Year 8003 A.A | Location: The Abyssal City of Derinkral, Capital of the Seven Seas
The Sea Blade glided into Derinkral's profound depths like a silver comet descending through the silent, black eternity of the abyss. The oppressive, crushing darkness that had enveloped them during their descent through the trench began to recede. A vast, radiant luminescence—golden, turquoise, and deep, royal violet—spilled across the black water, painting the seabed in hues that had no name in the world above, a dawn reborn in the heart of the eternal night.
Derinkral stretched before them in a splendor that defied the very concept of a city. It was less a built place and more a living, breathing ecosystem of light and stone. Great, organic pillars of living coral and carved basalt rose from the ocean floor like the spires of a thousand sunken cathedrals, each one crowned with vast domes of bio-luminescent glass that pulsed with a soft, internal rhythm. Between these majestic structures flowed currents of living light—immense shoals of tiny, glowing creatures that moved with one mind, forming intricate, shifting patterns that looked almost deliberate, like the celestial weaving of a galaxy or the notes of a silent, visual symphony. The streets were not paved, but were clear, wide rivers of pristine water, where Mertuna of all forms swam with an innate, fluid grace through majestic arches of iridescent mother-of-pearl. Gardens of vibrant sea flora—ferns of electric blue and forests of kelp that shimmered like spun gold—waved gently in the deep undercurrents, casting rippling, dappled shadows across vast mosaic plazas laid with polished stones and pearls.
Schools of silver fish, countless in number, drifted through the avenues of light, their movement so perfectly synchronized they looked like living, shifting constellations charting a course through a liquid sky. Giant, ghostly jellyfish, their bells glowing with ethereal colors, hovered like peaceful sentinels between the structures, their gentle pulsing illuminating entire city blocks with a soft, otherworldly bio-luminescence. And at the very center of it all, rising from the deepest point of the trench floor, was the royal citadel—a sprawling, magnificent structure of polished blue stone and vast, translucent domes, shaped like a great, blooming flower seen from below. Its very core pulsed with a steady, powerful light that seemed to beat in time with the city itself—the legendary Heart of Derinkral.
Trevor pressed both palms flat against the cool, crystal glass of the viewing deck. His eyes were wide, reflecting the city's impossible glory.
"I thought Tuzgölge was the most beautiful city I'd ever seen,"he breathed, the words barely audible, stolen by the spectacle. "But this… this is…".
"Grand?" Toluban offered softly, coming to stand beside him with a knowing, paternal smile. He watched the Lords' faces, understanding the impact his home always had on surface-dwellers. "Indeed, Lord Maymum. The Mertuna have, for generations beyond count, prided themselves on the glorification of art—in every conceivable form. Here, even the architecture breathes as if it were alive. With all due respect to His Majesty Azubuike Toran," he added with a slight, respectful bow of his head, "Kürdiala may be the crown of the lands, hidden among the mists and waterfalls. But Derinkral…" He gestured with a slow, sweeping motion toward the glowing metropolis below, his voice filled with a deep, resonant pride. "…is her perfect reflection beneath the sea. The two halves of one eternal, indivisible beauty."
No one spoke for a long, suspended moment. The only sound was the deep, soothing hum of the Sea Blade and the silent, pounding rhythm of their own hearts.
The Sea Blade slowed its majestic glide, its humming engines softening to a whisper as it approached one of the city's vast outer docks. These were not mere piers, but great, sweeping platforms of reinforced, living coral that jutted from the sheer, bioluminescent-lit walls of the abyssal trench itself, like balconies overlooking the grand, liquid avenues of the city. Mechanical lights, crafted to resemble glowing sea anemones, pulsed in a welcoming sequence along the dock's edge as the crew initiated the final docking procedures.
"Engaging magnetic clamps," a helmsman called out, his voice calm and practiced. A series of deep, resonant clunks echoed through the hull. "Seal integrity confirmed. We are secure."
A soft, final tremor ran through the ship as it latched firmly into its designated berth, the great vessel becoming still and silent for the first time since leaving Tuzgölge.
When the main hatch irised open with a quiet hiss, Trevor, standing at the front, instinctively braced his shoulders for the expected, crushing rush of icy water and immense pressure. But none came. The air beyond the threshold shimmered faintly, a visible distortion that bent the light and the view of the city beyond, much like heat haze rising from desert sands.
"Pressure force fields?" Kon asked, his brow raised in a rare show of impressed curiosity.
