Chapter 1355: When the Sea Remembered Them

Namyanna opened her eyes.

The energy sphere she had been gathering in front of her chest had stabilized, fine ripples flowing across its surface. She glanced down and gently closed her fingers.

The sphere shattered in her palm.

Countless transparent fragments spread through the surrounding seawater without exploding, silently riding the currents in every direction. At first, the others only felt the water around them grow gentler. Then a faint ripple expanded from Namyanna’s chest.

It passed slowly through everyone.

The sea still surrounded them, but the pressure on their chests vanished. Breathing became effortless. They could even draw the air they needed directly from the water.

The bubbles around their heads were no longer necessary.

The gentle wave caused no harm as it passed through Namyanna’s companions, but the moment it touched Thalvyr, it changed completely.

His skin tightened.

A long, narrow cut split open across his shoulder. More appeared along his arms, chest, and cheeks as invisible blades sliced him again and again. Blood had barely seeped from the wounds before the water carried it away behind him.

Thalvyr gritted his teeth, his body trembling under the relentless assault.

Vaelor and the mantis shrimp suffered an even more immediate fate.

As the ripple passed through them, the blood-red power holding their bodies together collapsed. Vaelor’s scales dissolved into tiny motes of light, while the mantis shrimp’s shell began disintegrating at the edges. Neither managed to make a sound before vanishing completely into the sea.

Namyanna’s face turned a shade paler.

Releasing that power had taken a great deal out of her. She could only draw on the sparse energy within the ocean to replenish herself. Flecks of light gathered around her body. The recovery was slow, but it was enough for her to keep a firm grip on her trident.

She aimed the weapon at Thalvyr once more.

"Deprive!"

The seawater around him began to retreat.

First, the water touching his skin pulled away. Then the rest followed, receding farther and farther along the contours of his body until a perfectly human-shaped vacuum formed around him.

Thalvyr was left alone inside it.

He finally sensed the danger. New cuts were still opening across his skin, and the vacuum had severed his connection to the sea. Fighting through the pain, he raised a dragon orb toward his mouth.

If he could swallow it—

Namyanna had already spotted the orb.

She raised her right hand and extended two fingers. The seawater beside her compressed into a jet, pierced the edge of the vacuum, and struck Thalvyr’s wrist head-on.

The impact knocked him off balance.

The dragon orb slipped from his hand, rolled across the seabed, and came to rest at Namyanna’s feet.

Without it, the pressure surrounding Thalvyr intensified.

Energy from across the entire sea answered the summons. Water surged toward him from every direction, only to stop against the vacuum surrounding his body. Layer after layer piled up against the boundary, transmitting its crushing pressure inward until Thalvyr could no longer move his limbs.

No one could tell whether the ocean itself was rejecting Thalvyr or whether Thalvyr was rejecting the sea.

At that moment, Ethan sensed a strange connection.

When his awareness touched Thalvyr’s body, he could feel every current of power flowing through it. Whenever Ethan shifted his thoughts, those forces responded faintly.

He froze.

He could control Thalvyr?

Standing behind the others, Elowen saw even more.

Souls began appearing throughout the surrounding water. At first, there were only a few scattered white figures. Their numbers quickly swelled until they crowded around the group from every direction.

Elowen raised a hand, spreading ice energy from her palm. A thin layer of frost formed over everyone’s bodies, shielding their clothes and skin.

Meanwhile, Thalvyr, momentarily forgotten by the group, became the target of every soul in the area.

The spirits of the sea creatures discovered his bound body.

Ignoring everyone else, they all turned toward him. The first soul plunged into his chest. The rest followed, pouring into him through his wounds, eyes, mouth, and nose.

Thalvyr didn’t resist.

The moment the dragon orb had been taken from him, he had given up struggling. What remained inside the vacuum was nothing more than a body filled with power it couldn’t use.

Namyanna looked down at the dragon orb by her feet.

Gripping her trident in both hands, she brought it down with all her strength.

Bang!

The trident’s point struck the orb.

A crack appeared across its smooth surface, then split it down the middle. A visible soul burst from the broken orb and rushed anxiously toward Thalvyr.

Only then did the group realize that the soul looked exactly like him.

It entered his body.

The next instant, a battle erupted inside him.

The massed souls of the fish fought for control of the body. Every one of them had come from these waters, and every one of them had been brutally killed by Thalvyr.

They flooded his limbs, fought over his eyes, and tore at every source of control within the body. Thalvyr’s own soul struggled to reclaim the core, trying to drive out the intruders one by one.

No one outside could see the full struggle.

All they could see were Thalvyr’s fingers bending over and over as different expressions flickered through his eyes. At times, they were cold and indifferent. At others, they filled with fear. Occasionally, they even showed the blank confusion of a fish.

A deafening dragon roar erupted from within him.

The sound tore through the water, cracking the nearby seabed. All the blood drifting around them abruptly changed direction and surged toward Thalvyr.

It covered his original body, filling his wounds from within before flowing along his limbs and rebuilding their shape. Blood-red scales replaced his damaged skin, and his bent bones straightened within the blood.

A new body gradually took form.

Ethan could still feel the connection.

He could still control him.

But trying it now might be dangerous.

Thalvyr opened his eyes beneath the crushing water pressure. Red light shot from his pupils as he forced his body outward, blasting apart the seawater pressing in on him.

He broke free and raced toward the surface.

Seraphina was immediately annoyed.

Once Namyanna’s ripple gave them the ability to breathe freely, everyone had removed the bubbles from around their heads. Seraphina had been the most excited of all. She had just been about to return to her enormous dragon form and fight without restraint underwater when Thalvyr fled for the surface.

She had barely finished growing before the enemy ran away.

But the others had no choice but to follow and move the fight elsewhere. The enemy had already gone up. They couldn’t very well stay at the bottom of the sea.

One after another, they swam toward the surface.

Only Namyanna remained where she was.

She stared down at the seabed, refusing to release her grip on the trident. Ethan swam over and was about to ask what was wrong when the surroundings began to change.

The blood was fading from the water.

A clear power washed away the deep crimson, restoring the sea’s transparency. Then tiny green lights drifted down from above and spread across the entire seabed.

Color gradually returned to the gray, lifeless rocks. It was still faint, and restoring this place to what it had once been would take time, but the area was no longer entirely devoid of life.

Pure white souls drifted in from all around.

They circled Namyanna, sometimes approaching her trident and sometimes gliding past her shoulder. Their quiet movements seemed both a blessing and an expression of gratitude.

More spectral fish soon appeared.

They gathered into schools and slowly swam toward the depths. After traveling some distance, the fish would turn back to look at Namyanna, who still stood where they had left her.

There was no resentment in their eyes.

Only gratitude and reverence for the one who had finally allowed them to go home.