Chapter 317

Everyone besides the placoid scale merfolk screamed from seeing Katthveli’s brutal death.

“Ahhhhh!”

“N-nooooo!”

“Madam Katthveli!”

Katthveli was known to be the kindest of the Illhveli, loved by every ganoid, ctenoid, and cycloid scale merfolk alike. Hence, everyone had vehemently opposed Carcharocles’s claim that Katthveli was the culprit behind the pisciceps incidents.

Sverdvalur, Raudkembingur, Skeljungur, Lyngbakur, and the other members of the Illhveli expressed intense rage from seeing their older sister’s death.

“Katt!!!”

“Sister!”

“Otodus, you bastard!”

“How dare you... kill an Illhveli?!”

Katthveli’s death changed the flow of the war. They had simply been spectating the battle between Natantes and Carcharocles, but it immediately switched to a brawl.

“Justice for Madam Katthveli!”

“Kill every last one of the placoid scales!’

“Gahaha! Glory to Master Otodus! The filthy pisciceps Katthveli is dead!”

“Master Lodon is alive!”

“Here they come! Counterattack!”

A man cackled as he watched the brawl from the sidelines. He was Mushveli, the eldest of the Illhveli, smiling with his yellow eyes. He couldn’t be happier despite seeing his little sister brutally murdered.

“Good work, Otodus. Perfect timing,” he mumbled.

The civil war would end if Lodon stopped Carcharocles. Hence, he decided to use the death of a ganoid scale merfolk, Katthveli, a member of the Illhveli, to fan the flames of war this time. Now, Carcharocles wouldn’t be able to stop the war, even if he wanted to.

It may have been an improvisation, but it was a perfect move! Mushveli thought.

“Gahaha! Kill them all! Eradicate the placoid scales!” Mushveli shouted excitedly once he confirmed that Plan B was going smoothly.

He knew who the soldiers killing the placoid scale merfolk at the vanguard were. They were doppelgangers who had become exemplars of ganoid scale merfolk. Doppelgangers who had become exemplars of the placoid scale merfolk were also brutally killing the ganoid scale merfolk.

“You son of a bitch!”

“This is for Chato!”

“Die! Die! Die—!!!”

The doppelgangers’ killing spree incited hatred and madness in the merfolk.

“Ahahaha! Father! Not even you can stop this now!” Mushveli said, laughing until he felt refreshed.

He turned to Natantes, who was still blankly staring at Katthveli’s red remains. Just then, a silhouette appeared behind Natantes. It was a man wearing an ominous wooden mask.

“Hm? Is that... Cheon Seong-Hwi?!”

Mushveli’s expression crumpled from seeing the appearance of the man who had ruined his plans to this extent. However, he smiled widely once he noticed three individuals slowly coming down.

“Ohhhhh! They have arrived!”

The appearance of Cheon Seong-Hwi completely disappeared from his head once he noticed the three people who would end this war.

***

“Katt...hveli,” Natantes mumbled, staring at Katthveli’s bloody corpse sinking toward the bottom of the sea.

Katthveli was the weakest of his children, born with the weakest Stream Force. She respected her older sister Taumafiskur, but was also jealous of her. She always laughed off the pestering from her younger siblings, who were all stronger than she was.

Her unrequited love, Lodon, became engaged to her older sister. Her little brothers were always hard on her. She realized that Lyngbakur, born far later than her, was born with Stream Force far more powerful than hers. Even through all that, she congratulated them with a smile.

Hence, Katthveli was the most precious to Natantes, and he tried to do everything in his power to give whatever she wanted so that it would ease her frustrations even a little. However, such memories and efforts had become meaningless. Otodus, the second son of Carcharocles, had brutally murdered Katthveli.

Natantes gripped the White Tail Fin so tightly to the point that his hand bled, and took a step toward Otodus without taking his eyes off him.

Just then, a voice asked from behind him, “Where are you going?”

Natantes turned around and stared with bloodshot eyes at a man wearing a bizarre wooden mask. The man’s eyes under the mask were both black, but there was no white in his right eye whatsoever.

“Cheon Seong-Hwi... Is that you?” Natantes asked.

“I have freed Lodon. Now, it is time for you to reconcile with Carcharocles and stop the civil war,” Seong-Hwi said.

Natantes remained silent.

“The enemies may almost be upon us. You must stop the civil war,” Seong-Hwi repeated.

Natantes’s blood vessels wriggled so intensely that it seemed like they were about to explode. He took another step toward Otodus.

“I asked you where you are going,” Seong-Hwi said.

“To... kill Otodus,” Natantes replied.

“Huuu... I resolve one, and now the other causes trouble.”

“My child... My daughter... was killed.”

“And I am sure the soldiers being killed at this very moment are someone’s sons and daughters,” Seong-Hwi replied indifferently, as if saying he won’t empathize with Natantes.