"Indeed, my Lords," Toluban replied, a note of pride in his voice. He gestured toward the shimmering veil. "A masterpiece of Derinkral's arcane technology. When you step through, you'll find yourselves automatically shielded by a thin, clinging barrier of solidified mana. It conforms to your skin—or fur—allowing for full, unencumbered movement and breathing underwater as if you were in your natural element." His lips twitched with a flicker of amusement as he looked over the four immensely powerful beings. "Though I suspect such precautions are hardly needed for tracients such as yourselves. It is more a formality of hospitality than a necessity."
With that, he stepped forward first, passing through the shimmering veil. The moment he crossed the threshold, a beautiful, startling transformation occurred. From the waist down, his legs shimmered and dissolved, their form flowing and reforming into a powerful, sleek mer-form tail, its scales a deep, vibrant red that caught the city's light like a cascade of cut rubies.
The Lords followed, one by one. As they passed through the energy field, each felt a brief, tingling sensation as a faint, shimmering aura wrapped around them, humming with a soft, protective energy against their skin. The shift from the ship's controlled atmosphere to the embrace of the deep sea was utterly seamless—it felt like slipping through the surface of a dream, weightless and natural. They could hear the ocean itself now, not as a muffled roar, but as a symphony of sounds—the distant songs of great whales, the crackle of shifting ice far above, the gentle sigh of currents moving through the coral canyons.
"By the way," Toluban said casually, his voice now slightly muffled and resonant as it traveled through the water, "be mindful of the Grand Commander. He will be the one to greet us and escort you to the throne room."
Trevor, who was experimentally flicking his fingers through the water and watching the shimmering field bend around them, blinked. "Why? Is he particularly stern?"
Toluban's smile was faint and knowing, a look that suggested he was privy to a delightful secret. "You'll see."
***
The moment they emerged fully into Derinkral's open, crystalline water, they were met not by a casual welcome, but by a spectacle of disciplined power. An organized procession awaited them—rows upon rows of armored Mertuna guards lined the length of the great coral dock, their formation flawless.
Their armor was a stark contrast to the more functional gear of the Tuzgölge forces. This was ceremonial battle-wear, a work of art and intimidation. The plates were sleek and iridescent, resembling the scales of a deep-sea predator, each one overlapping the next like the petals of a deadly, metallic flower. Their helms were crafted with long, sharp, fin-like crests that streamed in the current, and each soldier held a Naginata, its long shaft polished to a gleam, the curved blade shimmering with pale blue runes that promised a cold, magical bite. Their tails, powerful and muscular, held them perfectly still in the water, every minute adjustment deliberate, the entire display a living portrait of martial grace and control under the city's soft, pervasive luminescence.
At the head of this formidable assembly floated a single, imposing figure.
He was tall, even for a Mertuna, with a broad-shouldered, commanding presence that seemed to draw the very light toward him. His hair, a deep, rich violet, flowed behind him like a banner of spilled ink in the water, and his short, neatly trimmed beard was of the same regal hue. A thin, elegant golden circlet, etched with wave patterns, clasped his powerful right bicep, the only ornament marking his exalted station. And upon his shoulder, clear and unmistakable against his skin, gleamed the tattooed glyph of Hazël #17.
Toluban, his posture one of deep respect, bowed first. "My Lords," he announced formally, his voice carrying through the water, "may I present the Grand Komutan of the Mertuna Armed Forces across the Seven Seas, Bey of Derinkral, and the 'El'—the Hand—to the Seventh Lord of Narn, the Sea King himself: Lord Kael Mertuna."
Kael straightened, his expression an unreadable mask of cool formality. With a precision that spoke of a lifetime of discipline, he placed his right hand flat to his chest and bowed low, a gesture of respect that was deep but somehow managed to feel distant.
"My Lords,"he said, his tone as formal and dry as ancient parchment. "Your presence honors the sea. It is our privilege to welcome you beneath the waves."
"The pleasure is ours, Komutan," Adam replied, inclining his head with a grace that matched the Komutan's own formality. "We weren't expecting such a grand reception."
"His Majesty insists that the sea's most esteemed guests be greeted as the sea greets the sun—with all its warmth, and all its strength."
Kael's words were perfectly proper, textbook diplomacy. But his eyes—a piercing, unsettling shade of violet—carried no trace of the warmth his words implied. They were the eyes of a deep-sea predator, assessing, calculating, and utterly cold.
