Published at 12th of January 2022 12:13 pm

Chapter 731: The Hungry Depths

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The three girls waited for the flashlights to be finished, and then briefly experimented with their settings. While they waited, Chel created a very simple energy for darkvision. While it did not offer them much range for their vision, it would at least let them see the immediate area around them. And given that they were unaware of what sorts of monsters would exist on the ocean floor in this region, that little bit of sight was extremely valuable.

“Keep in mind, the artifact we’re looking for this time has an ability related to either distortion, nullification, or stealth. I’m hoping that it is the latter, as that would be the easiest one for us to deal with. If it’s nullification, we may simply have to return after James is awake, and work on a containment field specifically for such an object.” Chel explained as they each held their flashlights.

Nora and Thea both nodded, signalling that they were ready. Thus, Chel gave the command for Traveler to send them down to the coordinates of the object, one kilometer above the ocean’s surface. As they had become familiar with over their years, golden mist surrounded the three girls, sending them to hover in midair.

As they were expecting this, they were able to immediately stabilize themselves, watching the apparently calm ocean below. The two sisters looked warily as Chel descended, carefully measuring the distance. “Traveler, please warn me when I’m within five meters of the affected region.”

Although she was confident in her own calculations, she did not want to gamble with her life, even if this was only one incarnation. It would greatly upset James if he realized that she threw a life away like that.

Sure enough, around the same time as she believed she was getting close, Traveler transmitted a warning to her. With a smile, she stopped where she was, looking beneath her. There were no visible traces to be found of this field, but that was to be expected.

Chel extended her hand, her arm stretching out as she pushed more and more energy into reshaping her body. Soon, it had reached a length of over ten meters, easily penetrating the field with room to spare. With that done, Chel waited, sensing to see if there were any changes in the energy of her arm penetrating the field.

Moments passed, but nothing appeared to change, aside from the fact that Chel was unable to sense her arm beyond a certain point. Just to make sure, she pulled her hand back, relieved to find that it was still able to be controlled. “Alright, like we practiced.” She said, allowing her own body to descend into the water.

Nora looked at her sister and nodded, following closely after Chel. They knew that they would no longer be able to verbally communicate after this point, so the tension was rapidly rising. As they descended into the depths, the light became more and more dim, forcing them to activate the energy that Chel had previously taught them.

If there was one thing to be thankful of, it was that this world had not developed much in the way of powerful beasts. At least, not that could be observed from the surface. It was impossible to tell if there was something lurking within the range of the relic, however.

As Nora’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw various strange fish floating around her. Some of these creatures were colorful, or sporting numerous tentacles. Some swam up towards her while others avoided them. However, the largest that they saw on their descent was no more than half their own size.

This creature strongly resembled a shark, and had attempted to attack Nora upon noticing them. Nora simply formed an axe blade with her left hand, slicing the creature in half with ease. Although she knew that it was counterproductive to kill it and allow its blood to flow into the water, she could not simply allow it to bite away at her while they worked.

Now that she had acted in such a way, she flashed her light red at the others to alert them. When they saw the cloud of blood in the water, they hurried their descent, taking mere moments to arrive at the ocean’s floor. This depth was quite some distance from where the shark had died, so it should theoretically be out of the hunting range of any super-predator that would be attracted.

Once they were on the ocean’s surface, they split up and began scanning the ground around them. Their flashlights swept over the murky surface, looking for any protrusion and sifting through any coral or seaweeds that they found. Nora went straight for the center of the field, Chel moving to the left and Thea to the right.

Their progress was slow, the limited visibility coupled with the pressure of the ocean restricting how quickly they could search. Within the first hour, they had not even explored one hundred meters into their respective zones.

During this hour, Nora had tried extending energies from her body other than mana. For instance, she had tried using her spiritual energy to scan the energy around her, or even just her ki. Each time, however, she completely lost contact with the energy the moment it left her body, souring her expression.

All she could do was scan the area with her eyes, feeling around with her feet to make sure it wasn’t lying just beneath the surface. Sadly, she was unable to locate it within that hour.

However, she did not lose hope, as their search had only just begun. For the second hour, they had become acclimated to their underwater conditions, slightly increasing their effectiveness. Every now and then, one of them flashed their light yellow, drawing the other two over. However, all that this revealed was a few deep sea pearls, rather than the crystal that they were looking for.

By the end of the third hour, they had managed to just reach the center of the areas they were searching, still without any luck. If there was one thing to be thankful for, it was the absence of monsters that could truly harm them…

Eventually, their flashlights began rapidly flashing pink, signalling for the three girls to begin their ascent. Although they had not found anything, Chel had warned them that it could take as long as a week to find the relic within this underwater field. On their way up, they noticed considerably less activity in the local aquatic life, possibly having been scared away by the smell of the shark’s blood from earlier.

