"Don't tease me…"
Helektra softly responded in an especially gentle voice, carrying a hint of a young girl's shyness.
In the next moment, her slender and beautiful fish tail flicked lightly, causing the water to stir, and strings of bubbles of varying sizes, clear and shimmering, were formed.
All the bubbles drifted upward cheerfully like playful fairies, and within the sunlight that pierced through the seawater, they refracted into dreamlike, rainbow-colored glimmers.
Soon...
*Plop!*
One burst.
*Plop!*
Another burst.
*Plop!* *Plop!* *Plop!* *Plop!*
A whole string of bubbles burst in rapid succession, and with every delicate pop, a brighter flash of tiny light bloomed for a fleeting instant, like scattered stars igniting and vanishing within the span of a breath.
For Helektra, this bubble-bursting spectacle was her favorite moment of all, one she never grew tired of watching, no matter how many times it repeated.
In her eyes, whenever those beautiful, translucent bubbles swelled and burst, releasing their brief, shimmering glow, it was unexpectedly the most beautiful radiance of all, surpassing even the soft gleam of the surrounding sea.
Right after all the bubbles had burst, the sea sirens lingered in their delight, laughing and playing among themselves for a while, their clear voices weaving together as they drifted through the water, before they began to mimic the calls of dolphins with their songs, chasing after schools of shimmering fish that scattered like living fragments of silver light.
However, the relaxed and lively atmosphere did not last long, as the smile on one of the sea sirens' faces gradually faded, the light in her eyes dimming before she finally spoke, her voice lowered as if weighed down by an unspoken concern.
"Hey, the black tide... the sisters who went west said that the black tide is back again..."
"Mm..." a younger sea siren nodded slowly, her brows tightly knit, her eyes clouded with unease. "I heard there's a gulf where the water's so murky you can't even see the coral anymore... it's all swallowed by that darkness... all the fish are dead, floating like pale husks..."
"What about the queen?" an older sea siren asked, her voice heavy with reverence and pain, her gaze lowering as if she did not dare look toward the distant palace. "She... She's been absorbing the black tide all this time... taking in too much filth... I heard she needs to rest lately... that even her radiance has begun to dim..."
Hearing their exchange, the faint flush on Helektra's face instantly drained away, leaving her complexion slightly pale, and her heart felt as if it were wrapped in strands of icy seaweed, tightening and tightening as it sank bit by bit into a cold, lightless abyss.
"Black tide..."
Helektra repeated the words softly.
In her eyes, that thing was like a nightmare—pitch-black, viscous, exuding the stench of decay. It mercilessly devoured their homeland, turning once-vibrant coral into lifeless gray and leaving lively fish rotten and foul, truly a malignant tumor of the ocean.
At this moment, the once cheerful atmosphere had completely vanished as the sea sirens gathered close, speaking in hushed, worried voices that barely rose above whispers, exchanging fragments of bad news carried from different regions, each report more troubling than the last, gradually turning the surrounding air heavy and suffocating, like an unseen mountain pressing down relentlessly on everyone present.
"It's getting late. We should head back."
A clever-looking sea siren spoke seriously to everyone.
"Helektra, don't play around for too long."
"Yes, the queen said to be careful near the shores—land-dwelling creatures can be dangerous."
"If you run into trouble, remember to ask the humans on land for help."
One after another, the sea sirens all gave their reminders to Helektra before swaying their powerful fish tails and turning away.
Like streaks of colorful light cutting through the clear seawater, they twisted nimbly through several turns and quickly vanished behind the deepening blue curtain of the abyss, leaving behind only a few strings of bubbles that rose slowly upward.
Just like that, only Helektra remained.
Looking a bit dazed, she tilted her head back to gaze at the brilliant light above, fragmented by the water's surface and swaying unsteadily, then lowered her eyes to see that below her lay the ever-deepening dark blue abyss.
In that instant, feeling the restlessness in her heart tighten like entangling seaweed, she suddenly took a deep breath of the cool seawater, and then her beautifully scaled fish tail snapped taut all at once!
*Whoosh!*
Like the strongest spring, her fish tail slammed hard against the water, erupting with astonishing power.
