of Underfish from them.

I can only control this army for fifty minutes. I need to use them to the fullest, Seong-Hwi thought as he came up with various ways to use the Underfish army.

Just then, he heard shouts from under him.

“Cheon Seong-Hwi! What’s going on?! Are you okay? Just wait a little longer! Once I secure Taufi’s safety, I will come to assist you!” Lodon shouted, seemingly on the verge of breaking through the blue storm barrier.

“Oh, shit,” Seong-Hwi remarked, then quickly commanded the Underfish, “First, move to the Ocean King’s Castle.”

“Gerererek!”

“Yes, my king!”

“As you command!”

“Your wish is my command!”

The Underfish simultaneously moved as Seong-Hwi ordered, removing the black shadow looming over the area.

King, huh? Seong-Hwi thought as he stared at the army of Underfish swimming away, then stared at the sinking head of a red snake.

“Who... are...” Ananta asked lifelessly, the light disappearing from her red eyes.

“Cheon Seong-Hwi,” Seong-Hwi replied apathetically.

He pointed the Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi at Ananta. The sword’s doubled-edged blade lengthened like the Ruyi Jingu Bang and pierced Ananta’s brain. Ananta had been holding onto life using her tenacious life force despite having her head severed, but she could do nothing as her brain was turned to mush.

“Kurgh...”

[You killed a Recorder.]

[200,000,000 Karma obtained.]

...

[Activating Star Power: Gluttony.]

An invisible mouth devoured Ananta’s corpse.

[Heightening caliber.]

...

[Gene of the race Naga, absorbed.]

...

[Converting Eighteen Wings to Nineteen Wings.]

[Available Stats: Battle Force, Sorcery Force, Harmony Force, Draconic Mana, Demon Force, Wraith Force, Kinetic Force, Holy Force, Chaos Mana, Mineral Force, Beast Force, Seismic Force, Nature Force, Blood Force, Titanic Force, Stream Force, Template Force, Charm Force.]

Seong-Hwi’s stat caliber was heightened; he obtained Charm Force, the nagas’ secondary force, and gained a new wing.

“I killed a formidable Recorder easily, thanks to this sword,” he said, staring belovedly at the Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi’s white blade.

This sword, pulled out from the tail of Yamata-no-Orochi, was not only terrifyingly sharp and could extend, but it could kill snakes very easily. His surprise attack would not have been nearly as effective if not for this sword, and if his opponent hadn’t been a naga.

“Naturally! I wrote history by killing the most infamous snake in the world!” Susanoo shouted proudly.

“Oi, Seong-Hwi. When can Gram drink the blood of this Regnator dragon?” Siegfried complained.

“Kehehe! Kill them all, whether it be snakes or dragons! Ahhh! Killing powerful beings gives me such a high!” Richard said, exuding his filthy desires and bloodlust.

Seong-Hwi separated the voices that corrupted his psyche from his subconscious out of habit and shouted at Lodon, who was still in the blue storm.

“We’re splitting up from here! Go find Carcharocles right now and stop this goddamn civil war!”

Seong-Hwi operated the Wings of Evolution to get out of there as soon as he finished talking.

“What? Is the situation dealt with? Where are you going to go?” Lodon asked.

As soon as Seong-Hwi was gone, the blue storm protecting Lodon and Taumafiskur and blocking their view dissipated. Lodon was met with a tranquil sea with nothing in sight. The millions of Underfish that had filled their vision, and the presence of the Recorders who had been launching threatening surprise attacks, were both gone. Death had been looming over them, but the situation had been completely resolved in the blink of an eye.

“Wha...” he trailed off, holding the unconscious Taumafiskur. “How?”

He wondered what kind of magic Seong-Hwi had pulled.

“Cheon Seong-Hwi...” he mumbled the magician’s name.

***

“Huff! Huff! Huff!”

An individual rested their back on a wall in an alleyway, standing wary of their surroundings. They were the robed individual who had fled from the Ocean Prison the moment control over the Underfish army had been taken from them.

“This can’t be... It can’t... This can’t be happening!!!” the robed individual mumbled crazily. “How were the Underfish taken from me?!”

They had only just barely been managing to control the army thanks to the orb they had received from Dopper. They couldn’t believe that someone could break that control so easily and receive absolute allegiance from the Underfish.

“Another Bachtasha? Then why would they interfere with Master Dopper’s plan?”

The robed individual’s role was to kill the envoy of the Sēmen and Lodon with Ananta and Sagara to lock all communication from Gurzes with the outside world and make it impossible to stop the civil war. After that, they were supposed to bring the Underfish army to side with Natantes to assist in killing Carcharocles and the placoid scale merfolk.

