Let's put aside the chaotic disaster unfolding in Atlantis for a moment.
Right now, in the deepest pit of the Netherworld, the Water Demon Bai Tza was losing her absolute mind.
"My Kingdom! My Atlantis! NO—!!"
Her massive, spectral blue form—half-human, half-sea serpent—thrashed wildly across the scorched earth of Hell. Her tail fin whipped around in a frenzy, conjuring phantom tsunamis out of thin air and smashing the already desolate landscape into an even bigger mess.
Di Kui, the Earth Demon, had the misfortune of just popping his head out of a rocky crevice. Before he could even figure out what day it was, he was smacked in the face by a rogue wave.
SPLAT.
The burly demon was embedded into the adjacent cliff face, leaving only a cartoonish, distorted silhouette behind.
"Cough, cough... What is her problem now? Did she finally snap?"
Di Kui painfully pried his head out of the rock, shaking off the dizziness, and grumbled with the deep resonance of shifting tectonic plates.
Nearby, Hsi Wu, the Sky Demon, hovered in mid-air, flapping his bat-like wings. Watching Bai Tza's meltdown, he felt zero sympathy. In fact, he let out a screeching, mocking laugh.
"Kee-hee-hee! Can you blame her? She waited a thousand years for a chance to dip a toe back into the mortal realm. She was this close! And what happens? She fumbled the ball at the one-yard line! I'd be screaming too! Bwahahaha!"
"Enough! Bai Tza! Compose yourself!"
The calm, distant voice of Tso Lan, the Moon Demon, cut through the noise, carrying the authority of the eldest brother.
He floated toward Bai Tza, defying gravity, attempting to stop her pointless destruction.
"Venting your rage like a toddler will not salvage the situation."
"Compose myself?! How am I supposed to be calm?!"
Bai Tza pointed a trembling claw at a floating sphere of water—a scrying mirror formed from dark magic.
The image in the water, which showed the chaos in Atlantis, was becoming increasingly static and blurry. The edges were warping, signaling the end of the connection.
"Look at it! My kingdom, which I just revived! The weak but vital link I established with the mortal realm is severing! It's about to vanish completely!"
She let out a heart-wrenching shriek, filled with despair and unwillingness to accept defeat.
"And the thing destroying it is the very beast I tamed eons ago! The Kraken!"
"A damn human is using my methods to control my pet to destroy my kingdom! It is the ultimate irony! The ultimate humiliation!"
A trace of helplessness flashed in Tso Lan's crimson eyes, but he maintained his stoic demeanor, trying to placate his sister.
"Bai Tza, do not panic. The situation is not irretrievable. Your Source Essence has successfully reached Atlantis."
"If you act quickly, you can use that wisp of essence to corrupt and possess a suitable host. Use them as an anchor for your will, and you can still..."
Tso Lan's voice cut off abruptly.
His crimson pupils constricted to pinpricks. He stared dead at the scrying mirror, witnessing a sight that shocked the ancient demon to his core.
For the first time, his unshakeable poker face cracked.
"Damn it! How dare he inhale that much at once?!"
Seeing her brother lose his composure, Bai Tza felt her anxiety spike. She frantically looked up at the image.
Then, she froze.
Her eyes went empty, as if her soul had just left the chat.
In the blurry, shaking image, that human brat—Vic—was holding the ancient gourd that contained her only hope of returning to the world.
And he was chugging it.
Like a frat boy at a keg stand, he was absolutely vacuuming the contents! Glug, glug, glug!
The suction was so intense that a visible vortex of purple dark magic formed at the mouth of the gourd.
The precious, concentrated Essence of the Water Demon—her literal life force—was pouring into the human's stomach without resistance.
"No... no... my Essence... my last hope..."
Bai Tza mumbled, her voice trembling into a whimper.
She reached out a shaking tentacle, as if trying to reach through the screen to stop him, but it fell limp.
The Netherworld fell into a dead silence.
The only sound was Hsi Wu, who was so shocked he forgot to flap his wings and fell out of the sky with a loud SPLAT, followed by a weird noise that was halfway between a laugh and a sob.
Di Kui scratched his rocky head. He looked at the petrified Bai Tza and Tso Lan, then at the twitching Hsi Wu on the ground.
"So... uh... what just happened?"
---
Atlantis.
Vic let out a loud, satisfied belch. A cloud of frost rolled out of his throat, carrying a faint mist of purple energy.
BURP—!
That feeling... it was better than downing ten ice-cold sodas on a hot day!
Venom had once told him that the stronger the host's base stats, the more exponential the power boost when they merged. Back in the exhibition hall, when he took that first sip of the "demon juice," he had felt it.
In that instant, his body felt like it had been forcibly injected with ancient power. His muscle density and reaction time had spiked.
More mysteriously, he had briefly touched a higher authority... the power to command "Water."
Although that feeling had been fleeting—thanks to the Sheep Talisman's gentle power protecting his soul and the magic retreating into the gourd—the sensation of commanding the ocean was branded into his memory.
And now... he had just downed the whole bottle.
"That's enough... this time, it's definitely enough!"
Vic felt the dark energy roaring through his body like a tsunami. He growled low in his throat.
BOOM—!
An indescribable, massive surge of energy exploded from within him! His body began to undergo a visible, horrific mutation!
His bones emitted a tooth-aching crack-snap-pop symphony. His frame swelled as if being inflated, muscles bulging so violently that his clothes shredded into ribbons instantly.
His skin tone shifted rapidly, turning into an ominous, deep-sea blue—sleek, smooth, and cold.
His pupils constricted, the whites of his eyes completely consumed by a blood-red glow, radiating a ferocious, demonic aura.
The skin on his cheeks tore open to reveal gills that looked like bone spurs, fluttering with his breath.
On top of his head, sleek, dark blue tentacles burst through the skin like living worms, writhing and waving in the air without any wind.
The most shocking change was his lower body.
His legs fused together, elongating and covering themselves in hard scales. They transformed into a thick, powerful, blue-patterned fish tail. The fins flowed like luxurious blue silk but held the power to slice through currents!
He was being forcibly re-engineered by Bai Tza's Source Essence, transforming into the avatar of the Water Demon!
Just as his consciousness was blurring under the impact of this violent power, a stream of fuzzy, high-pitched screaming exploded in the depths of his brain. It was like a psychic hate-mail bomb:
[LISTEN HERE YOU LITTLE ST! YOU SHAMELESS THIEF! I WILL FING KILL YOU! I'M GOING TO TEAR YOU TO SHREDS AND USE YOUR BONES TO DECORATE MY TOILET! F YOU AND YOUR WHOLE FAMILY!!!]
Vic was stunned for a second by this sudden "brain-voice verbal abuse." He blinked his glowing red eyes blankly and subconsciously muttered:
"Who is that? Do you have no manners? Quiet on the public channel, please. And enough with the personal attacks, okay?"