Conjunction

South Sea, Seventh Seabed Excavation Fort

Surrounded by a horizon of nothing but an azure sea, there stood a lone gray structure.

Seen from the sky, it appeared to be nothing but a tiny dot within the vast ocean of blue, but it was actually a large facility the size of a military base. On the outside, it was strongly reminiscent of an offshore oil extraction platform, but while those structures were meant to draw fossil fuels to the surface from below, this one’s purpose was exactly the opposite.

It was an elevator facility meant to take things down to the ruins on the seafloor.

A certain amount of Granvaloa’s science and technology had been excavated from pre-ancient ruins like these, and this structure that resembled an oil rig was an elevator meant to connect the undersea ruins with the people on the surface.

And now, in the building’s wharf, there was a lone man.

He had a split-colored haircut in black and red, an intense face full of virility, and a muscled build that was obvious even beneath his clothes—currently a uniform with a naval coat thrown over his shoulders. On some people, this apparel would have looked like cosplay, but the aura—the very presence—of this man made it clear that this was the garb of a true warrior.

An unlit cigarette in his mouth, he glared at the sea below. It seemed that he was waiting for something, and perhaps growing irritated at the prolonged delay.

In his hands, he held a chain extending down into the water, as though he were lowering an anchor.

After some time spent staring at the sea—and at the ripples in the water’s surface—he brought his left hand up to the cigarette in his mouth and lit it with just a flick of his finger.

He then took one long draw on the cigarette...

“K H O O O O O O O!”

...before a bizarre monstrosity burst out of the ocean and attacked him.

At first glance, the creature looked like a flying fish the size of a megalodon, but in place of gliding fins, it had the wings of a seabird. Clearly this was no natural animal.

The man then spotted the name above it—“Abyss Albatross Shark.”

The monster was one of the “Abyss” Mocks that were currently ravaging the South Sea.

“...One,” the man muttered, cigarette still in his mouth, as he pulled up the chain he held in his right hand. His strong arms dragged it from the water at immense speed, quickly revealing the thing at the end.

It wasn’t an anchor, but what appeared to be a pot large enough to contain a person.

The metallic bronze vessel carried its momentum from surfacing to strike the Abyss Albatross Shark directly in its lower jaw.

The impact knocked the monster upward slightly, but it quickly flapped its wings to correct its course, determined to try and eat the man again.

One might think the man would take another swing with his pot on a chain—but instead, he just removed the lit cigarette from his mouth and flicked it.

Leaving a trail of smoke, it flew toward the Abyss Albatross Shark, gently brushed it...

...and a massive explosion ensued.

Still in mid-flight, the Abyss Albatross Shark shattered into countless pieces, burned up, and dissolved into bits of light.

The shock wave passed the man by like it was nothing more than the caress of a gentle breeze.

He then shifted his gaze back to the sea.

“Two.” A moment later, a pillar of water shot up, and something from below landed on the wharf.

This one was a relatively small chimera that looked like a mix of a fish and a gorilla, and its name was “Abyss Scale Kong.”

“G H O G H O G H O...!” The apelike Abyss Scale Kong roused itself by pounding its scaly chest before leaping toward the man.

“Tch... There’ll probably be more.” The man clicked his tongue before swinging the chain and using the pot at the end like a flail.

With speed and power that would easily obliterate a human being, the weapon flew straight at the Abyss Scale Kong.

“G H U G H O G H O!” However, the monster managed to catch it.

Flexing the muscles on both its arms, it firmly grasped the pot at the end of the chain, exuding a feeling of pride at its victory.

The man, however, only gave it a cold gaze—the sort a professional would give an amateur who failed to even realize they had already lost the match.

He then rubbed his gloved fingers together. It was the same motion that had lit the cigarette, but this time, it created a small ball of flame—a basic fire spell—which quickly flew toward the Abyss Scale Kong.

Though the man’s gloves were custom-made equipment, they were not terribly special. All they did was channel simple fire spells like this one. The only thing that differentiated these gloves from others like them was that this pair had been crafted to prioritize speed over power.

Seeing just how weak the attack was, the Abyss Scale Kong chuckled and simply let it land, confident it would easily withstand the flames.

The ball of fire soon touched the chimera...

...and like the Abyss Albatross Shark only minutes before, it, too, exploded into pieces.

This most certainly wasn’t caused by the power of the fireball—that spell was weak even for low-rank magic.

The explosion had actually come from the Abyss Scale Kong itself—or, to be more precise, the pot that it had touched.

This seemingly plain object was actually an Embryo, and it possessed a skill that could turn any liquid it touched into a lethal explosive. And since most creatures were composed largely of water, they turned into living bombs at even the slightest physical contact.

This Embryo that transformed its enemies into moving fuel canisters was called Great Flame Brewer, Abura-Sumashi... And though it bore the name of a rather unassuming Japanese yokai, it was actually one of the deadliest Embryos in existence.

“Three, four... I see Miro’s still no good at precise movements.”

A moment after he said that, pillars of water shot up into the sky as two more chimeras the size of the Abyss Scale Kong attempted a two-pronged attack against him.

“Guess there’s more of them than usual today too. Form shift.”

The man didn’t even bother to look at their names this time. He just gave his Embryo one simple order.

In response, the pot split neatly in half and flew onto the man’s arms like a pair of bracers.

“G H O O O O O!”

“K H O K H E E E E E!”

Dodging the chimera attacks by a hair’s breadth, he threw a punch at each of them while simultaneously activating the fire magic in his gloves.

The next moment, both creatures detonated, scattering their pieces to the wind.

“I swear, she better not let any more of these past,” he said as he watched the monsters turn to motes of light.

With these two down, he had effortlessly defeated four chimeras. However, this wasn’t because they were weak opponents. These monsters had stats and skills that would put them solidly in the Dragon tier, if not High-Dragon.

The reason they’d been reduced to mere firecrackers was that the man was simply that strong.

He was the Master sent to protect the Seventh Seafloor Excavation Fort—an important Granvaloan base.

He was a Superior, and the strongest man in Granvaloa.

Nicknamed the “Human Bomb,” this man was the Great Admiral, Antimicrobic Soy Sauce.

“Those Mocks sure do like attacking this place, though.” Since he’d accepted this mission, he’d already defeated dozens of such chimeras. He had a higher Mock kill count than even those who were out there actively hunting Abyss Shellder itself.

He had pondered why that could be, but had yet to come up with an answer. Were they attracted to the ruins? Or was it because he was here? It was a true mystery.

“It hasn’t been long since this place was found so we still haven’t fully explored it yet. There are areas behind bulkheads we can’t open... But it’s pretty damn clear this isn’t where the Mocks are coming from. Why are they so interested in it?”

Granvaloa believed that the Abyss series of monsters had been created in an as-yet-undiscovered Eighth Seafloor Excavation Fort and the Great Admiral suspected that the Seventh might have some direct connection to it.

And if not... Is there something here that keeps attracting those chimeras...? Something they just can’t ignore? he wondered, but realized that he would never get an answer until they explored the areas of the ruin they had yet to access.

Suddenly, the water next to the wharf rippled with great intensity.

“Mr. Anti! I cleared the water!”

And with those words, clearly coming from a speaker, a massive head peeked from the sea.

It was the head of a steel golem—no, a giant robot. Based on the head alone, it must have stood at least a hundred metels tall.

A humanoid construct, equipped with large aquatic motors on its back... This, too, was an Embryo—a Superior Embryo known as All-Battle-Ready, Vodyanoy.

“I think I did a really good job in there, Mr. Anti!” The back of the robot opened up, revealing a petite individual in pale clothing—a white sailor uniform, to be exact. While the top was a proper uniform, though, the bottom was a skirt, making the person’s entire outfit a kind of a cosplay chimera in its own right, a hybrid of a sailor uniform and a middy suit.

The cosplay feel was only exacerbated by the structure—that is to say, the size—of her chest area.

Curious as she looked, however, she was another Superior—Miroslava Swampman, the Charm of Land and Sea. While she was only a Gale Pilot—a high-rank job—she was receiving a lot of attention from both in and out Granvaloa as the country’s newest Superior.

“Maaan, there were like five or six kraken Mocks down there, but me and my Vodyanoy went all out and tore them up like it was nothing! Mr. Anti! Gimme some praise!” With those words, Miroslava took off her sailor hat and presented her bare head to Antimicrobic Soy Sauce, clearly expecting him to pat it.

However, he just frowned and smacked her instead.

“Oww!”

“Miro, how many times do I have to tell you to be careful how you say my name? It’s ‘Ante.’ Don’t use anything close to ‘Antimicrobic.’ And don’t you even dare mention the rest of it.”

“B-But that’s the name you picked...”

“That is my second greatest regret in Dendro.” Having started Infinite Dendrogram very early on, when its quality was still unknown to the world, he’d given himself a nonsensical name under the assumption that it was going to be as bad as any other contemporary dive-type VR game.

The name used to be his greatest regret, but it recently dropped to second place.

His current number one regret was related to the Granvaloan SUBM attack, but that was a story for another time.

“Also, you let a whole four of them slip past you.”

“Ngh...! B-But they were small and fast... And I couldn’t get to them because of the kraken tentacles...”

These two were tasked with protecting the Seventh Seabed Excavation Fort.

There were multiple reasons for this. First, the unexplored ruins had to be protected from the chimeras that sought to destroy them, and since the city-ships had already left the South Sea, Granvaloa needed a base that would keep them connected to the Abyss Shellder hunters.

There were also rumors that they were here because this task had actually come from very high up in the chain of command.

That was why these two Superiors were defending this place, but Miroslava’s Vodyanoy had only recently evolved to become Superior, and she still wasn’t terribly good at controlling it. Antimicrobic Soy Sauce had sent her to the front line of defense as a method of training.

Unfortunately, this had only showed that she still had a long way to go.

“Man. Becoming Superior didn’t fix your lackluster endgame at all.”

“I’m sorry...”

Miroslava was the newest of Granvaloa’s Superiors. She was also on the younger side and had started a while after the rest, so other Masters had often had to teach her the ropes. Since they both held a position in the military fleet, Antimicrobic Soy Sauce ended up looking out for her more than most.

His alignment with the military fleet was also the reason he was wearing a military uniform.

All seven Granvaloan Superiors were backed by one of the four fleets.

The military fleet—the one involved in most combat—had Antimicrobic Soy Sauce, Miroslava, and two others.

The merchant fleet—the heart of the Granvaloan economy—had King of Building, Satomi Yamamoto, as well as his entire clan. As their creative endeavors required immense funding, the clan and the fleet were basically inseparable.

Of course, the remaining two were both associated with a fleet as well.

Granvaloan Superiors had stronger ties to their country than most. This was partly because the country’s “land” consisted solely of ships that provided far less living space, and partly because of the disposition of those who picked Granvaloa as their nation.

However, there were also people like King of Thieves, Zeta, who had once been part of the pirate fleet, but had betrayed the country by stealing a national treasure and escaping.

“But I really did work hard today... They were just stronger than they were before... And there were more of them...”

“I’ll at least give you good marks for effort.”

As Miroslava became a bit mopey, Antimicrobic let out a sigh and patted her head, just as she’d wanted. A blissful expression instantly spread across her face.

“Hee hee... Oh, did we get any messages from the spouses yet? Maybe something like ‘We beat the Abyss Shellder’?”

“Not yet.”

The “spouses” were the two other Superiors belonging to the military fleet—Maud Edwards and Scala Edwards. They were a husband-wife Superior pair, and Antimicrobic had heard that they were married even in real life.

They were nicknamed the “Avowed Wings,” and had mobility that put them far ahead of both the Superiors currently present.

That was why these two had been tasked with protecting the ruins while the spouses were out hunting Abyss Shellder, though it was agreed that if the couple couldn’t defeat it, Antimicrobic and Miroslava would both rush to their aid.

The incredible level of teamwork between Superiors was another thing that made Granvaloa stand out.

Satomi was perhaps the only exception. He was just incapable of controlling his obsessions.

“Oh! Speak of the devil!” said Miroslava as she noticed a man rush out of the facility.

While this place was primarily an elevator to transport people to the Seventh Seafloor Excavation Fort, this was also a military base equipped with everything needed to communicate with Granvaloa.

The man approaching them was a tian in charge of these communications, and Miroslava was certain that he was coming to report that Abyss Shellder had been slain.

However, that was far from the truth.

“We’ve received word from a GFRS clan member! King of Building, Satomi Yamamoto fought the Abyss Shellder and received the death penalty...!”

“Huh?!” A fellow Superior had been defeated. This information filled Miroslava with shock, while Antimicrobic Soy Sauce...

“That’s sure to set things in motion.”

...glared at the horizon, predicting that the situation was about to change drastically.

Act 6: Light of Hope

War God Ship, Baldr, Interior

The man in the bear suit—King of Destruction, Shu Starling.

His Superior Embryo, Baldr, was cutting through the South Sea all by itself, and its hovering produced an intense noise, but no monsters were drawing close.

It was eerie—it almost felt as though there were no living creatures present at all. The sky above was heavily overcast, adding to the gloomy atmosphere.

“Not that I think all the monsters here are actually gone,” Shu muttered as he looked around from the bridge.

It was clear that many monsters had succumbed to Abyss Shellder or the Mocks under its control, but he didn’t believe that they had caused a mass extinction. Even if Shu was correct that Abyss Shellder was building an ecosystem with itself at the top, he also believed that it was too early for that to have happened yet.

He suspected there were monsters that had survived, but they were in hiding. They knew by now that their habitats were being ravaged by abominations like Abyss Shellder and the Mocks, and as Baldr must appear just as abnormal to them, they made no attempt to approach it.

