CCCCRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEe
From the portal slowly emerged a slender figure, clad in dark armor with bluish reflections.
Two daggers rested on his wrists, vibrating with a familiar energy.
His cloak billowed as if bathed in water. Invisible.
Venti's blood ran cold.
He knew him.
Too well.
Venti: "...No..."
An Abyss Herald.
The same type.
The same aura.
The same overwhelming presence as the one he had faced alongside Bram, Kael, Lyra, and Eron.
The Herald stepped onto the damp sand of the cavern and surveyed his surroundings with a cold, calculating gaze.
Abyss Herald: "I sensed unusual vibrations in this area."
His voice resonated, calm, yet laden with latent threat.
Abyss Herald: "What happened?"
The poachers hastened to reply, almost relieved.
Poacher: "An intruder, my lord!"
"He infiltrated the cave."
Poacher: "He used seaweed powder against us, just like the kind we use to attract crabs!"
Another added, still shaken:
Poacher: "He can disappear, teleport... and attacks pass right through him!"
The Herald frowned slightly.
Abyss Herald: "Describe him." "
Poacher: "It was... a kid. Dressed in green."
Abyss Herald: "..."
At these words, the Herald's aura shifted.
Subtly.
But enough for even Venti, hidden far away, to sense it.
Abyss Herald: "Wait."
He slowly straightened up.
Abyss Herald: "By any chance... wouldn't it be a young boy with dark hair, wearing two braids... dressed like a bard in green... able to teleport... and pass through attacks?"
Silence fell.
The poachers looked at each other, stunned.
Poacher: "Yes. That's exactly it."
Poacher: "How... how do you know?"
A grimace slowly twisted the Abyss Herald's face.
Abyss Herald: "Because I've met him before."
Venti felt a shiver run down his spine.
Abyss Herald: "He knows my true identity."
"He knows I'm posing as a knight."
His voice hardened.
Abyss Herald: "And he defeated one of my brothers."
The air seemed to crackle with icy anger.
The Herald suddenly raised his voice, shouting at the poachers.
Abyss Herald: "You must not let him escape under any circumstances!"
The poachers flinched.
Abyss Herald: "I let my brother die."
"I even spared him, for my own gain."
His daggers vibrated.
Abyss Herald: "BUT THIS TIME... THIS CHEAP BARD HAS GONE TOO FAR."
He took a step forward.
Abyss Herald: "BRING HIM BACK TO ME, IMMEDIATELY."
His voice became a sharp whisper.
Abyss Herald: "I want to be the one to run him through with my own daggers."
One of the poachers, hesitating, dared to ask the question.
Poacher: "But... what exactly did he do to put you in such a state?"
The Herald turned to him, his eyes gleaming with a dangerous light.
Abyss Herald: "What did he do?"
He raised a finger.
Abyss Herald: "He defeated an Abyss Lector."
A second finger.
Abyss Herald: "He survived a dungeon designed to kill him a hundred times over."
A third.
Abyss Herald: "And now…"
His gaze fell upon the Millennial Pearl Seahorse, the shattered cages, the latent chaos.
Abyss Herald: "He's destroying a business that earns me millions of Moras."
A heavy silence fell over the cavern.
In the shadows, Venti gritted his teeth.
Venti: "So there you have it…"
"The Abyss..."
The word echoed in his mind like a funeral dirge.
For a split second, the tumult of the cavern faded, replaced by memories he wished he'd never see again.
The Abyss.
Wherever this entity had extended its influence, the world had paid the price.
The Abyss never offered compromise. Only destruction.
Venti clenched his fists.
Venti: "Well... since they're working with the Abyss, I suppose it's not such a big deal if I get rid of them for good."
His decision was instantaneous.
Cold.
With no turning back.
In a heartbeat, he activated his teleportation and reappeared not far from the group of poachers, his voice cracking in the air like a provocation.
Venti: "Hello again."
The reaction was immediate.
Poacher #1: ".....".
Poacher #2: ".....".
Poacher #3: ".....".
Poacher #4: ".....".
Poacher #5: ".....".
Poacher #6: ".....".
Poacher #7: ".....".
Poacher #8: ".....".
Poacher #9: ".....".
Poacher #10: ".....".
Poacher #11: ".....".
Poacher #12: ".....".
Poacher #13: ".....".
Poacher #14: ".....".
Poacher #15: ".....".
Poacher #16: ".....".
Poacher #17: ".....".
Poacher #18: ".....".
Poacher #19: ".....".
Poacher #20: ".....".
Poacher #21: ".....".
Poacher #22: ".....".
Poacher #23: ".....".
Poacher #24: ".....".
The poachers, already on edge after the disappearance of the Herald Abyss, rushed at it, shouting furiously.
Poacher #18: "TAKE IT DOWN!"
