The gray veil of the ocean floor refused to settle, a sepulchral shroud of silt and powdered coral that hung suspended in the heavy brine."MY TURN."The voice did not travel through the water so much as it inhabited it—a cold, subterranean vibration that bypassed the ears and struck the marrow. Smoke churned violently across the seabed, and from within the swirling debris, a silhouette slowly emerged.
El-Mond.
His black skin did not merely exist in the darkness; it seemed to consume it, as though the abyss itself bowed in recognition of a more absolute shadow. Each subtle movement released a menacing pressure—dense, suffocating, and primordial—that rippled through the water like a silent, tectonic warning. The Orca's massive body stiffened. He spun with a frantic, desperate violence, his pupils shrinking to needle-points within his cavernous eyes.
"H–How is this possible…?" the beast stammered, the tremors in his voice betraying a terror that his monstrous bulk could not mask. "You should be dead!". In response, a crimson light flickered within the gloom. El-Mond's eyes ignited, glowing with the dull, dangerous heat of a dying star. Then, he vanished.
In the next instant, his presence materialized directly behind the Orca, close enough for the freezing breath of death to whisper against the beast's skin. "Remember the pain," El-Mond said, his voice a chilling, hollow echo. "And answer my questions truthfully."
The words reverberated unnaturally through the pressurized space. "Where did your kind come from?"
A deafening, anguished scream tore through the depths. One of the Orca's massive pectoral fins was severed, sliced away with such clean, surgical velocity that the creature's nerves had not yet registered the strike. Blood spread through the current like thick, dark ink bleeding through parchment. "I'll give you one more chance," El-Mond's voice arrived from everywhere at once. "Answer me… and I will let you live."
Rage, born of agony and the loss of dignity, exploded.
"YOU BASTARD!!" the Orca roared, veins bulging beneath his blubber. "I'LL RIP YOU APART!!"
The sea answered his fury. "TIDAL WAVE WHIRL-WIND!"
Above, the very surface of the ocean seemed to collapse. Four colossal tornadoes—funnels of apocalyptic fury—bored through the water column, drilling toward the seabed with a sound like the grinding of worlds. They converged upon El-Mond, trapping him within a cage of screaming, high-pressure currents. The predicament was absolute. El-Mond was caught in a liquid centrifuge, a merciless vortex that sought to peel the scales from his flesh. The water pressure spiked to a bone-crushing degree, the violent winds of the deep lashing at him like a divine punishment. At the eye of this churning nightmare, the Orca hovered, his form silhouetted by the rotating walls of his own creation. A wicked, greedy grin twisted across the beast's face. "I will drain every ounce of your energy," he hissed. "And at the very last moment… I will torture you to death. Then, I'll use your core to enhance myself."
Within the churning debris, El-Mond's voice rose in a simulated, sharp-edged struggle. "Blood and hell... the torque is absolute! I'm pinned—I can't break the rotation! This is bad... I have to flee, I have to—NO—NO—NOOOO!". His cries were punctuated by the sickening sound of stone and coral being pulverized against his frame. He was tossed like a leaf in a hurricane, his body battered by the debris caught in the spin. For ten agonizing minutes, the vortex reigned supreme, a theater of aquatic torment that seemed to herald the end of the newly evolved King.
The tornadoes finally began to weaken, their kinetic fury dissolving back into the heavy, dark silence of the sea.
The Orca drifted unsteadily, his massive frame trembling with the onset of total exhaustion, yet a profound sense of triumph surged through him. He watched the last of the silt-laden currents settle into the abyss, convinced he had ground his enemy into nothingness. A low, guttural rumble of satisfaction escaped him—a laugh of pure, predatory relief. He had survived the impossible. He had vanquished the black phantom.
"Finally," he wheezed, his heart slowing as the adrenaline began to ebb. He drifted for a long, quiet moment, savoring the stillness of a victory bought with the last of his strength. The world was quiet. The threat was gone. He closed his eyes, allowing himself the luxury of a few short heartbeats of peace, basking in the belief that he now stood alone as the master of these waters.
Then, the silence was fractured.
"…Ugh."
The Orca froze, his heart leaping into his throat. From the heart of the settling gray cloud, two embers of crimson light ignited.
El-Mond glided forward, his black scales shimmering with a faint, crystalline luster. As he emerged, the true extent of the trial became clear. His body was a map of shallow lacerations—thin, spiderweb cracks etched across his "Diamond Body" armor, and a jagged tear marked his pectoral fin where the vortex's sheer torque had tried to rend him asunder.
"Sure took your sweet time," El-Mond remarked, his voice a dry rasp that carried the weight of the mountain. "I almost died of boredom."
"T—YOU…!" The Orca stuttered, his triumph turning to ash. "H—How are you alive? I crushed you! I tore the water itself apart!"
El-Mond's eyes narrowed, and then, a sound rose from the depths of his throat—a low, rhythmic, and utterly menacing chuckle that vibrated through the water with a cruel, metallic edge. It was a laugh of savage mockery, the sound of a predator watching a rival break themselves against an unmoving wall.
"Your ability is formidable," he admitted, the laughter still dancing in his chilling tone. "In this vast, pressurized arena, your control over the currents is near-absolute. To have attempted a counter-offensive while your storm was at its zenith would have been a fool's errand; my current repertoire lacks the brute mass required to pierce a centrifugal barrier of such violent velocity. My strikes are needle-points of precision, and one does not attempt to sew a tapestry in the heart of a hurricane". He circled the trembling beast, his laughter growing sharper, more derisive. "I realized that the only path to your throat lay through the eye of your own arrogance. By surrendering to the vortex's pull, I transformed myself from a combatant into a singular, unyielding anchor of density. I allowed your fury to expend itself against my reinforced frame, essentially turning your own kinetic expenditure into a timer for your demise. I did not survive your skill; I simply outlasted the architect who built it".
The mocking laughter died instantly, replaced by a chilling silence. "Crazy, perhaps. But in the face of an unreachable enemy, patience is the only weapon that never dulls."
His expression shifted then, the clinical detachment of the predator replaced by a shadow of ancient, human sorrow. He looked at the Orca, but he saw the faces of those who had sent him to this watery grave. Memories surfaced like bloated corpses: a friend's hand on his shoulder while a blade waited in the other; a wife's smile that masked a poison-filled cup; a life of honor ended by the petty greed of the mediocre.
"…Sigh. I guess I died because I was easily fooled by grand displays of power, too. I looked for honor where there was only hunger."
His eyes ignited once more, the crimson bleeding into a pitch-black void that seemed to pull the light from the surrounding sea. "NO—WAIT!" the Orca shrieked, his massive tail lashing in a useless attempt at flight. "I'LL TELL YOU EVERYTHING! THE KING, THE CORE, THE SOUTH SEA—!"
El-Mond's gaze hardened into a mask of absolute, unfeeling steel. "I am no longer interested in the 'why' or the 'where.' I have spent a lifetime listening to the excuses of those who seek my end".
A violent, suffocating killing intent erupted from his core, turning the ambient temperature of the water to ice. "Come what may…". His form flickered, the light around him distorting as he transcended the physical limits of the deep.
"I WILL. SLAUGHTER. YOU ALL."
He reappeared instantly behind the Orca. A thin, perfectly straight line of silver energy formed in the water, tracing the beast from snout to fluke. A heartbeat passed in utter stillness.
Then, the Orca's world split in two.
Blood gushed in a volcanic eruption as the massive form was sundered, the two halves descending slowly into the lightless abyss. The deep swallowed the remains without a sound, leaving El-Mond alone in the dark—a sapphire sentinel whose hunt had only just begun.
TO BE CONTINUED…