The first thing Aron felt wasn't the magic.
It was the salt.
It crashed into him without warning—down his throat, into his lungs, flooding every hollow space inside his chest like the world had decided to drown him personally. He convulsed, body folding in on itself, coughing so violently his ribs screamed in protest. The taste was sharp and chemical, burning his tongue, his sinuses, his eyes. He rolled onto his side and retched, bile and brine spilling uselessly across the deck.
Cold wood pressed against his cheek.
Not smooth wood. Not polished. This was warped, uneven, swollen with age and soaked in something older than water. His fingers clawed at it on instinct, scraping skin raw as they slid across splintered planks and something jagged beneath—barnacles.
They weren't normal.
They clung to the deck like tumors, thick clusters of calcified growth pulsing faintly with a dull, sickly light. The glow wasn't bright enough to illuminate anything properly—just enough to make the darkness feel deliberate. Like the ship wanted to be seen, but only barely.
Aron squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again.
The world swam. Bruised purples and sickly greys smeared together, the horizon bending like wet paper. His ears rang. His heartbeat thundered loud enough that he half-expected someone else to complain about the noise.
The last thing he remembered was the college library.
Dust motes drifting lazily through fluorescent light. The low hum of air-conditioning. A book open in front of him—Introduction to Marine Biology, borrowed for his younger brother, Evan, who had been obsessed with sharks for three straight months. Evan had begged him to help with a school project, eyes bright, missing one front tooth, convinced Aron knew everything because he was "a college student now."
You're basically a scientist, Evan had said.
Aron had laughed and promised he'd help after finals.
Then there was salt.
"Don't stand up too fast," a voice said nearby, rough and grounded. "Your senses are still catching up. And the floor isn't as solid as it looks."
Aron blinked hard, wiping stinging brine from his eyes with the heel of his palm. The world snapped into focus by painful degrees.
He was on a ship.
Or what remained of one.
It was massive—easily the size of a galleon—but ancient in a way that didn't align with any historical period Aron knew. The wood looked less built than fossilized, petrified into place by centuries of exposure to something corrosive. Thick veins of glowing barnacles crept along the hull, the mast, the railings—every surface—like veins under diseased skin.
Around him, dozens of people lay scattered across the deck.
Some were vomiting, their bodies folding and unfolding like broken machines. Some were sobbing quietly, clutching themselves or each other with white-knuckled desperation. Others stared straight up at the sky, unmoving, their eyes wide and glassy, as if their minds had arrived somewhere their bodies hadn't survived.
A woman nearby whispered a prayer in a language Aron didn't recognize. She repeated the same phrase over and over, faster each time, until it dissolved into breathless nonsense.
A man in a business suit laughed softly to himself, rocking back and forth, muttering, "This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't—"
"Where…" Aron croaked. His throat felt flayed raw. "The college library… I was just—"
"The library's gone, kid," the man beside him said. He was kneeling, steady hands helping a shaking girl sit upright. Broad-shouldered. Solid. The kind of presence that made chaos feel slightly less overwhelming simply by existing within it. "This is the Devil's Shore."
He glanced at Aron. "Name's Jaden. Stay close. You're in for a bad day."
"A bad day?" Aron echoed weakly.
A sharp, mocking laugh cut through the air.
"A 'bad day' is losing your wallet in a bar, Jaden," a voice called from atop a nearby crate. "This? This is a mass grave with better scenery."
The speaker was a lean young man with messy hair and eyes that never stopped moving. They flicked from horizon to horizon, from sky to sea, cataloging threats faster than Aron could process them. He was knee-deep in a pile of abandoned supplies, already stuffing a dried ration bar into his pocket like this was a routine inconvenience.
"We just haven't realized we're the corpses yet."
"Shut up, Jester," Jaden snapped.
"Just being honest." Jester vaulted down from the crate with casual ease, landing far too smoothly for someone who should have been just as disoriented as everyone else. He looked Aron over with open appraisal—pity threaded with calculation. "Name's Jester. I'm the guy who's going to survive."
He jabbed a finger lightly into Aron's chest.
"You," he said, "look like the guy who's going to scream and attract something with teeth. Try not to do that. It's bad for my mental health."
Aron opened his mouth to respond—
And the sea changed.
The water surrounding the ship wasn't blue. Not even dark blue. It was a thick, oily black, swallowing light rather than reflecting it, like an open wound that refused to heal. Above them, two moons hung low and dim—one a bile-green smear, the other fractured violet, cracked like broken glass.
The ship groaned.
Not a creak.
A hum.
Low. Subsonic. It vibrated through the deck, up Aron's legs, into his spine. His teeth ached. His stomach twisted.