“Well, I appreciate not having to fight. There’s still the rematch with that thing on the horizon.”

There was no one else on the bridge, but he spoke out loud to better organize his thoughts.

Baldr’s ammunition was limited. Shu had already used some of his reserves against Satomi, and knowing he’d have to fight Abyss Shellder again, he wanted to avoid wasting more.

“A rematch, huh.” Shu’s own choice of words made him furrow his brow. “Abyss Shellder... There’s clearly something not right about it.”

Baldr’s artillery, the many and varied attacks from Satomi’s ships, and a direct hit from JotA—one of Granvaloa’s strongest weapons.

“It took all that and didn’t suffer any damage at all. It makes no sense—it’s unbelievable. Not that I don’t have any guesses as to how it works, mind you.”

Infinite Dendrogram had multiple confirmed defensive abilities that enabled the wielders to become nearly invincible, and Shu had pondered a few possibilities based on these.

“First, it could have something like Gloria’s two-horned head.” When it came to opponents he himself knew far too well, there was nothing quite like the SUBM that had once attacked Altar—Tri-Zenith Dragon, Gloria. Its Fatal Field was a fearsome offensive skill that unconditionally killed everything within range, but it also served as a powerful defensive ability that negated all attacks from the outside.

This power had caused immense casualties for Altar, while also nullifying the effects of a mighty weapon provided by Dryfe, which had been allied with the kingdom at the time.

That weapon had been a remnant of the pre-ancient civilization just like Granvaloa’s JotA, so Shu thought there might be similarities between Gloria and Abyss Shellder.

That was the first possibility—conditional invincibility.

“If it’s not that, maybe it’s a combo like the Multifariously Invincible uses.” Carl Lourlou, the Multifariously Invincible—a member of Caldina’s strongest clan, Sefirot. His Superior Embryo, Nemean Lion, possessed a power which made his equipment completely indestructible.

Combined with the Lifesaving Brooch—which negated fatal attacks, but had a chance to break upon use—and the Cameo of Health—which provided a similar protection against debuffs—Carl Lourlou had become essentially invincible.

While it wasn’t equipment, Abyss Shellder had many monster skills, and it wouldn’t be out of the question for it to have a combo in there that made it impervious to damage.

That was the second possibility—a combo that granted functional invincibility.

“Or maybe...” With those two theories in mind, Shu considered a third theory—something far simpler. “What’s that thing’s level...? What are its stats...?”

Abyss Shellder had grown as strong as it had by consuming countless Resources from other monsters. It was possible that its basic stats were already so high that most attacks were just rendered meaningless.

“What was it that Humpty said again?” Shu tried to recall the words Humpty had given him yesterday.

“So there it is—I simply want you to solve this one. In all honesty, the situation is pretty dire, and the only Masters who can do anything about it are you and Dryfe’s King of Beasts.”

“Either me...or King of Beasts.” Humpty had specifically excluded the other two “apices” beside KoB, but had included Shu.

He was starting to understand what she’d meant by that.

“KoB and I are probably the only ones who...”

“Reporting.” Shu’s words were cut short by Baldr, addressing him through the bridge’s speakers. “The guest has woken up and left the room.”

“All right.” Shu nodded. “Remain alert and continue the auto-nav. Head toward the Adventure II rendezvous point.”

“Affirmative.” He then went to the exit and left the bridge to go and talk with the adventure fleet commander—Riella.

◇

“Where...?”

Riella awoke to find herself staring up at the ceiling of an unfamiliar cabin.

It looked nothing like her own quarters on the Adventure II—in fact, it didn’t even seem Granvaloan in design.

However, the material it was made of and its general atmosphere quickly told her where she was.

“This is...Shu’s Baldr.”

Riella was lying on the bed inside Baldr’s cabin. While it was quite plain, the blanket placed over her was actually very high quality. It must’ve been something Shu himself owned, rather than a part of Baldr itself.

“Ugh...!” As Riella tried to recall how she’d lost consciousness, she immediately felt a stinging pain in her heart. Fear and regret—the kind that made her feel like she was plummeting into a dark abyss. A sensation as though she were standing on thin ice that had suddenly cracked beneath her feet.

Riella was remembering her own overwhelming defeat.

“Nothing worked...” She turned toward the desk that stood at one side of the room and saw the item she’d been holding before she fainted—the remote trigger for the Javelin of the Atmos. It was neatly placed in a transparent case, likely to prevent misfires.

And next to it, there was a bottle of drinking water and some preserved food.

“That guy...” The blanket and the desk arrangement both displayed an unusual degree of care.

He’s more thoughtful than he looks, Riella thought, picturing her costumed helper in her mind. His consideration slightly distracted her from the pain of her overwhelming defeat.

“Ngh...”

Only slightly, though. It wasn’t nearly enough to make her forget the heavy reality: They had put their lives on the line to face the creature that had killed their friends and family, only to not even scratch it.

She ought to have been thinking about where to go from here, but the image of the twisted UBM she’d just faced was burned into her mind. She felt paralyzed.

“Old-timer... How the hell did ya bring yourself to fight it again?” Her vice captain, Asam, was one of the many who’d fought Abyss Shellder alongside her father—and one of the few who’d lived to tell the tale. But despite this defeat, he’d still accompanied and supported Riella on her voyage of vengeance. “Is it just because of me?”

Asam might’ve embarked on this voyage simply because Riella wanted revenge.

She herself had thought she understood how fearsome the UBM really was, and yet she had still challenged it, hoping to avenge her father and fulfill her duty as fleet commander.

However, the result of her venture had been a cruel and painful failure.

Despair now threatened to overwhelm all her hopes and even her sense of duty. What if the creature couldn’t be defeated?

That was just how terrifying Abyss Shellder really was.

It was nothing like the Ancient Legendary UBM, the Mock chimeras, or the Superiors she was now caught between—it was a true Irregularity.

The more she thought about it, the closer she came to breaking.

Hoping to smell the familiar air of the sea, Riella left the cabin.

Proceeding down one of Baldr’s interior hallways, she eventually found what looked like an exit and went outside.

The moment she opened the door, she felt the salty wind caress her cheeks and nose.

Infinite Dendrogram was a world where monsters—and creatures of all kinds—left no corpses and instead transformed into Resource fragments upon their death. This made the smell of its seas even more subtle than that of Earth’s oceans. Still, there was a definite scent to its waves that was unmistakable.

The scent of the sea that reached Riella’s nose here was different from the one she’d caught back at Granvaloa before embarking on this voyage. It must’ve been influenced by the difference in climate and fauna between the West and South Seas.

“It’s so...nostalgic.” However, she was actually quite familiar with the smell of the South Sea.

Facing the distant horizon, she began to think about the past.

◇

What first came to mind was a memory from when she was a little girl, accompanying her father on his ship.

Shortly after an illness had taken her mother, when Riella’s heart was still filled with grief, her father Jonathan had decided to take her on his next voyage. Even by Granvaloan standards she was too young to be out at sea, but Jonathan hadn’t wanted to leave her in Granvaloa all by herself.

Her first voyage made her uneasy, and she had cried numerous times, but her father was always there for her. Even as the sea wildly shook their vessel, he remained steady, like a mighty tree she could lean against when she needed to.

In no small part thanks to her father’s support, a few days after embarking, she began to calm down. And once she stopped crying, the joy of sailing and the thrill of the unknown was there to welcome her.

The pain of losing her mother and the fear of the sea started to fade, and her heart began to heal.

Her father talked to her many times throughout all this.

Riella thought back to one such conversation. They had been standing together on the deck when her father had asked...

“Enjoying the voyage?” Jonathan was built like a grizzled man of the sea, but his face radiated true kindness. The way he spoke to his beloved daughter truly showed this latter side of him.

“Yeah!” Riella nodded as she replied with a carefree smile. “There’s so many things out here I’ve never seen before! It’s fun!”

Jonathan gave her a pat on the head. What she said mirrored his own feelings exactly—a sense of wonder shared by many in the adventure fleet.

“There is one thing you should know, though,” said Jonathan. “Not all the mysteries of the sea are fun.”

“Hm?”

“The ocean is bigger than the continent, and it’s also home to lots of dangers, many of them monsters. Some of them are scary even to us Granvaloans who call the seas our home.”

These words frightened little Riella, prompting her to cling close to her father.

“Mmm... The sea is beautiful, fun, wondrous...but also terrifying.” Jonathan looked away from his daughter and fixed his eyes on the horizon as he spoke, putting weight into each word. “And our adventure fleet leads the charge into it.”

“Why?” Young as she was, Riella couldn’t understand why they would rush headlong into the unknown reaches of a place they had deemed so terrifying.

“Because that’s our duty.”

“Duty?”

“A long time ago—hundreds of years back, before our country was founded, many of the people who would become its citizens were slaves.”

This was a story from before the founding of Granvaloa—the chaotic time known as the “Era of the Peerless Three.”

The first people of the seafaring nation were slaves from the massive, expansionist country of Adrasta.

“The king who ruled over them ordered: ‘Embark on a voyage around the continent. Succeed, and not only will you earn your freedom, but I will grant your chosen representative one wish.’”

It was an order from King of Kings himself—the strongest monarch of the era. Refusal was simply not an option.

However, back then, the sea was a completely unknown world—a hellish realm of chaos that made the modern day oceans look tame.

“As everyone shrunk back, overwhelmed by fear, the first to come forward was a boy called Valoa.”

“I know that name...”

“Yeah. He’s our ‘Valoa the Grand.’”

This was a name even little Riella knew. The first navarch of Granvaloa—“Valoa the Grand” or simply “Grand Valoa.”

“He faced the king without fear, gathered volunteers from among his fellow slaves, and embarked on this voyage with just five ships and barely enough crew to man them.”

This was a well-known story. The first five ships that took off were arranged with the commanding ship in the middle and the other four on each side of it. They would come to represent the navarch and the four fleet commander families.

That was all Riella knew at this point. She was too young to have learned the details of the voyage.

“Was our ancestor there too?” she asked.

“Not at first.”

“Huh?” Jonathan’s answer came as a surprise to Riella.

“The first adventure fleet commander, Vana Rih Granfront—well, it was just Ranfront back then—wasn’t one of the slaves who were present from the very start of the voyage.”

“Then why did...?”

“She... Our ancestor joined the voyage to save the slaves who were her brethren.”

Riella’s eyes widened. The slaves had all undertaken the journey around the continent because it was their only hope for survival. The endeavor was considered a death sentence at the time—or worse, a hellish struggle that would make death seem preferable.

And yet, the first commander of the adventure fleet had willingly joined the voyage in order to protect others—a terrifying decision that surely had taken immense courage.

“She sailed at the head of the five ships, fighting the unknown and carving open a path around the continent.” Riella was speechless. “And it wasn’t just her,” Jonathan continued. “They couldn’t have achieved what they did without the other three commanders and the guidance of Valoa the Grand. Once they had completed their voyage, they and the other slaves won their freedom.”

Some members of the fleet had left their families behind, and they were all freed as well.

“True to his word, the king granted one wish from the people’s representative, Valoa the Grand. He asked the king for a ship, and that very vessel is now the core of our country—the city-battleship, Granvaloa.”

Upon hearing Valoa’s request, King of Kings had laughed and gladly fulfilled it.

With that, the now-freed slaves had their own “land.”

Indeed, they treated their ships as though they were dry land and built a country on the sea, away from the chaotic continent.

“That was the start of the maritime fleet of Granvaloa.” And from there on, they grew by repurposing battleship technology, mining materials from the seabed, finding new technologies in ruins, and building new city-ships to connect to the old.

But even with all this growth, the framework of the navarch and the four commander families never changed. Even their roles remained the same to this day.

“It’s been six hundred years since then, but we’re still the same adventure fleet. We still take the front, face the unknown, and carve open the path. That’s our role.”

The adventure fleet were always the ones to navigate into uncharted territories, mine seabeds, and explore ruins. In a way, their role might’ve been more dangerous than that of the combat-focused military fleet.

Despite that, they always stood at the forefront.

After all...

“That’s because we inherited the will of the first commander.”

“Will...?”

“Yeah. It’s not just her blood. She stood in front to protect her brethren, and we now do the same for all the people of Granvaloa. That’s our legacy.”

The adventure fleet wasn’t like the trade, military, or the pirate fleets. They searched for materials and technologies to ensure the continued existence of the country. As exemplified by their goal of finding new land beyond the reach of the nations on the main continent, they stood at the very front to ensure the future of Granvaloa—even if this sometimes meant fighting mysterious and dangerous monstrosities that endangered their lives.

“The sea is beautiful, fun, and wondrous, but also terrifying.” Jonathan repeated his words from earlier. “It’s a place where despair and hope are two sides of the same coin...and we navigate it in search of the futures... The possibilities we seek. We must never lose sight of that light, no matter how dim it may be.”

At some point, the horizon began to welcome the setting sun. It was now the border between day and night.

Jonathan turned his eyes away from the sea and back to his dear daughter. Then, he spoke in a way to convey his words as clearly as possible.

“And that’s us—the adventure fleet.”

Little Riella was too young to understand everything he’d said here. However, the way he spoke of his role made him look so dependable and dazzling that in that moment, she decided that she wanted to be just like him some day.

He and the other fleet members went on to teach her many things.

As a young woman, she could be quite competitive and intense, but she had still been raised right. One could say that chasing after her father had paid off.

But now, her father was nowhere to be seen.

◇

Riella shifted her focus from the past back to the present.