Once that was done, Vipera Anguis of Patala would appear and frame Natantes for joining forces with the Chaos, and then kill him as well. Once the merfolk fell into despair after losing both their leader figures and were on the verge of extinction by Patala, Dopper, who had become an exemplar of Ocean King Squama, would appear to drive Vipera Anguis away.

Of course, Vipera Anguis had already agreed to this plan, promising that she would take the causality from the merfolk Race Stone, while Dopper took the history of the merfolk race. If things went according to this plan, the merfolk would have transformed into the Chaos, as the insectoids had.

“But it fell apart from the first step!” the robed individual mumbled.

They had failed, even with millions of Underfish and two World Rankers.

“How could this have—”

“Are you out of your mind?” a man asked, interrupting the despairing, robed individual.

He had the face of a rat, was fully armored, and was covered in white ganoid scales.

“Mushveli!” the robed individual shouted.

“What the hell are you doing here instead of carrying out the plan?! I have my own role to fulfill, too! You should have told me beforehand if you were going to use the private line! I can’t be leaving my post like this!” scolded Mushveli, the firstborn of the Illhveli, as his yellow eyes shone.

“That’s not the issue right now!”

“What?”

“Our plan is ruined!”

The robed individual explained everything that had happened at the Ocean Prison. The more they talked, the stiffer Mushveli’s expression became.

“What do you... Someone took control of the Underfish from you? What about Ananta and Sagara?!” Mushveli asked.

“I don’t know. I ran away immediately. There was no hope from the moment the control over the army was taken from me. They might already be dead.”

“Goddammit!”

Mushveli gritted his sharp teeth. The plan had been perfect. Although a wrench that was the envoy of the Sēmen had been thrown into it, he had judged that it was not enough to derail the plan. Once he improvised by killing Lodon’s doppelganger to incite Carcharocles, he believed nothing could stop the wheel from turning now.

However, Cheon Seong-Hwi, the envoy of the Sēmen, had not been a small pebble on the road. He had been an anomaly as large as a boulder that could destroy the wheel.

“What about Lodon?” Mushveli asked.

“I... couldn’t confirm his death,” the robed individual responded.

“What?!”

This was the worst possible situation. If Lodon made contact with Carcharocles and told the truth about what happened, the civil war would end then and there. To make matters worse, an operation to find those who had moved in the shadows to instigate the civil war would commence.

Mushveli and the robed individual spoke back and forth as if they were one person.

“Anything but that!”

“We need a Plan B.”

“We must bring Vipera Anguis right this second!”

“We need Master Dopper, too!”

“Does Otodus know about this?”

“Not yet.”

“Then send word to him right now! Have him buy as much time as possible!”

“Okay!”

Mushveli and the robed individual’s yellow eyes shone simultaneously as they both shouted, “Everything will be over by tomorrow morning!”

***

The placoid scale tribesmen stood across from the other tribesmen, both sides entirely focused on the battle unfolding in the center that would decide the era. Carcharocles was the spear that could penetrate any shield, and Natantes was the shield that could block any spear.

“GRAAAAAHHH!” Carcharocles roared, activating a skill as he exuded crimson bloodlust.

[Activating Unique Skill: Shark Ascension.]

He began to spin with his skin teeth fully erect, resembling a tornado that ground everything in his path as he charged at Natantes.

“Hup!” Natantes grunted, watching the attack that he could not ignore and drawing out his mana and Stream Force to activate a skill.

[Activating Unique Skill: White Wave Wall.]

A wall made of a white wave formed in front of Natantes, clashing with Carcharocles’s Shark Ascension. Carcharocles’s dark blue skin teeth rapidly gnawed at the wall of white waves as he spun like a top.

“Haaaaahhh!” Natantes shouted, swinging his giant two-handed sword, the White Tail Fin, like a baseball bat.

Carcharocles was blown away as if struck by a whale’s tail fin.

“Bastard!” Carcharocles shouted resentfully as he stopped spinning. “Did you just strike me with the flat of your blade?! What is the meaning of this?! Come at me with all you have!”

“I would expect nothing else from the Ghost Tooth. You are formidable,” Natantes mumbled, staring at his chipped White Tail Fin. He then said, “I cannot be sure whether you are real or not. That is all.”

“You have been speaking nonsense since earlier!” Carcharocles shouted, gritting his sharp teeth as he unleashed the full power of his unique caliber. “In that case, allow me to make it certain for you. I will use all I have to kill you!”

“Are you about to use Ancient Transformation? In this small space?”

“Gehehe! This isn’t the Shark’s Nest, it’s the Ocean King’s Castle! Who do you think would lose more from it?”

