The deck of the Black Manta had become a slaughterhouse.
The Sea Ghouls were hideous creatures. They looked like drowned humans whose skin had stretched too tight over their bones. Their eyes were milky white, void of pupils, and their mouths were filled with rows of needle-like teeth designed to crack crab shells—and human skulls.
They swarmed over the railing like a tide of pale insects.
"Hold the line!" Captain Vargus roared, slashing her saber through the neck of a ghoul. "Don't let them reach the cabins!"
The sailors fought bravely, but they were outnumbered. The ghouls were fast, slippery, and relentless.
Kaelen stood in the center of the chaos.
He didn't move frantically. While the sailors hacked and slashed with desperation, Kaelen moved with the precision of a surgeon.
Step. Slash. Step. Pierce.
His Black Steel Sword was a blur. Every time it moved, a ghoul fell silent, its vitals severed. He wasn't using flashy techniques; he was using the "Emperor's Economy of Motion." Why use ten units of energy when one is enough?
Rai, the Thunder-Spirit Hawk, was in the air. The little bird was a silver streak of fury, diving down to peck at the eyes of any ghoul that got too close to Kaelen's blind spots.
Screech!
Rai tore out a ghoul's eye, causing the monster to screech and stumble backward—directly into Kaelen's blade.
"Good boy," Kaelen whispered.
"Help! Get off me! You smell like old cheese!"
A familiar, panic-stricken voice echoed from the mast.
Bo was in trouble.
Because Bo was tied to the mast (to prevent seasickness), he was a sitting duck. A large ghoul had climbed onto the ropes and was drooling over the fat thief, ready to take a bite out of his shoulder.
"Boss! Save the merchandise!" Bo screamed, kicking his legs uselessly.
Kaelen turned to help, but three more ghouls blocked his path, hissing.
"Bo, fight!" Kaelen shouted. "Use what you have!"
"I have nothing! I'm tied up!"
"You have your greed!" Kaelen yelled. "Improvise!"
The ghoul opened its jaws. Bo squeezed his eyes shut. His hands fumbled at his waist. He couldn't reach his dagger. He grabbed the only heavy thing he had—the sack of stolen gold coins from the City Lord's vault.
It was heavy. Solid gold.
"Eat this, you ugly fish!"
Bo swung the heavy sack with all his might.
CLANG!
The bag of gold slammed into the ghoul's head with the force of a wrecking ball. The sound was sickeningly metallic. The ghoul's skull crunched, and it fell off the mast, knocked out cold.
Bo blinked, staring at his bag of money. "Huh. Being rich really does save lives."
"Don't celebrate yet!" Vargus shouted. "The Alpha is coming!"
The ship lurched violently. The wood groaned as something massive gripped the hull.
From the starboard side, a monstrous figure pulled itself onto the deck. It was a Ghoul King. It stood eight feet tall, covered in barnacles and green slime. It held a rusted ship anchor as a weapon.
It roared, a sound that shattered the glass of the lanterns on deck.
ROAAAAR!
The sailors froze in terror. The pressure coming from this beast was Spirit Ocean Level 5. Even Captain Vargus took a step back.
The Ghoul King raised the rusted anchor to smash the ship's wheel. If the wheel broke, they would be stranded in the fog forever.
"No!" Vargus lunged forward, but she was too far.
A black blur shot past her.
It was Kaelen.
He didn't dodge the anchor. He met it.
Abyssal Dragon Sword Art: Form Two - Tearing the Tide.
Kaelen jumped, his black sword coated in Black Dragon Qi. He didn't slash across; he spun his body like a drill, driving the sword point-first into the momentum of the swing.
BOOM!
The collision created a shockwave that cleared the rain from the deck.
The rusted anchor shattered.
The Ghoul King looked at its broken weapon in confusion. Before it could react, Kaelen landed on its chest.
"Go back to the mud," Kaelen whispered.
He thrust his hand onto the beast's chest.
Zero-Point Burst.
He released all the kinetic energy he had stored from the jump directly into the monster's heart.
Thump.
The Ghoul King didn't fly backward. It just froze. Then, its eyes rolled back, and its massive heart exploded inside its chest. It collapsed like a falling tower, shaking the entire ship.
The other ghouls, seeing their king dead, let out unified screeches of fear. They abandoned the fight, diving back into the dark water.
Silence returned to the Black Manta.
The only sounds were the heavy breathing of the sailors and the splashing of waves.
Captain Vargus walked over to the dead Ghoul King. She looked at the shattered anchor, then at Kaelen, who was calmly wiping purple blood off his sword with a rag.
"You..." Vargus swallowed hard. "You are a monster."
"I am a passenger," Kaelen corrected, sheathing his sword. "And I believe dinner is late."
The sailors looked at him with awe. The hostility from earlier was gone. In the law of the sea, strength was the only currency, and Kaelen was the richest man on the boat.
Suddenly.
Thump.
A sound echoed. Not from the ship. Not from the wind.
It came from inside Kaelen.
He froze. His hand went to his stomach.
Thump. Thump.
The Void Cauldron in his dantian was vibrating. It wasn't the hungry vibration of wanting to eat energy. It was... resonating. Like a tuning fork reacting to a specific note.
And the note was coming from the deep ocean floor beneath them.
Kaelen walked to the railing. He looked down into the abyss.
"What is it, Boss?" Bo asked, finally untying himself and waddling over, hugging his bag of gold. "Did you drop a coin?"
"Something is down there," Kaelen whispered. "Something... ancient."
He felt a pull. A longing. It felt familiar. It felt like the aura of the Divine Realm.
'Could a piece of my old world have fallen here?'
"Captain," Kaelen turned to Vargus. "How deep is the water here?"
"Here?" Vargus checked her map. "This is the Trench of Silence. It's bottomless. No anchor has ever touched the ground. Why?"
"Just curious."
Kaelen stepped back. He wouldn't dive now. He wasn't strong enough to survive the pressure of a bottomless trench. But he mentally marked the location on his Sea Demon's Map.
'I will come back,' he promised the abyss.
"Alright, you useless barnacles!" Vargus shouted at her crew, hiding her own shaking hands. "Clean this mess up! Toss the bodies overboard! And get the cook to make something hot. We survived!"
The crew cheered weakly.
Kaelen sat on a barrel, watching Bo trying to clean ghoul slime off his "lucky" gold bag.
"You did well, Bo," Kaelen said softly.
Bo looked up, surprised. "I did?"
"You didn't freeze. You acted. That is the difference between a corpse and a survivor."
Bo beamed with pride. "See? I told you! I am a warrior deep inside! Maybe I should start using gold as a weapon permanently. I can call it the 'Golden Smash Style'!"
Kaelen chuckled. It was a rare, genuine sound.
"Sure. Just make sure you don't run out of ammo."
As the ship sailed on, Kaelen closed his eyes to meditate. But the Thump-Thump from the deep continued to echo in his mind, a mysterious drumbeat calling him toward a destiny far greater than simple revenge.
The Endless Sea was not just a body of water. It was a tomb of secrets. And Kaelen had just knocked on the door.
...
Meanwhile, deep underwater.
Miles below the Black Manta, in the crushing darkness where no light could reach.
A pair of massive, glowing yellow eyes opened.
They were ancient. They were tired.
The creature sensed the vibration of the Void Cauldron above.
"...The Emperor... has returned..."
A low, telepathic rumble spread through the water, scaring away the giant squids and sharks.
The creature moved, shifting the tectonic plates of the ocean floor.
"...But he is... so small..."
The eyes closed again, waiting. The currents shifted. The path to the Black Whirlpool just became a lot more dangerous.