“...I hate this sky.” The words that escaped her mouth were surely a response to the difference between the horizon in her memory and the one that now stretched out before her.

The beautiful South Sea twilight was far preferable to this gray expanse—so overcast it was hard to tell if it was day or night, and so still it seemed devoid of life.

It was a reflection of the state of the South Sea, and it held a mirror up to Riella’s own heart.

“Dad...” Gazing up at the lightless sky, she clenched her fist so tightly that her nails bit into her palm and drew blood.

Struck by the weight of what she had lost and her own feeling of powerlessness, this was all Riella could do.

Her goal was to avenge the father whom she so loved and respected, but she wasn’t nearly strong enough to accomplish that.

“Damn it...” Where had she gone wrong? And how?

Not knowing the answer, Riella just sat down and hugged her knees to her chest.

Right now, this ocean scared her like nothing else. She even felt as though the monstrosity itself could burst out of these silent waters at any moment.

However, she also felt that if she locked herself in a room away from the sight of the sea, she would be crushed by her own weakness.

Riella’s heart was torn in two by her helplessness in the face of Abyss Shellder’s monstrous strength.

But just when she was about to start crying, she sensed someone behind her.

Someone standing in the doorway she’d left open, simply gazing at her.

There was no question who it was—on this entire ship, there was only her and Shu.

Some time passed as neither of them said a word.

He didn’t call out to her. He didn’t ask if she was okay or approach to wipe away her tears. He didn’t even offer her any kind words.

He only stood and waited.

After all, they were equals.

He wasn’t driven by pity for her circumstances or some protective instinct that would reveal that deep down he saw her as nothing more than a child.

In their agreement, they were equals, so he simply waited for her as any equal would—after all, if it had been him out there on the verge of breaking, he wouldn’t have wanted any consolation either.

In her shoes, he would only want everyone around him to wait until he got back on his feet.

“Heh.” But callous as it might have seemed, this approach cheered Riella up much more than any comforting words.

She let go of her knees, gathered strength in her legs, and rose to her feet.

“Hey, Shu...” Not even turning to him, she called out to the man in the doorway.

“What?”

“You think we got a chance against that thing?”

Abyss Shellder seemed like an invincible anomaly, and she asked the man she’d contracted to help her if he thought it was even possible to defeat.

At first, Shu said nothing—though it didn’t seem like he was thinking of what to say, and certainly not like he was consumed with despair at how hopeless everything seemed.

He was just a bit amused by what he was about to say.

A few faces—including that of the Control AI who loved to mess with him—flashed through his mind as he opened his mouth.

“There’s something I told my brother... Words I drilled into my own head too.”

They were feelings that had been with him for a long time, but that he had first voiced when speaking with his brother.

How many times had he said them since?

It didn’t matter. He was now defined by them.

The words were his mode of being, and they went like this...

“The possibility is always there—with your will.” They’d supported him during many of the trials he’d faced. “No matter how small, no matter how many zeros beyond the radix point it lies—it always exists. As long as you don’t give up on seizing the future you desire and keep making choices toward that goal...”

Thus...

“The possibility won’t disappear, even if it’s far beyond that radix point.”

...Shu declared firmly that their odds of success could not possibly be zero.

“...Yeah.” His words reached Riella, and she found them similar to what her father had said in her memories. “There’s hope as long as we don’t give up,” she agreed. The only thing that could extinguish the light of hope was admitting defeat. That meant that hers was very much still alive. “If I gave up headin’ toward it... I couldn’t call myself a member of the adventure fleet!”

That was when she turned around and looked straight at Shu.

“Get ready for a rematch! We’ll find out how to hurt that thing!”

“Sure thing. Let’s crack that damn crab.”

Shu extended his hand...

“Yeah!”

...and Riella grasped it. It was somewhat like an affirmation of their shared will.

At some point, the heavy clouds had left the sky. It was still night, so the sea remained dark.

However, dawn was close, and the sun would soon begin to rise.

It would be a reflection of the state of the South Sea—and of Riella’s own heart.

The light of hope still burned brightly.

Interlude 5

South Sea

A strange object sped through the skies of the South Sea.

While its shape was roughly that of a two-seater fighter jet, its wings actually looked organic—something like those of a bat—making it somewhat difficult to tell if it was an animal or a machine.

It also had a blade fixed to the bottom of it—something that made no sense for any aircraft.

The object was absurd by the standards of both reality and fantasy.

And beneath the canopy of this bizarre aircraft, there was a man and a woman.

“We still haven’t seen it...”

“Sure haven’t.”

The man in the back seat was a Philosopher, Maud Edwards, while the woman in front piloting the vehicle was a Gale Driver, Scala Edwards.

Both were high-rank jobs, but description didn’t do them justice.

They were best summarized in two words: “Superior spouses.”

A duo that stood out even in this world, they bore the collective nickname of “Avowed Wings,” and they were two of the Seven Great Embryos of Granvaloa.

The strange object that carried them was Scala’s Embryo—one of the most mobile Embryos of all—and they were using it to fly around the South Sea in search of Abyss Shellder, as well as the Adventure II.

“I know there are lots of people on this job, but we’re looking for a single creature in an area bigger than the whole southern half of the Atlantic Ocean,” said Maud. “If only someone had a satellite Embryo. Like that one in Caldina... Wait, no. That one would be no good for this.”

That had called a certain Superior to mind, but he just shook his head—that particular person’s Embryo wasn’t suited for reconnaissance.

“But even without satellites, we got plenty of Embryos that’re good at searching... Why hasn’t anyone found it yet?”

Granvaloa had an enormous demand for recon abilities, so they had accumulated a much greater number of them than any other countries. Such abilities were instrumental in preventing ambushes from sea monsters and assisting in searches for submerged materials, items, and ruins.

This could clearly be seen in the fact that the Seventh Seabed Excavation Fort—the one discovered most recently—had only been found after Dendro’s release, by a Master who was a member of the adventure fleet.

“Well, so far nobody has ever actually spotted it before it got close,” said Scala. Every known sighting of Abyss Shellder was from after it had struck out at its prey.

“We have over a thousand Masters in the South Sea. Lots of them have recon powers, yet no one has tracked it down,” she continued. “Not to mention the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the adventure fleet... What if that means it’s got something?”

“You mean some kind of stealth power? That’s possible.”

“It should be difficult to hide something that size no matter what, though, so I think we’ll find it if we just keep an eye out. It’s just like the bombers from our country.”

“That’s true... Though, this makes me feel like we’re in World War I.”

The “our country” Scala had mentioned was the country the pair hailed from in real life. They were married on that side too. They two had met each other through work, and this “work” was also the reason they were playing Infinite Dendrogram together in the first place.

“Eh heh heh. You stay focused and keep looking too.”

“Roger. It’s always been my role to sit behind you and observe. I’ve even got an accessory that negates eyestrain... I’d honestly love to have this in real life.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever get magic items there.”

“I know, but what we can get—what we should get—is the software and hardware that makes this world what it is. Not the content of the game it runs.”

Maud wanted to acquire the technology behind Infinite Dendrogram. He was far from the only one who entertained this sort of idea. The video game industry had countless people seeking Dendro’s revolutionary—no, unfathomable—technology.

Most of them either logged in as players to investigate or dismantled the hardware in the real world, but none of these efforts had made any progress. Some were major corporations that used their own Control AIs to hack Dendro-affiliated companies, only to receive nothing but devastating counterattacks.

However, despite sharing the same goal, Maud and Scala were not from the game industry.

“We still haven’t gotten anything, though,” said Maud. “We became Superiors, but even after joining that exclusive club, we haven’t made any technological discoveries.”

“Bya said there’s an evolution beyond Superior... Maybe the devs will contact us if we get there?”

“Tin said something similar. I suppose that’s our best lead. Sure has been a while since the project was suspended and we went on leave from work, though. Our SecDef is pretty patient, but I feel like we might get pestered to move on to another job soon.”

Recalling the face of their boss—the United States Secretary of Defense—Maud looked up at the canopy and sighed.

Maud and Scala both worked at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Often abbreviated as DARPA, this organization answered directly to the United States President and Secretary of Defense, and was perhaps best known for the development of ARPANET—the foundation of what would become the internet.

DARPA was primarily focused on the creation of cutting-edge technologies intended for use in military settings.

Maud was the project manager at their IPTO—Information Processing Technology Office—and had been in charge of a project to develop dive-type VR devices for use in military training. The technology that had been on the market at the time was far from what people envisioned, leading many to one harsh conclusion: While they’d made the dream game device, they failed to make the dream game.

Standing at the forefront of research into such technologies, Maud’s team had been more successful than most, but even their creations weren’t good enough to be satisfactory.

That was when Infinite Dendrogram was released.

Perfectly reproduced sensations. Tripled time. Entities that behaved exactly like people...like living beings.

It had everything that Maud’s team wanted in the training simulator they’d been trying so hard to create, and yet it was being sold as a mere game for only about a hundred dollars.

He still vividly remembered the shock and awe he’d felt the day he saw it.

To Maud, someone at the cutting-edge of such technology, Infinite Dendrogram was like the fruit of knowledge from the Book of Genesis—it had a pull that was impossible to resist.

Seeing tech he’d failed to create on sale to the general public made him a big chagrined, but more than that, he felt a sense of duty—a strong urge to acquire this technology for the United States and make use of it before other countries did.

However, contrary to his expectations, his boss—the Secretary of Defense—had been against the idea.

Maud had asked him why, and the Secretary of Defense had given an obviously limited answer using carefully chosen words: “No government—not even ours—will ever get involved with Infinite Dendrogram or its developers.”

Case in point, even as corporations all over the world made aggressive moves against Infinite Dendrogram, no country took action no matter how the developers responded.

Maud had wondered why a single business had been given this special treatment when he’d remembered the international ban on real money trading from a few years ago.

That had led him to believe that the higher-ups in governments worldwide had enacted this ban with the full knowledge that Infinite Dendrogram was coming, and that the company—or perhaps the entity—behind the game had struck some sort of deal with the leaders of every country.

Though cautious, the Secretary of Defense’s words were enough for Maud to glean that much. Infinite Dendrogram was untouchable even to the United States of America.

However, as someone who pushed the boundaries of technology, Maud simply couldn’t bring himself to ignore it, and that was why he’d done the same thing that many people employed in the game industry had.

Since he was forbidden from investigating Infinite Dendrogram as a member of a government agency, he logged in and tried to uncover its secrets as a player.

Perhaps it was this burning spirit of inquiry—this hound-like persistence—that had brought him all the way up to the rank of Superior.

“We’ve spent a long time doing all we can in and out of Infinite Dendrogram, but we haven’t found even a hint toward the secrets we’re looking for,” he said. “If going past Superior won’t do it, maybe it’ll be time to wrap it up and leave...”

In his search for answers about the game, Maud even hired a world-famous detective to look into it, but the detective had died suddenly in an unfortunate plane accident.

That was far from the only thing Maud had tried, but nothing had returned any worthwhile results. He’d begun to suspect that there were limits to what he could learn as just one person, and he now felt that it was almost time to give up and abandon this project to follow another path.

“Maybe,” said Scala as she turned back to him, her smile befitting a considerate wife. “I can’t guarantee that this will work out, but there are still things we can try. Let’s keep at it.”

Scala had originally been an Air Force pilot. After certain circumstances had resulted in her being reassigned to reserve, she’d been called to be a tester in the development of VR training devices. That was how she met Maud, grew close to him, and finally married him.

And now, she was logged in to this world alongside her rather obsessed husband.

She herself wasn’t nearly as passionate about Dendro’s secrets as he was, so she treated this more like a holiday where she and her withdrawn partner could unwind.

Scala’s attitude hadn’t stopped her from joining her husband in the ranks of Superiors, though.

“Anyway, for now, we should focus on finding Abyss Shellder,” she said.

“That’s true... I gotta say, though, there’s something about this situation that makes it pretty nice by comparison... Or at least simple, I guess.”

“What’s that?”

“It’ll all be over once we beat the big bad. That makes it a whole lot easier than our work in national defense.”

“You’re not wrong,” said Scala with a smile. “After my previous job, I can really appreciate the simplicity of ‘slay the big monster.’”

Agreeing with his wife, Maud turned his gaze to the waters and skies of the South Sea.

It was hard to tell from their small talk, but Maud had a grave concern weighing down on him.

At first glance, the incidents surrounding Abyss Shellder seemed as though it must be an event set up by the developers, much like the Twin Moby Dick attack.

However, the whale hadn’t caused nearly as much damage as their current foe. And it wasn’t just human casualties—the ecosystem was suffering greatly too.

Maud had investigated Infinite Dendrogram enough to know that this world’s—this system’s—circles of life were very hard to revitalize. Ecosystems that were devastated by wide-scale exterminators had been restored through the adjustment of their environments and the induced migration of monsters from other areas. However, in this case, basically the entire South Sea was on the verge of ecological catastrophe. The scale of the devastation was so great that even monsters brought in from the other seas would not be enough to restore the balance.

Was this really an event planned by the developers? Or was it something that not even they had accounted for?

Like an unexpected bug—a literal Irregularity?

Overcome by that terrifying assumption—one that could mean the destruction of this technology that so obsessed him—Maud had resumed the search for Abyss Shellder, hoping that its defeat would solve everything.

◆◆◆

About a Certain UBM...

At least two thousand years had passed in Infinite Dendrogram before the dive-type VRMMO was released in the real world.

While it was currently running at three times the speed of real life, back when there were no players, Rabbit—Control AI No. 12 and the entity in charge of Dendro’s time—had made it operate a lot faster than that.