"Something's coming!" someone screamed from the prow.
Aron staggered to the railing, heart hammering. Out in the distance, the ocean began to tilt.
Not rise.
Tilt.
The water itself was being pushed aside.
A fin broke the surface—vast, jagged, encrusted with coral-like growths. Then another. Each one was the size of a hospital wing, rising slowly, indifferently.
As the creature breached, the ship—over two hundred feet long—suddenly felt like a toy dropped into a bathtub.
It was a fish.
The word felt absurd even as his mind clung to it, desperate for familiarity.
Its scales were the size of houses, layered and ancient, glowing faintly with deep-sea bioluminescence. When it exhaled, a geyser of mist and glowing plankton erupted skyward, painting the night in sickly greens and blues.
"Attack it!" a man in a business suit screamed, hands scrabbling uselessly for something—anything—to throw. "If we don't we'll get eaten—"
"You idiot—get down!" Jester hissed, lunging forward and slamming the man flat against the deck.
"Why aren't we fighting?" Aron gasped, fingers brushing the shaft of a rusted harpoon near the mast.
"Fight it?" Jester shot him a look like he'd just suggested punching the ocean. "Kid—look at its eye."
Aron did.
As the Leviathan drifted past, a massive golden eye—larger than a city block—rolled lazily in its socket.
It didn't focus.
It didn't see.
The ship. The screaming humans. The glowing fools waving newfound power around—none of it registered.
To the creature, they weren't threats.
They weren't prey.
They were less than dust.
A god passing a grain of sand.
The ship's wake hit moments later. The deck tilted violently, nearly capsizing. People screamed as they were flung into the black water, their cries cut short as the sea swallowed them whole.
Aron clung to a rope, knuckles white, chest heaving.
As the Leviathan vanished into the depths, a translucent blue screen flickered into existence before his eyes.
[TRIAL STATUS: ACTIVE]
[Current Objective: Reach the Devil's Shore]
[Warning: Survival Rate 0.27%]
The System didn't care either.
---
The ship had barely finished screaming when the second threat arrived.
It wasn't announced by thunder or prophecy.
It came quietly.
Harpoons made of glowing green glass slammed into the railing with sharp, surgical precision. One embedded itself inches from Aron's face, the impact rattling his skull. Another punched straight through a mast support like it was wet wood.
Five figures vaulted from the black sea in perfect synchronization.
They weren't monsters.
That was the worst part.
They were humanoid—tall, lean, their skin a deep, iridescent teal that shimmered faintly under the barnacle-light. Armor carved from layered sea shells hugged their bodies, etched with spiraling symbols that made Aron's eyes ache if he stared too long. They landed lightly, boots striking the deck with practiced ease, as if this wasn't a massacre waiting to happen—just work.
One landed three feet from Aron.
Jaden moved instantly.
"Get back!" he roared, earthy light flaring around his fists as he swung a heavy punch.
The scout caught it.
One hand.
No strain. No reaction.
He didn't even look at Jaden.
His attention was fixed on a floating blue holographic screen hovering inches from his face—identical to the one that had just condemned Aron. Symbols scrolled across it rapidly, incomprehensible but unmistakably analytical.
The scout sneered and spoke in a melodic, bubbling tongue that dripped with contempt.
Then he shoved Jaden aside.
Jaden skidded across the deck like a discarded tool, slamming into a coil of rope hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.
"They're not here for us," Jester whispered, already crouched behind a barrel. His eyes tracked the scouts as they moved with surgical efficiency—past weapons, past gold, past the screaming humans—straight toward the ship's hold.
Aron followed their gaze.
The scouts descended into the hold and emerged moments later carrying a single glowing orb, cradled with reverence. Its light pulsed softly, alive.
The leader turned back once.
His gaze swept the survivors—cold, ancient, bored. It paused briefly on Aron's face.
Then he spat on the deck.
The message was unmistakable.
Humans weren't enemies.
They were debris.
With a collective splash, the scouts vanished back into the sea, orb in hand. They didn't kill anyone—not out of mercy, but because the effort wasn't worth the mana.
Silence followed.
Not peace.
Shock.
Aron forced himself to stand, legs trembling. Around him, survivors stared at the empty water, some laughing hysterically, others quietly checking their bodies like they couldn't believe they were intact.
"They didn't even care," Aron said, voice raw. "None of it. We weren't even worth killing."
Jester paused mid-loot. Looked up.
A dark, jagged smile crept across his face.
"Exactly, kid. That's our only advantage."
He jerked his chin toward a rusted sword lying half-buried in grime.
"We're invisible."
The air changed first.
