The Pacific wasn't an ocean anymore. It was a malfunctioning god—black ink boiling over violet lightning, waves rising and folding back on themselves like something was rewriting physics in real time.
At two thousand meters up, the Black Behemoth fought the storm like a stubborn tank refusing to die. Each thunderclap rattled the interior, shaking dust from the ceiling, vibrating through the polished floorboards of the living quarter.
Lin Xiya pressed both palms against her temples, silver eyes bleeding light as if someone was shoving data directly into her skull.
"Something's coming," she choked out. "It's not on radar. It's… everywhere."
Su Chen rose from the command chair, eyes narrowing. "Xiya. 'Everywhere' doesn't mean anything. What is it?"
Her voice trembled. "The ocean. The whole ocean."
BOOM.
A shadow stabbed upward from the waves—a tentacle the width of a megastructure, pulsing with void lightning. In a single, contemptuous motion, it crossed two thousand meters of sky.
"Jiang Rou—move!"
Jiang Rou yanked the stick so hard the metal groaned, but reality didn't care about their reaction speeds.
The tentacle hit them first.
CRACK.
Golden Core–powered shields—supposedly indestructible—shattered like cheap glass. Forty tons of reinforced truck body was swatted aside like garbage thrown out a window.
"We're losing altitude!" Saya shouted from the console. "Gravity plates down! Impact in ten seconds!"
"Esdeath! Ye Qingyu! Buy us a landing!"
The rear hatch blew open.
Esdeath dove out laughing, the kind of unhinged excitement only she could muster in moments where normal people begged for life. "Ice Age!"
Ye Qingyu followed, channeling the Siren's Pearl until the air hummed around her.
A glacier the size of a sports stadium bloomed across the ocean.
CRASH.
The truck smashed into the ice, skidding violently, plowing through frozen mist before grinding to a halt. Metal groaned. Steam hissed. But the Behemoth held.
Su Chen kicked the door open.
Cold rain slapped his face. His Silver Body hardened instinctively.
Saeko stood beside him, blade drawn, tension humming through her stance. "What the hell hit us…"
The water below churned. Not like waves—like something alive was breathing.
The attacker rose.
---
The Beast That Should Not Exist
It wasn't shaped like anything sane. A drifting continent of black flesh, tendrils, twisted bone plates, and blinking eyes that appeared and vanished like glitches in reality.
A single central eye opened—violet radiance swirling like a collapsing star.
And Su Chen's Lich Spirit flinched.
> [Target Identified: VOID LEVIATHAN (Disaster Class)]
Level: 45 (World Boss)
Abilities: Void Absorption, Infinite Regeneration, Reality Distortion.
Note: Predator of Dimensions.
Su Chen clenched his jaw.
"Level forty-five… and I'm eight. Tch. This is a stat check from hell."
The Leviathan spoke without sound—psychic pressure slamming into them like the ocean itself was screaming. The ice groaned under the weight of its presence.
Tentacles—hundreds of them—shot up, aiming to tear the truck apart.
"Protect the Behemoth!" Su Chen ordered. "The core's irreplaceable!"
He launched skyward.
Purple Cloud Wings flared, struggling against chaotic winds.
He didn't hesitate.
Star Destroyer Cannon—50% Output.
Blue light bloomed across the storm, firing point-blank at the Leviathan's central eye.
The beam struck—
—then vanished.
Absorbed. Eaten.
> [System Warning: Energy Attack Absorbed. Enemy Power Increased.]
Su Chen exhaled through his nose. "So you eat energy… fine. I'll carve you."
He drew the Indigo Nichirin Blade, muscles swelling as Muscle Overdrive took hold.
He shadow-stepped, landing on the Leviathan's "surface"—if you could call constantly shifting flesh a surface.
"Water Breathing, Tenth Form—Constant Flux!"
The blade cleaved through ten meters of void flesh. Purple blood gushed—
—before the wound simply rewound itself. Not healed. Reversed.
