CHAPTER 12: The Tremor in the Deep
Three days passed after Veer's departure, and the coastal island town fell into an unnatural, suffocating lull. The violent storm had receded, leaving behind a thick, low-hanging fog that rolled off the ocean, wrapping the ancestral estate in a damp, ghostly shroud.
To Ama and the household maids, the drop in temperature was just a typical post-storm weather pattern. But to Krishak, now operating with the heightened senses of a Martial Warrior (Level 2), the fog was a symptom of a deeper, structural sickness in the local space.
The ambient spiritual energy of the island was fluctuating wildly, snapping like overextended rubber bands.
The spatial fracture at the northern reef is tearing wider, Krishak thought, standing on the edge of the estate's stone veranda. He looked out into the grey abyss of the ocean. The localized suppression of Earth's laws is fighting back against the tear, but the friction is creating an elemental vacuum.
Beside him, five-year-old Luna was trying to catch the drifting patches of fog with her tiny hands, giggling as the moisture dissolved through her fingers.
"Brother, look!" she chirped, turning to him with a bright smile. "The clouds came down to play with us!"
Krishak's stoic expression softened instantly. He reached down, wrapping a small woolen shawl tighter around her shoulders. "The clouds are just resting, Luna. Come inside, the air is getting too cold."
As he led her back into the warmth of the mansion, Ama stepped into the hallway. Her usual vibrant, commanding aura as a Beast Summoner seemed frayed. Her fingers were tightly clasped around a small, glowing green jade talisman—a standard communication array used by high-tier Awakeners.
She was staring at the talisman with a furrowed brow, her lips pressed into a thin, anxious line.
"Mother?" Krishak asked, his voice dripping with innocent childhood curiosity. "Is Papa calling?"
Ama jumped slightly, startled out of her thoughts. She quickly tucked the talisman into her robes and offered a reassuring, albeit strained, smile. "No, my sweet boy. The communication lines to the northern reef are just experiencing a bit of interference because of the fog. There is nothing to worry about. Go play with your sister in the sunroom."
She was lying to protect them, but Krishak's spiritual perception had already read the residual energy lingering on the jade talisman before she hid it. The array hadn't just suffered interference; it had been violently disrupted by a pulse of foreign, corrupted energy.
The expedition party had lost contact.
A Tier-3 beast outbreak doesn't possess the localized spatial authority to completely sever a high-tier Summoner's array, Krishak analyzed, his mind working with the cold precision of a military strategist. This means the fracture has bypassed Tier-3 entirely. It has birthed a Tier-4 anomaly—the equivalent of a high-level King (Level 6) entity on the cosmic ladder.
A Level 6 King entity possessed the raw power to alter terrain and dictate the laws of its immediate environment. For Veer and his party of Level 5 Grandmaster Hunters, walking into a King-level domain with primitive Earth gear was a death sentence.
That night, dinner was a quiet, tense affair. Ama barely touched her food, her eyes constantly darting toward the window. Luna, sensing the heavy mood, ate her bread in unusual silence, occasionally leaning her head against Krishak's shoulder for comfort.
Krishak sat perfectly still, his small fingers holding his spoon, but his consciousness was already descending deep into his newly forged Martial Warrior vessel.
I cannot wait for the Hunter Association to send reinforcements from the mainland, he resolved, his ancient gaze narrowing in the dim light of the dining room. By the time a National-Level Awakener notices the anomaly, the reef will be a graveyard, and the fracture will expand toward this town.
He had to move.
At midnight, the entire mansion fell into a deep sleep. Krishak slipped out from beneath his duvet, leaving his room with the weightless grace of a ghost. He didn't walk out the front doors; instead, he opened his bedroom window and stepped out directly into the empty air.
The moment his tiny feet cleared the sill, he activated the Universe Origin Body Art.
He didn't plummet toward the ground. Instead, he locked his internal gravity directly to Earth's rigid spatial grid, effectively shifting his personal gravity vector. To the laws of physics, the air beneath his feet became as solid as a mountain path. He glided downward, landing on the courtyard stone without causing a single molecule of dust to scatter.
Turning his face toward the northern horizon, Krishak closed his eyes and let a microscopic fraction of his sealed Origin Energy pass through the Primordial Origin Art cage.
Locate, he commanded.
The sub-atomic spark of cosmic creation resonated with the leaked celestial energy bleeding through the distant spatial fracture. Instantly, a vivid, three-dimensional spiritual map of the ocean route burst into his mind. He could see the exact coordinates of the tearing space, miles away across the black, churning sea.
And he could feel his father's fading, turbulent life signature, trapped beneath a suffocating blanket of malicious, mutated aura.
Krishak's eyes snapped open. The innocent toddler vanished, replaced entirely by the terrifying, unyielding majesty of a sovereign deity. The space around his small body began to distort, a localized gravity field forming that bent the very light of the moon around him.
You gave me a name, Veer, Krishak thought, his small hands clenching into fists as a cold, universe-shattering killing intent rippled through his soul. You carried me on your shoulders and called me your little warrior. For that alone, I will tear down whatever abomination thinks it can take you from this world.
With a sudden, silent burst of kinetic compression, Krishak shot forward. He didn't run along the roads. He bounded across the ocean surface, his tiny bare feet striking the black waves with such hyper-dense velocity that the water didn't splash—it compressed into solid ice platforms beneath his steps, launching him toward the northern reef like a shooting star.
The sleeping god of Earth had officially left his cradle.