Using this immense span of time they’d been granted, the other Control AIs had assumed their own roles and started giving shape to Infinite Dendrogram.

One such Control AI—No. 4, Jabberwock—was in charge of UBMs.

These “Unique Boss Monsters” had a very important role in this game world—or perhaps “world game” would be a more accurate term.

This wasn’t simply because these monsters were powerful—if defeated, they also transformed into items adjusted to fit the biggest contributors to their defeat.

From a game design perspective, that made them excellent challenges for players to take risks against and fill them with a sense of achievement.

From the perspective of a world, though, they were symbols of the glory and power that could be gained through the slaying of a mighty creature.

They were entities people wanted to defeat—both bosses and trophies.

They also had a use as pawns for the Control AIs.

It wasn’t uncommon for battles with powerful monsters to induce Embryo evolutions.

The evolution of animals happened by necessity—and the absence of that necessity often produced places like the Galapagos Islands, where evolution scarcely occurred.

This somewhat applied to Embryos as well, and it was common for their evolutions to be swayed by experience, necessity, and some specific triggering event.

That was why the Control AIs greatly valued UBMs, but most especially their SUBMs.

These “Superior Unique Boss Monsters” had nearly no limits to how powerful they could be, making them strong enough to threaten entire countries.

It was possible that resisting such terrors would induce evolutions in many Embryos. This was proven by the Biframe White Whale, Twin Moby Dick’s attack on Granvaloa. It was then that a certain Master—Antimicrobic Soy Sauce—had sworn to slay it, elevating him to a Superior.

That was the reason Jabberwock was so focused on creating these SUBMs.

But despite his extensive efforts, during the two thousand years of Infinite Dendrogram’s history, he’d only had a grand total of seven SUBMs at his disposal.

This wasn’t because there were only seven UBMs that had ever broken past their limit and became Superior, though—it was because they were the only ones who had broken the limit and remained controllable.

In terms of sheer power, the total number of SUBMs was more than double this, but the others had been labeled “Irregularities.”

This label covered entities with a wide array of different circumstances.

There were the three great dragon kings, including the Skydragon King, Drac-Heaven, and Seadragon King, Drac-Stream, both of whom had broken the limit the moment the Control AIs had begun their intervention.

There were also certain entities that had ended up becoming cornerstones of Dendro’s nations, such as the Roving Dragon King, Drac-Nomad, which surpassed the limit after becoming the capital of Caldina, as well as the Throne of the Imperium, Dryfe Imperstand—Dryfe’s oldest and final weapon.

While these beings were not under the Control AI jurisdiction, circumstances had made it unnecessary for them to get involved. Ignoring or at least observing them was seen as the optimal approach.

However, throughout Dendro’s long history, there had been many Irregularities that simply could not be left alone in the same way—immensely powerful monstrosities that could neither be controlled or retrieved. These Irregularities had the potential to ruin their millennia-long preparations and send them back to square one, so Control AI No. 8 and No. 13—Dormouse and Cheshire—had immediately gone to take care of them, fulfilling their duties as the ones in charge of hazards and miscellaneous tasks.

This allowed the Control AIs’ preparations to continue without problems—or at least an acceptable level of problems.

However, once Infinite Dendrogram was released, they’d completely stopped these exterminations.

This was because the Control AIs believed that purging Irregularities was excessive interference that could inhibit Embryo evolution. If someone had to defeat them, they would leave them to the players—that is, the Masters.

Once they’d decided on this approach, they left the Irregularities that appeared post-release mostly untouched.

This included the one known as Corpse Stronghold, Abyss Shellder.

◆◆◆

At first, the UBM wasn’t called “Abyss Shellder,” nor was it even particularly powerful.

It was one of many aquatic arthropod monsters that led a quiet life in an underground lake in Legendaria, a land rich in natural magic. They fed on tiny creatures in the water, filtering it to make it cleaner. Frankly, there was hardly anything noteworthy about them.

They were truly mundane monsters—simple animals that led thoughtless lives, but contributed to local water purity by simply existing. They were surely fated to live and die without anyone even knowing they were there.

That had changed when Jabberwock had noticed that one of them was special.

In Infinite Dendrogram, bodies and many other things—XP included—were made from something called simply “Resources,” and this particular creature was notable for having an unusually high capacity for them. Monsters—even those of the same species—had different Resource capacities and level limits in much the same way that tians had different job affinities and level caps.

Jabberwock had stumbled upon this specimen while searching specifically for monsters with a high capacity and had quickly decided to give it the appropriate modifications to turn it into a UBM.

The power he gave it was based on the way it preyed upon tiny creatures, and it was called “Predatory Absorption.”

It was a skill that gave it the Resources, skills, forms, and functions of the creatures whose bodies it consumed.

Whether the powers Jabberwock designed could even be acquired by any potential UBMs was a matter of luck and the base monster’s affinity, but fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—all went as intended and the monster successfully learned this ability.

Only after the UBM was complete did he realize just how meaningless the power he’d given it truly was.

After all, in Infinite Dendrogram, monsters did not leave behind their bodies.

When they died, part of the Resources comprising them became XP and items for the slayer, while the rest was disassembled and retrieved.

The power to consume corpses was basically meaningless. While monsters sometimes left behind an item called Complete Remains or specific parts of their bodies, the volume of Resources within those was tiny compared to those possessed by the body as a whole.

“With the release drawing so close, I must be stressing myself so badly it’s affecting my processing power,” Jabberwock reflected on this failure and the neglect for his own well-being before simply leaving the UBM and forgetting about it.

But although the creator forgot it, the UBM continued its quiet existence within the underground lake. Perhaps if it had ended there, none of this would be happening. While it had higher stats and a longer life, the arthropod might have continued to simply be there without anyone ever finding out about it.

But then, fate made two rolls of its die, and both times, it fell on the worst possible result.

◆◆◆

The first die was cast as a result of the location where the monster resided.

With Legendaria being so dense with natural magic, it occasionally had magical phenomena happen without anyone’s direct involvement. These events were called Accident Circles and were a natural disaster on the same level as wildfires that occurred in dry forests on Earth.

However, the spells they could unleash were extremely varied, and they could even cast teleportation magic that was all but forgotten even by magic jobs.

That was exactly what happened.

Whether by chance or because of the UBM’s presence, the dense magic within the underground lake had gathered to create an Accident Circle of teleportation magic. Everything within it was flung somewhere else, including the UBM that Jabberwock had deemed a failure.

This was where fate rolled the first die.

It was a roll for the UBM’s destination, and it had landed on the South Sea.

Though the UBM suddenly found itself teleported directly into the seabed, whether because it was already aquatic or its high stats, it survived it without a problem.

In fact, while designing it, Jabberwock had referenced the giant isopod—a creature of the deep sea—so it had adapted quite quickly to its new environment.

Largely unaffected by both the water and osmotic pressures, the UBM remained alive.

However, it didn’t understand what had happened to it.

It was suddenly cut off from the natural cycle it was a part of. Not knowing where to go, it simply began wandering the seabed.

Perhaps if it had encountered a mighty seadragon, the UBM’s lack of combat prowess might’ve led to its quick demise.

However, that was when fate rolled the second die.

This was a roll to determine the monster the UBM would meet first—and this time, it landed on another UBM.

It was a creature reminiscent of a giant clam, about as big as the failed UBM that had been transported to the abyss—another one that Jabberwock had more or less forgotten about.

This clam UBM was designed around a power called “Pearlification”—a skill that afflicted its targets with a debuff much like Petrification, but not nearly as easily countered.

However, the clam itself wasn’t very mobile, combat-capable, or proactive, so neither Masters nor tians had discovered it yet. Strong as it might have been, its power hadn’t seen much use beyond occasionally deterring another monster that came too close.

That was exactly what the clam did to the failure UBM.

Unable to fully dodge the attack, the failure’s crustacean-like legs were covered in the clam monster’s hazardous ichor, turning their tips into hard pearl.

The clam could not spew enough liquid to Pearlify the failure’s entire body, but if this went on, the failure UBM would become nothing more than an inert pearl statue.

Perhaps that would have been a better outcome for the world.

The failure took a look at its own legs, now pure pearl...and, with no hesitation at all, ate them.

It was an act of instinct.

The failure had the power to consume corpses, but the instinct associated with it had been gathering dust all up until now. At the sight of Pearlified—that is, edible—remains, it awakened.

It didn’t matter to the monster that it was feasting on its own legs—and that presented no obstacle anyway, for the power to assume the form of its prey allowed it to grow new ones.

From there, it was a one-sided battle.

The failed UBM continued to fight, countering the Pearlification by eating itself over and over, while the clam UBM didn’t even have the capacity to escape.

In fact, perhaps due to its consumption of Pearlified flesh, the failed UBM’s mouth gradually gained the power of Pearlification too.

After a battle that lasted quite a while, the clam UBM eventually got a taste of its own medicine as the other UBM Pearlified and ate it.

Consuming the clam had caused the victorious UBM to undergo a drastic change.

Through Predatory Absorption, it gained all the Resources of the clam UBM, as well as its Pearlification power. It also acquired its form, giving it a massive shell that made it look more like a massive hermit crab.

However, the greatest change was on the inside.

“Khekha... Khekha.”

It became aware.

It now knew the delectable taste of Pearlified creatures—and the joy of growing stronger.

◆◆◆

The UBM had been preying on creatures ever since.

It wasn’t picky whatsoever, eating both the weaklings and the powerful seadragons and UBMs.

Through Pearlification, it ate countless monsters, expanding its body and array of skills.

Just as Jabberwock had noticed, it had an immense capacity that only grew as it consumed other UBMs.

At some point, its shell became silver, and its level broke 100, placing it among the Irregularities.

Eating slimes had also given it the ability to split itself into multiple bodies, and it used the intelligence it gained through all its feasting to spread these bodies all over the South Sea.

A system formed where these split-off entities hunted other creatures all over, bringing any worthwhile skills and forms back to the UBM itself.

At first it was difficult to acquire the skills it wanted, but eventually the number of splits that possessed both Pearlification and Predatory Absorption increased.

The UBM that had been whisked away from its natural cycle was gradually building an ecosystem for itself alone.

That was when Jabberwock decided to change its name, figuring that the one it had wasn’t adequate to describe it.

And that was how it became “Corpse Stronghold, Abyss Shellder”—the most fearsome Irregularity born after Infinite Dendrogram’s release.

Act 7: Invincibility Unraveled

Somewhere in Metropolitan Tokyo

Back on Earth, in a room within a high-rise apartment, there stood a certain man.

While he was dressed in comfortable jeans, he was shirtless, exposing his tough and toned upper body.

Aside from him, the room was empty. The man was sitting in front of a desk and doing something on the computer all by his lonesome.

Snacking on a protein bar, he examined the footage and text spread out on the four monitors lined up in front of him, taking it all in at once.

They were displaying information regarding the silver-shelled monstrosity—Corpse Stronghold, Abyss Shellder.

Then, as though suddenly realizing something, the man gasped faintly.

That didn’t stop him from working or snacking, though. He quickly resumed gathering information. But about five minutes later, he turned off his PC, went over to his bed, donned the Infinite Dendrogram hardware he kept next to it, and lay down.

This man—none other than Shuichi Mukudori—then turned the headset on and logged in once again.

◇◇◇

South Sea

A vast expanse of water stretched out infinitely, with nothing but rolling clouds and a blue sky above it.

In the midst of this endless horizon, there sailed a single boat, and on that boat stood Riella, wearing an expression that was a mix of displeasure and unease.

Clad in thick clothes, she occasionally dumped some sort of chemical overboard into the water.

This continued until...

“BEAAAR!”

...a short distance away, a bear costume fell into the water with a loud splash.

Needless to say, it was Shu. He had just logged in.

“This is some beary good fur. The water drips right off!” he said as he swam up to Riella’s boat. “Sorry fur the wait!”

“Being out at sea in a small boat really sucks. I hope I never gotta do this again.” She’d been waiting all alone in a small boat from the Adventure II they had stored in Baldr. While just ten minutes had passed in Earth time, it had been a gruelling half an hour for her.

The reason she’d been forced to go through all of this was simple: Shu logged out.

Being a Master, he had a real body with needs he had to attend to. While he could get some sleep while logged in, eating (and the opposite of that) required him to log out, so when he’d reached his limit, he’d moved Riella to the boat and gone offline.

Of course, he’d first confirmed there were no monsters nearby and given Riella all the stealth items he could to ensure she would be safe, but with Shu himself absent, the wait was, in some ways, as much of a gamble as fighting Abyss Shellder itself.

Thankfully, nothing had happened, and he’d been able to retrieve her unharmed.

“So? Find out anythin’?” Riella asked.

“I crammed all the worthwhile in-fur-mation I could between my ears,” Shu replied. He was referring to the “last words” left by King of Building, Satomi Yamamoto, who’d stayed behind to fight Abyss Shellder and secure their escape.

Satomi had said he would gather data about the creature and upload it to the GFRS homepage, and that was exactly what he’d done after getting the death penalty.

He’d even retrieved video footage from the cameras on his ships, supplementing the text with visuals.

While logged out, Shu had gone to the website and looked it all over, and as his memory was better than average, he’d managed to memorize it in an instant.

The information had been uploaded without any restrictions, so by now there were probably many people hard at work theorycrafting about how to beat the UBM.

“Any ideas on how to kill it?” Riella asked.

“Well, it’s not invincible, at least.” Shu’s answer was vague, and Riella clearly wasn’t sure how to feel about it, so he went on. “Actually, lemme elabearate...” Shu said as he called Baldr, allowing the two of them to board it again.

