The ocean floor shuddered.
Dark currents coiled through the southern trench, stirring the sand into slow spirals. In the dim light of glowing coral, two figures waited, one kneeling, one standing still as carved obsidian.
The kneeling one was trembling. His gills flared erratically, blood leaking from one side of his jaw. The wound pulsed where scales had been crushed flat, a handprint burned into his flesh.
"Say it again," the standing figure said, voice low and deep. It reverberated like thunder swallowed by water.
The survivor swallowed thickly. "M-my lord, we were ambushed. The human, he came out of nowhere. Qi-Gathering realm, by the look of it, but..." He faltered, memory dragging him back to the moment of impact. To the air turning solid, to blood mist where comrades had stood.
The taller figure tilted his head. Even in the dim, the outline of his shark-like form was unmistakable, broad shoulders, armor of black coral etched with fang motifs, a massive bone spear resting against his shoulder. Faint silver sigils traced down his gills, marks of royal blood. His eyes, white and pitiless, fixed on the kneeling warrior.
"But?" he pressed.
The survivor's throat worked. "He killed them. All three. And Lord Dazil. It wasn't even a fight, he… he didn't use Qi. I couldn't sense any fluctuation."
Silence filled the water, heavy as the trench itself.
The prince's tail flicked once, slow and deliberate. His teeth caught the faint light, a shark's grin, humorless. "You're telling me," he said, "that a human whelp at Qi-Gathering slaughtered three Foundation Establishment warriors and one Core formation… without using Qi?"
"Yes, my lord," the survivor whispered. "He… he just moved."
A pause. The prince's nostrils flared, tasting the current. The faint trace of burnt blood still clung to it, coppery, wrong. "And the target?"
"Escaped. The Azure Depth Prince. We… we lost his trail past the volcanic ridge."
The prince's expression didn't change, but the water around him began to boil faintly. His aura leaked, vast, crushing core formation pressure, a tide made of killing intent. "You failed to kill one and lost four."
The survivor lowered his head to the sand. "I... I returned to warn you.."
He didn't finish. The spear moved once, clean, almost casual. The shaft whistled through the water and buried itself through the warrior's torso. A bubble of blood drifted upward like a sigh.
The prince didn't even look at the body as it slumped.
"Inform the sentries," he said to the shadows beyond. "Raise the trench guard. No one enters without my word."
A dozen silhouettes stirred, warriors with black fins and jagged armor, their eyes gleaming faintly in the gloom. They bowed wordlessly and vanished into the deeper dark.
The prince watched them go, his face expressionless. Only when he turned did the faint curl of a smile break the surface.
"A human that kills without Qi," he murmured, "and the lost heir of the Azure Depths… crossing paths."
He gripped the trident, its edge glimmering faintly. "Let them come. The trench eats everything."
Hours later, far above, the surface rippled.
Yan Shen and Kaelrin stood side by side at the volcano's edge, the dawn behind them spilling faint silver across the waves. The air smelled of salt and heat. A gull wheeled overhead before vanishing into mist.
Kaelrin adjusted the strap that held his trident to his back. His expression was calm, but there was a flicker of unease in the set of his jaw. "We'll reach the trench before midday. After that, we descend fast. Once we're below the thermocline, no surface eyes can see us."
Yan Shen gave a short nod, rolling his shoulders. His body thrummed faintly under his skin, muscles alive, charged. The idea of diving miles into the sea didn't stir fear, only curiosity.
"Just stay close," Kaelrin added, stepping into the surf. "If the currents shift, even a cultivator can vanish forever."
Yan Shen's lips quirked faintly. "I'll manage."
Kaelrin shot him a look over his shoulder, half amusement, half warning. "That's what they all say."
He dove. His body cut the surface like a blade, the water closing silently above him. The silver shimmer of his hair vanished in a single ripple.
Yan Shen exhaled once, slipped the pale blue stone from his ring, and turned it in his fingers. Its faint pulse mirrored his heartbeat.
"I shouldn't need it," he thought, mouth twitching slightly. If the Viltrumite blood holds true, breath is optional.
Then he smiled, small, private and dove after him.
The world shifted instantly.
Cold closed around him like a second skin. Sound dulled, replaced by the slow rhythm of his own heartbeat. Above him, the surface receded into brightness then blurred, then vanished.
Darkness thickened.
Kaelrin was a shape of silver ahead, a faint radiance from the markings along his arms and trident. He swam with an ease that spoke of heritage, every motion precise, effortless, natural.
Yan Shen followed, his own body carving through the water as easily as in the air. His blood felt heavy, alive, the pressure was nothing more than faint weight, the chill barely touching him.
After a few hundred meters, Kaelrin's voice brushed across his thoughts. A vibration, soft and resonant, carried by the water itself. "Stay close. The trench begins soon. The currents here spiral."
Yan Shen frowned slightly. He could feel the message rather than hear it. He tried to respond no words came, just air trapped in his chest.
