Chapter 126: Don’t worry about me
The ancient runic incline sloped steadily downward, swallowing all light until only the faint emerald hum of Lyrielle’s wind-shield illuminated the descent.
At the bottom of the passage, the tunnel did not end in a cave or a dungeon cell. It opened into a subterranean vault of terrifying, impossible proportions—a cavern so colossal that the ceiling vanished into the abyssal dark miles above.
Floating in the center of the vault was a massive, subterranean sea of hyper-pressurized, liquid blue mana, held in place by towering, pre-cataclysmic basalt pillars. And suspended within that luminescent liquid lay The Sleeper Beneath Nethros.
It was a titanic, primordial leviathan—an entity so vast its dormant form stretched across the entire width of the cavern. Its body was a mass of dark, abyssal scale armor, ancient shell-crests, and serpentine coils that rose and fell in a slow, rhythmic swell. Every single breath the gargantuan entity took sent a massive, low-frequency pulse vibrating through the stone walls, creating the very underwater tides and pressure shifts that governed the Glass Sea far above.
Vetra stopped at the edge of the stone precipice, her Amber slit pupils dilating in sheer awe. Her heavy tail twitched nervously—a rare, visceral reaction from the apex predator. "What... what in the abyss is that?"
Lyrielle floated toward a set of massive, glowing murals carved along the perimeter archways. Her fingers traced the ancient geometric grooves as her dark eyes scanned the ancient script.
"It’s not a monster," Lyrielle whispered, her voice tight with realization. "It’s the heart of the ocean. Nethros... the entire city above wasn’t built as a kingdom. It was constructed as a living containment facility over this vault."
Vince stepped to the edge, his dark gaze locked onto the primordial beast. "And Nerissa?"
"Her title isn’t a military rank," Lyrielle revealed, turning back to him. "The ’Tide Caller’ is the living anchor. Nerissa’s water-mana frequency and royal bloodline act as the protector keeping The Sleeper dormant. According to the inscription the seal is somehow bound to the nobles if they die... the seal collapses. The Sleeper wakes, and the resulting tidal shockwave would erase Nethros and flatten every coastal realm on the continent."
That’s why she personally escorted the nobles, Vince thought, his mind piecing the puzzle together with cold, pragmatic precision. She wasn’t just running. She was protecting the nobles to prevent the seal from fracturing.
Suddenly, the silent air inside Vince’s wind-bubble vibrated.
The Sleeper’s massive, ancient eye—a glowing orb of primordial gold larger than a palace—did not open fully, but its slit pupil shifted.
A heavy, suffocating telepathic resonance washed through the chamber. It bypassed Lyrielle. It bypassed Vetra. It slammed directly into Vince’s mind.
It was not a wave of violent mana. It was a cold, profound confusion.
For millions of years, every living creature in the ocean—from microscopic plankton to imperial mages—existed as a thread of mana within the sea’s current. But Vince carried zero mana. To the ancient leviathan’s cosmic senses, Vince was an absolute void—a walking, black hole of pure physical mass that could not be tracked, manipulated, or bound through the sea’s natural laws.
The Sleeper’s ancient mind didn’t try to crush him.
It reached out. A deep, reverberating pulse echoed through Vince’s sternum, pulling at his physical core—an invitation from the abyssal deep to step closer to the central seal.
[QUEST TARGET UPDATED: Sovereign Transcendent Elixir — Final Phase]
[CONDITION DETECTED: Containment Seal Synergy]
[MANDATE: Target must be SUBDUED and TAMED to assimilate the Tide Core and claim the final ingredient for the Sovereign Elixir.]
Vince let out a low, grim huff. The picture was entirely clear now. He understood why the entire kingdom was reacting like a hive of disturbed hornets:
The Vanguard Military wants him dead because he shattered their pride and slaughtered their iron ranks.
The Abyssal Nobles wanted him captured alive, desperate to know his goals and strength that could shatter obsidian gates with a single fist.
Nerissa wanted him observed and cornered, suspecting his unheralded, manaless arrival fulfilled an ancient abyssal prophecy of an un-bound force entering the trench.
And The Sleeper beneath them simply wanted him closer.
"Well," Vince growled, his grit-laced voice cutting through the heavy silence as he flexed his human fingers. "At least everyone’s invested."
CLANG.
The heavy stone doors at the top of the vault causeway slammed open.
Surrounded by a platoon of forty high-tier Royal Elite Guards clad in fish-scale plate, Nerissa, Tide Caller of Nethros descended the spiral staircase into the seal chamber.
She glided into the light of the liquid mana sea, her breathtaking, voluptuous frame radiating an absolute, terrifying aura of hydrokinetic authority. Her luminous sapphire skin gleamed under the vault’s azure glow, her long, silken hair floating like a veil of living water. In her clawed hand, the gold trident of Nethros hummed with the concentrated power of the abyssal currents.
Her dark golden eyes swept over the trio, settling directly onto Vince.
"You found the bottom of the world, surface-dweller," Nerissa said, her voice a rich, melodic purr that echoed off the basalt pillars. She halted thirty paces away, her elite guards fanning out in a lethal arc to cut off the tunnel exit.
She tilted her head, her razor-sharp fins flaring delicately as a cold, calculating smile curved her dark lips.
"I know what you are inside that fragile green sphere," Nerissa murmured, raising her trident, its golden tines crackling with intense hydro-mana. "You are a beast on a short leash. Your terrifying form has expired, hasn’t it? You stand before me in a frail human shell, counting down the seconds on a clock."
Beside Vince, Vetra bared her razor fangs, her heavy tail sweeping the floor as she prepared to propel herself forward. Lyrielle’s eyes flashed green, the wind-bubble around Vince tightening into a weaponized sphere.
Vince didn’t flinch. He took a calm, deliberate step forward inside the wind-grid, his dark eyes locking onto the Tide Caller with cold, unshakeable dominance.
"You think you saw a weakness," Vince said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous rumble that echoed over the pulse of the ancient leviathan beneath them. "All you saw was me giving you a head start."
Then, Vince’s eyes flicked sideways toward his companions. His mind raced, calculating the shifting dynamics: The Sleeper below, the factions above, Nerissa’s secret knowledge... He needed answers, and charging blindly wouldn’t reveal the full layout of Nethros’s hidden cards. He needed to get inside their inner sanctum.
"Vetra," Vince commanded softly, his tone laced with absolute authority. "Take Lyrielle and run."
Vetra hesitated for a fraction of a second, her slit pupils widening, but her predator instincts recognized his command immediately.
"Lyrielle, find out what you can about this place from any archives you can get access to here," Vince added calmly.
"What?!" Lyrielle gasped, her eyes widening in horror as Vince stepped forward, lowering his defenses in front of forty armored guards. "Vince, no! What about you?!"
Before she could protest further, Vetra’s heavy clawed hand clamped around Lyrielle’s waist. With a powerful snap of her reptilian tail, Vetra launched them both backward into the dark shadows of the ancient runic tunnel, yanked away from the vault before the elite guards could close the perimeter.
"Vince!" Lyrielle screamed, her voice echoing down the stone passage as they vanished into the gloom.
In the center of the chamber, surrounded by crackling hydro-mana spears and the cold, triumphant smile of General Nerissa, Vince simply stood tall in his human frame. As the heavy abyssal iron cuffs slammed around his wrists, a dark, confident grin spread across his face.
He glanced toward the dark tunnel exit one last time and whispered softly into the quiet water:
"Don’t worry about me."
As the guards forced him down to his knees and gave chase to Vetra.