However, they failed to notice something—a transparent eye staring at them from below the waters, stirred by Baldr’s sudden appearance.

The eye watched the pair enter the ship, then vanished as though melting away into the briny depths.

◇◇◇

Upon returning to Baldr’s bridge, Shu and Riella stood before a monitor.

“Baldr, stay the course. And show us photos of Abyss Shellder.”

“Affirmative.” In response to Shu’s order, Baldr resumed following the route to their rendezvous point with the Adventure II while displaying images taken from the recent battle.

It was the data captured by Baldr’s optical sensors while it was firing at Abyss Shellder. The distance made the UBM look rather small and faint, but it was definitely there, and though sight of the creature made Riella grimace, she didn’t look away.

“It’s hard to tell from so fur away, but the thing’s entire shell is some kind of metallic silver color.”

“Sure is.”

“Now look at this one. I’m pawsitive you missed this.” Shu pointed at a photo that was taken after they’d fired the JotA to no avail, which had caused Riella to faint. It showed countless seadragon heads sticking up from the silver shell.

“That’s...”

“Like I said before logging out, it has the power to turn its enemies into pearl and gain the forms and skills of the pearlified corpses it eats.”

“Hm...”

Pearlification and Predatory Absorption—Shu already knew it was these two skills that made Abyss Shellder as powerful as it was. He’d also told Riella about his theory that all the Mocks were actually split off from the UBM itself, and if left to its own devices, Abyss Shellder could threaten the entire world’s ecology.

He also wanted Granvaloa to know about this as soon as possible, but unfortunately, Baldr didn’t have any communication devices that would enable him to contact the capital. Shu himself had a device that connected him directly to DIN, but they were too far from the continent or Granvaloa’s city-ships for it to work.

This was another reason they had to meet up with the Adventure II as soon as possible—that vessel had the means to contact Granvaloa.

“Next, show us photos of the Mock we beat the day before meeting Abyss Shellder.”

“Affirmative.” The monitor changed to show the Abyss Mail Kraken—not its initial serpentine shape, but its true form. There was a photo of it facing Baldr, and another of it burning after Baldr had fired at it.

“Ya got any earlier photos?” Riella asked.

“Nope. Baldr just happened to take these while firing. But don’t worry—they’re beary well suited to our needs.”

“Hm?” Riella tilted her head, unsure what he meant by that.

“Zoom in on the mouth. In both photos.”

“Affirmative.”

The photos showed the Mock as it was preparing to attack with its mouth, most likely using the same breath weapon it had used against the Adventure II. The monster had been overpowered and killed before releasing the blast.

Shu zoomed in on this photo of the creature taken mere moments before it launched an attack.

“Huh?” There, Riella spotted something that filled her with confusion.

She’d thought that a kraken would have a beaked mouth, much like those of octopuses and squid. However, what she actually saw was something quite different.

“Are those...fangs?” The photo clearly showed a maw lined with fangs as sharp as those of a serpent.

“I’m guessing that it’s not just the snout here,” said Shu. “I’d bet anything that its internal organs were also replaced by those of the Frost High Serpent.”

“So, what you’re sayin’ is...”

“Yeah. When the Mocks gain new skills, they must also take on the form...the structure of the creature that originally had the ability.” Unlike job skills used by humans, breath weapons and other monster skills often had roots in their functions as living beings. Occasionally a monster would have a so-called “superpower” skill that had no relation to its form, but the Purge skill and the breath weapon used by the Abyss Mail Kraken weren’t among them. They both demanded that the monster had a shell or the organs for producing the breath.

From this, Shu had surmised that even skills gained through Predatory Absorption could only be used if the monster also possessed the appropriate body structures.

“That lays bear one question: What the hell are those heads?” The monitor once again showed Abyss Shellder and the seadragon heads growing out of it.

“Huh...? Oh. They popped straight outta the shell. If they’d come outta one of the openings in the shell like the claws or legs, then I’d say they were just another body part it was hidin’ inside... But that ain’t what we got here, right?”

The shell itself had changed shape, and the heads that had appeared were the same color as the shell. That made Riella think that this made Abyss Shellder somehow different from the Mocks, but...

“Nope, you’re right on the nose. That’s beary much what they are.” Shu discarded that notion with absolute confidence.

“Huh?”

“I wasn’t sure about it either and had a few pawssibilities in mind... But when I saw that military nerd’s footage, it all slotted into place.”

Satomi had recorded the battle from a far closer vantage point than Baldr, and had used better quality cameras, giving clarity to the image that allowed a keen observer to determine the texture and material of the shell.

This had allowed Shu to finally crack open its secret.

“That shell...is slime.”

“Slime?” For a moment, Riella couldn’t understand what she just heard. Abyss Shellder’s shell was impervious to heavy artillery and had received no damage even from the Javelin of the Atmos—the most intense firepower that Granvaloa could muster. Slime wasn’t exactly known for its toughness and was especially weak to fire, so it seemed like it couldn’t possibly be the main material of the shell.

However, Shu seemed quite confident as he continued.

“You ever heard of the rare Mithril Arms Slime?”

“No...”

“Yeah, that tells you just how rare they are. They’re uncommon even by metal slime standards, and it fights by transfurming itself into all kinds of weapons. I myself have only seen it in videos.”

“Turning itself into... Ohhh.” Riella finally understood what Shu was saying.

“Those seadragon heads are all hidden... Or more like sunken into the shell. And when it’s time fur offense, the shell assumes their form, allowing it to attack while the liquid metal keeps its hide safe.”

“I get it now,” Riella said as she pictured a great many heads safeguarded by a liquid metal shell. “Well, I get how it attacks, anyway. But what about its defenses? That’s the important part, right?”

What made Abyss Shellder so terrifying weren’t the many offensive powers it gained from seadragons and other monsters, but the defenses that allowed it to remain unharmed even when struck by attacks from two Superiors and Granvaloa’s most powerful weapon. If anything had to be unraveled, it was that.

In response to Riella’s question, Shu first scratched his cheek, then pointed at Abyss Shellder’s photo.

“You don’t see it?”

“See what?” Riella looked at the photo again, searching for anything that stood out, but she couldn’t see anything strange...beyond the obvious, anyway.

“Here’s something fur comparison.” Shu took something out of his Inventory and lightly tossed it in Riella’s direction. She caught it before it could crash into any equipment.

“This is...an ingot?” She immediately realized that the object was an ingot of mithril, but before she could ask what was special about it, she noticed something.

“It’s...a different color?” Shu had spoken of Abyss Shellder’s shell as though it was something it gained by eating a Mithril Arms Slime—a liquid metal monster. However, the shell was a slightly different color than the pure mithril ingot Shu had just handed her. They could both be called “silver,” but Abyss Shellder’s was noticeably darker, and it clearly wasn’t just because of the lighting.

“Wasn’t the shell supposed to be a Mithril Arms Slime?” Riella asked.

“I’m pawsitive that’s one of the things in there. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have the properties of liquid metal.”

“One of... Oh.” As soon as she thought about Shu’s words, Riella realized what he was implying. “It’s...an alloy?”

“Yeah. There’s a bunch of other metal monsters inside.”

◇◇◇

While Mithril Arms Slimes and other metal monsters were categorized as slimes, they stood out as entities rich in Resources derived from nature. They were also extremely rare, and even if someone did manage to come upon one, its high defense and many resistance skills made it awfully difficult to defeat. The vast amount of XP and precious materials they dropped, though, made every attempt worthwhile.

In another stroke of good luck for Abyss Shellder—and a terrible misfortune for all its prey—was the fact that it had found a nest...or more accurately, a vein of metal monsters, before proceeding to Pearlify and consume them all.

With Pearlification being a special debuff that could not be resisted, the high defenses of the metal monsters did nothing to prevent this fate.

Abyss Shellder went on to feast on them all.

Even a few of them would have provided vast amounts of XP, and yet Abyss Shellder had ravaged the entire vein, claiming their abundant Resources and resistance skills for itself.

This abundance of metal monsters had transformed into the dark silver shell of the Corpse Stronghold.

◇◆

“It’s beary obvious that it ate some with Fire Negation and Lightning Negation,” Shu continued. “Not even paw-lasma does anything if you have both. There’s also some rarer ones that have the much broader Magic Resistance skill, and I’m guessing it ate enough to become immune to that too.”

Supposedly, the weakness of metal monsters with Magic Resistance was physical attacks—they could be defeated by sheer brute force. But what if the monster were made of liquid metal, so physical attacks only deformed its shape instead of shattering it?

“So it’s a shape-shiftin’ shell that’s got a ton of resistances and can’t be broken with physical force,” Riella said, a bitter frown twisting her face. “The JotA also did nothin’ to the exposed claws or legs. I guess that’s ’cause they’re liquid metal too?”

“Yeah. Right before impact, the shell changed shape to cover up anything that was laid bear. It reverted the change when the JotA’s effect faded.”

The light of the explosion had made this process impossible to see at the time, but knowing the nature of the shell, Shu could easily guess how it protected itself. It could’ve accomplished this effortlessly if the shell had just the same speed—AGI—as a regular Mithril Arms Slime, and it was fairly obvious that Abyss Shellder was actually even faster than that.

“What about the other attacks? Why didn’t they work on the claws or legs?”

“That’s beary simple too. Crustaceans—that is, worms and crabs and that kinda thing—have skills that reduce damage.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it...” That was why monsters of this type were typically not worn down with a multitude of weak attacks, but taken out with one mighty blow.

“And fur that reason, Baldr and the military nerd just didn’t deal enough damage to get past the reduction.”

“Your attacks weren’t enough?” Riella asked, thinking back on the firepower displayed by the two Superiors.

Shu nodded before continuing. “Look at the size of that shell. That shows just how many metal monsters it ate. That would’ve given it a pawsitively huge amount of XP. Its level and stats just went up and up.” Riella listened as Shu concluded his explanation. “Even without the shell’s resistance skills, its natural defense is on another level. Not even artillery is enough fur it.”

A defense so great it reduced a Superior Embryo’s and Satomi’s battleship guns to peashooters. New Yamato’s main gun—its strongest physical artillery unit—might have been able to out-damage the defense with its Hihi’irokane Armor-Piercing Shells, but it was too late for that.

“So,” said Riella. “It negates all energy weapons and magic the moment it hits the shell, but it’s hard to kill it with physical attacks too, since not even battleship artillery can scratch it... It’s like some kind of sick joke.”

“Seriously. And it’s only getting more grizzly as time goes by.”

Abyss Shellder grew stronger the more it killed—the more it ate. Its offense, defense, and even resistances weren’t as great as they could potentially be.

The most fiendish UBM of all was still out there, becoming more powerful by the moment. It was clear it couldn’t be allowed to continue, lest it became an even greater problem than it already was.

“Think there’s a way to beat it?” Riella asked.

“...Baldr and I could do it,” Shu said after a bit of thought, and seemingly dropped the bear puns.

“That thing, huh?” she said as she recalled the human-shaped form of Baldr Shu had used against Satomi.

New Yamato was massive and heavily armored, and yet the robot had broken it in a single strike. It might have been possible for that giant robot to deal damage that shattered Abyss Shellder’s defense.

Shu suddenly realized that was why Humpty had guided him into this.

Shu in Baldr’s ultimate form and King of Beasts, the so-called Physical Apex, might’ve been the only ones capable of dishing out enough physical damage to hurt the Corpse Stronghold. At the very least, he had a higher chance than New Yamato and its limited ammo supply.

“Even if it’s got some other weird defense skills, my Right of Destruction could still break through it.”

King of Destruction’s ultimate job skill, Right of Destruction. Its description was, “Enables destruction of indestructible targets with endurance lower than the user’s attack power.” And indeed, it did let Shu destroy seemingly impossible things, such as liquids, gases, and even space itself.

Even if the target had skills like Physical Attack Negation, he could still destroy it as long as his attack power surpassed the strength of that skill.

Shu had one of the highest STR scores of any Master and a skill that let him break defenses. His stats and abilities gave him an unusually advantageous matchup against Abyss Shellder.

I guess that’s part of the reason she picked me, Shu thought, the true scope of Humpty’s intentions finally sinking in.

True, he certainly had the means of defeating the UBM.

However...

“Hm...”

“What’s wrong?” Riella asked, noticing that Shu was lost in thought.

“I got the attack power, sure, but there are still a couple problems.”

“Like?”

“First, there’s the question of if I’d last long enough to kill it.” The opponent was an Irregularity, after all. There was no guarantee Baldr could keep on fighting until it was dead.

SUBMs and Irregularities were supposedly intended as types of raid bosses, meant to be fought in large groups. In the battle against Gloria—the SUBM unleashed upon Altar—Over Gladiator, Figaro, and High Priestess, Tsukuyo Fuso had done away with its means of attack and shaved off its HP, allowing Shu to go in and finally take it out.

Abyss Shellder, however, was still basically unharmed. Shu was the only one who could break its defense, but it wasn’t at all certain that he could finish the job himself.

“And then there’s the battle to think about. Baldr is amphibious, but he’s primarily meant for land—especially while using the ultimate skill.”

Even underwater, Baldr could do basic things like jumping off the seabed, as he’d demonstrated in the fight against Satomi. However, the robot form definitely wasn’t meant to run around and engage in martial arts while completely submerged.

If the depth was too great, Baldr might’ve even been rendered completely immobile.

“It’d be fine if I could fight it on land, but by the time Abyss Shellder leaves the water...the world might be in serious danger.”

