The fish sleek, three meters of muscle and bone—didn’t slow when they passed me.
They zipped through the water in unbroken formation, completely ignoring my presence. Perhaps it was because of the absolute lack of light here, where eyes were almost useless.
Their course was fixed, their attention locked on the only source of illumination, the angler’s lure, faint and distant in the abyss.
But I didn’t ignore them. I couldn’t.
Even without sight, I could feel them. Every subtle shift of water, every minute vibration, every whisper of their streamlined bodies parting the ocean, it all scraped against my awareness. The sound of their movement was like a mosquito buzzing directly in my ear, persistent and unbearable.
They had already pulled me from my sanctuary once. And now, their existence was grating on me.
They needed to be removed. No—eradicated.
I reached out and seized the tail of the nearest fish. My fingers sank into its slick skin like claws.
One savage pull and its body whipped sideways, momentum snapping through its spine as I slammed it into another fish.
The collision was catastrophic. Bone shattered. Flesh ruptured. A cloud of meat and gore burst into the water, brain matter mixing with streams of blood. Eyeballs drifted like pale pearls torn from their shells.
The heavy, metallic stench of iron filled my nose immediately, thick and suffocating.
The school halted at once.
They turned. Hundreds of pale forms wheeled in the darkness, drawn by the scent of their fallen. And then—
The sound that erupted from their jaws was no scream or roar I had ever known. It was guttural, alien. A scraping, grinding noise that didn’t belong in water or on land. Hearing it made my skin crawl. I felt filthy just by letting the sound enter me.
It was unbearable. So I moved.
Straight toward them. Straight toward the oncoming horde.
My hands moved without thought—pure instinct wrapped in violence.
A skull gave way beneath my palm, caving in like wet clay. Bone splinters, blood, and gray matter erupted in a cloud. I tore through them in a rhythm:
Each strike ended a life.
They tried to retaliate, but their numbers worked against them. In the crush of their own swarm, only a handful—ten, maybe twenty—could reach me at once. The rest waited for their turn, pressing forward in a tightening net.
They didn’t let a single opening go unpunished.
One surged from my left, a pale torpedo slicing the water. I twisted upward to evade, but—
Another rammed into my chest like a battering ram. Pain bloomed, but I didn’t waste the moment. My fingers plunged into its eyes, gouging deep until they burst between my grip.
Before I could finish, another struck from below, its jaws clamping on my left leg. A second appeared from my right, aiming for the other limb.
With a click of my tongue, I tore the eyeless fish from my grasp and hurled it downward into the two below. Their bodies collided in a messy crunch.
I didn’t pause. I lunged forward, increasing my speed, and slammed into another cluster.
At least four of them were reduced to pulp in the impact.
Yet... something was off.
The blurring speed from before—the movement faster than thought—it wasn’t there now. My strikes were still brutal, still efficient, but they lacked that impossible sharpness.
Maybe it was focus. Maybe it was something else.
Yes, I was stronger. But the way I had moved before... I couldn’t replicate it.
"I need to study it," I thought, even as the blood cloud thickened around me. "I need more ways to grow stronger... ways that aren’t chained to the system’s path of killing."
I ducked low, letting the rush of water skim my back as I thrust both arms upward in a savage motion. My hands tore through another fish’s abdomen, splitting skin and muscle in a clean, ripping pull. Its stomach cavity opened under my grip, spilling its innards into the black water.
From the left—another attacker.
From the right—its twin.
From directly ahead—two more surged forward, jaws snapping wide.
From below—another missile of pale flesh barreled toward me.
In seconds, I was boxed in again.
I exhaled slowly, a sigh slipping out. Then, I extended my arm forward.
The sensation hit me instantly— The utter absence of sensation.
And from that absence, it came.
The mist coiled around my hand, condensing into form. Cold, shapeless vapor pulling together until it hardened into a blade.
A sword—made of mist and fog.
I swung in a wide, fluid arc. The blade whispered through the water, cutting with impossible precision.
Every fish around me split cleanly in two—perfect bilateral dissection.
But this time... there was no blood. No cloud of gore.
Their bodies simply parted, each half drifting weightlessly like halves of a candle cut with a hot knife. Flesh, bone, nerves, and organs lay exposed in the sterile blackness, but the blood remained locked inside as if frozen in time.
I turned, searching for the rest. Ready to carve through the survivors—
Every one of them was dead. Only a few carcasses drifted upward, lifeless and hollow, their vacant eyes staring into nothing.
And just like that, the stillness I craved had returned.
Yet something was missing.
That pull—the indescribable, unfathomable force that had surged through me earlier—was gone. The strange connection, the intoxicating harmony of Nothingness... had faded.
"Whatever that was," I thought, my gaze fixed on the empty water, "it was the reason for my sudden surge in strength. If I can study it... if I can learn to control it... I can grow stronger. Much faster."
That was my hypothesis. But whether it would hold true? I couldn’t say. That was uncharted territory.
A quiet sigh escaped me.
"I should go up now," I murmured to no one. "I’ve been here far too long."