Once they surfaced, they flew higher into the air, waiting until they had exited the range of the relic’s effects. Only then did Chel look at the sky again. “Traveler, can you recharge our flashlights from here, or do we have to return?”

I can handle the matter remotely. His voice transmitted back to her, letting Chel breathe out a sigh of relief. Nora and Thea soon realized that her estimation of one week was under the assumption that they got as little rest as possible, their faces paling at the thought of spending an entire week underwater.

Once Traveler responded that it was done, Chel directed them to descend again, returning to their previous points. This time, they spent the next two hours scanning the remains of their respective territories, doing their best to sweep through as quickly as they could.

After the two hours were over, Nora noticed her sister’s light flashing off to her right. Turning to look, she expected it to be the yellow light indicating a possible find. However, to her surprise, Thea’s light was flashing blood red.

Alarmed, Nora hurried to her sister’s location, kicking against the ground and propelling herself fast enough to disturb the flow of water around her. When she arrived, she saw that her sister was standing in a defensive posture, cuts visible along her body.

Oddly, Nora did not see what was attacking her sister, nor did she see Thea fighting back. Instead, she watched her sister wince as a fresh cut appeared along one of her arms. Thea swept her arm out to the side in an attempt to catch her attacker, but the strike hit nothing but empty water.

Nora immediately recognized that the enemy was some form of invisible creature with high speed and blades along at least some part of its body. Moreover, these blades were sharp enough that they could pierce the body of someone at their level. That was far from an easy feat, indicating that they were likely dealing with the apex predator of this ocean.

Moments after Nora arrived, she felt a pain along one of her legs. Looking down, she saw that a cut had appeared along her leg. As she was not a creature with an organic body, this cut did not bleed, but it did offer the pain of her leg being cut.

Nora glanced around warily, moving over to stand next to her sister. If the two of them worked together, they had a much higher chance of fending off whatever force they were fighting. And unsurprisingly, Thea seemed reassured to have her sister there, as well.

Unfortunately, an increase in morale did not exactly help them find their invisible attacker. If they had access to their external energies, it would be a simple matter for either of them to just unleash a sweeping attack to destroy everything in their immediate vicinity. Without it, they could only rely on their manipulation of their bodies.

A cut began forming on one of Thea’s cheeks, and the side of her head abruptly turned into a spike. While she was hoping to impale whatever had attacked her, it was clear that she had no such luck. The only thing she managed to accomplish was scraping the side of the creature, which she felt was quite durable.

What the attack did do was to cause a trickle of blood to leak out from the side of whatever it was that attacked them, allowing them to more accurately track it. However, this showed them that they were not fighting only one adversary. While they had previously been content to attack one by one as part of some pack hunting tactic, the injury to one of their own had sent the rest into a frenzy.

Over a dozen wounds appeared simultaneously along the bodies of both kitsune, the two of them doing their best to react with those same spike protrusions. When the injured fish swam back around to strike, Nora accurately pierced its body with her hand. With one forceful motion, she tore its body open even as more cuts appeared along her body.

It did not take long for Chel to arrive and see what was going on. Witnessing the numerous attacks appearing along their bodies, she furrowed her brow. Invisible creatures that hunted in packs, and possessing strong enough natural weapons to pierce the bodies of people at their level… it was clear that these creatures had been nurtured by the relic that they were looking for.

Unfortunately, this did not help her save the two sisters. She wracked her brain, trying to think of a means of attack that would work in this situation, when suddenly Nora did a daring move the surprised both Chel and her sister.

Reaching her arms out, she caused them to massively expand, reaching more than twenty meters in length. At that point, they split open, moving to form connected lines around them in the shape of a dome. Finally, the connected lines filled in, forming a solid dome with tiny holes pierced through it at even points.

It took Chel a moment to realize what Nora was doing, her eyes only lighting up a moment later when a flesh-colored sphere passed through the dome, opening to contain the sisters. Operating under the assumption that the fish were staying within ten meters of their prey, Nora began constricting the dome she had created, the holes too small for the fish to swim through. Although they could cut at her body, they could not carve out a path to escape faster than Nora could compress the dome.

Soon, she could feel the wriggling masses contained within the hand she had turned into the ‘fleshy’ dome. As they were unable to properly swim about, it was clear that they were occupying almost the entire space. Compressing any further would be met with extreme resistance, and likely allow them to cut their way out.

So instead, Nora created numerous spikes along the inside of the dome, all piercing inwards. Soon, blood began to flow from the numerous small holes within the dome, an indication that the fish inside were being slaughtered.

Thea remained on guard against further dangers while her sister worked, only feeling relieved when she realized that no more injuries were appearing on either of their bodies. Once the school of invisible fish were all killed, she placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder, giving a thankful squeeze.

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