They dropped into the ocean the moment they got to the bloody waters.
Veneri moved through the water without hesitation. As a Hydroborn, the ocean did not reject him. As a Divine, his body did not demand breath to keep existing. He could still breathe underwater if he chose to, but even if he hadn't been able to, the ocean would not have taken him that easily. Aira's body turned back into siren form and Biolumine transformed into a giant manta ray.
That was when Veneri saw the war properly.
The Cornvelia Ocean had become a battlefield so large that it looked less like war and more like an extinction happening under the sea. Entire formations of oceanic beings rushed through the water at lethal speed. Their bodies were adapted for combat in ways that made land warfare look clumsy. Humanoid oceanic beings moved in coordinated swarms, their tails thrashing in long arcs as they lunged with tridents, barbed spears, hooked blades and net-weapons woven with coral thread and sharpened shell. Some were armored in scales. Others fought nearly bare, using speed and agility to swim through openings before slashing throats, eyes, gills and vulnerable joints.
Reef-born fighters, who are broad and hard-bodied oceanic beings, slammed into enemies with heavy shields carved from coral. Eel-like scouts shot through the water in thin, electric bursts, striking and vanishing before retaliation could land. Crustacean warriors—huge, plated, and brutal oceanic beings—cracked apart sea monster limbs with hooked claws and crushing force.
On the other side, the sea monsters were worse and not just in size.
Some had jaws opening too wide as they tore into their lines and dragged them apart in red bursts that spread into the water like ink. Others were serpentine, long-bodied things with rows of fins and eyes that seemed to glow from within the flesh. They wrapped around opponents and crushed them or snapped their spines with a twist before swallowing them whole. Some had multiple limbs and some had mouths where mouths should not have been.
Water pressure shifted constantly as physical clashes altered the flow. Enormous whirlpools spun in the distance where a monster had shattered a formation and the resulting suction drew bodies and debris into the dark below. Bright flashes of bioluminescent power marked the positions of medics trying to keep wounded oceanic beings alive long enough to drag them behind the main line. The entire zone had been turned into a three-dimensional slaughterhouse.
Veneri's eyes narrowed as he took it in.
A siren warrior on one flank drove a spear through the throat-gill seam of a horned sea monster only to be smashed aside by another monster with a tail like a whip. A cluster of sirens in the distance sang a sharp, warlike harmony that destabilized a pack of eel-bodied predators long enough for reef soldiers to rush in and pin them to the sea floor with coral harpoons. A sea monster king's lesser brood surged through the center line in a mad, hungry mass and killing everyone close to them.
Aira swam close to Veneri and looked at the battlefield with a face that had gone completely serious. The casualness she'd shown aboard the ship was gone now. She spoke to him telepathically.
'This is what I meant. This is the war they keep us in.'
Veneri didn't answer immediately. He could already feel the pressure of the conflict pressing in from all directions.
Biolumine shot past them in manta ray form, She accelerated so violently that the water behind her flashed into disturbed foam and blood. Something large and predatory lunged at her from the side and she simply moved faster. Her body slid underneath the strike before smashing the attacker into another monster with the force of a divine sea-beast colliding with a smaller war form. Both sides of the fight were thrown off balance by her speed. Oceanic soldiers who had been mid-charge had to veer aside to avoid getting crushed by the sudden force. Sea monsters trying to intercept her found themselves slammed by the sheer momentum of her movement.
'She's strong.'
Veneri's mouth twitched. 'That's one word for it.'
He began to move. He swam efficiently without hesitation. Aira, still near him, had gone still for a second because she was apparently only now fully processing how comfortably he was operating underwater.
'You really are fine down here.'
"I told you I'm an oceanic being."
She gave him a long look but there was no time for that because the front edge of the war was already charging. At the very edge of the conflict, Veneri saw the first sea monster charge toward him. It was long, eel-like and plated in black-blue armor that looked like scale and bone fused together. Its jaws opened in a spray of sharp teeth and it shot toward him with the kind of speed that would have shredded a lesser immortal before they could react.
Veneri drew Calimostria.
The staff shifted in his grip and became a glaive. He swung once. The blade cut through the monster's forward charge so smoothly that for a split second the creature did not understand it had been split apart. That's when the body separated. Blood spilled into the water in a dark ribbon. The head drifted one way. The rest of the body twitched and followed current behind him. Another monster came in from below trying to catch him in the blind angle near the seafloor. Veneri pivoted mid-swim and brought Calimostria down in a diagonal slash that struck through the upper jaw, through the skull structure beneath and into the spine. The thing convulsed once and sank.
A third lunged from the side. Its forelimbs came off in one cut. The monsters were fast but speed meant nothing if your opponent was faster in thought. Veneri's movements were incredibly fast. His restored Aeterium capabilities and his Seventh Enlightenment power made his body stronger. Every sweep of the blade sent a thin blue displacement through the ocean. Aira watched him fight for a second, then dove hard to the left to intercept a sea creature trying to flank them. She moved like a siren should. She tore into the enemy's face with a blade, then disappeared into the current before its ally could retaliate. She wasn't as overwhelming as Veneri or Biolumine in raw scale but she was fast, smart and vicious.
Around them, the battle continued to escalate.
A giant crab-like monster lunged at him with crushing claws. He lowered Calimostria and drove the glaive straight into the joint of the nearest claw, then twisted and used the creature's own momentum to rip the limb free. He kicked off the monster's body and swung again, taking off part of its face. Another monster tried to crush him from the rear but Biolumine shot through the water behind it and slammed into it with enough force to turn the beast sideways long enough for Aira to finish it with a precise stab through the throat.