Bows were drawn, axes were raised, daggers gleamed in the seaweed glow.
Slash
The first arrows flew… and pierced Venti as if he were nothing but a mirage.
His body became intangible, the projectiles embedding themselves in the rock behind him.
FFFFFFFFFffffffffffffff
Without waiting, he materialized his bow.
An arrow whistled past, then another.
Slash
Two poachers collapsed, struck in the head before they even knew what was happening.
A third attempted a frontal assault, axe raised.
Venti: "You can dream on."
Venti vanished again, reappearing to the side, and the blade flashed through the air.
FFFFFFFffffffffffffffff
A gust of wind erupted as he activated his Elementary Anemo Mastery, destabilizing the assailant, who fell heavily before an arrow brought him to an abrupt end.
A poacher, seized by panic, pulled out a rudimentary instrument, attempting to produce the dissonant music meant to disturb monsters.
But Venti was no monster.
Another, more cunning, threw a handful of seaweed powder in his direction, hoping to exploit a moment of weakness.
Venti barely frowned.
Venti: "You're trying to use MY TECHNIQUE!"
His telekinesis activated, the powder suspended in the air before violently shooting back... straight toward its thrower.
The man barely had time to cough before an arrow lodged itself in his throat.
The fight intensified.
Venti focused his Anemo energy, compressing the wind around an arrow which he fired with surgical precision.
The impact sent a poacher crashing against the cave wall with an ominous crunch.
Using his Wind Communication, he whispered in another's ear:
Venti: "I'm behind you."
Frightened, the man turned and struck… his own comrade. Confusion spread like wildfire.
Pam
Poacher #4: "WHAT?"
As the exchanges continued, Venti found himself just a few meters from the Millennial Pearl Seahorse.
The creature, weakened, was breathing heavily. His gaze fell on its neck… empty.
Where the pearl should have been, there was nothing.
Venti: "That's why it's so weak…"
A simmering anger rose within him.
This pearl wasn't just a source of energy:
It was the very heart of the creature.
Taking it away was tantamount to slowly killing it.
He had no more time to lose.
The poachers still standing were now Twenty-four. Twenty-four enemies who no longer saw him as a mere intruder, but as a deadly threat. And they were right.
Venti unleashed his fury:
He conjured illusions, making some believe they were under attack from all sides.
He used his Stat Boosting abilities, accelerating his movements to a level almost invisible to the naked eye, while simultaneously weakening his opponents with debuffs that made their movements sluggish and imprecise.
His telekinesis caught the dagger of a fallen poacher, spinning it before hurling it back like a deadly projectile.
Another tried to flee, but a gust of wind pinned him to the ground, followed by a fatal arrow.
Each minute dwindled their numbers.
Each second brought the end closer.
Five minutes later:
Blood flowed between the rocks, mingled with the salt water.
Venti: "That'll teach you."
Venti stood at the center of the carnage, his breathing slow but controlled.
His body was covered in blood, not his own, and his eyes, usually light, were hard, almost ancient.
He slowly lowered his bow and moved toward another group.
Venti turned away from the still-warm battlefield and walked calmly toward the group of poachers he had knocked unconscious earlier.
They lay where he had left them, unconscious, hastily bound, still breathing.
At that moment, there was no hesitation or trembling in his movements.
He drew his bow.
And
Bam
An arrow.
A clean shot.
The point pierced a skull with surgical precision.
Before the body could even fully collapse, the arrow dissipated in an Anemo breeze and reappeared in his hand.
He continued.
Pam
A second.
Pam
Then a third.
The same movement, over and over.
Flick
Reappear.
Flick again.
An almost mechanical gesture, devoid of apparent emotion, as if he were performing a necessary task and not an irreversible act.
In a few moments, silence reigned.
There was no longer any human breath in this part of the cave.
Now, the only poachers still standing were the six who were with Arthur, further away, out of his immediate sight.
Venti exhaled slowly.
He didn't have the luxury of dwelling on it.
He turned toward the gigantic purple creature: the Millennial Pearl Seahorse.
Even weakened, her presence commanded respect.
GGGGGGGGGGGGgggggggrrrrrrrrrr
Her massive body lay half-buried in the ground, held in place by stakes and a network of ropes stretched taut with methodical brutality.
Each restraint seemed designed to neutralize her power without killing her too quickly.
Venti approached one of the stakes and first tried to pull it out by hand, using her telekinesis to amplify her strength.
The stake barely budged.
It creaked slightly, revealing the truth of the terrain: beneath the damp sand lay a compact layer of hardened, almost clayey earth, which held the stakes like dead roots.
Venti frowned.
Venti: "Bad idea…"
Forcing it like that risked not only failing, but also further injuring the creature.
