Chapter 125: Bound by a clock
The grand inner sanctum of the Royal District was a cathedral of polished obsidian, its walls so dark they seemed to drink the light. White hydro-flames flickered in the braziers, casting restless, pale reflections across the mirrored stone like ghosts trapped beneath glass. The air itself felt heavier here than in the open trench—thick with panic, with the sharp metallic tang of cold sweat, and with the low, continuous tremor of fear that no amount of aristocratic breeding could fully suppress.
The dozen abyssal nobles Nerissa had escorted from the upper amphitheater stood huddled near the central dais. Their ornate silk robes clung to their bodies, darkened by sweat that no ocean current could wash away. The aristocratic silence that usually governed the court had shattered. In its place rose a chaotic, frantic shouting that echoed off the high vaulted ceiling like the cries of drowning men.
"He must be executed!" a high-ranking lord spat, his webbed hands trembling as he gestured wildly toward the ruined gates outside. "A land-rat! A human mongrel tearing through our highest Vanguard regiments like wet cloth!"
"The surface kingdoms must be held accountable for this!" an elderly noblewoman shrieked, her siren gills flaring rapidly in distress, the delicate membranes fluttering like panicked wings. "This is an act of war! The humans—or the Imperial Guilds—they’ve unleashed an illegal bio-weapon upon Nethros!"
"Quiet, you fools!" another lord hissed, his face pale as death beneath the white flames. "You don’t understand! The divination arrays in the lower vaults... they didn’t foresee this intruder! The high mages monitor every high-mana anomaly across the continent, but this black beast appeared out of absolute nothingness! He carries no significant natural mana signature!"
"Enough."
A single word.
It was not shouted. It did not need to be. The hydro-kinetic pressure packed behind the soft feminine voice was so immense that the white flames in the braziers instantly flattened, their light shrinking as though the room itself had drawn a sharp, collective breath. The air pressure spiked. Several of the weaker nobles dropped to their knees, hands flying to their ears as the pressure popped their eardrums with sharp, wet pain.
Nerissa, Tide Caller of Nethros, glided down the dais steps.
Her massive, three-pronged trident of abyssal gold struck the polished stone with a soft, deliberate thud—a sound that carried the weight of a death knell. Her dark golden eyes swept across the chamber with ice-cold contempt, measuring each panicked face and finding them all wanting. Her magnificent, voluptuous form—framed by iridescent scales that gleamed like wet sapphires under the flattened firelight—exuded an absolute, terrifying aura of supreme command. The long, powerful aquatic tail that trailed behind her moved with lazy, lethal grace, the tip occasionally brushing the floor in a soft, rhythmic scrape that somehow felt louder than the earlier shouting.
The court fell deathly silent.
"You squawk like shallow-water gulls," Nerissa said smoothly, her voice a low, melodic purr laced with iron. "The Vanguard fell because they relied on routine. They expected mages who rely on shields and chants. They received a force of pure, unhinged violence."
A fat noble near the front swallowed hard. Pride and terror warred across his face as he stepped forward, the silk of his robes whispering against the obsidian. "General... with all due respect, you held the trident of Nethros! You had the high ground in the arena! Why did you allow the black beast to live? Why pull us back instead of skewering him where he stood?"
Nerissa stopped two paces from him. She tilted her head, her luminous webbed cheek-fins flaring slightly, catching the pale light like delicate fans of living gold. The silence stretched. The fat noble’s courage began to wilt under the weight of her gaze.
"I allowed him to live," Nerissa murmured softly, "because I wanted to see if the beast was truly as dangerous as my scout reports claimed."
She turned her back on the lords. Her long, powerful aquatic tail swept gracefully across the floor as she moved toward the vast, dark window that overlooked the lower trench fissure. Beyond the glass, the abyssal dark waited—cold, patient, and absolute.
"And?" the fat noble pressed, his voice shaking now, smaller than before. "Was he?"
A faint, dangerous smile curved Nerissa’s dark lips. It did not reach her eyes.
"He broke a thirty-foot obsidian gate with a single bare fist," Nerissa answered quietly. "He ignored hydro-mana blades that would freeze a warship’s hull. But he is not an immortal god."
She raised her clawed hand and inspected a faint, microscopic scratch on the golden head of her trident—a mark left by the sheer kinetic displacement of Vince’s entry. The scratch was almost invisible, yet she studied it as though it were a confession written in blood.
"I watched him," Nerissa continued, her gold eyes narrowing with sharp, calculating intelligence. "The moment before he took a step to chase us, his form faltered. The broad dragon-scales... the heavy spiked tail... the massive skeletal frame. It didn’t retreat because he willed it. It collapsed."
The nobles blinked in confusion, exchanging hushed, uneasy glances. The white flames in the braziers had begun to recover, but their light still seemed smaller, subdued.
"His transformation carries a violent, internal strain," Nerissa revealed, her tone laced with predatory realization. "He was forced back into a baseline human body. For who knows how long, he was suffocating under over eleven thousand meters of ocean weight, desperate for that elven girl’s wind-barrier to save his lungs."
A low, dark chuckle escaped her throat—a sound both alluring and deeply unsettling, like the last bubble rising from a drowned man’s mouth.
"you all may think he is an invisible hunter because our mages cannot sense his mana," Nerissa whispered, her grip tightening around the shaft of her golden trident until the abyssal metal creaked softly. "but He is bound by a clock."
She turned back to the court. The cold mask of absolute war settled over her features once more, erasing every trace of the earlier smile. The nobles straightened instinctively, as though an invisible current had forced them upright.
"Prepare the guards," Nerissa ordered. Her telepathic voice rang inside the minds of every commander remaining in the inner sanctum—clear, cold, and inescapable. "He will not climb back to the surface. When his clock runs out down in the dark... I will take his head myself."