"Roar!"
With that thunderous bellow, they finally saw the mutant sea beast out in the deep.
A giant octopus, its body towering several hundred meters high!
Its golden eyes fixed on the three of them, bright with excitement.
That aura—
This was the aura it had sensed before!
"Roar!"
Its tentacles curled into a vast, ring-shaped aperture. Black radiance gathered at the center, then suddenly lanced toward the trio as a beam.
That pitch-black beam carried a crushing, annihilating force, as if it meant to erase everything before it.
"Hmph."
"—Sing!"
Skyler Quinn gave a cold snort—and with a dragon's cry, a colossal crimson dragon flared into being behind him and plunged headlong to meet the black light.
"Boom!"
The detonation was apocalyptic. The ocean at ground zero erupted, waves heaving and rolling. Skyler's attack speared through the black beam—reduced in size, yes, but still thrumming with terrifying power.
"Rrrooo—"
The mutant giant octopus reacted as if presented with the most tempting delicacy. It opened a cavernous maw and swallowed the dragon of condensed flame whole. A look of pure relish passed through its golden eyes.
"What?!"
Skyler's gaze hardened, incredulous.
He wasn't surprised that a mutant creature might awaken a devouring ability. But one that could swallow his flames—this was a first.
Judging from its reaction, even if his attack hadn't been partially offset by that black beam, this thing might still have swallowed it.
"Let's see how many you can devour."
He sprang upward. Endless fire wove beneath his feet, and if one looked closely, flickers of flame-born runes seemed to glimmer within it.
He raised his right hand and curled his fingers into a fist.
"Boom!"
Scarlet fire poured into his palm, condensed, and compressed—again and again—until it became a flame-forged spear several meters long.
On the shaft, if you peered carefully, a crimson dragon coiled along it, flicking its fiery tongue.
It wasn't only Firewing and Chris Frost watching. Soldiers throwing up new defenses and the Bureau's operatives combing the city for survivors all turned to stare at the man framed by his own blaze, standing against the sky.
"If you can do it, then show me."
"Swallow this."
The chill in his voice carried cutting frost. A streak of fire tore the heavens and streaked straight for the mutant giant octopus.
"Roar!"
The giant octopus whipped its tentacles, and black light congealed into a towering barrier to block the blow. There was no question—it felt danger in that strike.
"Crack!"
In less than two seconds, fractures veined across the dark bulwark. The scarlet spear punched through.
"Roar, roar, roar—!"
A wail of agony shook the sea. The octopus writhed, pounding the ocean with its massive arms. Swells thundered and roared across the surface.
But that was only the beginning.
The spear, compressed to the limit, suddenly burst. A storm of blistering flame poured out of it without restraint, engulfing the mutant giant octopus whole.
"Is… is it over?"
A soldier stacking blocks for the new wall asked it hesitantly.
The true culprit behind Haicheng's shattered defenses—the mutant beast that had made so many quake—was it really dead that easily?
Not that it was truly "easy"—it just looked easy, that was all. He didn't know how to put it. Anyway… was it dead?
"Should be. The Dragon Emperor struck, after all."
Another soldier beside him sounded uncertain too.
It had seemed almost too simple. That thing's bulk—hundreds of meters—was monstrous.
Dead already? It felt unreal.
But this was the Dragon Emperor—second only to the White Emperor among Huaxia's known powerhouses. Felling it wasn't exactly beyond belief.
So what if it was huge? Maybe it was all show.
"No—look at the Dragon Emperor. It's not over."
The sudden shout snapped eyes back to Skyler. Sure enough, he was still watching the burning sea with a grim face. He could feel the creature's life-force—still present.
In fact, his last strike hadn't done much damage at all.
"ROAR!!!"
A furious howl rose from the heart of the flames. Then, to everyone's disbelief, streams of black mist welled out from the blaze's center and spread in all directions.
The berserk, blistering fire met that darkness—and after a brief struggle, the darkness blanketed and devoured it. Gradually the fire was swallowed entirely, and shadow shrouded the sea.
"The Dark-Dark Fruit?"
Firewing stared, uncertain.
Had this mutant octopus eaten the Dark-Dark Fruit?
But Devil Fruits—aside from her own case—were supposed to fear seawater.
Maybe not to the point of total inability to swim, but in the sea they should lose the vast majority of their combat strength. And this thing… did not look impaired in the slightest.
Or did ocean-born creatures that ate a Devil Fruit not fear the sea?
Or perhaps she was simply wrong, and what it had awakened was a darkness-type ability—no Devil Fruit involved at all.
"Forget it."
Firewing shook her head. Her expression hardened.
Fruit or no fruit, whatever its awakened power was—right now her only job was to join Skyler and kill this thing.
"Ka-dunk!"
"Ka-dunk!"
"Ka-dunk!"
The abrupt sound drew the attention of the octopus, of Skyler, and of Firewing alike. They turned toward it—and there, rising from the waves, a black-and-white colossus no smaller than the mutant octopus broke the surface and loosed an angry bellow at them.
"Is that… an orca?"
Black and white, with oval white patches like eyes—massive, yet somehow cute at a glance.
But—
"Orcas are anything but cute," Firewing said, tone weighted.
Before the resurgence of spiritual energy, orcas were the ocean's apex.
Keen minds, lethal bite force, tremendous stamina. A single orca had almost no enemies at sea—yet they usually moved in pods.
They had no natural predators but humans.
Even blue whales only surpassed them in size; hunting one typically took a pod of thirty or more orcas. Ordinary pods numbered about ten.
And when the orcas moved together, even adult blue whales yielded and fled.
Most orcas measured seven to nine meters. The largest recorded specimen reached 9.75 meters—and perhaps there were bigger.
But this one—
Staring at the behemoth hundreds of meters long—no smaller than the giant octopus—Firewing's mouth twitched.
It was as if every mutant creature grew huge—powerful, therefore enormous.
So why didn't humans get the same treatment?
Are we… special?
(End of this chapter)