Chapter 255: To Conquer The Sea God

Back in the temple, time passed at a crawl. With no day or night to mark the hours, the minutes stretched endlessly till it was mind numbing.

But Finn didn’t feel it pass at all. He slept like a baby, finally opening his eyes after he was well rested. His soul had worked through his sleep, consolidating the five soul masses into something cohesive. He felt different now. More dense and more present in reality than he’d been before he rested.

He stood slowly, testing his body. Everything responded normally, but there was an underlying power to each movement. Like reality had to work even harder to process his actions.

Nice… Finn thought, raising his head to look around.

The others were positioned around the hall. Althea sat near one of the columns, sword across her lap, eyes closed but clearly not sleeping. Ailin stood perfectly still near the entrance to Corridor 17 — the Blessed seemed to have no need for rest whatsoever. Vara and Slick Jones had claimed a spot closer to the archways, both watching Finn with careful expressions.

“Ready?” Althea cracked her eye open and asked as Finn approached.

“As I’ll ever be,” Finn replied, walking to the entrance of Corridor 17.

“I’m going in.”

Althea, Vara and Slick Jones promptly moved to follow, standing from where they sat. But Finn held a hand up and stopped them.

“Everyone stays here,” he said flatly. “Including you two.”

He wasn’t looking at anyone in particular, but Althea understood he meant her and Ailin — although Ailin hadn’t moved at all, perhaps because she had expected it.

“Arros—” Althea started to retort.

“No,” Finn cut her off firmly. “The dissolution pressure ahead is too strong. Even for you. I can feel it from here.”

It was true. The corridor’s atmosphere had shifted dramatically just in the last few hours of Finn resting. He could feel it simply by being at the mouth of the corridor.

Althea opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. She’d felt it too. The pressure trying to pull at her consciousness even from this distance. It was why she sat so far away from it just like Vara and Slick Jones.

If she chose to go in with Finn, even if she could make it the first few steps, she would have to turn back or she’d end up like Vara and Slick Jones had been… slowly dissolved, pulled apart thread by thread.

“I’ll be okay,” Finn said, meeting her eyes for a moment. Something passed between them. Trust, maybe? Or understanding that some battles had to be fought alone.

He turned to enter the corridor, but paused and glanced back at the group. Specifically at Vara.

She stood near Slick Jones, arms crossed, and with a neutral expression on her face. But Finn’s enhanced perception caught the tension in her shoulders. The way her eyes tracked Althea’s position. The slight shift of weight that suggested readiness to move.

She was still harboring plans and calculating, looking for an opening despite knowing it was futile and she was outmatched.

Finn said nothing about it. He held her gaze for a beat longer than necessary, letting her know he’d seen. Then turned and walked into the corridor alone.

Behind him, Althea and Vara stood in careful proximity. Neither looked at the other directly, but both were acutely aware of each other’s positions.

Slick Jones shifted slightly closer to Vara. A subtle movement, but Althea caught it, and calmly, her hand went to the hilt of her sword, letting them know not to try anything daring. All she needed was a reason, and their heads would roll.

.

.

Meanwhile inside Corridor 17, Finn reached the chamber entrance after walking for a short distance. Then without hesitation, he stepped in.

And immediately he did, his perspective shifted.

One moment he was walking on stone, the next he was submerged. Water surrounded him instantly. He was smack underneath an ocean!

He hadn’t even had the time to take a deep breath beforehand, but somehow his lungs didn’t immediately scream for air. The amount he’d breathed naturally was sufficient — for the moment — and he had reacted quickly enough to prevent water from flowing down his nose and mouth.

Kicking into fight mode immediately, Finn’s enhanced perception expanded, trying to get his bearings. The water stretched in every direction. No floor visible below, no surface visible above. Everywhere around him was simply an endless dark blue fading to black the further away he looked.

This wasn’t a chamber. This was the Sea God’s domain… its playground… its hunting ground.

Fuck. I’m out of my depth right now, Finn thought, then almost laughed at the literal accuracy of the assessment.

He began swimming upward — or what he thought was upward. Hard to tell in the uniform darkness. His enhanced strength made the motion easy, but he had no sense of making progress.

Then his perception suddenly caught a movement. A massive displacement of water coming from his left.

Finn twisted sharply, channeling the adaptive soul mass to make his body more streamlined. Something enormous passed through the space he’d just occupied, close enough that the turbulence spun him around.

He caught a glimpse as it passed. It was a massive creature with pale gray-white flesh and rows upon rows of serrated teeth in a maw that seemed to take up most of its body.

Vara’s description had been accurate. This thing was built like a mouth with a body attached as an afterthought.

It circled back, and Finn got a better look. The creature was easily the size of a large ship. Maybe larger. Its body was perhaps sixty meters long, but the gaping maw took up nearly fifty of those meters. The teeth were the size of his torso.

And it moved fast. Impossibly fast for something that size.

Finn channeled the Crimson Fist Tyrant’s power, feeling strength flood his limbs. When the creature charged again, he didn’t try to dodge. He met it head-on, slamming a fist into the side of its jaw.

The impact sent shockwaves through the water. The creature’s head snapped to the side from the force. But it recovered immediately, twisting with serpentine flexibility to snap at him from a different angle.

Finn used the adaptive ability again, making his body denser in the instant before the teeth closed. They scraped against him but couldn’t penetrate. He grabbed one of the massive teeth and pulled, trying to leverage the creature off-balance.

It thrashed, and the water itself seemed to obey. Currents formed from nothing, spinning Finn around, pulling him in directions he wasn’t trying to go. The Sea God was literally commanding the water itself.

This is going to be difficult, Finn noted calmly.

He released the tooth and swam backward, creating distance. His lungs were starting to burn now. He’d need air soon.

The creature charged again, maw gaping wide enough to swallow him whole. Finn channeled the frost power from the saber-toothed frost tiger soul mass. Ice crystallized from his hands, spreading through the water in sharp spears.

The creature twisted, dodging with precision that shouldn’t be possible for its size. Like it had known where the ice would form before Finn had fully committed to the attack.

How the hell is it predicting so accurately?!

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