He glanced around and spotted an abandoned axe near a corpse.
He picked it up.
The handle was worn, sticky with blood and salt, but the blade was still sharp enough.
Rather than pulling out the stakes, he would free the creature another way.
The ropes.
There were many more than he had initially imagined.
Twenty-three in total.
Some were wrapped around its forelegs, deeply embedded between the scales.
Others held its hind legs, stretched so tightly that they distorted the creature's natural posture.
Several encircled its massive tail, while still others compressed its hips and torso, preventing it from standing upright. or even to breathe properly.
Venti raised the axe and brought the blade down on the first rope.
The fiber was thick, reinforced by interlacing leather and perhaps even by residues of hardened seaweed.
Pam
Pam
Pam
It took three sharp blows to sever it completely.
At the break, the rope whipped through the air with a harsh crack.
He moved on to the next one.
Three more blows.
Then another.
As he progressed, the work became more arduous than he had anticipated.
Each rope required careful attention to avoid accidentally striking the creature.
Some were so taut that, at the moment of the cut, they vibrated dangerously, threatening to whip a leg or the already bruised flank of the Millennial Pearl Seahorse.
Venti counted unconsciously.
Venti: "One."
"Two."
"Three."
Sweat began to bead on his forehead.
Not from extreme fatigue, but from intense concentration.
He knew that the slightest mistake could worsen the creature's condition.
With each rope cut, he carefully observed its reaction.
A slight twitch.
A muscle relaxing.
A slightly less ragged breath.
But the pain was there.
It was palpable.
After several minutes, Venti had already delivered about thirty blows.
His arms were beginning to burn slightly, but he didn't slow down.
He sometimes changed his angle, striking at an angle to prevent the blade from getting stuck.
Some of the shorter ropes required more precision; others, longer ones, were so tightly bound that they left deep marks in the scaly flesh.
Pam
Sixty blows.
Pam
Seventy.
When he severed the last rope, an eerie silence fell.
Nothing held the creature to the ground anymore, at least not outwardly.
Venti took a few steps back, axe still in hand, ready to react.
The Millennial Pearl Seahorse didn't rise.
Its body remained motionless, heavy, as if it had become one with the ground.
Only a faint, almost plaintive groan escaped its throat.
A deep sound, heavy with ancient weariness, a far cry from the majestic roar such a creature should have been capable of producing.
Venti gritted his teeth.
Venti: "...It's not enough."
Without its pearl, the creature lacked the energy to move, even freed.
Its vital needs ran deeper than mere strings:
They were etched into its very essence.
He sheathed the axe and approached slowly, cautiously, until he was within sight.
GGGGGGggggggrrrrrrrr
The creature's eyes opened slightly, revealing a faint but still conscious glimmer.
There was neither hostility nor fear in that gaze.
Only an ancient pain... and a silent waiting.
Breathless, Venti froze for a moment, as if struck by a truth he'd overlooked amidst the chaos.
The crab.
The enormous blue crab.
He closed his eyes briefly, annoyed with himself.
In the heat of the moment, in the anger and the bloodshed, he'd almost forgotten the primary reason for his presence here.
To free the captured creatures.
To put an end to this vile trade.
And above all… not to let a single cage close behind him.
He straightened up immediately and began to move.
The cavern was now silent, but the silence was anything but peaceful.
The tents pitched here and there formed a kind of ghost camp, their canvases billowing gently in the sea breezes.
Open crates, ripped-open bags, abandoned food remains gave the impression that their occupants had disappeared in the middle of a mundane activity... when in reality, they would never disappear again.
Venti moved methodically from tent to tent.
He lifted tarpaulins, rummaged under makeshift tables, and opened wooden chests.
He found food, spare weapons, strange vials containing acrid-smelling liquids, and parchments scribbled with numbers and crude sketches of sea creatures.
Trade records, too.
Names.
Prices.
Roads hastily marked.
He looked away.
This wasn't the time.
But despite his search, no key appeared.
Nothing resembling a key ring worthy of a cage as massive as the blue crab's.
His impatience grew.
He clenched his fists.
Venti: "...I have no choice."
Reluctantly, Venti turned toward the bodies lying on the sandy ground.
The very idea of searching them filled him with profound disgust.
There was no nobility in the act, nothing resembling the image he once had of himself.
But he also knew that refusing to act out of disgust would be even worse.
He knelt beside the first corpse.
His movements were swift, almost clinical.
He avoided looking at the faces.
He focused solely on the pockets, the belts, the satchels:
- Coins.
- Knives.
- Crude amulets.
- Seaweed powder.
- More and more.
Nothing.
He moved on to the next.
Still nothing.
As the seconds stretched on, a dull tension settled in his chest.
Arthur was alone, further away, with the last poachers.
Chapter 57: An old enemy
The End