Chapter 1336: Something Stirs Below

Bang!

The palace doors were shoved open like someone didn’t believe in hinges.

A gigantic octopus barreled in from outside. A few of its tentacles were moving so fast they dragged across the floor, screeching out a long, ugly scrape.

It barely had time to open its mouth.

Thalvyr had already raised a fist.

Bang!

The big octopus went flying.

Its body skidded along the palace floor before slamming hard into the wall. Tentacles, head, suction cups—everything flattened out, plastered tight against the stone like it had been slapped into place.

For a moment, it couldn’t even peel itself off.

Thalvyr looked at the octopus stuck to the wall, his tone flat.

"Clumsy."

"What is it?"

The octopus’ suction cups contracted in rings.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

One by one, a few tentacles finally came unstuck.

It struggled for a second, then managed to rip itself free and scramble back in front of Thalvyr.

"Your Majesty, we’ve found intruders. They struck first. What are your orders?"

Thalvyr didn’t answer right away.

He leaned back on the throne and sat in silence for a moment, the color of his eyes shifting again.

Only then did he speak, slow and deliberate.

"If they keep the peace, let them pass. But if they chose violence first, then let the sea keep them forever."

With that, he flicked his hand.

"Alright. Go."

The big octopus instantly perked up.

Several tentacles shot toward the doorway—so eager they tangled around each other.

"Understood!"

The next second, the tentacles braced against the doorframe suddenly snapped tight.

The octopus’ whole body got slingshotted out.

Like a massive soft-bodied cannonball, it blasted out of the palace, tore through the currents, and sped straight to an underwater prison.

Cell doors popped open one after another.

Several strange-looking beings stepped out.

Voruun paused at the front, turning his head to glance back at the newly freed lot, then led them upward toward the surface.

Water split around his huge body.

His tentacles were drawn tight with rage, rigid as spears.

"To kill my son..."

His voice came out muffled and heavy through the water.

"I’d like to see who you are."

Before that, Elira was still having the time of her life on the surface.

More accurately—

she was blasting fish.

Her Divine Sovereign Moth wings hovered in midair.

Elira tilted her head down, hunting for targets. Any time she saw something move beneath the water, she fired a beam from above.

Szzzt!

Light speared into the sea.

The surface dimpled downward for a split second—then exploded into a ring of spray.

Not long after, whatever she’d hit would float up slowly from below.

Elira spotted one.

Fired once.

Spotted a school.

Fired again.

Before long, the water nearby was dotted with drifting kills—sea creatures of all kinds, including a few octopuses.

And the first thing Elira locked onto was the biggest one.

That octopus dwarfed everything else in the water.

Honestly, even if you added up all the other dead things floating nearby, they still might not match its volume.

Elira circled the corpse once.

Her eyes got brighter and brighter.

That big.

Eating it would be amazing.

She had absolutely no idea what that octopus meant to the thing racing toward her.

Voruun and the force he’d just freed from the prison surged upward.

The closer he got to the surface, the more clearly he could see the bodies drifting in the water.

One.

Two.

More.

Voruun’s speed started to slow.

Then he broke the surface—and when he saw the scattered corpses along the shallows and the beach ahead, every tentacle froze.

His gaze latched onto one massive octopus body.

That face.

That build.

No mistake.

That was his son.

Voruun’s tentacles curled tighter, tighter.

The seawater around him churned from the pressure.

Behind him, the strange beings that had followed rose to the surface as well, tracking his line of sight toward shore.

In the next instant, Voruun lifted a tentacle and stabbed it forward.

"Charge!"

His roar crushed the sound of the surf.

"Rip them apart!"

Several figures behind Voruun moved first.

Starting from their feet, their bodies lost definition. Skin and clothing dissolved together into transparent streams, spreading across the surface—then, in the blink of an eye, they melted into the heaving sea, vanishing without a trace.

Farther back, Voruun’s troops were already drawing bows.

Arrows snapped off in rapid volleys, dragging sharp whistles through the air as they shot high—long-range support for the ones slipping through the water below.

Ataneya was the first to sense them closing in.

One section of her fox tail was still submerged. Any tiny disturbance in the current traveled up the damp fur and into her body like a message. The moment a few unfamiliar flows approached from far out, the tip of her tail twitched, and her ears turned toward the sea.

These "seafood" seriously thought they could deliver themselves because we weren’t full yet?

Even an all-you-can-eat place isn’t this enthusiastic.

Ataneya’s lips barely had time to curve—

and several long fox tails burst from the water around Voruun.

White tail-shadows crossed and snapped into place, sealing off front, back, left, right, weaving into a cage in an instant. Then the tails swept the surface, slamming the approaching sea creatures away along with a whole sheet of spray.

Voruun’s pupils tightened. Panic flickered across his face for a heartbeat—but his body didn’t hesitate.

One by one, his tentacles stretched out of the water, and his thick torso rose with them.

A colossal octopus—big enough to blot out a huge stretch of ocean—fully surfaced in front of everyone.

Seawater streamed down Voruun’s tentacles. Every swing kicked up heavy waves.

He drove straight into Ataneya’s tails. Tentacles and long furred whips collided in midair—wet, dull impacts cracking one after another—until the splashed droplets were shaken into a white mist.

The commotion on the water immediately pulled every gaze on the beach.

Everyone started to move in to support—

but the shield around them reacted first.

The previously calm curtain of light buckled inward, ripples spreading across it like rings on the sea.

An enemy!