[406] 5.30 Denizens of the Deep

We waste no time in making our way to the bridge.  Lindsey already has a fitted breathing apparatus and diving gear in her [Inventory] and begins suiting up for marine combat even before the captain of the boat has finished his assessments.  Meanwhile, the quartermistress is practically flying around Chloe and me, taking measurements with aplomb and handing them off to her assistant to ready similar gear for the two of us.

They dart off once they’ve finished apprising our sizes, leaving the captain to take over.  He clicks a button on a remote that appears in a swish of water in his hand, which in turn causes a hologram to appear in the center of the room.

“There is a giant eel-shaped fish swimming about at a distance of approximately three miles.  We do not have any data about such creatures existing in these waters.  As such, I have ordered, as a matter of precaution, that we engage temporary cloaking measures and halt our advance until the threat passes.”

“What is our current depth and location?” Lindsey asks.  “Is there any present tracking by any third-party sapients?”

“We are under the central Atlantic, just south of the equator, Sergeant.  Current depth is about 7,000 feet due to the proximity to the mid-Atlantic ridge.  We are about 1,000 feet above local surface; I judged that maintaining some distance above sea-floor dwellers was ideal, given the lack of any recent surveys at this depth.”

“Agreed.”  Lindsey hardly pauses as she ponders.  “Has it noticed us?  If not, have we considered simply waiting the creature out?”

“I have been advised by General Richardson personally to exercise all due caution during the transport.  He was quite clear that the passengers on board were to be safeguarded with all reasonably practical means.  But no, Sergeant, we have not yet taken any action to engage with this creature.”

“Have there been any other such creatures sighted or picked up by scouting signals?”

“No, Sergeant.  Nothing else on this scale.”

By now, the quartermistress and her attendant have returned.  Between them, they have two wetsuits prepared made of some foam substance and enhanced through several additional glyphs.  I’m dismayed when I notice that the suit, together with the breathing device, actually consumes an accessory slot.  But when I see the list of effects, I can at least understand why it isn’t just an incidental magical item.

[[Depth Suit]: An enchanted suit made of foam and polymers designed for underwater combat.  Has the following effects:

1. Reduces fluid drag while engaged in underwater combat by 95-99%.
2. Grants immunity to [Decompression Sickness].
3. Reduces oxygen consumption by half while underwater.
4. Resists fluid pressure to a depth of 10,000 meters (32,800 feet).]
5. Possesses the [Self-Repairing] property.]

Not bad at all.  I wasn’t exactly worried about these conditions; [Vitality] is truly a marvelous thing and I have the stat in abundance.  However, I can see how this would be an absolute necessity for transporting sailors around who might be at more modest levels.  Which is still most people, I have to remind myself.

I continue to listen to Lindsey and the Captain go back and forth as Chloe and I suit up and prepare for combat.  They discuss everything from the terrain to the nature of the weaponry on board the craft, all the while calculating a battle strategy that takes into consideration not only their own abilities, but the ones that Lindsey knows or suspects we have.  I am astounded that, after three years and a class evolution, she still knows or has intuited nearly every Skill I have at my disposal.

The one exception to that is [Rewrite Fate], but how could she know that it’s even possible to develop a Skill like that.  Scratch that, she did explicitly mention a Skill that ‘undoes death’ along with, and I quote, ‘a high likelihood of some new Skill that further fucks with whatever rules about the System we believe to otherwise hold’.  Once we get our buff spells thrown around, I tap Lindsey with the Skill in question, allowing her to trigger it at will.

She looks at me, then, in a deadpan tone, just says, ‘That is in line with expected parameters.’  Not tussled in the slightest.  I’m a bit miffed that even that Skill couldn’t faze her.  She really has seen it all before.

The monster on the hologram turns toward the ship.  Its head darts back and forth.  Its tongue slithers out of its mouth for a brief moment.  Then it charges toward us at full force.

“Lindsey,” I say.  “It’s go-time!  Grab on and I’ll get us outside the ship.  Captain, you focus on maneuvering out of the way of those teeth.  We’ll do everything in our power to cover you.”

“As she says,” Lindsey says.  She salutes the captain, and then I teleport the three of us into the blackened depths.

Chloe’s [Shining Swords] illuminate a small sphere of water around us into a murky glow of navy mixed with gold.  Even at these depths, there are still massive schools of fish swimming around in this underexplored environment that looks positively alien.  In contrast with freshwater fish or those which live closer to the surface, these fish, each about the size of my head, are fat and misshapen blobs with deformed eyes and far too many sharp teeth for me to be entirely comfortable.  One of them is foolish enough to bite at my hair, though it lacks the [Strength] to overcome my [Vitality], let alone the effects of Chloe’s [Archsaintess’s Cloister].

We have only another couple of seconds to prepare ourselves before the beast becomes visible within [Veilsight].  The water churns around us.  A powerful current is whipped up as the beast stretches its fifty-yard maw and attempts to suck us all down whole.

Captain Marlowe is hard at work earning his stripes on the battlefield.  Several Ethertech depth charges are released from the back end of the boat before it hightails it the fuck out of there.  The giant slippery bastard gives chase toward the vessel, right up until Lindsey fires two arrows that swerve through the currents and each land on the vestigial eyes that the beast still has.

I doubt it will prevent the beast’s ability to track us over the long haul.  But it distracts the creature and gives Chloe and I a chance to swim past the jaws and into the mouth of the monster.  We waste no time in carving up the palate and the tongue and the sides of the jaw before returning to one another and teleporting a short distance back outside.