He scanned the battlefield, filled with sounds of clashing weapons, tearing flesh, explosions, screams, arimony, and despair.

“GAAAAAHHH!”

“KILL HIM! KILL THAT SON OF A BITCH!”

“I’VE BEHEADED MY MORTAL ENEMY!”

Seong-Hwi made sure to witness every single inch of the hellscape and shifted his gaze back to Natantes.

“Your daughter is not the only one who’s special. Everyone down there is special. I ask you again. Please stop the civil war. If you do not, I will take my hands off this matter,” he said.

Natantes bit his tongue. Red blood seeped out of his mouth like smoke.

“You and Carcharocles are the only ones who can save Pontus from destruction,” Seong-Hwi said.

“I... know.” Natantes closed his eyes momentarily, and his facial muscles twitched. He then said, “I ask that... you tell me this one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Was the Katthveli who just died... a doppelganger?”

Seong-Hwi stared at Natantes and replied firmly, “No.”

Red bubbles made of blood burst forth from Natantes’s mouth as he gritted his teeth. A momentary silence felt like eternity. A sliver of hope that Katthveli might still be alive somewhere vanished from Natantes. He then opened his eyes, bloodshot but filled with resolve.

“Thank you. I almost made a mistake,” he said.

“Please stop the civil war,” Seong-Hwi said.

“Of course.”

Natantes turned to Carcharocles, in shock after hearing Lodon’s explanation.

“Is that... true? The mimic race? Doppelgangers?” Carcharocles asked.

“It is, Father! They were the ones behind the pisciceps incidents this whole time!” Lodon shouted.

“So, you’re saying... You’re not an illusion?”

“Of course, not! That aside, what is that bastard Otodus think he’s doing?!”

Natantes and Seong-Hwi approached Carcharocles and Lodon, who paused their conversation and turned to them.

“Sir Carcharocles,” Natantes said.

“Natantes,” Carcharocles said.

“As you have heard, it appears there has been a misunderstanding.”

Carcharocles remained silent.

“Let us stop this civil war. This is no time for us to be fighting.”

Carcharocles stared at Natantes’s deep, blue eyes in silence. His son Otodus had just murdered Natantes’s daughter Katthveli before their very eyes, but Natantes was telling the father of his mortal enemy that this was no time for them to fight. It was the complete opposite of his behavior when he thought Lodon was dead.

“As I’d thought, you deserve to be the Ocean King,” Carcharocles remarked.

“An external enemy is targeting us. Since they caused pandemonium by inciting this civil war, they will come out into the light soon,” Natantes said.

“Let us stop the civil war immediately. Lodon! Control the soldiers. As for Otodus—”

“Look up!” Seong-Hwi shouted as Natantes and Carcharocles were discussing the end of the civil war.

The four of them all looked up and saw three individuals slowly sinking toward them, illuminated by the sunlight entering the ocean.

“Natantes! Finally!” shouted a handsome teenager, wearing a flashy red robe, as he stared at Natantes.

“Ohoho! What a spectacle!” said a female naga with black hair and eyes, covered in golden accessories.

“The Ocean King? That title is meant only for me,” said a middle-aged man with light blue hair and mystical light blue eyes, covered in black scales.

The teenager was Rahab, the Storm Dragon, with ruby-red hair and eyes, and golden horns growing perpendicularly from his temples.

“I will kill you and then move on to Pseraslav! My rank will skyrocket!” he shouted.

The naga, Vipera Anguis, laughed haughtily, “Ohoho! This wasn’t what we had planned, but it shouldn’t matter. I will get what I want!”

Their sudden appearance was shocking enough, but Natantes and Carcharocles were focused entirely on the third individual.

“You are—”

“Impossible! You should be dead!”

The middle-aged man pointed at Natantes and Carcharocles and shouted, “Traitors! You dare join forces with the Chaos?!”

He was the ultimate merfolk, the man who was once known as the Ocean King, Squama.

“Haema Sanguis killed him! How?!”

“He must be Dopper! The former mimic Bachtasha-rank Chaos!” Seong-Hwi quickly shouted, sensing the rapidly changing atmosphere of the battlefield.

He recalled what the hammerhead shark merfolk had mentioned in the interrogation at the Ocean Prison.

“Why are you in that form? From what I had heard... You were in the middle of becoming an exemplar of a very powerful individual.”

Dammit! The powerful individual he mentioned was the former Ninth Fiend, Squama? Seong-Hwi thought.

They were faced with the worst possible situation. His combat prowess aside, if the Chaos named Dopper had become the exemplar of Squama, there were too many things he could do.

If I were him, I would instigate the merfolk to... Motherfucker!

Seong-Hwi’s bad feeling had been on the mark.

