The first thing Daimon noticed about the water currents of this pool, is that it was colder than the one in which they travelled before, he could also notice there was a larger proportion of darkness mana floating underwater.
They weren’t really touched by the water because Karmandi was protecting them with a thing layer of mana, but the surroundings were rather cold.
‘This water current belongs to the Maelstrom Sea’, said Karmandi, confirming Daimon’s suspicion, after saying that guided by Uly, they dived downwards until they reached the bottom of the pool.
The current was indeed really strong, so much that the weaker magic beasts had to hold onto the stronger ones, Neal who wasn’t transporting anyone took the initiative to protect some of the smaller magic beasts only then they entered the current which immediately dragged them downwards at a high speed.
Seeing that the surroundings had become darker due to the absence of light, Daimon released a faint amount of demon light, and that was enough to illuminate the whole area around twenty meters, enough for the girls to be comfortable.
He did it because being underwater and without sight puts mental pressure in creatures which aren’t used to that kind of atmosphere, Karmandi did his part too, he ordered his subordinates who were capable of using bio-luminescence to light up the tunnel.
“Woah, look at the patterns on the walls”, exclaimed Leslie, now that the illumination was high enough, she pointed at the strange corrugated pattern on the walls of the tunnel.
The other girls seemed to be also interested by it, while Daimon and Karmandi frowned, it was an strange pattern, which was hard to come by naturally, but it’s also clear that it isn’t a recent thing.
‘Perhaps a few thousands of years ago, some magic beast created this tunnel’, thought Daimon before he put the subject at the back of his mind, he was instead surprised to see a certain magic array displayed in the first three or so kilometers of he tunnel which were completely surrounded by walls before they finally reached an open underwater space.
Even then they didn’t have to do anything, as the current impulse them towards a specific direction, which Uly assured to be the one that will take them to the surface.
Daimon smirked as he sent Karmandi a message directly to his ears, before they got away from where they were.
While Daimon and the others were travelling though the underwater current, the vice-general Dagur had exhausted himself to accelerate enough to reach the main exit at the same time as Kamir, and he finally was able to catch a glimpse of his destination.
“Damn it, he got here first!”, cursed Dagur, as he saw the destroyed area as well as what was left of a flooded battlefield result of Karmandi’s hurricane stopping, it was a disaster zone.
There were corpses floating here and there, some made him remember that white flame explosion which obliterated a big part of his army.
“Mm?”, Tiberius and Ellemy saw a figure approaching and they prepared for a battle, thinking Dagur was another battered corpse just like Garret previously, but they eased up when they noticed he was alive.
“Vice-general Dagur reporting, what happened here, did that snake ambushed you?”, asked Dagur in a hurry, just to be met with weird gazes.
“What the hell are you talking about Dagur, if you have time to speak nonsense help us look for those guys, they managed to take away our hostages before leaving”, said Tiberius, before he frowned.
“Wait, why are you alone, didn’t you say you were going to bring reinforces, among them some magic beasts?”.
Dagur gritted his teeth in response.
“The magic beasts betrayed us, they were allied with that guy who attacked us, from the very beginning… did general Tiberius managed to wound that traitor snake?”, asked Dagur with a hopeful voice.
The fact that he was played by a magic beast who hasn’t unlocked its wisdom was a hard blow for him, so he expected Tiberius to shred Kamir to pieces, but the response he got was instead.
“We didn’t see any magic beast, only an armored guy who probably belonged to the neo nobles of the Clear Water kingdom, don’t try to make up some excuses for being late, you useless sack of bones, the little bitch princesses escaped from my hands!”, shouted Ellemy.
“Are you calling me a liar, you pirates don’t even have a Half Stellar on your side right now, if someone here is useless that’s you Ellemy”, Dagur was too worried about Shirel right now to show respect to Ellemy just because he was the cousin of the Devil Stingray pirates.
“Humph, great words for someone who couldn’t even protect his master, wasn’t a guy the one who took away that scheming woman from you, what do you think he will do to her, he even escaped from us, there is no saving for you now Dagur”, said Ellemy with a schadenfreude, happy for the moment the ruler of the Skelefiends will behave Dagur for losing one of his wives.
Tiberius who was the more composed here, frowned as he got in the middle of the two.
“Enough!”.
“Dagur, a snake didn’t approach this place at all, my senses can cover around three hundred kilometers, and I assure you nothing like a snake magic beast flying appeared in it”.
Dagur was taken aback, while Ellemy snorted, but then a realization hit him like a truck as a memory flashed through his mind.
‘That blond guy vanished into thin air all of a sudden, but there was no Half Stellar rank near us, or he could have just obliterated us after Lady Shirel was captured, wait how did that guy reached all the way here in such a short period amount of time…”.
“THE ALTERNATIVE EXIT!”, suddenly shouted Dagur with a twisted expression.
Ellemy raised an eyebrow, while Tiberius grabbed Dagur by his neck.
“What are you doing, you fool?”, he asked with an angry voice, the alternative exit was a secret passed down by an Skelefiend ancestor from his family, and he just shouted about its existence.
But right now, Dagur didn’t care about statuses and ranks, he instead answered with question.
“If there was a Half Stellar rank besides the princesses, then a breach in the isolation array must have been opened, how did they escaped from you!”.