A pressure ripple skimmed across the water, like the sea itself flinching.
Jaden's lazy slouch snapped upright. "Yeah," he muttered. "I hear it."
A sound followed—skrrrreee—skrrrreee—metal scraping metal, multiplied a hundredfold.
Shapes broke the mist above the waves.
Long, sleek bodies of bone-pale flesh with iron blades fused where fins should've been. Their eyes glowed a sickly cerulean, locked onto movement with predatory precision.
Flying Swordfish.
They didn't roar.
They whistled as they dove.
"Spread out!" Jester barked. "They hunt clusters!"
Too late.
The first one speared through the air like a living javelin.
Aron barely twisted aside. The blade-fins sliced past his ribs, carving cloth and skin alike. Pain exploded—hot, wet, intimate.
He screamed.
The sound tore out of him before he could stop it.
Another Swordfish followed immediately, its scream harmonizing with the first. Aron stumbled backward, heart slamming against his ribs hard enough to hurt.
Get up.
The thought came unbidden—and with it, an image.
His mother at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a chipped mug, eyes tired but soft. His father standing by the sink, sleeves rolled up, pretending he wasn't listening to Evan talk endlessly about sharks and dorsal fins and "which ones were the coolest." Evan grinning at Aron like he was invincible.
You promised you'd help me, Evan had said.
Aron grabbed the rusted harpoon.
The impact rattled his arms to the bone as the Swordfish collided with it. Sparks burst where metal met metal. The creature shrieked—a sound like tearing steel—and recoiled midair.
It could be hurt.
Jester laughed, wild and delighted. "Oh, it hurts them! That's adorable!"
Another Swordfish lunged for Jaden. Jaden sidestepped with brutal calm, grabbed a loose chain, and yanked. The creature overextended.
Jester was already there.
Crunch.
The Swordfish split in two midair, black ichor spraying across the planks.
The corpse hit the deck hard.
Dead weight. Meat and bone.
It didn't vanish.
A soft pressure passed through Aron's chest.
Not heat.
Not pain.
Recognition.
> [SOUL ITEM ACQUIRED]
Item: Aerial Fang (Flying Swordfish)
Type: Passive / Technique
Effect: Grants limited understanding of aerial momentum and strike acceleration.
The message lingered for less than a second.
The corpse remained.
Aron's vision sharpened. The world felt… angled. Like invisible lines of force had revealed themselves.
"What—what was that?" he gasped.
Jester didn't look surprised. "Congratulations. You've earned your first soul item."
Another Swordfish dove.
Aron moved.
Not away.
Into it.
He stepped forward instead of retreating, angling the harpoon precisely where it needed to be—where it felt right. The creature impaled itself. Aron twisted hard.
The scream cut off.
For a heartbeat, Aron expected guilt.
It didn't come.
Instead, there was warmth.
A frightening, intoxicating warmth.
This feels right.
The thought terrified him more than the monsters.
Another Swordfish descended.
Aron jumped.
Too high.
Too fast.
Wind screamed past his ears. For a split second, panic seized him—
Then he tilted his body.
The air caught him.
He twisted midair, bringing the weapon down in a falling arc that felt inevitable. The blade bit clean through the creature's skull.
He landed hard, rolling, breath ripping from his lungs.
Alive.
Hands shaking.
Jester stared. "Huh. You leveled up mid-panic."
"Shut up!" Aron snapped.
The swarm thinned.
Then adapted.
They circled.
Jester's grin sharpened. "See that? They learned."
The Swordfish screamed in unison.
The air collapsed inward.
A shockwave blasted across the deck, slamming Aron into the mast. Pain flared white-hot across his ribs. Blood filled his mouth.
But inside—
The warmth wasn't fear anymore.
It was hunger.
He ripped a Swordfish from the hull and charged the swarm.
Another kill.
Another surge.
Another fragment of something ancient settling into his soul.
And for the first time—
The Devil Sea noticed him.
Below is Part 3, concluding Chapter 1: The Barnacles of the Abyss.
This section focuses on aftermath, family motivation crystallizing, knowledge as poison, and Aron's first conscious choice to survive at any cost, ending cleanly on the bait decision.
---
Chapter 1: The Barnacles of the Abyss (Part 3)
The ship didn't cheer when the last Swordfish fell.
There was no relief. No triumph.
Only silence.
The deck was littered with bodies—some human, some not. Black ichor pooled in the grooves between petrified planks, steaming faintly where it touched the glowing barnacles. A few survivors stood frozen, weapons dangling uselessly from numb hands. Others collapsed where they stood, sobbing into their palms, the sound raw and animal.
