Chapter 158: The Primordial III

The Primordial’s voice thundered through the water, its tone cold with divine fury.

"Uncivilized creatures... Do you dare defy the judgment of God?"

Its body blazed with light, and from its palms, dozens of stars erupted, spheres of pure white energy that spread through the water like a constellation given form. They pulsed once, twice, then detonated.

The explosions were catastrophic. Each star burst with enough force to shatter rock and boil the sea. The tentacles of the abyssal horror were caught in the blast, their grey flesh vaporizing under the divine light. The Sun Eater, still struggling to rise, took the full brunt of the barrage. Its massive body convulsed, its hide cracking, its light flickering as the stars tore through its flesh.

Gray moved on pure instinct. He threw himself over Cindy, wrapping his blade-tentacles around her small body, shielding her with his cracked carapace.

’Cindy!’

The shockwave hit them a heartbeat later. It was like being struck by a falling mountain, the pressure slammed into Gray’s back, his carapace groaning, the impact driving him down toward the seafloor. He held on, his tentacles locked tight around Cindy, his body absorbing the brunt of the blast.

[-124 HP]

[GRAY ASHFORD — HP: 924 / 1380]

The water churned violently, a maelstrom of debris and superheated steam. Visibility dropped to zero. The currents twisted in every direction, pulling and tearing at anything in their path.

And then, from the depths below, something shifted.

The true body of the tentacle creature began to rise.

It emerged from the black depths like a continent waking from sleep. Its body was incomprehensibly vast, a mass of coiled flesh and ancient chitin, its skin mottled grey and scarred from eons of existence. Its eyes opened one by one, their pupils dilating as they drank in the darkness. Its beak, a monstrous curved blade of obsidian, gnashed slowly, hungrily.

The abyssal horror that had dragged Gray into this nightmare was finally revealing itself.

But before it could rise fully, a shadow fell over the battlefield.

A single leviathan descended from the dark above.

Its massive body coiled around the rising horror, its weight and strength pressing down, keeping it pinned beneath the seafloor. The abyssal horror thrashed, its tentacles lashing out, but the leviathan held firm.

Gray stared at the scene, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.

’...It’s holding it back,’ he whispered. ’The leviathan... it’s keeping it from rising.’

Cindy’s voice was barely audible.

"Why...? Why would it do that?"

’Because if it rises,’ Gray said, ’something worse happens. Something even the leviathan is afraid of.’

The Primordial hovered above the chaos, its body still blazing with divine light.

"This changes nothing. The Seed of Calamity will be destroyed. Nothing will stand in the way of judgment."

The Primordial raised its spear, and the light around it began to gather.

The white energy condensed, compressing into a single point above its palm, growing brighter and denser until the water itself seemed to bend around it. The stars that had erupted from its body earlier were nothing compared to this. This was judgment given form.

A spear of pure, concentrated light, massive enough to pierce the heavens.

The Primordial’s voice echoed across the abyss, cold and absolute.

"[Spear of Judgment.]"

The spear fired.

It tore through the water like a falling star, a lance of blinding white energy that carved through everything in its path. The seafloor vaporized beneath it.

The shockwave that followed was immense, a pulse of divine force that slammed into Gray and Cindy even from a distance.

[-96 HP]

[GRAY ASHFORD — HP: 828 / 1380]

The Sun Eater took the full brunt of the attack.

The spear drove through its wing-like fin, pinning it to the seafloor. The colossal creature roared in agony.

GROOOOAAAAAHHHH!

Its body convulsed, its light flickering wildly. It tried to rise, tried to fire its beams, but the spear held it down. It was trapped.

The abyssal horror fared no better.

The leviathan was still pressing down on it, keeping it pinned beneath the seafloor, but the Primordial’s judgment didn’t discriminate. The spear carved through the darkness and struck the horror’s exposed body, piercing through its ancient hide.

A shriek that vibrated through the entire abyss.

KRIIIEEEEEEEE!

But then the spear kept going.

It struck the leviathan.

The ancient creature’s armored hide cracked under the impact. A wound opened along its flank, deep and bleeding, and for the first time, the leviathan’s expression shifted.

Its cold, ancient eyes turned toward the Primordial.

And they burned with fury.

The leviathan did not roar. It did not thrash. It simply... looked at the Primordial and then it attacked.

Its massive body shifted, its weight still holding the abyssal horror down, but its attention now fully focused on the white figure above. Its eyes blazed with dark light, and from its open jaws, something emerged in a wave of pure, absolute darkness.

FWOOOOSH!

The darkness spread through the water like ink, swallowing the light around it. The Primordial’s divine radiance flickered as the shadow approached, its brilliance dimming, its warmth fading.

And then the leviathan did something no one expected.

It absorbed the light.

The white energy around the Primordial began to flow toward the leviathan, drawn into its body like water into a whirlpool. The light didn’t just disappear. It was consumed, converted into something else entirely.

The leviathan’s eyes blazed brighter, now burning with a cold, dark radiance. Its wound began to close, the flesh knitting itself back together, strengthened by the stolen light.

And then it gave that power back.

BWOOOOOOOOM!

A concentrated blast of black energy, darker than the abyss itself, shot from the leviathan’s maw. It tore through the water, leaving a trail of absolute void in its wake, and slammed into the Primordial.

KRRRAAAASSSHHH!

The impact was devastating.

The Primordial’s white armor cracked. Its light guttered. Its body was hurled backward, tumbling through the water, its divine radiance flickering like a candle in a storm. It crashed into a distant rock formation, the stone shattering beneath it.

BOOOOOM!

For the first time, the Primordial looked vulnerable.

Gray stared at the scene, his mind struggling to process what he had just witnessed.

’...It absorbed the light,’ he whispered. ’It absorbed the Primordial’s power and gave it back as darkness.’