***

“Natantes! I will tear off your scales and offer them to my father!” Rahab shouted.

“Please wait, Young Master Rahab. We must declare war first. It is much easier to deal with the aftermath that way,” advised Vipera as she caressed the Snake’s Dens slithering around her body. She turned to Dopper, the exemplar of Squama, and said, “It’s your turn.”

“Of course,” Dopper remarked, scanning the battlefield.

The brawl had momentarily ceased due to the appearance of three individuals exuding powerful auras.

“W-what’s going on?”

“Could he be... Lord Squama?!”

“What? That’s impossible! He should be dead!’

“But look at those scales!”

“Whoa! The whole scales! The symbol of the ultimate merfolk!”

“Could he be... the true Lord Squama?”

The ganoid scales, placoid scales, ctenoid scales, cycloid scales, coelenterates, crustaceans, echinoderms, mollusks, and annelids alike all stared at Dopper’s glossy, black scales.

“Hehehe!” Dopper showed off his body, enjoying their gazes.

His whole scales, the combination of ganoid, placoid, ctenoid, and cycloid scales, gave off a clear sound as the ocean currents softly caressed them.

He raised his arms and shouted, “That’s right! I am Squama! The Ocean King who has conquered death itself!”

“L-Lord Squama!”

“Whoooaaa!”

“The Ocean King has returned!”

The merfolk of Pontus cheered at Dopper’s confirmation, forgetting they were in the middle of a war. The name Squama made them long for their former glory, and Dopper’s proposition was practically a declaration of Pontus’s revival.

“From now on, Pontus will create a new ocean current!”

“Whooaaa!”

“Will our former era return at last?!”

“Squama! Squama! Squama!”

Dopper basked in the merfolk’s cheers as his light blue eyes shone.

He then pointed in a certain direction and shouted, “Before that, I shall expose the sins of the traitors to the merfolk!”

He was pointing at Natantes and Carcharocles.

“Traitors?”

“Master Natantes?”

“Sir Carcharocles would never!”

“That is... not Squama!” mumbled Carcharocles.

He had conquered the ocean alongside Squama, so he was certain that the man before him was not his blood brother, whom he missed dearly.

“That’s right. He is also a doppelganger! Not only that, but I am certain he is a Bachtasha-rank Chaos!” Natantes replied.

Seong-Hwi had told him of the individual named Dopper, so he could immediately tell that the Squama before them was fake.

But the problem is that the other merfolk don’t know that! Seong-Hwi thought, his expression under the Myriad Cheoyong Mask stiffening.

The neurons in his brain fired rapidly, thinking about how to foil their opponents’ plan.

What is your move? I’ll counter whatever you throw at me!

Just then, Dopper pulled out his trump card. He extended both hands and activated a skill.

[Activating Race Skill: Reformo.]

A white light illuminated the merfolk below him like a spotlight.

“G-GAAAAAHHH!”

“AHHHHH!”

“N-NOOOOO!”

The exemplar form of the doppelgangers hit by the light of Reformo was removed, turning them into black amoebas.

“Gyeeeehhh!”

“Dammit!”

“T-they found out!”

“Run for it!”

Reformo was a mimic race skill. If used by one of higher caliber, it could remove the target’s exemplar form. Dopper was the most superior of the mimics, and he was also a Bachtasha-rank Chaos. No doppelganger could escape his Reformo.

“What are these things?!”

“Chaos Mana! They’re Chaos!”

“Holy crap!”

The merfolk fell into panic as they watched their comrades becoming Chaos monsters. Dopper used the panic to frame Natantes and Carcharocles.

“Take a good look! This is the sin committed by Natantes and Carcharocles! They have collaborated in secret with the Chaos!”

“That fucking faker!” Carcharocles shouted.

“He... got us,” Natantes remarked.

Although it was a blatant lie, they had no way of proving otherwise. The only truth anyone could see was that their subordinates were Chaos monsters.

“I-is that true?”

“That can’t be! Why, Master Natantes?!”

“Sir Carcharocles! Have you been deceiving us this whole time?!”

“Then could this civil war have been orchestrated by...”

Dopper smiled, feeling he had full control of the situation, and shouted, “That’s right! Natantes and Carcharocles have orchestrated this civil war! They have joined forces with the Chaos to eliminate the weak from their society through this civil war!”

As soon as Dopper finished speaking, Mushveli from the ganoid scales’ side and Otodus from the placoid scales’ side stepped forward as if they had been waiting for this moment, and slandered their fathers.

“Father! I knew about your sins from the beginning!”

“I did as well! I cannot stand and watch as you sell out your fellow merfolk any longer!”

“Fellow merfolk! Let us stop this bloodshed!”

“Let us bask in our former glory again under Lord Squama’s command!”