The screaming hadn't vanished.
It had changed.
It became quieter. Rhythmic. A low, broken sob that echoed through the ribs of the ancient ship like a dying heartbeat.
Aron sank down onto a coil of rope near the mast. The fibers were stiff, calcified by salt and time, biting into his palms. His hands wouldn't stop shaking—not from fear, not anymore, but from the aftershock of movement finally ending.
Every time he blinked, he saw it again.
The Leviathan's eye.
Not hatred.
Not curiosity.
Absence.
It wasn't that the creature could have killed them.
It was that it hadn't bothered to notice they were alive.
That thought lodged itself in Aron's chest like a shard of ice.
Nearby, Jaden worked in silence, methodically wrapping his bruised knuckles with strips of cloth torn from a dead man's shirt. His movements were precise, economical, practiced. He didn't grimace when he tightened the makeshift bandages—just tested his grip, nodded once, and moved on.
Jester, meanwhile, sat cross-legged on the railing, idly flipping a silver coin across his knuckles. It flashed in the dim light, a pointless little miracle of control. He hummed softly to himself, tuneless and cheerful, as if they hadn't nearly been erased from existence.
The contrast snapped something in Aron.
"How do you know?" he asked.
The words cut through the quiet sharper than any scream.
Both men looked at him.
"You knew to hide," Aron continued, forcing himself to stand. His legs trembled, but he stayed upright. "You knew the scouts wouldn't kill us if we didn't resist. And you—" He turned to Jaden. "You braced before the Leviathan's wake even hit. Before it passed us."
Jaden's hands stilled.
The coin froze mid-flip.
"Took you long enough," Jester said lightly. "I was starting to worry higher education had finally failed us."
"Answer him," Jaden said, tired.
Jester sighed theatrically and hopped down from the railing. His grin didn't quite reach his eyes this time.
"My father was a Survivor," he said.
The word landed hard.
"He came back," Jester went on, "missing half a lung. Could see in total darkness. Strong enough to snap a man's arm like a dry twig." He tapped his temple. "And he brought something better than any artifact."
Aron swallowed. "People come back?"
"Sometimes," Jester said. "Most don't."
Jaden stepped closer. "Governments know. Corporations know. Old families hoard the data. They call it the Great Gathering."
The words felt too big. Too casual.
"This world," Jaden continued, "isn't random. Most starting zones ease people in. Weak fauna. Low-density threats. The Devil's Sea isn't that."
He gestured at the black water.
"It's a filter inside a filter. The System throws people here when it wants to see who breaks immediately."
A woman nearby whimpered softly.
"I knew the Underwater Tribe scouts wouldn't kill us," Jaden said. "Their Honor Code forbids wasting mana on Level Zero Vermin. We aren't enemies to them yet. We're debris."
Aron laughed weakly. "So I was just a civilian dropped into a kill zone while you two were briefed for it."
"Pretty much," Jester said. "Knowing the rules doesn't make the monsters smaller. It just means I know their names when they eat me."
Aron stared at his hands.
They were stained dark.
He thought of his mother again—how she always scrubbed his hands when he came home from playing outside, muttering about germs and futures and keeping yourself clean. He thought of his father, who worked double shifts and came home exhausted but smiling anyway. He thought of Evan, sitting cross-legged on his bed, swinging plastic sharks through imaginary oceans.
You'll come back, right? Evan had asked that morning, when Aron left for the library.
Of course, Aron had said.
The thought hit him like a physical blow.
I have to go back.
"Then explain it," Aron said hoarsely. "Soul Items."
Jaden crouched and drew rough shapes into the grime with a broken nail.
"This world runs on Soul Resonance. Kill something here, and you don't just take its life—you take a fragment of its Concept. Sharpness. Weight. Hunger. Momentum."
Aron's stomach twisted.
"And the only way home?" he asked.
Jester smiled thinly. "Reach the City. Clear the Trial. Survive long enough to matter."
Aron glanced at his screen.
> [Threat Classification: INSIGNIFICANT]
Jester leaned in. "That's not an insult. It's protection."
"Protection from what?"
"From being noticed."
The ship creaked as it drifted onward, barnacle-light cutting through the abyss like a corpse refusing to sink.
Aron looked out at the Devil Sea.
At the feeding grounds ahead.
At the monsters waiting.
Then he thought of his brother's grin.
"Fine," he said quietly. "What's the first move?"
Jester's grin returned—sharp, delighted.
"The ship's drifting into the Feeding Grounds," he said. "The Swordfish will come back in force."
He clapped Aron on the shoulder.
"And since you've got Potential…"
His eyes gleamed.
"You're going to be the bait."