“Shit…”

  Luna’s heart was racing, her blood frozen as she tried to create distance between herself and the Kraken by swimming faster. Her suit was using air to propel her in any direction of choice and right now she was only moving forward heading to the center of the sea where Storm Rider waited.

  It felt like the waters were getting darker as she moved further away from Storm’s building. Behind, her chaser’s speed hadn’t fallen one bit while swimming towards her.

  Luna of course didn’t panic when she saw this. If she panicked right now, then this hot pursuit would end with her as octopus food. Also, these dark waters were unlike any water body back on Earth. In here, Luna constantly felt like something was trying to pull her into its depths. This was the deal with magic water bodies.

  And even though she wasn’t retively deep, the pressure was strong enough to crash an ordinary person and the nanoskin suit itself. Luckily, the life essence had transformed her body into something more resilient and could endure high-pressure levels for a good period of time.

  The other thing she needed to be wary of aside from the giant creature chasing her were the ether-infested depths that seemed to be the reason why the water here was so dark. It was so concentrated that if she touched any of that, the armor itself wouldn’t save her from turning into an infected in an instant.

  ‘I need to avoid the deeper levels. That won’t be difficult because I can’t handle the pressure down there.’

  Luna continued moving through the dark waters with incredible speed till the bright center was finally in sight.

  She almost felt hopeful when something unexpected happened. She noticed she was losing momentum to a force dragging her towards the giant creature and away from the surface.

  ‘Crap!’

  Cursing, she chanced her gaze to the creature behind and realized that the bastard was the one controlling the water.

  In that moment, Luna froze, thinking of what to do next as she watched the water around her become more solid and capture her body which appeared like a water grip. Her eyes widened with instant panic when she heard a part of her suit crack from the more intense pressure coming from this influenced water.

  Of course, a sea god’s pet ruled the frozen sea and was capable of controlling water. Why the hell didn’t that cross her mind?

  And now, she was stuck and being dragged back to the creature. “Crap…crap…crap.” She cried as the creature slowly emerged from the dark waters and revealed its entire self to her.

  Its harrowing dark tentacles swam peacefully as they came face to face with each other. Its eyes stared at her with fierce intelligence as if they were borrowing into her very soul.

  Luna had never felt this much fear in her life as she watched one of the dark tentacles slowly swim toward her. When it reached, the water freed her and the tentacle intertwined itself around her entire body. Trapping her entirely without constricting and killing her.

  That was its biggest mistake--because in the next minute, Luna unleashed her strength, weakened its grip for a second, and thrust Poison Sin to a small gap between the scales. The bde cleanly pierced through the flesh and bck poison quickly found its way into the creature’s system.

  Immediately, the tentacle freed her and a loud screech escaped the creature’s maw. If this was the same enchanted weapon as before, then the damage wouldn’t have caused this much pain to begin with. But now that Storm Rider had tweaked its build and enhanced its enchantments, the bde was 100 times more deadly than it was.

  Its bde was now capable of causing incredible internal damage like this attack. However, due to its weak construct, Poison Sin was too weak to hold Pure energy like qi. Hence it would shatter after three uses.

  Luna noticed a crooked line appear on the bde’s surface—meaning she had two more attacks left before the bde shattered.

  “Come at me, you bastard!” Luna yelled and swam toward the giant creature with incredible speed. She gasped in a rge breath of air and dismissed her helmet. The very cold water left her feeling like she might die from frostbite but her body held, choosing to remain intact due to the essence in her body.

  Putting the Poison Sin in her mouth and grabbing it with her teeth, Luna let out a muffled roar and delivered a powerful blow at one of the tentacles with just her fist. The force behind it caused the water to separate while the tentacle she had just hit exploded into a pile of flesh and blood.

  ‘This is my revenge damn it!’

  Covered in dark blood and flesh, Luna avoided the other tentacles that started to produce an ethereal glow to absorb her essence. She felt the water respond to the creature’s painful anger, the pressure getting stronger as it tried to crash her body.

  To fight against it, she unleashed her Battle Aura and the world suddenly became more vivid and terrifying.

  She was still not used to the imbance in the water but the armor reguted her weight to give her more control as she grew more fond of the water combat.

  A glowing tentacle approached her from the side. But Luna dodged it with ease and delivered a blow fueled with essence from her body. The creature’s flesh tore from that attack.

  Indeed, its tough skin had grown weaker because of fake Mildrith in its system. This wasn’t the intelligent creature she had encountered when she first came to this level. The Mildrith had twisted its biology and life core, turning it into a desperate being hungry for essence.

  With that noted, Luna swam to the main body which was now descending into the polluted depths.

  ‘I’m not going to let it retreat just like that.’

  Steeling her resolve, Luna raised her arm and drew out all her strength. Then, with all her might, she threw Poison Sin into the depths where the creature was retreating. She was aiming for its main body. The bde’s third enchantment was active so she started swimming to the surface because her life depended on it.

  Just then, the Kraken roared and the ice above the water cracked as the sea turned and twisted in a rage.

  ‘I guess that worked.’ She thought as a bck helmet materialized around her head.

  Behind, the Kraken was now tailing her with its entire body out of the depths. She spared a second to gaze over her right shoulder to see fully what looked like. It blended perfectly with the bck waters, its shape resembling a formless shadow.

  Speaking of water, the pressure was getting much worse as she got closer to the center of the water body. Blood was already flowing out of her nose, meaning that she was moments away from blowing to bits.

  But above the ice, she sensed an even more terrifying presence waiting for them. It belonged to Storm Rider.

  “Ahh!”

  Luna leaped out of the water with a stifled cry once she was close to the surface. She didn’t waste a second to continue running for her dear life because something enormous exploded out of the ice and released a series of sonic attacks in her direction.

  One of the attacks managed to hit both her and the ice she was standing on. She failed to recover in time and the ice shattered instantly, sending her body back into the water.

  Luna was then struck by a glowing tentacle. It had appeared out of nowhere, sending her flying out of the water like a small rock.

  Crack!

  Luna painfully nded on the ice, the sound of her bones breaking echoing across the ice wastend. The life essence hadn’t protected her this time, which only meant one thing...

  ‘My essence is gone.’

  The mad creature emerged from the water and opened its mouth to swallow her with the ice. But stopped when a line of Golden lightning fell from the sky and hit the Kraken.

  The blizzard stopped for a brief moment and the sky was bathed in the beautiful golden light of Storm Rider’s first Aura, Divine Fme.

  KRRRAAAAAAAAAA!!!

  The Kraken cried out in pain as the golden lightning fried its insides like it wasn’t a cursed Tyrant. The ice around it began to melt and bck water started to boil from the intense heat Storm Rider was creating from just opening her second gate.

  Luna expected the heat to reach her. But it didn’t—proving to her that Storm Rider was very familiar with how her powers worked and had full control over them.

  After a short while, the lightning stopped and the Kraken Luna had feared so much was now burned beyond recognition. When she peered into it to see the life core, it was pitch bck—meaning it was dead.

  Her gaze rexed a little as it lingered on the still creature. The World was suddenly silent as if mourning the death of the Sea god's pet. Despite the state she was in, Luna could not help but feel some fear towards Storm Rider's first Aura.

  She didn't look up or say anything to celebrate her survival. Instead, Luna silently watched the creature’s body slowly descend into the depths.

  Never to be seen again.

  'Gods...I really hoped for something more climatic.'