SUPREME ARCH-MAGUS - Chapter 951 - 951: The Sea That No Longer Sleeps
For centuries, the ocean depths had been still — not lifeless, but quiet in their grandeur. Beneath the shifting tides and ancient reefs, old things had slumbered, bound by promises and sealed by runes no longer spoken by the surface world.
But now…
The sea began to change.
It started subtly — with the temperature rising.
Schools of silver-scale fish began darting deeper into the trenches. Whale Lords, who hadn’t moved in decades, swam from their resting grounds with agitation. The gentle coral lights that flickered across the undersea ridges dimmed, as if shadowed by a storm that had yet to arrive.
And then — the boiling began.
Not at the surface.
But in the deepest veins of the abyss, where spirit lines flowed through magma tunnels, the water bubbled and roared with unnatural fury.
At the edge of the Sea Ancestral Temple, a thick veil of steam began to rise. The carved dragon gate that once glowed a passive blue now pulsed with a golden-red fury.
The ocean was waking.
And every clan beneath the sea felt it.
–
Far from the forge, nestled within the towering groves of the Spirit Coral Forest, a group of robed figures with long tendrils of hair, pale skin, and gemstone markings on their brows gathered in a circle of glowing stones.
They were the Sea Hunter clan — guardians of sea memory, preservers of sacred flow.
Their elder, Grandmother Yunshi, traced her withered fingers across the surface of the Coral Mirror, watching ripples form where none should.
“The ancestral temples are shaking,” she murmured. “Something beneath the Sea Temple is breathing.”
A young attendant paled.
“Is it… the unsealing?”
“No,” she snapped. “That seal still holds. But something just as dangerous is being forged.”
A younger Whisperer, tapping into a rootline, gasped.
“Our spies gathered some news. Naga flame… mixed with human blood essence. The temple has allowed a human into the ancestral furnace!”
Cries of disbelief rippled through the chamber.
“They’re making a divine weapon… in the Sea God’s domain?”
“Madness!”
“They will awaken what must not be named!”
–
The Abyssal Shark Clan…
In a darker trench, far beneath the coral forests, the great spiraled fortress of the Abyssal Shark Clan lit up with seismic alerts. Crystals embedded into the walls cracked and glowed.
In the Hall of Currents, where flowing water formed living maps of the ocean’s pulse, High Seer Ba’Zhun, an elder shark mage with blade-like fins and scaled armor robes, growled.
“So… it’s true.” He jabbed a claw toward the rising plume in the holographic map.
“The Sea Ancestral Temple is burning its forges again.”
His disciple trembled.
“We thought the Eternal Furnace was buried forever. But sea wave chants confirm it. And… and they say it is not a Naga forging the weapon. It is a human.”
Ba’Zhun’s gills flared in fury.
“The Naga clan dares let an outsider touch the ancestral flame?”
His words echoed across the walls.
The water itself trembled.
“Send word to the Deepfin Hunters. Keep watch. If that weapon is made to challenge the abyss, we will strike it before it leaves the forge.”
–
The Naga Clan…
In the sacred inner chambers of the Naga Clan Palace, where spiral stairways wrapped around pillars of glowing runes, dozens of elders had gathered in fury.
At the center was the Naga prime elder, Su Naga, a three-headed serpent with crimson eyes and a bronze-scaled upper body.
“Muni Naga has broken ancestral law,” he hissed, each voice head echoing in a different tone. “He has awakened the Eternal Forge — and worse — he crafts a divine weapon for a land-dwelling human!”
“What arrogance!”
“What betrayal!”
“He will invite ruin upon us all!”
One elder, calmer than the rest, stepped forward.
“But… the Sea Temple has not sealed him out. It allowed the flames to burn. Perhaps the spirit recognizes the need—”
“No!” the prime elder thundered. “The gods slumber in that trench. The moment divine power touches the wrong current, the seals will shatter.”
“And if the Abyssal One stirs again… even the skies above will drown.”
–
At the edge of the Molten Crevice Range, long-dormant volcanic ridges began to flare.
Pillars of magma spewed into the dark sea like sunfire in a midnight sky.
Fishes turned to ash within seconds.
Beast kings hiding in old lava volcanoes swam for their lives.
One peak — Mount Vayu — hadn’t erupted in three thousand years.
Now it shook with the fury of forging echoes from the depths.
Elders across the ocean began whispering in terror.
In distant underwater cities, young spirit mages felt the pressure increase.
Merfolk priests clutched their temples and fainted mid-ritual.
The old war seers trembled and whispered among themselves.
“It’s not a war yet…”
“But someone is crafting its first weapon.”
“Not for the ocean… but for themselves.”
—
Inside the cave…
The bow shaft now floated mid-air, held in place by ten spell seals and anchored over a bed of flaming jade stones. It no longer looked like a simple weapon, but a living force — curved and coiled with latent energy, its surface etched with glowing divine runes pulsing like veins under skin.
All that remained…
Was the string.
And not just any string — this was the Ancestral Naga String, a sacred relic passed down through countless generations. Forged from the heart tendons of a Sea God Beast and soaked in immortal lightning essence, it shimmered faintly even in the firelight — long, silver-white, and impossibly tense, as if holding back centuries of stored violence.
“Are you ready?” Muni Naga asked, his voice deep, calm, but holding a flicker of reverence.
“This is not just a step… this is your claim. You will not use this bow. You will bind it. Break it, and it breaks you. Submit to it, and it escapes you.”
Kent nodded slowly. He walked forward, his steps steady despite the heat, the pressure, and the invisible weight of the sea watching them from above.
His fingers reached toward the cold metal of the bow’s upper limb.
The moment he touched it—
Boom!
–
Thank you guys for the patience… once weapon crafting is over, story steps on to main plot.