Trevor, meanwhile, had already drifted out of the formal line of his fellow Lords, his innate curiosity overpowering protocol. He hovered near one of the younger, stiffer-looking guards, his eyes alight with genuine, mischievous interest. "Cool tail!" he exclaimed with a disarming grin. "I've never seen one with that double hue before—silver and cobalt, is it? How fast can you lot swim in full kit? Do you do races? And that weapon—" he pointed at the guard's Naginata, "—what's the mana-conductivity rate on the blade? Must be a beast to calibrate—"
Before he could finish his rapid-fire interrogation, Kael was there.
The shift was instantaneous—one moment he was several yards away, the next he was directly in front of Trevor, so close their auras nearly touched. The water around them seemed to compress and grow heavy under the sudden, silent surge of the Komutan's hostile mana. The two of them stared at each other, a silent battle of wills crackling in the space between them. The young guard behind Trevor stiffened, his face a mask of pure terror at being the inadvertent cause of this confrontation.
Kael's voice, when it came, was calm but each word dropping like a stone.
"Lord Maymum, if you would be so kind as to follow me, I will show you everything you need to know."
The emphasis on"need" was deliberate, a verbal fence erected to corral the Monkey Lord's boundless inquisitiveness, his tone bordering on outright condescension.
Trevor, utterly unruffled, raised both hands in a gesture of playful surrender and smiled with infuriating cheer. "Lead the way, Komutan. I'm all fins."
"This way, my Lords," Kael said sharply, turning his back on Trevor with a flick of his tail that sent a small, dismissive vortex through the water. "We mustn't keep His Majesty waiting."
As the procession began its slow, stately swim toward the central citadel, Kon glided up beside Trevor, his voice a low rumble. "What was that back there?"
Trevor shrugged, his smirk evident even through the shimmering field. "First impression. You only get one."
Darius gave him a slow, deeply judgy look from beneath his heavy brow.
"Oh, come on," Trevor protested. "He's so stiff and pent up—I couldn't help poking at him a little." He shot a sidelong glance toward Kael's rigid, retreating back. "Both of them, apparently."
***
The city's capital rose before them like a submerged sun, a nexus of power and light in the heart of the abyssal dark. The central spire, known to all as the Hall of Depths, was a structure that spoke of both profound connection to the earth and an aspiration for the world above. It was built from layer upon layer of deep blue crystal, through which inner light pulsed like a slow heartbeat, and dark, polished volcanic glass that drank the surrounding luminescence, creating a stark, beautiful contrast. Its foundation sank deep into the very floor of the trench, rooted in the planet's bones, while its crown stretched upward in a series of sharp, aspiring peaks, like a blade of stone and light trying to pierce the veil between the sea and the sky.
They entered through grand, arching gates that seemed grown rather than built, formed from immense, living coral of a deep magenta hue. Each tendril and branch of the coral shifted subtly, almost imperceptibly, as if breathing in time with the slow, deep currents of the ocean, giving the entrance a sense of being a part of a vast, slumbering leviathan. Inside, the architecture shifted from the organic grandeur of the city to something almost celestial in its ordered majesty. Soaring columns, wider than ancient trees, were carved with intricate bas-reliefs depicting scenes of ancient battles between sea serpents and the first Mertuna kings. The walls themselves were inlaid with flowing lines of glowing runes that pulsed with a soft, blue-white light, their rhythm synced perfectly to the gentle, eternal sigh of the ocean's heartbeat. Statues of revered Mertuna ancestors, carved from pearlescent moonstone, floated serenely in suspended alcoves filled with gently swirling water, their stone eyes alight with a faint, eternal blue fire that seemed to watch the procession pass.
Kael led them without a word through a long, breathtakingly transparent corridor. Its walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of a single, continuous sheet of magically reinforced crystal, and through it, they could see the open water of a contained canyon, filled with great, swirling currents of bioluminescent plankton that flowed past in rivers of living gold and silver. It was like walking through the heart of a captured nebula.
At the corridor's end, the space exploded into a vast, circular chamber—a command hangar that was also a throne room. It was a space of dual purpose, where beauty met brutal functionality. One side was lined with rows of sleek, water-resistant consoles manned by Mertuna technicians, their surfaces alive with shimmering holographic displays and crystal projectors casting tactical data into the water. Great mana-conducting turbines, silent and powerful, were set into the walls, their cores glowing with contained energy. And at the far end, on a dais of polished black stone, sat a throne carved from a single, colossal piece of sapphire, its surface alive with shifting internal light. The room hummed with silent power, a place where the poetry of the deep met the prose of rule and defense. It was functional, yet utterly breathtaking.
As they entered the vast chamber, the very atmosphere shifted. Every Mertuna within—technicians, officers, guards—turned sharply from their stations and rose to a posture of rigid attention. The water itself seemed to tighten, growing still and heavy with an unspoken, collective respect for the authority that had just arrived.