Riella put a hand over her mouth and thought for a moment. It didn’t seem that she was troubled by the problems Shu had named—she clearly had some sort of idea.

“We might have somethin’ that solves that,” she finally said.

“Really?”

“Yeah... Though, we’d have to do some more thinkin’, and it would need some prep time too.”

Finishing off Abyss Shellder and giving Baldr a proper battlefield—Riella seemed to know how to solve both problems.

“We gotta meet up with my crew first,” she said. “We can contact them using Adventure II’s comms.”

“Them?”

“Yeah. The adventure fleet’s got a Supe—”

“Reporting. The optical sensors have spotted two vessels.”

Riella’s words were cut short by Baldr’s machine voice.

“Direction and distance?”

“Four o’clock. Twenty kilometels.”

In response to Shu’s question, Baldr displayed a feed on the monitor.

“That’s the Adventure II, and...” Riella said as she looked at the two ships.

One was the Adventure II they were meant to meet up with, but the other was a vessel Shu didn’t recognize.

“Atlantis!”

“Hm...” The name Riella shouted confirmed that she did actually recognize the other one. It was a mechanical heavy cruiser that had Ἀτλαντὶς—“Atlantis” in ancient Greek—written on its side.

The name and text were more than enough for Shu to know it belonged to a Master, though he didn’t yet know whether it was an Embryo or an item that happened to be given that name.

A ship that Riella knows and is operating alongside the Adventure II... I guess that belongs to a Master from the adventure fleet, Shu thought.

He assumed that the Adventure II happened to meet up with them after splitting up with Baldr.

That means the ship’s an ally... But... Shu looked at Atlantis as it came into view on the monitor. Despite it being just a picture on the screen, he couldn’t help but feel the murderous intent directed right at him.

“I guess the Abyss Shellder rematch will have to wait... Looks like we got some more trouble.”

Interlude 6

Granvaloa, Commander Council Room

The heart of Granvaloa—the vessel of the same name.

On this ship, there was a council room available only to the navarch, the four commanders, and those close to them. It was equipped with counterespionage measures and could even function as an emergency shelter.

Even accounting for its exclusivity, it was unusually empty right now. There were only two men in the room.

“This place has become quite barren as of late,” said one of them, grieving the absence of everyone else. This rather aged man was the commander of the merchant fleet—Nash Var Grandleft.

“It is what it is,” said the other man, who was slightly older. He was the commander of the military fleet, Morgan Granright. “Last meeting, the little Granfront lady burst out of this room and took her whole fleet out to the chaos in the South Sea, while the Grandrear elder is getting too old for this... And it’s only been a month since he lost his younger son in the Altar-Dryfe war. The boy may have left Granvaloa to become a knight of the kingdom, but old Balthazar loved him regardless. He must be quite worried about his granddaughters as well.”

“There’s his older son’s condition to consider too. Burton has been bedridden for a long time now. Ever since Zeta left the pirate fleet, the elder has been hit with one misfortune after another. One can hardly blame him for being in the state he is.”

“The same may be said about the navarch. I doubt he has much time left.”

The current navarch, Marvin Granvaloa, was older than even the so-called elder of the pirate fleet, and it was widely believed that he would pass away soon.

“This makes me wonder what will become of the Four Seas Journey...”

The position of the Granvaloan navarch wasn’t passed down to their children. Instead, the four commander families each provided a candidate who would then emulate the country’s founders by circumnavigating the continent alongside their brethren. The next navarch would be decided based on the results of this journey.

All navarchs save the first had been chosen this way. It was generally thought that this contest showed who possessed the most important quality of a Granvaloan leader—that is, who was most beloved by the sea.

“Depending on what happens in the South Sea, the adventure and pirate fleets may be forced to drop out,” said Nash. “What would we do then?”

Granvaloa was built upon this system of selecting the navarch and cooperation between the four families.

The pirate fleet’s heirs were all struggling, while the adventure fleet was out courting death. The Abyss Shellder menace was far from Granvaloa’s only problem—their entire leadership structure was at risk too.

“I don’t even want to think about that,” said Morgan with a bitter expression and a shake of the head. “The navarchy wouldn’t be what it is without all of the four families.”

The Granvaloan commander families weren’t like the Dryfean nobles who’d started a civil war before attacking a neighbor. The nation’s founders had all been true comrades who’d shared a common fate, and over the six centuries since they had even become relatives. While their roles kept them separated into the four families, they were still in the same boat, so to speak, and acted accordingly.

“I, for one, won’t sit idly by and let the adventure fleet perish,” said Morgan.

“I see,” said Nash. “I suppose that’s why you sent your quartet to the South Sea, then.”

The military fleet had four Superiors among their ranks, and all of them were now operating in Abyss Shellder’s territory.

“I had to keep two of them on defense, though... And you also sent your Satomi Yamamoto, didn’t you?”

“He is hardly under my control. I imagine he went not to solve any problems, but to perform one of his usual weapon tests. My daughter was quite angry with me for not wrangling him better,” Nash said as he recalled the furious look he’d gotten from his daughter once she’d returned from her negotiations with Altar. “Though... It seems that even Satomi was ineffective against Abyss Shellder. He lost.”

“The UBM must remain our top priority,” said Morgan. “We should send pre-Superiors and anyone else we have to reinforce those already in the area. I will dispatch additional ships myself.”

His daughter, Berenice, was already working toward accomplishing that goal.

“Well, Mock sightings and encounters are on the rise,” said Nash. “The longer we turn a blind eye to that, the more blood we’ll be forced to pay. We stand to lose too much.”

“We have already lost too much. Jonathan is dead,” Morgan said, casting his eyes down as he recalled the adventure fleet commander who had lost his life leading the hunt for Abyss Shellder. “Not a day goes by where I don’t curse the fact I didn’t send any Superiors or ships to join him.”

His words were an expression of deep regret, coming straight from the heart and spoken in earnest to a fellow leader of a fleet.

Nash seemed to share his sentiment and closed his eyes as if in prayer. Both men wore mournful expressions as a heavy silence fell upon the nearly empty council room.

However, that silence was soon broken by a bell, signifying that someone outside was trying to contact them. Morgan looked at the monitor on the desk to see that it was one of his subordinates, and he pushed a nearby switch to allow the caller in.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We... We’ve received a report from the Seadragon King observers in the South-West Boundary Sea...”

“What...?” Seadragon King, Drac-Stream—that was a name that held great significance to Granvaloa. Drac-Stream was an entity that had existed in those oceans before the founding of the country—indeed, before even the height of the pre-ancient civilization. It was said to have appeared at the final stage of the Four Seas Journey made by the first commanders, where it had spoken to Valoa the Grand and exchanged a “contract” with him.

The Seadragon King had said something unusual back then—it had claimed to be a “wall.”

It had spoken of itself as a barrier that kept the people of the continent from taking off to the far seas—a barrier that the maritime country of Granvaloa would one day have to cross.

Because of this, Granvaloa had challenged it in accordance with their contract and fought it many times before.

That was the reason they had established fixed-point Seadragon King observers all across the ocean, in order to keep tabs on its movements.

“Wasn’t it supposed to be passing the South-West Sea right now?” Morgan asked.

“The observers report that they haven’t yet spotted it, even though it’s well more than a week past the estimated time.”

The waters between the South Sea and the West Sea were known as the “Sea of Legendaria” or the “South-West Boundary Sea,” often shortened to just “South-West Sea.” The Seadragon King never showed itself in the four seas surrounding the continent. Instead, it migrated between these so-called “Boundary Seas” and the Outer Ocean that lay beyond them all, its patrol forming a kind of wall surrounding the continent and the nearby waters.

“It seems that it’s still in the southern part of the Outer Ocean,” the subordinate added. This was unusual behavior—it almost seemed as though even the Seadragon King itself had turned its attention to the danger brewing in the South Sea.

“I see there’s still stormy weather up ahead...” Nash whispered. To Morgan, it sounded like a confident prediction of what was to come.

Act 8: Rusalka

Somewhere in the South Sea

“Let’s see where this goes...” said a woman with a husky voice as she looked over her sensors, fixing her eyes on the ship hovering above the sea—Baldr.

Tanned, full of life, and with a distinctly Latin appearance, this woman was Vanessa Cephalid. She was the captain of this vessel as well as the leader of Granvaloa’s top third clan, Maidens of the Depths or Rusalka—a group of Masters affiliated with the adventure fleet. It would be safe to call them Riella’s allies.

A monitor on their vessel was channeling comms magic to display the bridge of the Adventure II and its vice captain, who currently occupied it.

This older man, Asam, wasn’t saying a word, and he seemed conflicted about something. The look he gave Vanessa—a supposed ally—was one of deep uncertainty.

The members of Rusalka that were present also watched over the exchange with an air of tension and hesitation.

“It’s gotta be done, sir,” said Vanessa. “We’re about to start a battle of a lifetime. You know what that means.”

“We just have to get rid of any causes for concern,” added Ursula, seated in the vice captain’s seat.

“You had an idea how to win,” Vanessa continued. “The JotA is one of Granvaloa’s strongest weapons, and you thought it would kill the thing. That’s why you respected the girl’s decision.”

“But that’s all fallen apart now,” Ursula added. “Even the JotA was useless against it. Your hopes of winning have vanished like seafoam.”

Asam was in no position to argue.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that we gotta beat it,” said Vanessa. “It’s gonna be a hopeless fight to the death. With that in mind...you know who’s gotta leave, right?”

“...Yes,” said Asam with a hesitant nod.

“Captain. We have a comms attempt on Atlantis. It’s from Adventure II’s boat no. 2.”

That was the boat that had been used by Shu and Riella, and it was still being stored inside Baldr.

Looking at the monitor, it seemed that Riella was contacting Asam too.

“Connect us,” said Vanessa. A moment later, they all heard Riella’s voice.

◇◇◇

War God Ship, Baldr, Interior

“Riella. Is that an advenfur fleet ship?” Shu asked as he pointed at the vessel next to the Adventure II.

“Yeah,” Riella replied. “That’s Atlantis. It belongs to Rusalka, one of Granvaloa’s top three clans.”

“Third...” Shu himself was at the very top of Altar’s kill rankings, but that was exactly why he knew never to underestimate anyone in third place.

Given the right circumstances, King of Storms, Caydence—the third in those same rankings—had the potential to be an even greater wide-scale exterminator than Shu. The same could be said about the duel rankings, where Figaro—Shu’s friend and the duel champion—might have serious trouble with The Unsheath, Kashimiya in third.

This Kashimiya also led Altar’s third most prominent clan, K&R, and they were in a similar position. It couldn’t hope to compete with The Lunar Society in first due to their immense member count, but if they’d been the same size, K&R might have come out ahead.

Perhaps this was only true in Altar, but third place seemed to always be in the best position to take down whoever was in first.

If they’re with the adventure fleet, it could mean they’re friendly... But that seems unlikely, Shu thought. He could feel the murderous intent directed toward Baldr. It wasn’t hatred or anything like that—more of a vague hunch that said, “We might sink you if need be.”

Well, not like this is a first for me... Shu often used Baldr’s seventh form while keeping his true identity hidden. The massive, unidentified battleship had often made him the subject of wariness and aggression, so Shu was familiar enough with these to sense it.

The situation, however, was a bit different here.

They’re with the Adventure II. That means they must’ve heard about me... The fact that they’re still aggressive must mean they’ve got something planned.

As those thoughts ran through Shu’s head, Riella was busy activating the comms device she’d removed from boat no. 2 and brought to Baldr’s bridge.

“Old-timer. Vanessa. Can you hear me?” she asked. The response was instant.

“This is Adventure II. Commander, I’m so glad you’re unharmed...”

“What about you guys? You okay?”

“Yes—in part thanks to Miss Vanessa. We met up with them on the way...”

“Hey there, young lady. You doing all right?”

Shu heard an unfamiliar woman’s voice enter the conversation between Riella and Asam.

“Vanessa... Rusalka’s in the South Sea too?”

“Hm...” Shu noticed that Riella hadn’t objected to being called “young lady”—and she certainly had back when he’d done it.

Had she just learned to accept it? Or was she simply not in a position to argue?

The nervousness in her voice made Shu assume it was the latter.

“Yeah,” said Vanessa. “We’ve been looking for you for a few days now. Ursula’s here too.”

Riella’s eyes widened.

“It’s been a while, Miss Riella.” Another voice Shu didn’t recognize. The vessel they were communicating with surely had many crew members, so the fact that this Ursula had made her presence known led Shu to assume that she must be close to Riella as well, just like Vanessa.

He also noticed, though, that Riella had tensed up twice—once when hearing, “Ursula’s here too,” and again when finally heard Ursula’s voice.

Shu observed closely. Riella’s reaction suggested there was something to this person.

“Anyway, get down to business and don’t waste time,” Vanessa said as Shu watched the conversation unfold. “We’re about to team up with the Adventure II and the other fleets to go kill Abyss Shellder.”

She clearly stated that her intent was to help do battle with the UBM. With Satomi gone, Shu had been presuming that they’d have their rematch with just Baldr and the Adventure II, so he would certainly appreciate an extra hand or two.

However, Riella’s awfully tense expression made it clear that there was more to it than that, and Vanessa’s next words all but confirmed it.

“But you won’t be joining us, young lady. Go back to Granvaloa. Your part in the hunt is over.”

“Vanessa...!”

“Use one of our spare ships. And if there’s any crew from the Adventure II who don’t wanna fight anymore, they can go with you.”

Vanessa voiced her terms, completely ignoring Riella’s objections. She would help hunt Abyss Shellder, but she wanted the young fleet commander to go home.