Her body instantly turned into an arrow released from the bow, tearing through resistance as she surged freely through the ocean at incredible speed, like a fish of the sea venting her frustration.
The water roared past her ears as it yielded.
The temperature of the water even seemed to warm slightly.
As the wavering membrane of the sea surface came right in front of her, the distorted pillars of light formed by sunlight piercing through the surface became clearly visible.
Seeing this, Helektra couldn't help but think that leaping up from the dark depths and smashing straight through that fragile boundary with her forehead, breaking into the open air in a single, violent motion, would be an absolutely exquisite and exhilarating sensation.
Just as her smooth forehead was about to pierce through the thinning layer of water and greet the brilliance of sunlight and the freedom of air, however, an accident occurred!
Without any sound, without even the faintest warning, not even the surrounding water stirring with the slightest ripple or disturbance, a man's figure suddenly appeared out of thin air right on the surface ahead of her, as if reality itself had split open, his body facing the sea as he dropped straight downward!
Because Helektra was moving far too fast, far too fiercely, her speed already pushed to its absolute limit, and because the distance between them was far too short to allow even a fraction of reaction time, the overwhelming inertia of her body could not be countered or redirected at all!
"Ahh!"
Helektra only managed to let out a short, sharp cry before, in the very next instant—
*BANG!*
A dull, teeth-jarring crash rang out!
Like a cannonball, Helektra slammed straight into the man's head—forehead against forehead—and as she felt the impact slam through her, it struck with a force that felt a hundred times harder than the toughest reef she had ever hit.
A blinding white flash instantly exploded in her vision, before countless tiny golden stars spun wildly as her head buzzed violently. As if an entire beehive had been stuffed inside, a crushing wave of dizziness immediately swept over her like a tsunami.
"Ugh..."
Helektra could not even produce half a syllable more as all strength drained from her body in an instant, causing her to go limp like overcooked kelp.
In that fleeting moment, darkness surged in from all directions and swallowed her vision completely, her consciousness snapping as though a taut thread had been abruptly severed, and she passed out entirely, her body drifting weightlessly downward toward the cold, shadowy seabed below.
Meanwhile, the man—who was none other than Lucian—fell beneath the surface along with her, his body cutting through the water as he descended, positioned directly above her.
As soon as his vision cleared from the initial blur, he immediately sensed a vague shadow directly beneath him, its presence unmistakable even in the dimness, and he quickly deduced that his head had most likely been struck by whatever it was.
"What the hell just hit me?"
Lucian reflexively raised a hand to touch his forehead, his fingers brushing against the spot as he muttered in bewilderment, but the moment he opened his mouth to speak, a rush of seawater surged in, flooding his mouth and cutting off any further words.
'Water? Again?'
Feeling this familiar sensation, it triggered a memory almost immediately.
He remembered that the last time, when he had entered Castorice's script, he had also begun submerged in water. Unlike that time, however, the water now surrounding him carried a distinct, briny sting against his senses, the unmistakable taste of salt making it clear that he was in seawater rather than freshwater.
*Buzz—*
Lucian let out a slow sigh, then unleashed Imaginary energy, letting it seep from within his body and coil around him in a faint, shifting aura that adhered tightly to his form, isolating the surrounding seawater and allowing him to move freely beneath the surface without resistance or pressure.
"Wait, that's…"
As his gaze sharpened and he carefully took in his surroundings, Lucian finally realized that the shadow drifting below him, gradually sinking into the dim depths, was not some indistinct shadow, but the outline of a gorgeous yet strange figure.
It was a woman with long black hair that flowed like ink through the water, the strands extending well past her thighs as they spread and swayed weightlessly, the color fading subtly to a deep plum at the ends, with a faint light blue hue visible underneath when the strands shifted.
However, what truly caught the eye was that, despite her human-like upper body with delicate features and pale skin, below her waist her form transitioned seamlessly into the sleek, scaled body of a fish.
Her eyes were gently closed, her expression calm and still as though she were merely asleep, yet the steady presence of vitality within her body made it clear to him that she was not dead, only unconscious.
