Anger, sadness, fear, shame, guilt, envy, jealousy, contempt, disgust, dread, and despair. Every dark emotion, every part of the dark triad—Leo felt it, saw it, and heard it.
"Arghh."
He groaned as the dark emotions fell on him like a crushing wave after he reached the surface. Aside from the physical waves of the Great Sea, the emotional waves hit directly into his mind and soul.
At least the suppression was gone now.
'What in the world?'
The scene in front of and around Leo was devastatingly magnificent and dreadful at the same time. It was an affront to every law of nature Leo had ever known.
There was no sun. No sky. Above him stretched a dark firmament, a hollow vault of absolute void that felt less like an atmosphere and more like the interior of a dying god's skull. It was a ceiling of nothingness, yet it was far from empty.
Colossal cracks—some thin as a hair, others wide enough to swallow a mountain—veined the dark expanse. From these jagged fissures, a viscous black goo dripped down but never touched the water; the droplets disappeared after reaching a certain point in the air.
The sea itself was a madness of motion. It didn't follow the wind, nor the currents; in fact, it followed no master at all. The waves were a chaotic, endless sway, jolting from left to right, then snapping from right to left with a momentum that threatened to tear Leo's remaining arm from its socket. The horizon didn't exist. The water surged upward from the North, collided with a wall of brine rushing from the South, and twisted into violent peaks from the East.
Violet-white lightning arced across the cracked firmament, illuminating the black goo and the silver spray in a strobe-light horror. The thunderclaps that followed were physical blows—deafening shocks that vibrated through Leo's very marrow and rattled the open wound where his arm used to be.
'.. This.. This is the Tide Of Seas.'
He wasn't able to study it well, however, as he was busy trying to stay alive while being swayed from left to right by the chaotic waves. Fortunately, only the smaller waves had figured him out so far.
His open wound burned and caused him immense pain, but that pain couldn't be compared to the toll taken on his mind, body, and soul by the ocean. He heard insidious whispers, felt dark emotions, and was dragged in different directions by the waves.
If it continued this way, he would die.
Adding to his problems, a huge figure burst out of the water and let out a deafening roar. It didn't take the shark long to discover the Aquarius's fragile body being thrown to and fro in the waves.
The Sagittarius lunged, but the movement wasn't exactly smooth, as it was also affected by the chaotic waves. Before Leo could even try to dodge—even though it was nearly impossible—a wave crashed into the Sagittarius, sending it crashing back into the black water.
Leo didn't have time to celebrate. The same force that saved him also condemned him.
The water under him suddenly vanished, replaced by a steep, vertical drop as two waves collided and pulled the sea floor upward. Leo tumbled down the liquid cliff, his stomach hitting his throat. He crashed into the trough with a bone-jarring impact, the saltwater stinging his shredded shoulder.
'Up! Which way is up?!'
He couldn't tell. The darkness above and the darkness below were identical, save for the strobe-light flashes of violet lightning. He kicked his legs frantically, the stump of his left arm trailing a ribbon of crimson that was instantly torn apart by the current.
He broke the surface again, gasping for air. Ten meters away, the Sagittarius breached again. It was thrashing, its massive tail fin catching the wind as it tried to stabilize itself. With a powerful thrum of its tail, it cut through a surging wave, its metallic scales glinting under the violet strobe of the lightning. It was faster than the current—a machine of muscle and spite.
It closed the distance in a heartbeat.
Leo tried to dive, but a cross-current caught his legs, pinning him against the surface. He was a sitting duck. The Sagittarius opened its maw, its rows of serrated metal teeth reflecting the violet flashes from the firmament.
The jaws snapped shut, missing Leo's head by a fraction of an inch as a sudden surge from the south knocked Leo upward. The force of the water was so great it practically launched him into the air. For a split second, he was airborne, looking down at the churning black abyss and the frustrated monster below.
Then gravity—distorted and heavy—slammed him back down.
It didn't just slam him; he felt a force boil against his back for a split second before he hit the ocean.
'Ah. What now?'
He hit the water hard, the air driven from his lungs. He was blind, deafened by a thunderclap that felt like a punch to the jaw, and completely at the mercy of the swaying sea. The water shifted again from left to right, dragging him directly back into the path of the charging beast.
The Sagittarius didn't hesitate. Seeing its prey disoriented and gasping, it surged forward, slicing through the chaotic brine with terrifying precision. Its massive body was a battering ram of muscle and armor, ignoring the smaller swells that were currently tossing Leo around like debris.
Leo's vision was swimming. The boiling sensation on his back was still searing his skin, adding a fresh, throbbing heat to the icy agony of his missing arm. He tried to paddle away, but his right arm felt like lead, and his legs were tangled in a sudden, violent whirlpool pulling him downward.
The shark was upon him.
In the strobe-light glare of the violet lightning, the monster looked like a mountain of obsidian. It lunged, its massive head breaking the surface to reveal rows of countless metallic teeth. Leo felt the rush of displaced water.
But the Tide was a fickle god.
Just as the shark's jaws began to close, the sea beneath it buckled. A colossal wave from the left slammed into a wall of water rushing from the right at the point of impact. The collision created a geyser of pressurized foam that exploded between the two combatants.
Leo was thrown backward, the force of the spray stinging his eyes. The Sagittarius, caught mid-lunge with its center of gravity exposed, was flipped onto its side. It let out a muffled, gurgling roar as it crashed into the churning trough, the sound of its teeth snapping shut on nothing but salt and air.
Leo didn't wait to see if it would recover. He kicked with every ounce of strength left in his legs, desperate to put distance between himself and that maw.
"Argh!"
He hissed as the water shifted again. The momentum was so violent it felt like his remaining shoulder was being wrenched from its socket. He was being dragged directly back toward the spot where the shark was currently thrashing to right itself.
The waves were playing with them. It was a game of cat and mouse—only in this case, there were two mice.
The Sagittarius found its footing first. It didn't swim toward him this time; it used the shifting current of a rising wave to propel itself, launching its massive bulk like a torpedo.
Leo looked up, his heart hammering against his ribs. He was at the bottom of a liquid valley, and the monster was coming down the slope with the speed of a falling rock. There was nowhere to hide, and with the water pinning him down, there was no way to move.
'Is it too late to enter the domain?'