And it’s a good thing we moved when we did.  The instant we reappear in conventional reality, the three explosives ignite.  A concussive wave erupts outward, loud enough that my eardrums briefly pop and my [Cloister] sustains some damage as the beast groans and releases a mass of bubbles and smoke from its mouth.  It starts toward the sub, but the moment Lindsey fires another barrage of arrows toward the pulsing knobs on either side of its jaw, it turns back toward the three of us.

Lindsey swims off at breakneck speed.  Thanks to the combination of these wetsuits and our [Speed] stats overwriting physics to an extent, she’s nearly able to keep pace with the behemoth.  Again the immense suction begins, but this time, Chloe and I have a new plan.  While Lindsey continues to distract the beast, the two of us follow another channel of suction and get pulled into the cartilaginous canals which make up the monster’s gills.

I ready for an all-out attack, only to find ourselves stymied.  Rather than a straight shot into one of this monster’s most vital areas, there’s instead a series of semipermeable, diaphanous membranes that resist tearing from both our weapons.  And worse still, this creature has some sort of dimensional destabilization barrier built into the membranes which prevent me from warping deeper within.

Chloe turns to me, assuming the stance for [Lightspeed Slash].  I take a defensive posture, ready to strike whatever comes toward her.  Apparently, this giant beast has some sort of… I don’t know if these worms twice my height in length are parasitic or symbiotic.  I know that they are pests, and they are hungry as well.

Giant leechlike maws with dozens of teeth in a spiral pattern open as they dive toward the golden glow that Chloe is emitting.  I intercept, expecting another fight for my life, only to enjoy a twinge of relief as I slice through both in a single cleave.  The scent of the blood of their kin riles even more of these oversized leeches toward Chloe and me.  Dozens turn into hundreds in short order, and as I cut more and more of them down, even more appear in a tide that feels without end.

I take a split second to center myself.  Then, in with a single burst of my [Ether], I unleash the full might of [Sentinel’s Standard] with a spinnish flourish of my swordstaff.  The swarm slows down and for a brief moment even pauses as the various creatures stop to recalibrate their attack.

The opening is all the time I need.  Kill notifications pile up in the corner of my vision by the dozens.  Not a single point of Experience as the water shifts from a muted gold into something far closer to a dark sunset orange as the water becomes tainted with more and more blood.  More blood, more death, more kills, more of these parasites cleansed from the underdark.  The thrill of battle, the sense of being in control, instincts taking over as my own blood quickens despite the cold of the depths.

For the first time since being recalled back to my duty as a protector of humanity, I truly feel in control.  In my element.  My longing for battle that I hadn’t even realized I’d missed these past few years is fueling more and quicker strikes.  All the while, my mind remains calm, counting the seconds.  Ten becomes fifteen and fifteen turns into twenty, all the while I continue without more than a token amount of fatigue.

I am forced to rely on my weapons alone due to the ineffectiveness of most forms of elemental magic, but these limitations are freeing in a paradoxical way.  Elation fills me, made even greater as another explosion slams into the opposite side of the monster’s body.

It takes one hundred seconds for Chloe to charge up her signature attack, a marked improvement from the two minutes it had taken her before her third ascension.  This is in line with how my own Skills have improved.  The power of her strike likewise has increased qualitatively.  The membranes, the barriers, and all other defenses are as nothing before such overwhelming power and force multipliers.  I cannot help but smile with prideful satisfaction as I see once more how strong my fiancée has become.

Once we arrive at the gill complex, we waste no time in dismantling its oxygen supply and perforating its bloodstream into as many bits as we can.  The internal defenses prove as flimsy as they always are compared with the hard exterior shell, the scales, skin, and other outer barriers.  Perhaps a cheap way of securing a kill.  Some might say these methods lack honor.

I do not care.  Honor, valor, and pride.  Each of them means nothing if others must suffer in  their fruition.

Once the kill is confirmed, we make our way back to Lindsey.  She’s got a single cut in her arm, which Chloe heals in short order, along with a [Restoration] spell just in case there’s any dormant infections that might have sneaked their way into those temporarily open wounds. 

Lindsey and I do a scan of our surroundings, fearful that the battle might’ve lured an even bigger fish into the vicinity, one none of us really wish to deal with.  Only once we’re confident that no creature is imminent do I make the teleport back to the ship and arrive back to the bridge.

The captain does not need our say so before he’s got us firing on all cylinders, out of the wake of the battle and back toward our destination.  And good riddance to this creature, or so I say.  No one voices any disagreement at the sentiment.

[You have slain a [Leviathan Eel (Level 97)].  You have gained a boosted 400,000 Experience.]

[You have gained enough Experience to reach Level 99.  [Strength] +3, [Speed] +3, [Vitality] +3, [Mind] +3.  Please assign free stat points (Remaining: 10).]

[Maximum Health increases by [Vitality] x 2 + Current Level + Rand[1,3] = 682]

[Maximum Ether increases by [Mind] + Current Level + Rand[0,2] = 408]

[Level: 99; Experience: 22,172,100;  To Next: 779,025]

[Current Stats: [Health]: 30,481 / 32,583; [Ether]: 10,712 / 20,654]

[Current Stats: [Strength]: 672 (Base: 230); [Speed]: 654 (Base: 224); [Vitality]: 847 (Base: 290); [Mind]: 896 (Base: 307)]