One of the officers, clad in armor of a darker, more somber hue with sharp silver trim, swam forward with urgent grace and bowed his head. "Komutan! There's been another attack at the Trench of Rays. A full platoon of the Dalga has engaged the rebels but are being overwhelmed. Their leader… Kashi of the Cartil Clan… he appears to be among them himself."
Kael's eyes narrowed, and for a fleeting moment, a flash of cold, predatory satisfaction showed in their depths. "Hmph. A chance to finally claim his head and be done with this nuisance."
He turned sharply toward the nearest command console,his tail giving a flick of impatience. "Pull up the tactical view of the battlefield. Now."
A complex holographic map shimmered into being above the console—a living, three-dimensional image cast from water and concentrated light, detailed and fluid.
The trench appeared on the screen—a long, deep gorge surrounded by forests of fractured coral spires and the crumbling remnants of ancient, sunken ruins. Shadows, fast and brutal, moved through the particulate fog of the disturbed seabed. The rebels were shark Tracients of varying kinds—Makos, Tigers, and Hammers—their armor jagged and spiked, marked with crude, dark runes. Their tails were broad, muscular, and built for explosive speed, and their eyes glowed with a uniform, frenzied red.
Darius's gaze darkened as he watched the display, a low rumble in his chest. "Lord Dirac held this realm with a strong and just fin for a thousand years. Yet even he couldn't completely purge the old, warlike bloodlines from the deep."
Toluban, floating beside him, nodded grimly. "The Cartil Clan has plagued the seas for millennia, my Lord. They are a poison in our history. Even after Dirac's long and prosperous rule, they persist, like a sickness that refuses to be cleansed. And always they strike here, in the very heart of Derinkral, because this is where the throne lies. It is a symbolic challenge they cannot resist."
As they watched, the holographic image flickered, its focus pulling and sharpening—then zeroing in on a single, massive figure at the very center of the chaotic battlefield.
A great white shark Tracient.
His humanoid upper body was immense,corded with muscle and cross-hatched with the silvery scars of countless battles, his dorsal fin and pectoral fins jagged and torn like battle standards from a long-forgotten war. He threw his head back, and though the sound was filtered through the hologram, a raw, subsonic roar vibrated through the water in the command chamber, a promise of violence.
"DIRAC MERTUNA!" he bellowed, the name a curse and a challenge. "Come and face me—you coward king! Once and for all!"
The chamber fell into a stunned, heavy silence.
Trevor leaned forward slightly, his head cocked. "Hey… you guys feel that, right?" he murmured, "That pressure…"
Kon's eye narrowed to a slit, "That's no ordinary Tracient. His mana… it's old. Primal."
Kael's jaw tightened, his fists clenching. "Call back the Dalga platoon. Now. I'm moving out to handle this myself."
He had barely finished the command when a sharp, insistent alarm chime broke through the tense quiet of the room—beep-beep-beep—followed by the frantic flickering of red light across the main console.
The holographic image shifted again, the view angling upward—and then a massive, concentrated beam of radiant blue energy, pure and devastating, streaked down from the darkness above the trench. It struck the great white shark, Kashi, square in the chest, the impact blasting him backward like a discarded toy, sending him crashing through a cluster of coral spires in a cloud of pulverized stone and sand.
Kael swore, a harsh, guttural sound, his composed mask cracking completely. "Damn it! Why did he have to go himself?! He never listens to me! Not once!"
The Grand Lords watched the display in silence, though confusion flickered across their faces—until they felt it. A presence. A mana signature so distinct it was like a fingerprint on the soul—ancient, commanding, and unmistakable.
A slow, wistful smile curved Adam's lips beneath his blindfold. A wave of fond, exasperated memory washed over him.
"Oh,Uncle," he murmured, the words for himself alone. "Always wanting to do everything yourself. Some things never change."
On the screen, as the dust and debris of the sea floor began to settle, a radiant silhouette emerged from the gloom.
A figure hovered amidst the ruins—a Mertuna of noble, powerful bearing, his long, golden hair billowing around his head like a lion's mane or a saint's halo. In his hands he held a magnificent, two-pronged trident, its core pulsing with the captured light of a flawless sapphire orb.
He raised the trident high, and its glow intensified, casting divine, calming ripples of blue light through the murky abyss, pushing back the darkness.
"You called for me, Kashi…" his voice thundered, deep and resonant, the sound reverberating not just through the water in the trench, but through the very consoles in the command chamber.
"Here I am."