Chapter 198: In Awe!

The water around them vibrated as the War Machines shifted into full view. All they could now see were the colossal titans of Magic Engineering and Spell-Craft.

Each one of these Aquatic War-Machines exuded more menace than the smaller abyssal behemoths they’d spent twelve hours hiding from. Their engines pulsed with steady, rhythmic thunder, a deep mechanical heartbeat that rolled through the ocean like a sacred war drum.

No one spoke, and none of them could, they were completely in awe at the immense pressure of their presence that pressed down on the students until their bones felt like they were humming from inside their bodies.

Then the first War Machine tilted its massive wings downward, and a moment later, everything exploded with motion.

Currents roared outward, a controlled cyclone created by the beating of the machine’s rune-etched wings. The water churned around the students like a spiraling tunnel of force, but for once, it wasn’t an attack.

It was a lifeline.

Within her helmet, Lilian’s hair whipped backward as the sudden pull jerked her forward. “Shit, hold on!” she yelled, grabbing Elara and another girl by their wrists.

Albedo reacted instantly, reinforcing the group with a field of stabilizing mana. Even then, the currents dragged them backward so quickly that several of the students screamed, their silhouettes tumbling through the water like leaves swept into a storm drain.

Kaen remained composed, having experienced this before, though the force shook even his frame. “Don’t resist it!” he shouted over the rushing current. “Let it take you!”

The sea howled around them, a vortex of controlled, spiraling force that guided rather than crushed. One by one, the students were swept into the pull, their bodies carried in a narrow stream toward the belly of the leading War Machine.

A circle of runes etched along the underside of the behemoth glowed.

Then, with a soundless ripple, translucent spheres formed, hundreds of small air-filled bubbles that hissed outward like eggs being laid into the water.

Albedo watched them drift for only half a second before the current shoved him straight into one. The bubble folded open, swallowed him, then sealed shut with a smooth membrane of mana that vibrated slightly from the ocean pressure.

He floated inside, cushioned by a field of gently circulating air.

Lilian slammed into her own sphere with a muffled “Ow!” but quickly straightened herself out, pressing her face against the transparent surface, “Holy crap… these are stasis pods.”

Elara drifted into the bubble beside her, immediately tapping the barrier, “It’s a hydromantic isolation bubble,” she murmured. “Layered with four… no, five protective formations. We’re completely sealed off.”

All around them, dozens of the bubbles floated into position around the huge manta-like War Machine, forming a protective perimeter as if each student were a lantern hung around a flying fortress.

Kaen entered his bubble last, still barking orders even as the membrane wrapped around him, “Stay calm! Keep mana output minimal! The extraction is under way!”

The moment his pod sealed, a deep, thunderous bass sounded from the lead War Machine. A warning because the ocean around them had started to darken.

Albedo’s bubble drifted a few meters upward until he had an unobstructed view. There were Hundreds of Monsters on the horizon, a shifting forest of shadows, vast serpentine and shark-like bodies, writhing jellies with pulsing core-lights, all controlled by the Abyss to attack, no matter what.

Lilian swallowed hard, “Okay. Okay. That’s too many. That’s, nope. Nope, thank god we got here quick,”

The War Machines weren’t frozen by fear, instead moving forward, and the sea answered.

The leading machine spread its wings wide. Glowing lines flickered along its plated surface like veins igniting with molten magma. Its engines shifted pitch, from a steady drone into a rising hum that caused the bubbles themselves to vibrate in tune.

Albedo’s eyes widened as he watched the runes along its hull rearrange themselves—mechanical, seamless, beautiful.

“It’s tuning the spell engines,” he murmured.

“What?” Elara asked breathlessly.

“It’s preparing for combat.” He explained, and a moment later, he was proven right.

The manta-like machine fired its first salvo. A soundless beam erupted from its central prow, a spear of condensed white-blue mana that tore through the water so fast it left a vacuum trail behind it.

It struck the first abyssal creature, a serpent fifty meters long, as cleanly as a knife slicing through silk.

The serpent just disintegrated. Every inch of flesh, bone, and mana-filament inside its body collapsed into dust, scattering like gray snowflakes.

Lilian’s jaw dropped, “Holy shit…”

Three more beams followed, each tearing apart a different monster. The beams were not slow. They were not careful. They were surgical annihilation, lines of destruction cutting through the ocean faster than the students could track.

Behind the lead machine, the serpentine war machine, the one shaped like an armored leviathan, opened its plated jaws.

