Chapter 119: The Glass Sea
Vince stared at the translucent, purple interface floating before his eyes, his dark gaze narrowing as the wind from the eastern coast whipped his dark coat around his calves.
[ACTIVE WORLD QUEST: The Sovereign Transcendent Elixir — Final Phase]
Target: Nerissa, Tide Caller of Nethros
Location: The Depths of the Glass Sea (Head East)
Nethros isn’t just a beast, Vince thought, his internal monologue cold and calculating as he analyzed the wording. A ’Tide Caller’ implies hierarchy. Command. Nethros is the kingdom—the sunken abyssal empire itself—and Nerissa is probably a big shot.
He tapped the interface with a blunt finger.
"System. Give me the exact coordinates and depth of Nethros."
A crimson ping echoed in his mind, followed by a sudden cascade of warning runes that flashed across his vision.
[QUERY PROCESSED]
Location: Central Abyssal Trench, Nethros Core.
Target Depth: 14,500 Meters Below Sea Level.
Atmospheric Pressure: 1,450 Bar (Extreme Crush Zone).
Warning: Standard human physical frames will experience total structural collapse upon reaching 3,000 meters without high-tier defensive wards.
Vince let out a low, amused huff through his nose, turning his head toward the two women standing behind him on the cliff edge.
"Fourteen thousand five hundred meters," Vince said, his tone as casual as if he were reading the morning weather. "The crush pressure down there will flatten an iron anvil into a coin."
Vetra stood to his left, her massive, scaly reptilian tail sweeping through the grass in a slow, rhythmic arc. She cracked her knuckles, a cruel, razor-toothed grin spreading across her jagged jaw. As an apex cold-blooded predator forged in the harshest violent zones, deep pressure and suffocating depths meant nothing to her. Her lung capacity and dense skeletal structure were built for abyssal brutality.
"Thank God I’m not an iron anvil then," Vetra growled, her reptilian eyes slitting with anticipation. "Means the guys dien there must be pretty tough."
Vince didn’t reply right away. He closed his eyes, taking a single, deep breath as he reached inward to unlock the dormant, violent force coiled around his core.
It was time to drop the human mask.
"Man-Beast."
The air around the cliff face shattered.
A guttural, bone-deep roar erupted from Vince’s throat as his body expanded violently. The sound of shifting skeletal density echoed like cracking iron. His spine elongated, thick obsidian scales erupting along his back, shoulders, and thighs, intertwining with dark, coarse apex fur. His jaw broadened into a ruthless predator’s maw, lined with rows of razor-sharp fangs, while his eyes burned with a primal, purple luminescence that cut straight through the ocean mist.
A massive, heavy tail—sheathed in dark, spiked armor plating—whipped outward, slamming against the stone cliff and obliterating a three-foot boulder into fine gray dust. His chest swelled, his ribcage expanding to triple its normal capacity, locking in air reserves that could sustain his magicless frame through absolute suffocating depths. High-density muscle fibers coiled across his arms and legs like thick steel cables, radiating a heavy, suffocating aura of pure, unadulterated physical dominance.
He was no longer a man. He was an apex force of nature.
Vince cracked his thick, scaled neck, letting out a low, vibrating growl that shook the soil beneath their boots. He turned his terrifying, gaze toward Lyrielle, who was standing nearby in her pristine elven robes.
Vetra turned as well, her heavy tail swishing as both apex beasts stared down at the delicate mage. The silent implication was clear: Stay top-side. You won’t survive the descent.
Lyrielle caught their stares, her dark eyes flashing with immediate annoyance. She crossed her arms over her chest, scoffing loudly.
"Ain’t no way I’m staying behind," she sneered.
Vetra crossed her massive arms, pointing a clawed thumb toward the endless, motionless expanse of the sea below. "Look at yourself, long ears. You’re fragile. You’re not capable of swimming to those depths, let alone surviving the crush pressure."
"Not like this I’m not," Lyrielle retorted dryly.
She raised a single hand. Instantly, the ambient air snapped.
A dense, radiant sphere of emerald wind-mana condensed in front of her, swirling with such extreme compression that the air inside it hummed like a spinning blade. Lyrielle took a casual step forward, stepping directly into the center of the wind bubble. The moment she entered, the dense mana aligned itself perfectly to her frame, shrinking down until it clung flush against her skin and robes like a second, glowing layer of impenetrable armor.
She rolled her shoulders, giggling softly as the wind aura hummed around her, completely sealing her against temperature, pressure, and water.
"Ready," she said with a bright, smug wink.
Vetra’s jaw actually dropped, her slit pupils dilating in sheer disbelief as she stared at the flawlessly compressed aero-shield.
Vince grunted, his deep, monstrous voice rumbling from his chest. "How are you going to breathe down there?"
Lyrielle patted the glowing green barrier along her arm. "This bubble doesn’t just protect me from the pressure—it recycles and pressurizes internal oxygen. There’s enough air locked in this wind-grid to last me four years at the bottom of the ocean. Anything else you two monsters want to question?"
Vince’s purple eyes gleamed with cold approval.
He didn’t waste another second on words.
He whipped his heavy tail behind him, cracking his thick knuckles as he took three thunderous strides toward the edge of the precipice. Beside him, Vetra matched his pace, her claws unsheathing with metallic clicks. On his right, Lyrielle floated half an inch off the ground, her wind-mana barrier glowing brightly against the gloomy shoreline.
Below them lay the Glass Sea—an endless, unnatural ocean whose surface was so smooth, dense, and still that it reflected the dark sky like a massive sheet of polished black glass.
Vince looked down into the black abyssal void waiting beneath the mirror.
"Let’s go."
BOOM!
The cliff face shattered beneath their simultaneous leap. Vince, Vetra, and Lyrielle plunged straight down, breaking through the motionless glass surface in an explosion of foam and violent shockwaves, diving deep into the pitch-black abyss of Nethros.