Chapter 22: The Limpid Sea
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Cynthia chose to trust her instincts and decisively rejected Loki’s request to join the party.
Loki shrugged helplessly. Just as he turned to leave, he gave Cynthia a long, meaningful look. “There is more beneath the Clear Sea than merely the Deep-Sea Folk. Be careful.”
With that, Loki departed alone.
Cynthia watched his retreating figure vanish into the distance along the beach, carefully turning over the warning he had given her in her mind.
The Deep-Sea Folk was a general term for all marine creatures that lived beneath the ocean. Apart from them, Cynthia could think of no other race capable of remaining underwater for extended periods.
“My queen?” Azathoth asked, somewhat concerned.
Cynthia gave a soft hum and explained, “I’m fine, Azathoth. Let’s find Rhea first.”
“What about the Blade of Time?”
“Not for now. Finding Rhea is our immediate priority.”
With that, Cynthia started toward the shoreline, her little black leather shoes leaving a clear trail of footprints in the sand.
The two of them hurried along the coast. The salty sea wind gradually strengthened, and dark clouds began to gather overhead.
Far away, the surface of the sea began to churn unnaturally, shimmering with an eerie light.
“A storm is coming,” Azathoth said. In an instant, his clothes transformed into black battle armor.
Cynthia narrowed her eyes and stopped. “Look over there.”
Perched upon a reef rising from the sea sat a strange young man with a fish’s tail. He hummed an eerie tune, tracing circles across the surface of the water with his fingers. The seawater followed his movements, forming tiny whirlpools that gradually expanded until they evolved into a tsunami.
The tsunami surged toward the shore, blotting out the sky. Cynthia’s pupils contracted. “Azathoth, stop him.”
Without the slightest hesitation, Azathoth summoned his twin crescent blades and charged straight toward the reef, running across the heaving waves.
Yet just as he was about to reach it, the fish-tailed young man stopped humming. The tsunami froze in an instant, and he slowly turned to look at Cynthia and Azathoth.
His eyes were a pure blue, without pupils, as deep as an endless ocean. They held no emotion whatsoever—only a cold, detached indifference.
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He raised one hand.
Boom—
A colossal wall of water erupted without warning before Azathoth, a heavy barrier as solid as stone that abruptly blocked his path.
Azathoth swung his blades, cleaving the water wall in two. The fish-tailed young man leapt into the Clear Sea, a column of water rising beneath him to support him securely.
“The Clear Sea does not welcome the Abyssal Folk. Leave at once.” The young man’s voice was ethereal and peculiar, like countless bubbles bursting beneath the waves.
Cynthia summoned a Star Bubble and flew to Azathoth’s side. The waves had already soaked the hem of her dress. She fixed her gaze on those blue eyes. “The Abyssal Folk and the Deep-Sea Folk live side by side—”
“Silence! Leave now, or I will show you no mercy!” The fish-tailed young man seemed to have been provoked, and his voice was thick with killing intent.
Cynthia’s words were brutally cut off. The blue in his eyes seemed to boil, and the air around him trembled beneath the force of his power. Without another word, he suddenly spread both arms wide.
The Clear Sea answered his fury.
Several tentacles formed from seawater burst violently from the surface around Cynthia and Azathoth. Carrying tremendous force, they lashed toward the two of them.
“Azathoth, come to me.”
At Cynthia’s call, Azathoth flashed to her side. Seizing the moment, Cynthia moved toward one of the tentacles, deliberately allowing it to stab toward her chest.
[ Ding! A lethal attack against the host has been detected! Little Cutie’s Absolute Domain has been activated automatically! (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ ]
The familiar pink membrane of light unfolded in an instant, enveloping Cynthia and Azathoth alike.
The raging water tentacle shattered the moment it struck the pink barrier, bursting apart like foam against an invisible wall and transforming into countless sparkling droplets that fell back into the sea.
A flicker of astonishment crossed the fish-tailed young man’s eyes.
“What… is this power?” A barely perceptible tremor entered his ethereal voice. His pure blue eyes locked tightly onto Cynthia, and the cold indifference they had held before was replaced by wariness and scrutiny.
Cynthia stood within the Absolute Domain as droplets of water slowly slid from the hem of her dress.
She keenly caught the change in his emotions, and something stirred within her heart.
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Loki’s warning, the other man’s unusually intense reaction, and his astonishment at the Absolute Domain… Everything pointed to a deeper secret hidden beneath the Clear Sea.
“We mean you no harm, nor do we wish to make enemies of the Deep-Sea Folk. We are only searching for one of our companions—a female member of the Abyssal Folk who became lost in these waters.” Cynthia’s voice carried through the membrane of light, calm and clear.
She deliberately slowed her speech, watching the fish-tailed young man’s reaction. His pupil-less blue eyes seemed to contract slightly, and even the raging waves around them appeared to pause for a fleeting moment.
“The person you seek is not here.”
His tone remained stiff, but the killing intent seemed to have lessened somewhat. What remained was mostly wariness. “The presence of the Abyssal Folk has tainted the Clear Sea. Leave immediately. This is your final warning.”
“If we find her, we will leave of our own accord,” Cynthia insisted, while secretly signaling to Azathoth.
Azathoth understood. He slid both blades into the slots at the small of his armored back. The two crescent blades crossed behind him, forming a strange decorative piece.
The fish-tailed young man fell silent for a moment. The sea wind carried salty moisture through the air, stirring several tiny finlike scales beside his ears.
He seemed to be weighing his options, his gaze shifting between the eerie pink membrane and Azathoth’s dangerous crescent blades.
At last, he spoke again. His voice remained ethereal, but now carried a trace of something more complicated.
“The person you seek… may not be here. But if you insist on staying and awaken the thing sleeping beneath the Clear Sea, then even this strange barrier may not be enough to protect you.”
“The thing sleeping beneath the Clear Sea?” Cynthia immediately seized upon the crucial information and pressed him at once. “What thing?”
The fish-tailed young man, however, seemed to awaken abruptly to what he had said. He stopped himself mid-sentence and gave Cynthia a deep look. His expression was impossible to decipher—there was warning in it, and apprehension, and perhaps even a trace of inexplicable worry.
He did not answer.
He merely flicked his fish tail. The column of water beneath him crashed down, and his figure sank into the sea with it, vanishing without a trace.
At the same time, the waves around them quickly settled, and the suffocating pressure receded like the tide.
The dark clouds overhead did not disperse, yet the surface of the sea miraculously returned to a temporary calm. Only the gentle sound of waves lapping against the shore remained.
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