Something made click in Tiberius’s mind, he discarded the enemies being too far from them, because he didn’t see any traces of a transportation magic array near here.
it didn’t even cross through his mind that the guy which he fought had that rumored ability, the ability to move through space without the help of an array, but if that was the case then… they got done in.
Tiberius tightened his grip on Dagur’s neck as he shouted at his face.
“Who is watching the alternative exit”.
Dagur had a bitter expression as he answered.
“Vice-general Uly… but he wasn’t in a good state, if that snake never came here and instead went straigth to the alternative exit, then he is probably dead at this point and they should be escaping as we speak”.
Tiberius’s eyes got bloodshot, he threw Dagur and smacked him against the ground as he pierced the left side of his chest with his own hand, to take out a small black scroll, which he then opened.
“If we can’t stop them, then we just have to bury them, it will be easier to dig and retrieve the corpses of the princesses than to return empty handed!”, he shouted with a mad expression as he broke the black scroll
… But then to Tiberius’s surprise what he expected didn’t happen, he opened the scroll whose function was to activate the self-destruction array carved on the first eight kilometers of the underwater tunnel, the rocks weighted more underwater so even a Half Stellar rank would be trapped there, of course there was the possibility of the guy being able to move through space, but as far as he knew, those who were able to do such a thing, had to wait before doing it again, also the explosion would definitely harm it.𝚘𝐕𝒍xt.𝗇𝓔t
Unfortunately the scroll which should have exploded in flames upon activation, didn’t have any reaction, the array couldn’t be nullified since it came from within the rocks and the exit of the tunnel, so this could only mean it had been detonated already.
“Only a Half Stellar sea magic beast would be able to open a path in the strong currents, and also move fast enough to not be affected by the explosion…”, mumbled Tiberius as he fell silent for a moment.
Then all the pieces of he puzzle took their respective places, making him realize he was toyed with, the guy he fought wasn’t a noble from the Mermen Sea, but a magic beast who had taken human form.
Also the magic beasts were allied with the Mermen and Elemental Seas, or maybe someone leaked their plans which forced them to cooperate, in any case his neck was now in danger.
“Bleeeghh!”, Tiberius’s face became red and before he could do anything, he vomited blood due to anger.
“I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE BUT I WILL SKIN YOU ALIVE!!!”, he roared at the sky, as he forcefully unsealed his full power.
Ellemy was blown away due to the mana explosion caused by a Half Stellar ranked going mad, the Bottom Shredder king and queen stood in front of him to block the shockwave.
But then Tiberius coldly stared at them before saying.
“Ellemy, those beasts will be taken hostage and interrogated, we were defeated in so many fronts that this can’t be a coincidence, cooperate or die, your choice”.
Ellemy gritted his teeth, he knew Tiberius right now wasn’t in a right state of mind, Skelefiends are already crazy by innate, and he seemed to be suffering some kind of deviation, so if he didn’t cooperate there was a big chance, he will attack them.
“They will be put through interrogation, but right now we need to leave right now, the Lords should be arriving right now, we need to leave the isolation array to contact them… if we want to keep our heads attached to our bodies”.
Tiberius nodded, strangely calm, he waves hid hand and Dagur who was a bit haggard was pulled towards him.
“You know the map of the currents, guide us through the shortest route possible, leave the current to me”.
Dagur nodded and then he and the others jumped into the main exit, followed by a few Skelefiends who managed to survive, in these series of battles, they lost about eight hundred of their high soldiers, a Half Stellar rank who happens to be one of the wives of the Skelefiend ruler and a few vice-generals.
As for the pirates, only Ellemy, his direct subordinate and the Bottom Shredders made it, or at least that’s what he knew, since he wasn’t aware of a few people dejecting to the other side.
…
Back to the underwater space, Daimon’s infinity eyes saw the runes engraved on the trying to activate the array and he smirked, a black sword was shoved on the wall and before the array could be triggered all the mana stored inside was devoured by the sword, needless to say but they were already out of the closed tunnel.
Unlike a living being who can put up resistance against Disaster’s ability, starting from the Arch ranks and above, and array doesn’t have that capacity, or at least not this specific disposable array whose only purpose was to create a large explosion.
“Can you do the honors, Karmandi?”, asked Daimon, making the snake general laugh.
“Tidal Vortex!”, a blue stream was shot out of Karmandi’s snout, demolishing the tunnel thus making it impossible for the enemy to follow them through it, at least not for the time being as they would need a lot of work to unblock the tons of rocks that blocked the tunnel.
Uly was speechless right now, he didn’t lie about there not being anything waiting from them in the underwater tunnel, he didn’t know about that array, which means someone could have buried them if needed.
‘Fucking Tiberius, if I’m not wrong it was his family the one who discovered this secret passage’, he inwardly cursed.
“Let’s go, take us as close to the entrance of the Wild Tide Reef on the surface as possible”, ordered Daimon.
The next minutes will be critical, Daimon didn’t know if the enemies were waiting for them at the surface or not, that’s why he delayed their leave as much as possible, but now he had no choice but to leave because the currents will be returning and then it’s going to be hell for anyone who isn’t a Half Stellar ranked at least.
Uly nodded and then they all started advancing at full throttle, the start of a battle without precedents approached with every second that passed, there were only a few minutes left prior to the time limit set by the Trident Marshal, once that happened questions will be asked, and the pirates and Skelefiend will be forced to make their move, without knowing that they don’t have any hostage to use.