The falsehood was being repeated enough that the merfolk were starting to believe it to be the truth. Natantes and Carcharocles were left wide-eyed by their sons’ sudden betrayal.

“Mushveli!”

“Otodus!!!”

“O-oh, no!” Lodon watched as the gazes of the merfolk toward Natantes and Carcharocles began to change. “They got us! We have no way out!”

The enemies’ plan, akin to a wave endlessly striking a cliff, had driven them into a corner before they had realized it. Vipera and Rahab also joined the show.

“Ohohoho! I am Vipera Anguis. I have decided to join forces with the new Pontus that Squama will create.”

“Creatures. In the name of Rahab, the son of the almighty Dragon King Regnator and the leader of Clan Aquilo, under the banner of Echion, I will save you all.”

At this rate, Father and Natantes will be branded as traitors and die dishonorably! Lodon shouted inwardly, gritting his teeth.

Anyone could see that the despairing situation was at its tipping point. However, claps and laughter, unbefitting the extremely tense atmosphere, echoed throughout the surroundings.

“AHAHAHAHA! What a classic!” Seong-Hwi shouted.

“Seong-Hwi?” Lodon called, staring at the slowly rising Seong-Hwi.

“It was a rather well-made play. I had fun watching it. I suppose it’s closer to a theater of the absurd than realism.”

“Hm?” Dopper expressed, staring at Seong-Hwi, who had risen to his eye level.

He felt a sense of familiarity with him.

Cosmos? Has Dollores returned? Dopper thought.

“You—”

“Oi, main actor. The play is over. It’s time to snap back to reality,” Seong-Hwi interrupted as he outstretched his right hand with an eye-catching motion as if he were a magician.

He was smiling wider than he had ever before under the Myriad Cheoyong Mask.

[Browsing information about Reformo, recorded in the Akashic Records.]

[The Regulator detects an act of cheating.]

[The causality stored within the ■■■ is released.]

[The Readers review the probability.]

[Eligible.]

...

A white light that had shone from Dopper’s hands earlier gathered around Seong-Hwi’s right hand.

“T-that’s—” Dopper said in shock.

“Thanks for teaching me something good.”

The light of Reformo engulfed Dopper like a spotlight on the main actor.

“GAAAAAHHH!”

The face of Dopper, in the form of Squama, wiggled like jelly and began to emit Chaos Mana like exhaust fumes.

“What is that?”

“Lord Squama?”

“Gasp! Isn’t that the form that the Chaos monsters had earlier?”

Seong-Hwi turned to the merfolk, who were confused by the rapidly changing flow of events, and declared, “This main actor is a faker. A poor soul who took on a role despite not having the acting talent for it.”

He then stuffed his hand into his pocket and grabbed a silver badge.

[Inspector’s Badge (Item)

Rank: F(0)

Description: A badge given to Cheon Seong-Hwi, an inspector of the Sēmen. It proves that he has the right to investigate and expel.

Skill: Connexio

...

[Connexio (Item Skill)

Rank: Shared - F(0)

Description: Connects the Inspector’s Badge to the Prime Minister’s Badge, regardless of distance.]

“That’s—!” Vipera Anguis shouted, her eyes widening the moment she saw the badge in Seong-Hwi’s hand.

It closely resembled a consul’s badge, but there was a sword instead of a balance scale above the shaking hands.

“He wouldn't!”

[Activating Item Skill: Connexio.]

Connexio connected Seong-Hwi’s Inspector’s Badge to the Prime Minister’s Badge held by Judicium.

— This is Judicium. What is the matter, Inspector Cheon Seong-Hwi?

“I discovered the involvement of a third party in my arbitration of the civil war occurring at Gurzes,” Seong-Hwi said.

— Who are they?

“Vipera Anguis of Patala and Rahab of Aquilo!”

“YOOOOOUUUUU!!!” Vipera screamed terrifyingly, taken aback by the completely unexpected situation.

However, Seong-Hwi’s eyes only smiled under the Myriad Cheoyong Mask.

He calmly continued, “These two factions have collaborated with the Chaos to invade Gurzes.”

— Is that the truth?!

“It is.” Seong-Hwi stared at the frozen Vipera and Rahab with excitement and declared, “I invoke my right to expel. From this moment, until Master Grandis’s final decision, I expel Patala and Aquilo from the Sēmen.”

The bomb had been set off. Seong-Hwi had expelled Patala of the Eighth Lord, Vipera Anguis, and Aquilo, a faction directly under Regnator, from the Sēmen.

— Very well. It shall be announced throughout the Mirror World effective immediately.

Once Judicium confirmed the expulsion, Seong-Hwi stared at Vipera and Rahab, who had become deathly pale.

“Authority is like... Jurie’s strawberry cake,” he mumbled.

***

Absolute power is kind of neat.

John Lehman