The glyphs carved along its sides lit up in fiery orange. Then, with a deep mechanical inhale, it unleashed a shockwave. The blast wasn’t a projectile.

It was pressure, raw, crushing, weaponized pressure, condensed into a visible ripple that swept outward like a tidal wall. Every beast in its path convulsed. Smaller ones imploded instantly, their bodies crushed flat before bursting apart into clouds of crimson mist.

Even mid-class Abyssal entities, those the size of multi-story buildings, were thrown backward like toys.

Elara’s breath caught, “That… that attack warped the water density itself.”

“That’s the Abyss-Breaker Shockwave,” Kaen said from his bubble. “Developed for the Grand Fleet. We use it to break sea trenches when beasts hide inside.”

The third machine moved then, the massive nautilus-like one with rotating rune-rings.

Its rings began to spin, very slowly at first, but the speed rapidly increased until the bands of metal were nothing but glowing circles of rotating light. The water around it twisted into spirals, pulled by the gravitational distortions the machine generated.

A dozen abyssal beasts turned to flee.

Too late.

The nautilus machine fired and instead of beams or pressure, it unleashed gravity. Pure, concentrated gravitational distortion condensed into a shot that punched through the water like an invisible meteor.

It slammed into the swarm of retreating beasts and space folded, the water crushing inward as dozens of monsters were pulled together, squeezed toward a single collapsing point like toys drawn into a whirlpool.

Their bodies twisted grotesquely, snapping apart before the entire mass compressed into a dark marble the size of a fist.

The marble flickered once, then disintegrated.

However, something else immediately reacted. A Titan Class Abyssal Monster had finally arrived on the scene, its massive form drifting closer.

The students froze as they saw it. The creature was enormous. A colossal, shadow-wreathed body easily two kilometers long, its silhouette shaped like a whale fused with a centipede, armored carapace plated in crooked black ridges that glowed faintly with abyssal runes.

Its dozens of glowing eyes snapped open at once.

“Titan…” Elara whispered, voice barely audible.

The monster bellowed, a deep, rippling roar that made their bubbles shake violently. The water around it warped from the sheer mana pressure it emitted as it began swimming toward them, carving through the sea like a warship wrapped in darkness.

Kaen hissed, “Brace yourselves! The War Machines will engage!”

The Titan roared again, and the water trembled. The War Machines responded instantly. The manta-machine angled its wings forward and fired a barrage of smaller energy spears. The leviathan-machine charged a second shockwave.

The nautilus-machine launched another gravitational torpedo.

But the Titan adapted immediately, moving with terrifying agility for something so massive, twisting its body so the beams grazed harmlessly off its carapace.

The shockwave hit, but the beast roared and pushed through it, its monstrous body quaking as it fought the crushing force.

Then the gravitational torpedo struck.

A direct hit.

The Titan convulsed, its massive frame dragged inward by the distortion field. For a moment, it seemed like it might be pulled apart. Then it roared again and shattered the gravitational lock with brute force.

The students stared in silent, absolute horror. Even the War Machines seemed to shift their positions, recalculating.

The fourth War Machine, the one they hadn’t seen move yet, finally activated. This one had remained behind them, drifting quietly like a sleeping giant.

Its body was shaped like a colossal, angular fortress, heavy armor, thick plating, and massive cannons embedded across its shell.

Its engines roared, the runes flaring red hot even underwater before it fired, the cannon lighting up as a swirling sphere of condensed mana spun at its core, growing brighter, hotter, denser—until even the water around it vaporized into bubbles.

Then the cannon released its payload.

A beam of incandescent golden light tore through the ocean like a miniature sun being born underwater. The recoil alone shook the surrounding water so violently the students’ bubbles were thrown backward in a wave of displaced pressure.

The Titan screamed as the beam struck its side.

The attack blasted through, a chunk of the Titan’s carapace, nearly a hundred meters across—was vaporized into nothing.

The water boiled.

The Titan writhed in agony, its body thrashing and flailing wildly as the hole in its side burned with searing golden mana.

Lilian could only stare, eyes wide with disbelief, “They… they wounded a Titan-class.”

Kaen exhaled slowly. “That’s the Fleet’s God-Spear Cannon. Only a handful exist in the world.”

Elara trembled, staring at the light still fading from the cannon’s maw. “It’s… it’s beautiful.”

The War Machines repositioned instantly, forming a four-point formation around the wounded Titan, pushing the battlefield farther away from the students.

The bubbles drifted quietly in the wake of the titanic clash, like tiny stars watching gods wage war.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep