Chapter 311
What kind of soap opera crap is this? Seong-Hwi thought as he looked back and forth at Lodon, imprisoned in the blackwater cell, and Tauma, who was staring at Lodon with contempt.
“You’ve come to visit me, Taufi. You’re as kind-hearted as always, my beloved fiancée—”
“Shut up, pisciceps,” Taumafiskur said, her light blue eyes as cold as ice. “Do not say my name with that filthy mouth of yours.”
Lodon remained silent due to Tauma’s cold attitude and asked, “You didn’t come... to visit me?”
“Hoho, how can you still be so delusional? In your dreams. I’m not the one who wanted to see you. It’s him,” Tauma replied as she pointed at Seong-Hwi. “This person is an inspector of the Sēmen, and he is here to investigate your pisciceps deeds. Isn’t that right?”
Seong-Hwi nodded.
Tauma smiled mercilessly as she stared at Lodon and continued, “He is here to finalize your sentence and expel the placoid scale tribe from the Sēmen!”
“Expel... the placoid scale tribe?” Lodon mumbled, staring at Seong-Hwi wide-eyed.
Seong-Hwi did not avert his gaze from Lodon’s. His eyes were as red as those of Haema Sanguis, but they felt completely different. If one compared Haema Sanguis’s eyes to filthy swamp water, Lodon’s eyes were clean lakes.
The eyes were a reflection of one’s soul. The streams created from one’s desires and emotions, stemming from their experiences, all drained into the lake that was one’s eyes.
I don’t feel Chaos Mana from him. Also... Seong-Hwi trailed off in his thoughts.
His Destiny Force filled his chest, giving him an odd sense of certainty. It wasn’t logical, but he felt a truth that he had never been so sure of in his entire life.
“You’re not a pisciceps,” he said.
Lodon simply stared at Seong-Hwi in silence.
“W-what are you talking about?! Lodon is a pisciceps! I saw it myself!” Tauma shouted as her eyes widened, throwing aside the respect she had been keeping out of formality.
However, Seong-Hwi ignored Tauma and only stared at Lodon.
“Isn’t that right? Okay, then. Go ahead and tell me what happened that night,” he asked.
Lodon remained silent.
“Defend yourself.”
Lodon continued to remain silent.
“Hohoho! Of course, he can’t. Because he is a pisciceps!” Tauma laughed once she saw Lodon’s attitude.
Lodon didn’t deny Tauma’s claim.
Seong-Hwi smiled and said, “I see, you think it’s pointless even if you tell me. Is it because it might sound like a cowardly excuse?”
Lodon did not say anything.
“Well, then. Let me say it for you,” Seong-Hwi said.
The eyes of the confused Lodon and Tauma focused on him.
“That night, you saw someone who looked exactly like you. He was the real pisciceps,” Seong-Hwi said firmly with certainty.
***
The moon was bright that night. Although the moonlight was considerably faint because the city was ten thousand meters underwater, there was a unique charm to seeing scattered, refracted moonlight.
“Huuu, I can’t believe we haven’t found even a trace of whoever it is,” Lodon said to himself as he sighed, sitting in his room as he basked in the moonlight.
Air bubbles rose from his mouth, filled with his worries. He was currently pursuing the culprit of the pisciceps incidents occurring in the Central Merfolk Town. They only killed ganoid scale merfolk, and considering the traces of skin teeth on the victims’ bodies, the culprit was a placoid scale merfolk. Hence, Lodon had investigated every member of the Front Tooth Corps, Strong Tooth Corps, and the Sharp Tooth Corps, but the case was cold.
Since they only kill at night, does that mean they have things to do in the day? Or, they may be well-known by the merfolk—
As Lodon was considering various possibilities, he felt a presence right in front of him. He looked up and saw the man before him—it was himself.
“Wha—”
“Hi, there,” the man said.
A man whose appearance, voice, aura, manner of speech, and mana were the same as his was right before his eyes. Lodon’s heart pounded so hard that it might explode, and only one thought filled his head.
I must kill him!
The uneasiness and sense of danger that accompanied the fact that he was not the only one of himself in the world paralyzed his thought process.
“Kekekek!” the man cackled as he fled.
“Bastard! Stop right there!”
Lodon began to chase after the man, whose habits and method of riding the currents were the same as his, toward the Central Merfolk Town. The man vanished into a certain restaurant in the Central Merfolk Town, and Lodon entered soon after.
“Hurgh!” he grunted as he witnessed the scene before him.
The restaurant was filled with the bitter scent of blood. Every corpse was that of a ganoid scale merfolk, and each of them had traces of skin teeth on them.
“Pisciceps!” Lodon shouted, certain that he had found the culprit he had been searching for all this time.
Just then, he sensed people approaching the building hastily and their loud voices.
“This way!”
“He fled here!”
“You are surrounded! Come out with your hands up!”
It was a trap! Lodon shouted inwardly.
He quickly looked around in search of an escape route, but the restaurant doors were pried open as if not giving him the time.
“Filthy pisciceps! In the name of the Illhveli, I will tear you apart!” shouted a merfolk woman with light blue scales, pink hair, and in a white dress. She spun a thorny whip intimidatingly.
“Tau...fi,” Lodon mumbled.
“Lodon?”
Their eyes met. Taumafiskur’s rage-filled eyes noticed the tattered corpses of over a hundred ganoid scale merfolk, and her fiancé in the center of the atrocity.
“You...”
“I-it’s not what it looks like, Taufi! This is—”
“YOOOOOUUUUU!” Tauma screamed as she charged at him.
Lodon clenched his fists and thought, I have to get out of here! I must explain my circumstances to Father!
He was certain his wise father, Carcharocles, would believe him and resolve this matter somehow.
I’ll use a Pressurized Water Bomb to create a gap in the encircling net! he thought as he drew out mana and Stream Force to gather in his right hand.
Just then, Tauma swung her whip as she shouted, “Lodon!!! How could you do this?! How could you betray me?!!!”
Tears trickled down her cheeks along the pink lines that went from her eyes to her neck. Once he saw those tears, the Pressurized Water Bomb he had been charging dissipated, and Tauma’s whip restrained him.
***
“That’s... right,” Lodon finally said, breaking his silence.
“I see,” Seong-Hwi said, having expected the answer.
“What? What’s right?” Tauma asked, unable to follow their conversation.
Seong-Hwi skipped the details and went straight to the result. “In short, Lodon is innocent. He fell into the trap orchestrated by a third party, aiming to cause a civil war between the placoid scales and ganoid scales.”
“Innocent? A third party, aiming to cause a civil war? A trap?” Tauma mumbled, then laughed mockingly. “Ahahaha! You’re crazy!”
“Release Lodon. I will go to Carcharocles with him,” Seong-Hwi said.
Tauma grabbed the thorn whip at her waist, which slithered around like a snake to threaten Seong-Hwi.
“What if I won’t?” she asked.
“My right to investigate is still active. Natantes has given me the right to do whatever I want with Lodon, not you.”
“I don’t trust you. You think I’ll let you take Lodon away with that flimsy lie? Have you received an S-rank item from the placoid scales or something?!”
Seong-Hwi did not answer and simply unsheathed the Knox Stiletto, activating two traits.
[Activating Trait: Ten Thousand-Man Killer.]
[Activating Trait: Scorn for the Weak.]
The cries of ten thousand vengeful souls and an aura that restrained the souls of those of lower caliber than Seong-Hwi exuded from him.
He smiled and said, “So, you’re begging me to kill you. Well, I didn’t intend to spare you in the first place.”
There was only one reason: because it was easier that way.
Since I can’t be sure who the doppelgangers are, killing everyone whom I suspect is one way to deal with it.
He simply needed to tell Natantes that Taumafiskur was a doppelganger, and that would be the end of it. It would also direct his wrath toward the Chaos, so it was killing two birds with one stone.
“Yahoo! Kill them! Let’s carve us some fish steak!”
“Not even I have conquered the deep sea.”
“A whip underwater, is it? How unique. You must read the flow of the water.”
Seong-Hwi listened to the urging of the destinies echoing inside his head as he took one step toward Tauma.
“Don’t you hurt her!” Lodon shouted from the blackwater cell.
Seong-Hwi glanced at Lodon and took another step.
“If you hurt her, I will not follow you!” Lodon shouted.
“What?” Seong-Hwi asked, stopping in his tracks.
“I said, I will not follow you!”
“Are you a child? You are the only one who can stop the civil war between the ganoid and placoid scales, and you’re saying you won’t?”
“I want to stop the civil war, too! So, don’t you dare hurt her!” Lodon shouted, his red eyes shining as if he meant it.
Seong-Hwi knew the personality of those with such eyes very well. After all, tons of people in Clan Calasanz had them.
“You’re not a child... but a moron,” he said.
“Yes, I am! So don’t—”
“What the hell are you two talking about? Am I a joke to you?” Tauma asked as she moved her whip to keep Seong-Hwi away from the blackwater cell holding Lodon.
Just then, something none of them had expected occurred.
[You are poisoned with Sagara Venenum.]
[Applying Debuff: Temporary Pause.]
[Applying Debuff: Muscle Cramp.]
[Applying Debuff: Restricted Vision.]
[Applying Debuff: Mana Burn.]
...
The three people were left in shock. Before they could figure out when they were poisoned and by whom, they felt an immense wave of mana from above.
Shit! I can’t move—
[Activating Unique Skill: Ananta Tenfold.]
A red pillar of light infused with incredible power engulfed the three poisoned individuals.
***
“Yahoo! A direct hit!” shouted a giant snake with red glossy scales and red eyes, staring at the collapsing Ocean Prison.
The snake was bigger than a serpent, a superior dragon, and had thicker scales. She was Ananta, having taken her Snake Incarnation form.
“Yahaha! Damn weaklings! They fly away with just a single breath!” the snake shouted.
“Why are you acting all high and mighty with a fake dragon breath, Ananta? No one would just let themselves get hit by that kind of attack if I hadn’t poisoned them first,” said Sagara, a naga with purple hair and scales.
“What’d you say? Since it’s been a while, why don’t I beat the crap out of you as the elder sister, Sagara?”
“You’ve never beaten the crap out of me. Do you seriously think you can beat the crap out of anybody with that fat body of yours?”
“All you do is surprise attacks, you petty bitch!”
“It’s called being clever,” Sagara replied with a gloomy smile and looked backward to see a short, robed individual holding an orb the size of their head. She asked, “What of the reinforcements?”
“They have arrived!” the robed individual said.
A giant shadow filled the deep sea and loomed over them. They were an army of Underfish of various shapes and sizes. The millions of Chaos monsters exuded Chaos Mana as they charged at the collapsed Ocean Prison.
“Kekekekeke!”
“Devour... them all!”
“Master Dopper’s orders!”
“Kill everyone!”
Bright yellow eyes flashed from inside the robe hood as the individual said, “An army this grand should be enough to kill the half-dead inspector of the Sēmen and Lodon. Once they have been disposed of, I will direct the army to the Ocean King’s Castle. The war should have begun by now.”
***
Natantes felt intense rumbling underneath him.
“What is going on?!” he shouted.
“I-I don’t...” a merfolk stuttered.
“Go find out!”
“Yes, sir!”
It was from the Ocean Prison! Did something happen to Cheon Seong-Hwi as he went to question Lodon? Natantes wondered as uneasiness filled his chest.
He grabbed the hilt of his White Tail Fin when Mushveli, his eldest son, quickly swam to him.
“FATHER—!” Mushveli shouted, his yellow eyes flashing.
“What is it?” Natantes asked.
“Father! Carcharocles is marching toward the Ocean King’s Castle with an army!”
“What?!” Natantes shouted, his expression filled with disbelief. “That is impossible! Why would Sir Carcharocles...”
“He must have finally let loose his desire to become the Ocean King! The placoid scales are slaughtering the other merfolk tribesmen in the Central Merfolk Town as we speak!”
“They are even laying their hands on the civilians?”
“Yes!”
Natantes’s blue eyes flashed like lightning. “Sir Carcharocles! War crimes are an unforgivable sin, even for you!”
He had always been frustrated because his position forced him to be cautious at all times, but he did not hesitate to choose this time.
“Mobilize all forces! Protect the civilians!”
The White Whale had made his move at last.