Riella’s head bent over the comms device, so Shu couldn’t see her face, but it wasn’t hard to guess what kind of expression she was making.

“You knew we’d try to stop you, right?” Vanessa continued. “That’s why you took off while Ursula and I were offline.”

“Ngh...” Riella knew that although Rusalka was allied with the adventure fleet, the clan wouldn’t approve of her vengeful voyage. Because of this, she’d left Granvaloa without telling them or any other Masters—since they could potentially pass that information on to Rusalka—and instead departed with just the Adventure II and a tian crew.

“Our chances of winning are low...if they exist at all. You won’t be a part of this,” Vanessa insisted in a rather gentle voice, but Riella was having none of it.

“But I’m the adventure fleet commander! A Granfront! I gotta stand ahead of everyone else, beat the monster messin’ up this ocean, and get revenge for my old man!”

As heir to the adventure fleet and the Granfront name—and as a girl who had lost her father—Riella made her intentions clear and demanded to join the battle.

However...

“Yeah. You’re the commander of the adventure fleet...and the last member of the Granfront family. That means that if you die, Granvaloa as we know it will die with you.”

Riella’s eyes widened.

“If there’s one person here who can’t be allowed to die under any circumstances, it’s you. The position you’re in means a whole lot more than your thirst for revenge.”

Vanessa responded to Riella’s fervent wish with a purely logical line of reasoning. And she did have a point—the girl was someone Granvaloa simply couldn’t afford to lose. Removing her from the battlefield seemed like the most obvious course of action.

Unable to say anything in response, Riella fell to her knees. Her chagrin and powerlessness made tears well up in her eyes, but there was no outlet for what she was feeling.

“Now, you. The Master of that battleship... Altar’s King of Destruction, isn’t it? You in there?”

“Yeah,” Shu replied, finally joining the conversation.

“You heard what we said. We’re bringing her back to Granvaloa—though we might need some extra power to keep her safe on the way. We’d appreciate it if you joined her.”

“Hm...” Their “spare ship” and whatever crew would join Riella wouldn’t be enough to deal with the Mocks they might encounter.

Asking for Shu’s assistance seemed like another obvious course of action.

“You made a contract stating she’d take you to the continent, right? Well, if you escort her to Granvaloa, you can just take one of the regular ferries to Keyora in Altar. You’ll be paid handsomely for it too.”

Considering Shu planned to return to the kingdom, that was certainly an appealing offer. With the payment, he’d get even more out of this than he’d initially expected.

Thinking about it rationally, there was no reason for him to refuse.

“Will you do it?”

Accepting this suggestion was really the obvious course of action...

“Not a chance.”

...and yet Shu did not.

Silence settled over the comms.

Both the members of Rusalka and the Adventure II’s crew were at a loss for words. Even Riella stared at Shu with her eyes wide.

“Can I ask why?” Vanessa asked.

“I’m not Riella’s bodyguard or babysitter. That’s not my job here,” Shu said with a glance at Riella. “I’m here to help her get even. That’s my end of the bargain.”

The agreement they’d made as pure equals was still very much in force.

“Do you know what it means for Riella to stay on her path to vengeance?” Ursula finally spoke up, seemingly irritated by Shu’s words. “The risk simply does not match the reward. If we fail, everything will be lost—and even if we win, we will not gain anything substantial.”

“Yeah. I mean, you’re totally right,” Shu said with a nod. He knew full well that they were laying out the obvious correct choice for almost anyone.

And yet...

“That’s all well and good... But it’s not the best.”

“...‘The best’?” Ursula raised an eyebrow.

“You could fight that thing without Riella, but it wouldn’t be what’s best for her. No matter if you win or lose, it’s gonna hurt her and her pride.”

No matter the result of the hunt, if even a single adventure fleet member died without Riella present to try and save them, she would regret it for as long as she lived. After all, it was she who’d made the decision to lead them into this.

Things wouldn’t be much different even if no one died and the entire adventure fleet simply returned to Granvaloa. The Granfronts and their adventure fleet had always been the first to face danger and guide Granvaloa through it. If they backed down now, their pride would plummet to the bottom of the sea. It would be destroyed beyond repair.

“Are you saying that mere feelings like pride are more important than life itself?” Vanessa asked.

“Surely you know Riella well enough to know that’s how she is, right?” Shu’s response made Vanessa fall silent, but Ursula spoke up in her stead.

“So ‘the best’ you speak of is a scenario where we take Riella and defeat Abyss Shellder without any casualties... Are you aware of how immensely low the odds are of that happening?”

Her words reminded Shu of the conversation he’d had with Humpty the day before yesterday, and he cracked a faint smile before answering.

“I know they’re not zero.” Even if it was far beyond the radix point, if a best-case scenario existed at all, then Shu saw it as a worthy goal.

“Your actions are incomprehensible.”

“It’s pretty simple, actually. I just always do what I think is right.”

“Even if it’s incredibly dangerous and could make you an enemy of all Granvaloa?”

“I don’t care if people sneer behind my back or straight up hate me. If I ever compromise, then my sense of what’s right might as well not even exist.” What Shu thought was right here was defeating Abyss Shellder alongside Riella—and doing it without any casualties that would saddle the girl with lifelong regrets.

Even if the chances of achieving that were measured in decimals, he wouldn’t give up on trying to seize that possibility.

As long as Shu was Shu, that would never change.

“From a certain point of view, you almost sound like a remorseless villain.”

“Some criminal I know once told me something similar. He pointed out how I was doing what I—the minority—wanted, while he was doing what the world—the majority—didn’t want. We were opposed, but ultimately our goals were similar,” Shu said with a chuckle, remembering King of Crime—his friend and enemy who was now locked away in the gaol.

Ursula was speechless. She couldn’t think of anything else to say to him, so Vanessa stepped back into the conversation, laughing heartily.

“Ah ha ha! And I guess being compared to a criminal and a villain isn’t going to stop you, huh?”

“You want me to repeat myself?”

“Not at all. I see how it is.”

Those words of hers marked a change in the conversation.

The attitude they directed toward Baldr was no longer a mix of wariness and aggression, but pure aggression—sheer murderous intent.

Whether or not they would fight was no longer a question. They knew they would—and Vanessa was fully intent on defeating Shu.

“Well then, KoD,” said Vanessa. “How about you show me whether you got what it takes to seize this best-case scenario of yours?”

“And how do I do that?” Even through the comms, the combative aura between them was palpable—Riella could almost see it.

“Well, it just so happens that Abyss Shellder already beat us once.” It was a sudden and surprising admission, but Shu digested it in an instant. They were adventure fleet Masters. It wasn’t at all strange for them to have taken part in the battle that killed the last commander. “That’s why I want you to try and beat us all by yourself. If you wanna kill that UBM, you gotta be able to do at least that much, right?”

“I see.”

Essentially, they were demanding a power comparison, much like the battle against Satomi had been. Their motivation for doing it was completely different, but Shu was starting to feel like Granvaloa’s Masters must share a certain spirit that led to them doing things like this.

“Okay. I’m down,” Shu said.

“Then it’s settled. Oh, but send the young lady to the Adventure II first. I wouldn’t want her to be on your ship when it sinks.”

Vanessa had a point, and Shu was more than willing to comply.

At the same time, he noted that they were clearly confident they would sink him.

“And...young lady?”

“What?” Riella said.

“We don’t know what he can do, so we want this to be a fair fight. If he can’t win against someone without knowing all their powers, he sure as hell won’t win a flawless victory against Abyss Shellder. You didn’t tell him about us yet, did you?”

“...No.”

“Good. We can start as soon as you’re on the Adventure II,” Vanessa said before shutting off the comms.

“Commander...”

“I’m headin’ back, old-timer. Prep the boat crane.”

“...Aye, aye, captain,” Asam replied, disconnecting as well.

Once all communication had been cut, a nervous look crossed Riella’s face, and she fell silent. That told Shu one thing.

Riella knew Shu’s power and had been present when he’d defeated Satomi, and yet she now looked even more uneasy than she had back then.

That could only mean that Shu’s odds here were much lower than they had been against Satomi.

There was also the fact that Vanessa had essentially forbidden Riella from revealing what Rusalka could do.

That brought Shu to a certain conclusion.

I guess...Rusalka must have a Superior too. Was it Vanessa? Or Ursula? Was that why Riella had been so tense when she’d found out Ursula was there?

Shu didn’t know which one of them it was—and for all he knew, it might’ve been some other member entirely.

Regardless, Shu was more or less certain that this Atlantis contained a Superior, and one far more combat-capable than Satomi.

Atlantis itself looks like a normal ship... Shu thought. It wasn’t a Superior Embryo like his Baldr, nor did it have extraordinary specifications like New Yamato.

The very fact that it hadn’t caught up with the Adventure II—failing where Satomi hadn’t—made it clear that however good it was, Atlantis wasn’t unusually capable for a Granvaloan ship.

I guess this must be all about the Superior’s power... In other words, the Embryo. Was it a Type Weapon gun? Or a Type World with some sort of AoE skill? Or maybe a Type Advance that enhanced the ship?

All of these were possible.

Finally, Riella broke her silence. “There’s somethin’ you gotta know.”

“If it’s about the power they can bring to bear, then I’m not listening.” Shu had been told to prove he could achieve the desired results without such knowledge, and if Riella did tell him something, the existence of Truth Discernment would make it impossible to hide that he knew it now.

“It ain’t that. There’s...a bit of a problem.”

“What?” Shu was about to fight a Superior, and there was another problem? He looked at Riella, waiting for her to elaborate.

“Remember the idea I had? Well, we need them for it.”

“Seriously?” Shu had named a couple problems he anticipated having while fighting Abyss Shellder, and Riella had said she knew how to solve them.

“I see... That’s real claws for concern.”

If Rusalka were necessary for Riella’s plan, he couldn’t afford to give them the death penalty. He had to win while making sure to keep them alive and combat-capable, which brought the difficulty of this fight to a whole other level.

Maybe it was this, rather than Rusalka’s power, that had left Riella silent.

“You’re at a huge disadvantage... Think you can win?” she asked him, clearly still uneasy.

“If I was the type to give up because of somethin’ like that, I wouldn’t have refused their offer in the first place,” Shu replied, making it clear he had no intention of backing out.

He then clenched his fist, faced Riella...

“This is a warm-up for the Abyss Shellder fight. I’ll show ya what it really means to seize the possibility.”

...and declared that he would fight as exactly he always did.

◇◆◇

Somewhere in the South Sea

“Ha ha ha! ‘Not a chance,’ he said... Well, I had a feeling he’d respond like that.”

After cutting communication with Baldr, Vanessa let out a laugh that was nonetheless tinged with anger. It echoed through Rusalka’s command post and was heard by all the members present.

“This isn’t funny, Vanny,” said the subleader, Ursula, laying her hand on her forehead as though suffering a headache.

Her manner of speech wasn’t nearly as icy as it had been over the comms, but this was on purpose. As implied by the clan’s alternative name, Maidens of the Depths, Rusalka was an all-female clan, so in order to make sure they were taken seriously, Ursula always presented herself differently to outsiders than she did to her own.

“I really don’t get why he refused...” Ursula said. “It doesn’t seem like he’ll gain much, and a lot of people could die. It makes no sense.”

“That’s Altar’s KoD for you. He has a history of taking actions that make no sense to almost everyone.”

“He’s most well-known for finishing off Altar’s SUBM.” Ursula was speaking of the Tri-Zenith Dragon, Gloria—the SUBM that had attacked the kingdom. During the deadly struggle against it, the hero who’d finished it off and saved all of Altar was none other than Shu. And despite his true identity still being hidden, he became famous as King of Destruction and had been hailed as the country’s champion. “But then... He didn’t join the war against Dryfe.”

None of the Masters at the very top of Altar’s three rankings had taken part in the kingdom’s war, and that had included Shu Starling—the top of the kill rankings.

To an outsider, that seemed contradictory. It didn’t feel like something that the man who’d once risked so much to save the kingdom should do.

“Why is someone who didn’t join a war to protect his own country so invested in Granvaloa’s predicament?” Ursula asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he had his reasons. Maybe it’s not that he didn’t join, but he couldn’t. There’s no way for us to know. What’s important here is...”

As Vanessa spoke, she reached to her side and took out a cigar.

“Vanny. No smoking. We have no ventilation right now.”

“Come on. Just one. It’d make for a nice aroma, don’t you think?”

“No.”

“Tch...”

Vanessa begrudgingly put the cigar away.

“And? What were you saying?” Ursula asked.

“Right. What’s important here is that he’s gonna fight us.” There was no point in figuring out Shu’s motives now—to them, he was already an enemy.

Therefore, the Maidens of the Depths would simply sink him.

“He was strong enough to take down New Yamato, Satomi’s newest and strongest... We can’t underestimate him,” said Ursula. “And the young lady won’t give up unless we beat him. If we wanna keep her safe from what’s to come, we gotta do this.”

“When we win, who’ll escort her, though?” They’d originally planned to have Shu bring her back, but now that they had to get rid of him, they needed to find someone else.

“We’ll owe her one for it, but I’ll call Scala. She won’t be able to take the other crew members who give up, but if it’s just the young lady, she’ll get her to safety in no time.”

Vanessa explained her backup plan, mentioning one of Granvaloa’s Superiors and the country’s fastest Master.

“Well, the military fleet certainly won’t be opposed,” said Ursula.

“Exactly. Anyway, did the young lady get on the Adventure II yet?”

“Yes. We’ve confirmed she’s on board,” said one of the Rusalka members in the command post.

