[The Dry Seabed – 2nd Floor]
The mist from the vaporized sea hung heavy in the air, tasting of salt and burnt mana. Cynthia walked across the cracked ground, her footsteps echoing in the unnatural silence. She stopped in front of the sobbing Saina, her presence radiating a calm, steady warmth.
"Don't cry," Cynthia said, her voice surprisingly soft. "You're thinking you were too weak to protect your friends, aren't you?"
Saina looked up, her eyes red and puffy behind her star-shaped glasses. Cynthia looked away, staring into the dark horizon. "I know that feeling. I lost my mother and my father in the same way. Their last words were for me to protect my little brother... and I failed in that, too."
The air around Techyon seemed to freeze. The words 'No, I am here, sister!' surged up his throat, nearly bursting from his lips. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.
I want to tell her, he thought desperately, his hand trembling. I want to stop her pain right now. But he gritted his teeth, forcing the words back down. I can't. If I let us fall into that happy moment now, we'll drop our guard. In this place, a single second of distraction is a death sentence.
Cynthia placed a firm hand on Saina's shoulder. "Don't think you're weak because you couldn't save them today. Think that you must become strong so that it never happens again. That is the burden of a Reidan."
"The Goddess of Flame is right," Ruta grunted, his magma-skin glowing dimly in the mist. "Grief is just fuel for the next fire."
Neweland suddenly slammed his staff into the ground, his eyes narrowing. "Quiet. The frequency of the floor is changing. I think something big is coming... everyone, be ready!"
Lapis stepped forward, his Honoured Eyes spinning with a frantic, golden light. He wasn't just looking at the mist; he was piercing the veil of time itself. "Wait," he gasped, blood trickling from his left eye. "Let me scan—"
In his vision, the world blurred. He saw Gaia standing still, and then, a fraction of a second later, the ground beneath her turning into a jagged maw of teeth and shadow.
"GAIA! MOVE FROM THERE!" Lapis screamed.
Gaia didn't hesitate. Trusting Lapis's foresight, she used a burst of kinetic mana to launch herself backward.
The very instant her boots left the ground, the seabed exploded. A gargantuan, obsidian-scaled Void Megalodon—a shark the size of a naval battleship—burst through the dry earth. Its teeth were jagged shards of dark crystal, and its eyes glowed with the same murderous red as the eye in the Null Dimension.
"What is this?!" Techyon shouted, sliding into a combat stance as the massive beast began to "swim" through the air, its presence crushing the remaining oxygen in the canyon.
The Void Megalodon roared, a sound that rippled the very air, but Nefa didn't give it a chance to strike. She didn't wait for a command or a strategy. In a burst of pure, kinetic violence, she launched herself forward.
"My turn to play!" she laughed, though her eyes remained sharp.
Nefa vanished, her physical body replaced by a blur of emerald light. To the others, it looked like a green comet was orbiting the shark. She was striking the beast billions of times per second, her daggers carving neon-green lines across its obsidian scales. The sound was like a jackhammer hitting a diamond—a continuous, deafening screech.
She flipped backward, landing lightly near the group, her breathing slightly elevated. "Its skin is incredibly hard!" Nefa shouted over the beast's roar. "It's like hitting a wall of solidified Dark mana!"
"I can solve that," Yoru said calmly.
She stepped forward, her green eyes glowing with a calm, spiritual intensity. She didn't draw a physical weapon; instead, she raised her hands, palms facing each other. Between them, a Spirit Blade of pure, ethereal blue energy erupted. It wasn't made of light or fire, but of concentrated soul-force.
In one fluid motion, Yoru flickered past the Megalodon. A single blue line traced a path through the air.
Squelch.
The massive head of the Void Megalodon slid off its body, the cut so clean that the dark blood didn't even spray until the head hit the ground with a thunderous thud. Yoru dissipated the blue energy and sheathed her invisible intent. "That was easy," she noted, her voice flat.
"Woah, Yoru!" Techyon exclaimed, his eyes wide with genuine admiration. "Was that your new move, Spirit Blade? That was incredibly cool! It ignored the physical armor completely!"
While the others watched the shark's body dissolve into black ash, Fraxy didn't join the celebration. She kept her healing mana active, her ears twitching at the sound of the receding mist.
"But don't you think this is getting too easy?" Fraxy asked, her voice tight with anxiety. "We just lost our friends to a barrage, but these monsters are falling in one hit. This is the Second Floor... it should be getting harder, not simpler."
As she spoke, the black ash from the Megalodon didn't disappear. It began to swirl on the ground, joining the ash of the vaporized vanguard, forming a shadowy whirlpool beneath their feet.
The severed head of the Void Megalodon didn't rot; it dissolved into liquid shadows that flowed back toward the headless trunk like a magnetic fluid. In a sickening display of dark biology, the flesh knitted together, and the jaw reattached with a wet, bone-crunching snap. The beast hadn't just survived—it had regenerated in a single second.
The shark lunged with a speed that defied its massive size, its maw opening like a gateway to the abyss.
"Yoru, look behind you!" Captain Carod roared, his thrusters igniting as he tried to bridge the gap.
But Yoru was still centered in the afterglow of her Spirit Blade. Before she could pivot, the massive rows of crystal teeth slammed shut. To the horror of the group, Yoru vanished entirely inside the monster's throat.
"YORU!" Techyon screamed.
He didn't think; he simply acted. His Mana flared, and a jagged, crystalline dagger manifested in his grip. He charged across the dry seabed, his boots leaving cracks in the earth as he aimed for the monster's eye.
At the same time, Carod descended from the sky like a falling meteor, his fist glowing with Inferno Volt energy. "Let her go, you overgrown parasite!" the Captain bellowed, ready to rip the shark open from the outside.
Suddenly, a shimmer of blue light flickered five meters to the left of the shark.
"Do you guys forget I can use Teleport?"
Yoru stood there, completely unharmed, dusting a speck of black ash off her shoulder. She had transitioned through the spirit realm the moment the jaws touched her, leaving nothing but an after-image for the beast to chew on.
The Megalodon, realizing its prey had slipped through its teeth, didn't stay to fight the combined might of Carod and Techyon. It slammed its massive head into the dry ground. Instead of a crash, there was a ripple, as if the solid earth had turned into water. The beast dived into the ground and vanished.
Ruta spun around, his magma-fists raised, his eyes scanning the silent, cracked seabed. "Where does it go? How can a shark swim through solid rock?!"
"It's not swimming through rock," Neweland warned, his staff pulsing with a frantic blue light. "It's swimming through our shadows."