He swam deeper into the war. The water kept parting with each swing. Sea monsters that got in his way died fast and ugly. Their blood coloured the water. Their bodies sank, floated or drifted into the chaos behind him. The further he pushed, the more the battlefield recognized him as a threat worth noticing. Monsters turned toward him. Oceanic fighters glanced his way and adjusted formation to make space. Aira, now fully serious, kept pace beside him while Biolumine acted as support.
He tightened his grip on Calimostria, looked ahead at the next wave of sea monsters charging through the blood-dark water and moved to meet them head-on.
-----
The battle ended the way wars rarely did. It ended because Veneri and Biolumine simply kept killing.
For two straight hours, the oceanic battlefield became a graveyard. Sea monsters charged, surged again and died. Some were too large to be taken down quickly. Some were too fast to catch in a single strike. Some had to be cut apart in pieces but none of them got away. Veneri cut through them with Calimostria. Biolumine, in her manta ray form, moved like a predator. Her speed was insane. She crashed through monster lines and turned escape routes into death traps.
Aira had stopped asking questions somewhere in the first hour. By the end of the second, she was just staring at him because there was no other reaction left.
Veneri moved like someone who had spent too long in wars that didn't allow mistakes. He was experienced. He was simply reading the battlefield a fraction ahead of everyone else and punishing whatever got in front of him. Aira later admitted, with clear shock still in her voice, that he fought like the Second Oceanic Ruler just from experience and speed alone.
When the last sea monster fell, the water around the battlefield had gone thick with red. Bodies sank deeper. None of the monsters had escaped into the deeper ocean. The oceanic beings had won and everyone there knew exactly why. The soldiers had begun regrouping by then. When Veneri turned towards them and asked if they were okay, the entire front line seemed to forget how to think.
He took off his mask.
He had worn it during the entire encounter, which meant nobody had seen his face until this moment. The female warriors went silent first. How could a man be that powerful and that good-looking at the same time?
A siren commander swam up to him as everyone was shocked. In the ocean, they could not speak normally the way land dwellers did, so communication was through telepathy. Her words came into Veneri's mind directly.
'Thank you, kind stranger. If not for you, the battle would have been lost.'
Veneri gave the kind of shrug that made it obvious he didn't think much of it.
'It was nothing.'
It was not nothing, of course. It had cost him something. He had seen enough dead souls in the water to know exactly how valuable all those battlefield deaths would have been. Part of him wanted to gather them. Leaving them behind hurt more than he wanted to admit but this was a public battlefield. Doing anything obvious with the souls of the dead would have been a disastrous first impression with the oceanic beings. So he let them go. It felt like walking away from a vault full of currency and pretending he didn't need it.
Aira came up beside the siren commander and introduced him properly.
'Commander, this is Veneri. He's in the shop heading this way.'
The commander's attention turned to her.
'Aira, why have the other siren squads not joined the fight?'
'Oh. They are replenishing themselves on the immortal ship heading this way.'
The commander let out a weary mental sigh.
'Aira, call them back. The Second Oceanic Ruler is summoning a meeting to discuss the war and the sirens needed to be present. Kind warrior, would you mind to join us? The oceanic beings will appreciate you coming to us.'
'Of course. I'd appreciate it.'
That was when the water in front of him changed.
A giant whirlpool opened that pulled at the surrounding current and dragged every loose body and fragment of wreckage into its spiral. Soldiers began swimming towards it while others were already being pulled forward by the current's force. Aira swam close enough to him to explain what it was.
'This is the whirlpool led to Atlantis, the kingdom of the Second Oceanic Ruler.'
Veneri froze. For a second, he just stared.
'Wait. Atlantis?'
'Yes. Atlantis was the home of the oceanic beings on an ancient oceanic planet called Earth, according to old history. The Second Oceanic Ruler came from there. He had once been king in that kingdom but when Atlantis was forgotten by time, he and his people had been pulled into the Timeless Realm dozens of millennia ago. Now it stood as the largest oceanic kingdom here.'
Veneri did not answer immediately.
Atlantis was a myth in his past life. It was a lost city people talked about in legends, speculation and old-world fascination. It had never been real to him then but now it existed.
He moved with the others into the whirlpool.
The current grabbed them and pulled them in a controlled spiral. It took about five minutes to reach the city. The the shape of the kingdom began to emerge below. Then, just as suddenly, the world opened. Veneri saw it from above first.
The kingdom was enormous. It was not a single city block or a few ceremonial ruins but a truly vast oceanic capital built in a way that looked both ancient and beautiful. From the aerial view, the structure spread across the seafloor. Greek and Roman architecture dominated everything. Massive colonnades rose up in long symmetrical rows. Great domes sat atop halls and palaces. Wide open plazas were laid out across the area.
The city was not half-buried and ruined the way Earth legends had imagined.
From above, the scale became even clearer. The outer districts were arranged in rings and terraces. Each one was connected by wide avenues and elevated paths designed for both walking and swimming. Large civic buildings formed the core. Temple-like structures and administrative palaces dominated the center. Around them, smaller residential and trade districts created a cityscape so immense that the horizon was nothing but the buildings and the city.
Statues stood at intervals above the main avenues. Some were of gods, rulers or ancient warriors with tridents, blades and crowns. Veneri stared at it from above and felt, for the first time in a long while, the full weight of how far he had come.
Atlantis was real.