> [Passive: Void Regeneration — All injuries undone unless the Core is destroyed.]
Su Chen clicked his tongue. "Not infinite. Nothing's infinite. I just need the right angle."
He opened the Book of the Undead.
"Army of Death. Drop."
Five thousand Skeleton Soldiers fell through portals, swords raised.
Cursed Murasame blades pierced the Leviathan's hide—the poison spreading like a virus.
The flesh blackened—
—and then the Leviathan simply dumped its own poisoned tissue, ejecting it like a faulty organ.
A ripple passed through its body.
BOOM.
The shockwave disintegrated the entire skeleton army. Dust scattered into the rain.
Su Chen's expression hardened. "Adaptive intelligence, huh. Annoying."
Space twisted.
Gravity multiplied.
His bones creaked as the world crushed downward.
> [Ability: Void Crush — Gravity ×50.]
He fell like a stone.
The Leviathan raised a spear-tentacle the size of a skyscraper.
Esdeath tried to freeze a pillar beneath him—
Her magic broke under the Leviathan's aura like frost under a blowtorch.
The spear fell.
Su Chen triggered the Diamond Bell—the strongest shield of the Indestructible Body.
The golden bell shattered instantly.
Time slowed.
He scanned his inventory mentally.
Fire? Absorbed.
Ice? Weak.
Poison? Countered.
Physical? Regenerated.
He needed a cheat. A loophole.
His hand brushed the Leviathan's own blood.
"Right. You."
> [Target: Void Blood]
[Copy: Infinite]
His wings snapped open.
He reversed his portal.
Not pulling in—
pushing out.
"Have dinner."
Wisteria poison.
High-yield C4.
A tsunami of copied Void Blood.
All dumped directly into the Leviathan's pores.
BOOOOOOM.
The explosion forced the toxic brew deeper inside.
Void Blood reacted with itself—like antimatter.
The Leviathan shrieked. Not psychic annoyance. Real pain.
A crater the size of a football stadium opened in its body. Flesh struggled—and failed—to regrow.
Su Chen wiped blood from his lips. "So you hate Wisteria. And you hate your own resonance. Excellent."
The Leviathan's central eye turned on him.
This time it didn't fire.
It blinked.
Everything went black.
---
The Nightmare of the Deep
Su Chen stood in a void.
Rotting versions of himself surrounded him—each one whispering failure, weakness, insignificance.
"Mental attack. Cute."
He drew on his Lich Spirit—the cold, hungry force that defined him.
"I am the nightmare."
The illusions shattered like glass.
Reality snapped back.
But a tentacle had already wrapped around his ankle.
"Gotcha," a voice echoed in his mind.
YANK.
The Leviathan dragged him into the abyss.
Pressure crushed around him. 1000 atmospheres. Darkness absolute.
But Su Chen didn't choke.
He had gills now.
Night Vision turned black water into blue clarity.
The Leviathan's true body lay beneath him—a monstrous root mass anchored to the sea floor.
And beneath it—
A cracked portal.
A golden glow.
A massive Trident embedded halfway through the gate.
Su Chen's eyes widened.
"Atlantis."
The Leviathan wasn't the boss.
It was the guard dog.
He grinned underwater, bubbles drifting upward.
"Alright then."
He twisted his sword.
Down here, the ocean wasn't an enemy.
It was fuel.
> [System Notice: Environmental Synergy Detected]
[Water Breathing Effectiveness: +1000%]
Pressure didn't crush his blade.
It sharpened it.
Su Chen inhaled the ocean.
"New technique."
Water Breathing — Eleventh Form (Original): Mariana Trench.
A blade of compressed water—dense enough to slice atoms—formed around his sword.
SHING.
The tentacle holding him severed cleanly.
Su Chen didn't swim upward.
He swam downward.
Toward the Leviathan's core.
Toward the Trident.
Toward Atlantis.
His voice echoed into the abyss, calm and cruel.
"I'm not trapped down here with you."
His blade glowed.
"You're trapped down here with me.