"What the hell is that?!"
At that moment, the young Medusa, who had just snapped out of the song's enchantment midair—instinctively flared her metallic wings and darted a hundred paces back, staring warily toward the sea with lingering fear.
Through the shrouding darkness, she spotted a mountain-like silhouette slowly rising from the water, twisting and writhing violently in the shadows.
No—not a mountain!
With her purple-red magic eyes straining in the dim starlight, the young Medusa finally saw its true form:
A gargantuan sea monster with six heads and twelve octopus-like tentacles!
That tentacle that had tried to ambush her moments ago? Just one of its twelve limbs.
The Deep Sea Behemoth—Scylla!
The name echoed in her mind like a thunderclap. Instantly, the Medusa tensed, bracing for battle like she was facing death itself.
Scylla, one of the infamous children of the Sea Monster Father Phorcys, was once said to be a stunning ocean nymph, until she was cursed by Amphitrite, the jealous wife of Poseidon.
That curse twisted her into the grotesque monstrosity she now was: six heads, twelve limbs, and an insatiable hunger.
She'd haunted the Strait of Messina ever since, preying on ships and sailors, seeding countless tales of horror among the coastal cities.
Of course, facing this cancer that blocked the waterway, there was no shortage of human heroes who went to fight against it.
All of them failed.
Why?
First, Scylla had a terrifying home-field advantage over water.
Second, as a named child of Phorcys, her power was unquestionable.
She was a top-tier demigod.
Anyone thinking they could take her down? Might as well walk in carrying a sign that says, "Free Lunch."
Even this thing crawled up from the deep?!
The Medusa shuddered at the close call.
She looked at the figure on the fortress who had warned her in advance and blocked the fatal blow for her with a look of relief
Meanwhile, Lorne, who was somehow still lucid under the sirens' enchantment, pressed the cool, glowing wristband tightly around his arm as a wave of relief flickered in his eyes.
Praise Athena.
Fortunately he'd gotten this spirit-resistance artifact from her drop earlier. Without it, that siren song would've spelled his end.
Especially when it was a trio of top-tier demigods harmonizing.
Lorne's eyes narrowed.
He gazed across the sea, past the twitching mountain of Scylla, toward three dazzling figures standing atop a massive whale.
Bathed in faint starlight, the trio sat in eerie silence.
Delicate white shells covered their chests; their long hair spilled across their glistening shoulders.
As his gaze trailed down—
Three glittering fishtails dipped beneath the waves.
Upper body: stunning women.
Lower body: iridescent fish tails…
The Siren Sisters.
Lorne's heart sank like a stone.
These were no mere monsters. According to legend, the original Sirens were the daughters of the river god Achelous, born of his divine blood—beautiful nymphs with birdlike forms.
But after losing a musical contest to the Muses, the goddess-judges cruelly tore off their wings. Flightless, they could no longer soar.
So, the three sisters slunk to the sea, where they transformed, beautiful from the waist up, deadly fish from the waist down—and used their haunting music to lure sailors to watery graves.
So in fact, there were two types of sirens:
The bird-bodied ones? Most likely the diluted descendants of the originals.
These fish-tailed women? The true, original Siren Sisters, once rivals to the Muses themselves.
Each of them was a top-tier demigod.
At the same time, the three Siren sisters on the sea found that their charming singing, which always worked, didn't work. Their beautiful faces turned hideous and gloomy.
"Laaaaa——!"
With a piercing, high-pitched note, the sea erupted.
Billions of tons of seawater spiraled inward, swirling into a vortex hundreds of meters wide.
The water folded in on itself, collapsing into a yawning, bottomless maw.
Hundreds of nearby sea beasts, caught in the current before they could flee, were instantly swallowed.
"CRACK—!"
Bones splintered. Flesh tore. The sound of creatures being crushed and shredded echoed across the bay.
None of them had time to scream, they were churned into pulp and mist in seconds, all sucked into the whirlpool's crushing embrace.
A faint, almost satisfied burp rose from the depths.
Then, the sea roiled again.
From the center of the vortex, a woman's face began to rise, formed entirely from the black water itself.
The abyssal eye of the whirlpool became her gaping mouth.
Jagged remnants of sea beast carcasses lined her jaw like twisted teeth.
The churning sea became her skin—fluid, pulsating, alive.
On the fortress walls, human soldiers stared in horror.
That face… it was her.
The monster from every sailor's nightmare. The creature whispered in bedtime stories meant to scare children.
Charybdis. The Devourer.
The Great Whirlpool.
Born of Poseidon and Gaia, she was cursed to eternal thirst and hunger, consuming endlessly, without pause.
Imprisoned in the Strait of Messina, her endless devouring turned the ocean itself into a weapon. Her appetite created the maelstroms that swallowed ships whole and left no survivors.
She and Scylla were neighbors, and could be called a tag team of maritime apocalypse.
Their region was a death zone; even fish skeletons refused to drift nearby.
Her name was terror incarnate, a name every sailor knew by heart before they ever saw the ocean.
Similarly, the reason why she cpyld survive until now and continue to stir up trouble was partly because of the protection of Poseidon, the sea god, and partly because of her top demigod strength.
The crown prince—commander of the front lines, watched in horror as five peak-tier sea monstrosities emerged one after another from the beast tide.
His heart pounded, and cold sweat soaked his back and palms.
The truth was brutally simple:
the difference between people is greater than that between people and dogs.
This principle also applies to the group of demigods with extremely exaggerated upper and lower limits.
Some demigods only have the accumulation of magic power, and their divinity is mixed and impure.
Others… could take on Olympians themselves.
This prince of Crete, while no match for his genius sister Ariadne, had nonetheless awakened divine blood and entered the ranks of demigods..so, he could be called a shining star among his peers.
Unfortunately, these five were in another league entirely.
Either they were direct descendants of primeval gods—mutated, cursed, and twisted.
Or they were beings who had dared to challenge deities, and paid with eternal monstrosity.
Over the ages, countless heroes had tried to defeat them.
None returned.
Each failed attempt added a new cautionary tale, each defeat, a lesson in futility.
These weren't foes mortals could overcome.
To stop them now would require…
But before the thought could fully form, the prince instinctively turned—
Just in time to see Charybdis, now swollen with the flesh of a thousand sea beasts, rise to her full height.
Her colossal face shimmered with divine malice as she summoned unfathomable volumes of seawater.
Her body twisted into a gigantic humanoid, translucent and brimming with liquid wrath.
Two watery arms, each tens of meters long, surged forward.
CRASH—!!
The sea exploded.
Towering waves swept across the ruined shoreline, tearing through defenses like paper.
Dozens of defensive spells were shattered in an instant. The overwhelming curtain of seawater came crashing down with unstoppable, thunderous force!
In that moment, with their protective barriers gone, the frail and insignificant humans stood pale-faced before divine might, paralyzed by terror, stripped even of the will to resist or flee.
(End of Chapter)