Chapter 598 - 89: Return to the Sea Nymph
The frigid seawater, filled with dark currents, wrapped around Shen Fei’s body.
Though Scylla couldn’t create a vortex as immense as the nearby Great Vortex, reaching nearly ten thousand meters.
Once a Sea Nymph, now a Sea Siren, she effortlessly stirred the seawater into vortices while lurking in the Strait of Messina for years.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds of seawater effortlessly drew Shen Fei and five others to Scylla with her stirring.
Scylla’s ugly face instantly magnified in Shen Fei’s vision.
The next moment.
A stench of endless foul odors rushed toward him; Scylla seemed used to such a ritualistic process.
Just earlier, the sea surface erupted into stormy waves, a tactic she routinely used to scare newcomers.
Seeing figures jump from the ship, Scylla immediately plunged into the sea to collect her food.
Faced with the great mouth lunging to bite him, Shen Fei, who had mastered the speed of Artemis’s Golden-Horned Deer, could easily escape.
Yet he was still swallowed by Scylla, as her sharp teeth like grinding stone tried to grind Shen Fei.
Inside, a tongue swirled with terrifying strength, binding Shen Fei to prevent resistance, right as Scylla’s teeth were about to crush him completely.
The shield he held suddenly unleashed its power within; Athena’s Divine Emblem flickered on the shield.
The power within him was activated by a thought, and the shield instantly opened a pale golden transparent light barrier around Shen Fei.
The shield halted the teeth attempting to penetrate the light barrier, stopping even the sharpest parts from breaking through.
Though Athena was quite secretive, her strength was unquestionable.
Scylla seemed to realize Shen Fei was difficult to handle; normally, when unable to bite through a prey, one might attempt to spit it out.
But Scylla wasn’t ordinary; she didn’t mind swallowing it despite not chewing through, as she’d done before.
It’s apparent that this was a person, one with Divine Power inside; a meal like this could sustain her for days.
Ever since her infamous reputation spread, few dared to pass Strait of Messina, opting for distant routes to avoid her.
Now, someone finally volunteered to enter her mouth; there was no way she’d release it.
The meat that reached her mouth couldn’t be let go.
Cold seawater wrapped Shen Fei as he sunk toward the Abyss, he glimpsed six rows of barbed fangs in Scylla’s mouth, adorned with semi-decayed octopus tendrils.
Passing through the mucus-coated throat passage, the belly cavity unfolded before him like a cursed cavern.
Dark red flesh walls teemed with wormlike blue-purple veins, secreting bubbling stinky mucus.
As he fell into the stomach sac, Athena’s shield’s golden light barrier incited violent reactions in the dark green gastric juices.
The thick digestive liquids, like melting jade, surged, emitting smoke with a sulfur and decayed fish odor outside the barrier.
Athena’s shield’s light barrier might block the gastric juice from corroding Shen Fei, but couldn’t stop the scent.
The next moment.
Scylla seemed to sense changes within her, but she wouldn’t ever spit Shen Fei out.
Flesh walls suddenly contracted violently, poison dripped from the meat stalactites on the dome. Those dangling dark red tumors had honeycomb patterns, spraying ink-like poisonous mist as Scylla’s belly contracted.
The poison mist continuously eroded Athena’s shield’s power.
Soon, individuals fell into the gastric juices everywhere; they lacked Athena’s shield protection, instantly splashing into the juices.
"Glug—" With eerie writhing sounds, five newly fallen bodies began to dissolve. Their sheepskin coats first carbonized into fluff, exposed skin peeled like molten wax, quickly revealing stark white bones.
At the moment of their death.
Their Transformation Skill instantly broke, as the fifth skeleton reverted to its gray rat form, a rainbow-like vortex burst from their bodies.
The Magic Potion sprayed from the animal forms began spreading along the gastric juices, devouring the flesh walls, Witchcraft’s power radiated from the stomach center, sweeping Scylla wholly.
Shen Fei exhaled; his priority was not being digested by Scylla.
...
Outside.
The Moon God and Jasper Pool tensely watched Scylla from afar; Scylla appeared bound by rules.
After devouring six individuals, she ceased stirring the vortex, seeming to permit the Moon God and companions to sail their ship through.
But suddenly.
A massive water column exploded from the sea surface over a hundred meters high, Scylla shrieked piercingly through the clouds. Three of twelve tentacles abruptly stilled into stone.
Her once ink-black eyes surfaced golden patterns—the celestial markings from her Sea Nymph days.
Strait of Messina suddenly erupted into a vortex, the ship’s mast groaned with cracks under strain.
"Calypso!" A Divine Power-laden roar shattered the reefs two miles away.
Scylla’s human upper body began to crack, exposing the pearl-colored skin beneath. She frantically flailed octopus tentacles against the sea, each strike raising tsunamis of ancient shipwreck remnants, "You attempt using Magic Potion to harm me again!!"
The Moon God’s Longbow abruptly emitted silver radiance; she saw the frenzied Scylla wrapping snake hair around the ship’s Dragon Bone.
As the vessel was about to disintegrate, coral armor miraculously grew at Scylla’s waist; the tentacles poised to obliterate the warship now bloomed with pacifying Moonlight Jellyfish.
Scylla watched the ongoing transformation of her left hand—scaled claws became delicate fingers, wrapped with seaweed now turning into starlit ribbons.
The strait fell into an eerie calm, the frenzied whirlpool became gentle waves. Scylla’s remaining snake hair limply dangled, she stared blankly at the sea reflection—her face distorted by waves.
Between the Sea Siren’s ferocity and the Nymph’s sanctity, her former visage emerged; she assumed Calypso’s potion intent was again to harm her.
Yet unexpectedly, it aimed to revert her into a Sea Nymph.
But she quickly grasped that if Calypso only wished to restore her as a Sea Nymph, she wouldn’t employ such means.
Her ’Divine Authority’ was departing her!!
Her ’Rank’ fell from nearly true Divine Spirit back to a Sea Nymph.
"Damn it!"
Scylla realized Calypso’s purpose of reverting her to a Sea Nymph wasn’t reconciliation, but rather erasing her ’Rank’ and ’Divine Authority’ completely!