So he did the next thing that came naturally.
He gathered a thread of Qi, pulsed it through his throat and chest, and forced the vibration outward. The sound that came wasn't a word, but an impression a low, metallic hum that translated into thought.
"Understood."
Kaelrin slowed slightly, glancing back, eyes narrowing. You don't use thought resonance?
Yan Shen shook his head once.
Kaelrin's expression shifted, disbelief, maybe curiosity. You're really Qi-Gathering, then... I thought that was just you hiding your strength to mock those dumb sharks.
Yan Shen's hum carried a faint echo of amusement.
Mocking them was free.
Kaelrin's mouth curved faintly.
Remind me not to be your enemy.
They descended for what felt like hours. The faint green light of the upper sea faded to blue, then indigo, then black. Only Kaelrin's trident remained visible, glowing with quiet blue fire.
Below, the trench opened like a wound in the world, sheer cliffs of basalt plunging into bottomless dark. Strange lights pulsed faintly from within the chasm, like eyes opening and closing in slow rhythm.
Kaelrin halted at the edge, gesturing downward.
We're close. The shrine lies beyond that ridge.
Yan Shen's senses expanded slightly, his Qi spreading in ripples. The world unfolded pressure, life, movement. Something brushed the edge of his perception. Too fast. Too many.
He flexed his fingers. We're not alone.
Kaelrin stiffened. His trident brightened slightly. The glow painted the darkness, revealing shapes rising from the gloom below.
Figures.
Dozens of them, each one armored in dull bone-white coral, their bodies thicker, their jaws sharper. Their fins quivered with restrained violence.
The Southern Water Teeth.
The nearest one lifted his trident, water swirling around him. His voice carried through the deep, sharp and guttural. "Royal blood," he snarled. "And the land-rat that stinks of blood. Lord Varn expected you."
Kaelrin's grip on his weapon tightened.
Varn, he thought. The First Prince. He knows we're coming.
Yan Shen's reply was a ripple through the water, cold and certain. Then he'll die knowing.
The first wave moved.
The sea erupted.
Water became a weapon, dense spears, pressure blades, spiraling vortices screaming through the dark. The Teeth warriors advanced in formation, their strikes calculated and crushing.
Kaelrin darted forward, his trident flashing arcs of azure light. His movements were fluid, beautiful in the way a predator's death strike was beautiful, pure instinct and power. Each sweep of his weapon tore through a vortex, redirecting it into the attackers.
Yan Shen moved differently.
He didn't swim, he moved. One instant, he was a silhouette amid light; the next, a ghost at an enemy's flank. A single blow crushed a fishman's chest inward, the shockwave warping the surrounding water into rippling rings.
Kaelrin felt the pressure of that strike even several meters away. It wasn't Qi, . It was something heavier. Denser.
He's not using Qi at all, Kaelrin realized. He's forcing the sea itself aside with pure might.
Another wave of warriors surged from below, dozens more pouring up from the trench's mouth. The water turned crimson as blood drifted upward like smoke.
Kaelrin spun his trident, creating a spiral current around them, a temporary barrier of compressed water. He looked toward Yan Shen, ready to call out a warning
but the words died in his throat.
Yan Shen was already there.
The new attackers had barely crossed half the distance before the water convulsed around them, collapsing in on itself like crushed glass. Pressure detonated outward in a perfect sphere. Bodies folded, armor imploded, bone and scale turning to drifting fragments that sank soundlessly through the dark.
Kaelrin froze, his own heartbeat suddenly loud in his ears. The light of his trident flickered over Yan Shen's form, calm, unmoving, eyes faintly luminescent. The sea bent around him, not because of Qi, but because of pure power!
What Kaelrin meant to say caught somewhere between awe and disbelief, and never left his mouth.
They moved together, slicing downward through the chaos. The Teeth pursued in furious formation, the water behind them boiling with violence.
For every one that struck, another fell. Kaelrin's trident gleamed, Yan Shen's fists shattered armor like glass. But more came, drawn by blood and vengeance.
The deeper they went, the darker it became, until even Kaelrin's trident light struggled to cut through the pressure.
Somewhere below, a pulse echoed, ancient, rhythmic, like the heartbeat of the abyss itself.
Kaelrin felt it before he saw it the distant shimmer of the shrine's barrier. "There!" he shouted, that thought transmitted through every drop of water.
But between them and that faint glow rose a wall of shapes, larger, heavier, their eyes burning with cold light.
Foundation Establishment warriors, twice as many as before.
The leader stepped forward, trident leveled, his teeth bared in a grim smile. "You won't reach the depths, prince," he said. "The see will belongs to us now."
Kaelrin tightened his grip on his weapon. "Then drown in your own claim."
Beside him, Yan Shen's aura shifted. Not Qi, something else. His presence focused,The pressure spiked, the water itself recoiling.
He cracked his neck and whispered through the vibration, low and steady. "Let's do this."
And together, they dove into the oncoming storm.