Lucian raised an eyebrow slightly, his gaze lingering on the unusual sight as a faint trace of amusement flickered through his eyes.
'A mermaid? Nah… since I'm in Amphoreus, more like a sea siren? So she's the one who just rammed into me?'
Judging by the bump on her forehead, that seemed to be the case.
Lucian casually extended his right hand, his fingers relaxing as though grasping something unseen, and at once a gentle, invisible force spread outward, catching the sinking sea siren, Helektra, just before she could slip deeper into the water.
Wrapping around her body softly, like lifting a sleeping water lily, it drew her upward with a light motion, and with a splash, he carried her completely out of the seawater.
Without haste, he turned and began swimming toward the nearest shore, cradling this unexpected 'gift' from the deep ocean in that same unseen hold.
Soon enough, he stepped onto a stretch of sun-warmed white sand, the grains fine and soft beneath his feet, still holding a lingering heat from the sun.
He moved a short distance inland until he found a dry, level spot undisturbed by waves, then carefully lowered the unconscious Helektra, allowing her body to rest flat against the yielding surface.
In that instant, the sand shifted slightly beneath her weight, forming a shallow imprint, while the warm sunlight poured over her unobstructed, bathing her entirely in a soft, golden glow.
Sunlight was the most natural spotlight, and under its illumination, her current appearance was revealed with striking clarity.
Her long, wet black hair clung in strands to her cheeks, neck, and chest, the damp locks tracing the contours of her form before spreading loosely across the sand, where grains adhered lightly to their surface.
Her skin was astonishingly fair, almost translucent, as though light itself could pass through it, carrying a faint pearly sheen that shimmered subtly beneath the sun.
Her upper body possessed the proportions of a perfectly sculpted female model, each line balanced and harmonious, as though shaped with deliberate precision.
Her collarbones were delicate and well-defined, their smooth, elegant lines forming shallow arcs that caught the light.
Her waist was so slender it bordered on unreal, appearing as though it could be encircled with a single hand, yet what drew the eye even more was its faint translucence—enough to reveal the outline of her spine beneath the surface, along with the subtle shifting of water contained within her belly and lower abdomen, as if her body held part of the sea within it.
Her chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly, each breath extremely faint yet steady, providing the only visible sign of life within her still form.
Observing her like this, Lucian found his attention drawn not merely by appearance, but by a growing curiosity toward the sea siren's physical structure itself.
In his eyes, the most fascinating feature of all was the fish tail that replaced her legs, beginning just below her slender waist, where smooth human skin gradually transitioned into the sleek, scaled form of a creature born of the ocean.
It was covered in fine, orderly scales that looked as if they had been meticulously polished, and the color of the scales was not uniform, like the deep sea itself—layered and iridescent.
While the scales near her waist were a pale blue with an icy, crystalline texture, the farther down they went, the deeper the blue became, as if gradually descending from shallow waters into the abyss.
By the time it reached the strong, powerful tail fin, the color shifted abruptly, becoming vivid and bright.
As Lucian's inquisitive gaze locked onto Helektra's fish tail, the massive, fan-shaped tail fin suddenly twitched unconsciously against the warm sand, the motion smooth yet heavy with latent strength, causing a few grains of fine sand to cling to its surface, while sunlight swept over it in a slow, gliding pass, making the dark-blue scales instantly reflect a dazzling, rainbow-like brilliance that shimmered with every subtle movement.
Blue, green, purple, gold—the colors on the fin intertwined and shifted continuously, bleeding into one another without clear boundaries, looking stunningly beautiful and almost hypnotic, impossible to look away from no matter how hard one tried.
Even so, what was even more eye-catching were those strange bubbles hovering lightly around her body, drifting as if weightless yet deliberately placed, especially concentrated around her waist, hips, and critical 'private areas,' where they gathered more densely as though forming an intentional barrier.
In Lucian's eyes, they did not seem like lifeless objects, not like ordinary bubbles that would burst at the slightest touch, but rather something faintly animate, as if they pulsed with an unseen rhythm or responded subtly to her presence.
"I've lived this long, and this is the first time I've ever hated bubbles..."
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[A bonus chapter for every 500 Power Stones.]
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