“Sir Carcharocles!” Natantes shouted.

He looked up and saw a dark blue star shining brightly. Carcharocles’s sharp dorsal fin, Pennifer, had begun to unleash its full power.

I wanted to wait for Cheon Seong-Hwi to arrive, but... I have no choice, he thought as he was about to spin his star, Spuma, the white foam, to unleash his unique caliber.

Just then, a voice echoed throughout the battlefield.

“FATHER—!!!”

A shark merfolk was fast approaching. He was covered in dark blue placoid scales and was the spitting image of Carcharocles in his younger days. He was Lodon, who had swam here after placing Tauma in a safe location.

“Lo...don?” Carcharocles mumbled.

His eyes, which had been filled with rage and resentment, turned blank after seeing his eldest son, whom he had thought was dead.

“Father! It’s me, Lodon! You must stop fighting! This civil war has been planned from the beginning!” Lodon shouted.

“Lodon... Is it really you? That can’t be... Lodon was...”

“Please give me time! I will explain everything, so please withdraw the soldiers! This is not the time to shed blood between our people!”

Natantes smiled as he watched Lodon shouting desperately and mumbled, “Cheon Seong-Hwi. He’s done it!”

He did not know what happened at the Ocean Prison, but he instinctively knew that Seong-Hwi had something to do with Lodon’s appearance.

Now, we can stop this civil war and begin the search for the true enemy—

As Natantes was thinking, he heard an ear-splitting voice.

“D-DADDY—!”

“This voice!” Natantes said, turning toward the familiar voice.

Otodus, Carcharocles’s second son, was holding a female merfolk by the neck. She was an innocent-looking merfolk with brown ganoid scales and a round head.

“Katthveli?!”

She was Katthveli, Natantes’s second daughter.

***

“Daddy! P-please save me!” Katthveli shouted, looking downward with an expression filled with fear.

“Quite the show you’re putting on,” Otodus mumbled, staring at her expressionlessly as he held her by the neck.

“Hmph! You’re no different!” Katthveli said, staring back at Otodus. Her innocent expression switched to one of ferocity. “We wouldn’t have to put on this shitshow if you had just stopped Cheon Seong-Hwi at the artificial island, you idiot!”

“I thought we were done discussing that before,” Otodus mumbled.

They were the large and small, robed individuals who had met at the East Merfolk Town last time.

“Stop wasting time and run away with me! Lure Father—no, Natantes away!” Katthveli urged.

Otodus stared silently at her and asked, “Why should I?”

“What? You need to lure Natantes to Master Vipera Anguis so that she can kill him!”

“Isn’t Natantes your father?”

“Kyahaha! You ask that now, after all this time?” Katthveli’s brown eyes filled with greed as she remarked, “I told you before that I could backstab them whenever I want! Master Vipera Anguis promised me the seat of queen!”

“What a load of shit.”

“What did you say?”

“There has always been only one king of Pontus,” Otodus said, his red eyes filling with madness and aspiration. “The eternal Ocean King, Lord Squama!”

“Hah, are you crazy? What good is it to call the name of a dead man? Just hurry the hell up and run away!” Katthveli urged Otodus, repeatedly glancing at the bottom, where her father was.

However, Otodus did not move an inch and remarked, “A pawn like you wouldn’t understand, but Mushveli and I know. Our king will soon return!”

“Brother Mus? Wait! Let go of me!” Katthveli shouted, trying to loosen Otodus’s grip on her neck after realizing something was going wrong.

However, Otodus’s steel-like grip did not budge in the slightest.

“Did you think I was like you, desiring to become the ruler by borrowing power from a foreign force? Seriously? Gehehe! You greedy, foolish bitch!”

“L-let go of—Mmrp!”

Otodus’s giant hand grabbed Katthveli’s entire head.

“I hope you had fun dreaming of vanities,” he said.

“Mmrp! Mmmmrpp!”

Katthveli struggled intensely to break free, terrified by Otodus’s abnormally wide smile, but it was too late.

“I, Otodus, the second son of Carcharocles, sentence the Illhveli Katthveli, the true culprit of the pisciceps incidents and the one who framed my brother Lodon, to death!”

Otodus’s voice echoed throughout the battlefield, then he added strength to his right hand that was clenching Katthveli’s head. His five fingers dug into her head due to his immense grip strength, and his skin teeth tore her head to pieces. A fountain of blood spewed in the water, mixed with brain matter and eyes.

Seeing that, Otodus laughed crazily. “GAHAHAHAHA! There was nothing special to the notorious Illhveli!”

Natantes, who watched it happen from below, mumbled blankly, “Katt...”

A white storm raged from inside the White Whale’s blue eyes.