“All right!” said Vanessa. “Then let’s get this started! We’re up against Altar’s top-ranking Master! We can’t hold back! Be ready to sacrifice Atlantis to win!”

“It’s a battle between Superiors,” said Ursula. “I would expect to at least lose that much. Also...he doesn’t know what we are capable of.”

They didn’t think for a second that they could win against a mighty Superior unscathed—that was why they went with a strategy that was costly but completely ensured their victory.

“We’re going with the ‘Anglerfish’ strategy! Engage!”

◇◇◇

War God Ship, Baldr, Interior

Upon seeing Riella’s boat pulled up by the Adventure II, Shu also took to action.

“You done analyzing that cruiser?” he asked Baldr.

“It is not an Embryo and does not appear to have MVP rewards. While its specifications are rather high, our weaponry surpasses theirs in every respect.”

A simple comparison between the ships revealed that the only area where they surpassed Baldr was speed—unsurprising, since hovercrafts were highly inefficient on the open sea. Most ships would defeat Baldr in this regard.

“That’s weird, though...”

Their enemies must’ve understood that the battle already began, but they didn’t seem to be doing much. The weapons were activated, but that was it.

It was highly likely that the enemy had a Superior Embryo, as well as a few lesser Embryos belonging to the others on board. This meant that they certainly had access to a variety of Embryo skills—and yet it didn’t seem like they were doing anything.

The bridge where they all stood had its windows covered with defensive shutters, though, making it impossible to see inside and spot if they were activating any kind of abilities.

Still, it feels like they’re being way too passive, Shu thought. Do they have, like, a counterattack that only works if I strike first? Or is there some Type Sentinel swimming around somewhere?

He considered the possibility that the ship was just bait, and there was an aquatic Embryo ready to ambush him.

“Check underwater too. Just in case.”

“Affirmative. However, be advised that the depth here is too great for a thorough scan.”

“That’s fine. You’ll still notice if something gets close,” Shu said. “Anyway...”

Whatever advantages the enemy had, the fact was that the battle had begun. Even if he had concerns about a potential counterattack skill, Shu had no choice but to go on the offensive. Shu didn’t have great mobility or defense, so if they had some skill that could instantly end the battle if landed, he wouldn’t have much answer for it.

“Fire the main gun and missiles. Aim for their weapons.”

“Affirmative.” Shu couldn’t give them the death penalty, so aiming at the bridge wasn’t an option.

Thus, he first targeted the cruiser’s weapons, and if destroying them wouldn’t be enough, he’d target the ship’s waterline and sink it. With enough time to evacuate, they wouldn’t receive the death penalty.

“Stardust Genocider. Twin-Quintuple Cannon, loading armor-piercing firebombs. Barrage.”

Atlantis was showered in Baldr’s missiles and gunfire.

Shu attacked every weapon in sight, stripping the ship of its combat capability.

But despite this overwhelming barrage, Atlantis did nothing.

They didn’t deploy anything defensive like Satomi’s New Yamato had, nor did they use any Embryo skill. It didn’t show any resistance to the attacks, and as a result it sustained heavy damage.

The lack of response filled Shu with suspicion.

“What are they planning?” he wondered aloud. The radar hadn’t shown any Sentinels ascending for an ambush.

Atlantis was about to sink, as though it was completely helpless to prevent it.

I really doubt we’re seeing an illusion here, Shu thought. While there were illusions and other skills that deceived the senses, it seemed highly unlikely that they’d have something that would fool not only Shu, but all of Baldr’s sensors as well.

That meant that the damage on Atlantis was very real.

Shu started to wonder if continuing the attacks and sinking the ship was actually the right move.

“Wait. There’s no way, right?”

But then, a certain thought came to mind.

He remembered the ships used by Satomi—the ones besides New Yamato.

He controlled them by...

“Baldr! Shoot the top of the bridge!”

“Affirmative.” Shu finally resolved to damage Atlantis’s bridge, and Baldr instantly responded by firing the main cannon to remove the upper part of the ship.

The artillery tore through the defensive shutters like paper, exposing the inside of the bridge...

...but there was not a single person there.

“It’s unmanned...!”

It was indeed just like the ships Satomi had used against Abyss Shellder.

There were systems that enabled remote control of uncrewed vessels. A closer look revealed a large device set in the operator’s seat on the bridge, next to the comms equipment. It was through that device that Rusalka communicated with Atlantis from their actual vessel that was located somewhere else.

“Baldr! Scan up, down, and beyond the horizon! They’re outside our detection range! Check for optical camouflage too!”

Atlantis was unmanned, and now served as a decoy. It was meant to attract the enemy’s attention so they could destroy them with an ambush.

Shu had assumed that that was Rusalka’s usual approach to combat, and he was completely right.

“Something is approaching from direct—”

Before Baldr could finish the warning, a hole opened up in the ship’s front.

“—ly below this vessel.”

“Too slow, damn it!” Something had opened a cylindrical hole all the way through Baldr, going from the very bottom to the top. The material at the edges was melted, making it clear that the damage had been done by an extremely high energy strike.

However, that didn’t quite make sense.

It’s an attack from below, but this looks like the work of immense heat! How did it do so much damage after traveling through all that water? And why didn’t it create a steam explosion where it was fired?

The discrepancy between the damage of the attack and its firing location greatly puzzled Shu. Embryos that could fire heat rays weren’t uncommon, but they weren’t exactly useful at attacks from underwater.

There were a number of issues with using high energy weapons at sea. That was why the Adventure II had refused to use the JotA against Whalunder.

“Estimating hostile vessel location—below thermocline, over one thousand metels down.” Baldr used the attack to try and pinpoint where it came from.

Below thermocline—beyond the abyssal curtain where sonar was reflected and couldn’t reach.

Something there could withstand the immense pressures of the deep sea while also firing long-distance, high-power attacks toward the surface.

There was only one answer for what that could be.

“Conjecture: It is a submarine Superior Embryo.”

◆◆◆

South Sea, 4,000 Metels Underwater

Deep beyond where even the light could reach, there was a submarine in a hydrodynamic shape.

It sat completely immobile as it aimed its front—the gun on its bow—straight toward the surface, looking like a lance thrust into the sky.

“Confirmed hit on the first shot,” reported one of the women in the command post. The vessel’s interior was designed in such a way that the space remained horizontal despite the sub’s vertical alignment.

The woman was looking down at a mirror made of water, and reflected on its surface was Baldr with a large hole boring through it.

“So far, so good,” the other woman in the room said with a smirk. She was the leader of Rusalka—King of Divers, Vanessa Cephalid—and this submarine was her Superior Embryo—the Type Gear Depthwave Battlecraft, Siren.

It could withstand pressures as extreme as those found ten thousand metels down, and it possessed incredible sonar that allowed it to attack from that immense depth as well.

If the strongest ship on Granvaloa’s seas was New Yamato, then this Siren was perhaps the most powerful vessel within them.

In fact, it was possible that if the two clashed, even New Yamato would be unable to do anything to prevent being sunk.

It was no doubt a force to be reckoned with in any aquatic battles—a threat worse than even the deadly U-boats of Earth’s World War II.

“That one hit wasn’t enough, though,” said Vanessa. “I guess he noticed and moved a little just in time.”

“Probably,” said Ursula. “And if he’s realized where we are now, he’ll start moving a lot more to dodge the second attack. He’ll also use any ASW stuff he may have.”

If the attack had pierced the bridge, the battle would’ve been over right then and there. However, Baldr had noticed the high-energy readings from below and backed away just fast enough that the attack had pierced the front of the craft instead. A degree of maneuverability that enabled backward movement was one of the perks of a hovercraft.

“Only my ult can reach him from this deep down,” said Vanessa. “It’s pretty costly, though, so I’d like to finish this with one more use. Maybe two at the most.”

The ultimate skill that had blasted a whole clear through Baldr: “Depthwave Cannon—Siren.”

Using it came with a steep price, so it wasn’t suited for extended battles, and every miss put her at a disadvantage. However, hitting a moving ship four thousand metels above their current position was no easy task.

“So...yeah. Ursula, you know what to do.”

“Of course. Leave it to me,” Ursula replied as she took out her Embryo—a blue staff—and held it up.

◇◇◇

War God Ship, Baldr, Interior

“Initiating random movements. Evasive action.”

“Keep at it! Don’t let them fix their sights on us!” Shu was still in the process of analyzing the nature of the attack from the depths, but he did know it had come in a straight line, so he had Baldr use its hover capabilities to move chaotically in hopes of preventing a second hit. The first attack had damaged some hover equipment on the bottom and slightly lowered Baldr’s maneuverability, but not nearly enough to render the ship immobile.

“ASW torpedoes loaded. Ready to fire.”

“Fire!”

While Siren was entirely focused on underwater activity, Baldr was an all-purpose battleship. It was obviously not well equipped for battles involving great depths, but it still had something it could do in such a situation. It had produced some ASW—short for “Anti-Submarine Warfare”—missiles to be better prepared for the environment of the South Sea, and it was now using them to retaliate against Siren.

The cells on top of Baldr opened to release a few dozen missiles that broke the sea’s surface and dove deeper down.

They were far slower than the enemy’s attack, so it would be some time until impact.

“Now... That attack...”

As he waited for the results, Shu continued analyzing what, exactly, could’ve opened that hole in Baldr.

“Analyzing damage,” Baldr said. “While there is some melting, the residual heat does not match the profile of a heat-based weapon.”

“I can tell. It wasn’t a laser or anything.”

A weapon like that couldn’t have been used underwater, and the attack that pierced Baldr had been invisible—which obviously meant it didn’t use any light energy.

“Can be used underwater, is invisible, melts things...and travels so fast it hits right after entering range...” After all, the attack had landed before Baldr could even finish informing Shu of its approach.

Shu spent a moment thinking about what kind of attack it could be before finally coming across an answer.

“A phonon maser!”

Essentially, a phonon maser was a weapon that used sound waves to make things vibrate at the molecular level, causing them to melt and collapse. Since it used sound instead of heat, it would lose very little potency in the water, and any steam explosions it created would be small. In fact, water was a better conduit for sound than air, making the maser five times faster than it would be otherwise. That explained why Baldr hadn’t been able to react to it fast enough.

There was perhaps no better weapon for a submarine to employ.

“Subs can’t function without sonar,” Shu said to himself. “That’s sound too. I’m guessing the skill’s like a twisted evolution of that. First the double-sized Yamato, now this... What’s with Granvaloans and their over-the-top superweapons...?”

While it wasn’t unusual for an Embryo ultimate skill to do something like this, the phonon maser was specifically a sci-fi concept that wasn’t technologically feasible in the real world, so seeing something like that used against him had left him a bit dumbfounded.

As the owner of an amphibious battleship, though, Shu might’ve not been in any position to object.

“Reporting.” Just as Shu had finally figured out the opponent’s means of attack, Baldr spoke up. “The ASW missiles exploded before reaching the target. There is a wall in the way, approximately eight hundred metels deep.”

“A wall?” Baldr’s words brought a question in Shu’s mind, but the ship provided no answers.

Instead, a massive wall of water rose to enclose the vessel.

Shu’s eyes widened. The circular wall that rose up with him and his Embryo in the middle had a radius of eight thousand metels and stood four times taller than Baldr itself.

Additionally, the wall was clearly closing in, which shocked Shu even more. Controlling immense volumes of water was possible using sea magic—specifically, the water magic subcategory—however...

The scale here is on another level! Who’s even got enough magic to control this much?! I can’t think of anyone besides Fatum... The scale and power of magic depended on the caster’s MP, and Shu knew from experience that the only one with an MP pool that could power magic this immense was Caldina’s Magical Apex.

Thus, this couldn’t be the work of magic. It had to be an Embryo owned by a member of Rusalka.

And the intent behind its use couldn’t be more clear.

“Warning. Evasion range is shrinking. Hostile accuracy is increasing.”

“I know!”

Once the walls closed in enough, Baldr would be rendered unable to avoid the phonon maser. If that didn’t take it out, then the wall of water would simply go on to crush it.

“Aim the main gun! We’ll break through the wall and escape!”

“Affirmative.” Baldr responded immediately, and the ten gunports on the main gun fired all at once. The explosive shells were meant to blast through the water comprising the approaching wall.

However, a faint, two-colored wall of light appeared, nullifying the power of the explosion.

Shu’s eyes widened again. “Defense magic!”

Defense magic was another subcategory of sea magic, and it was focused on the reduction of energy—which was exactly what Shu had just witnessed. He even recognized the exact spells used by their light alone—they were the kinetic-energy-reducing Kinetic Resist Wall and the heat-energy-reducing Heat Resist Wall.

Combined, they’d fully absorbed all the energy released by the impact of the shells and the resulting explosion.

The barrier of water itself was guarded by two protective walls.

Heat energy is one thing, but if it completely absorbs kinetic energy too, it’s gotta be the High-End version of the skill...! Shu thought. They’ve got a defense magic SJ! Shu had once witnessed Altar’s late Arch Sage use various different top-tier spells at once, so he quickly realized that his current opponents must include a truly powerful mage—likely the same person who’d made the water wall. Since it was moving, it would’ve been difficult for someone besides the caster to apply another spell to it from all the way down in the depths.

“...Hold on,” Shu muttered. The wall itself was an unbelievable outlier as well. Even if this was the work of an Embryo, it seemed unlikely that a mere high-rank could command such an immense amount of water. It was too much even for a high-rank Embryo’s ultimate skill that came with strict conditions.

Was the Superior Embryo submarine doing it, then? No, the nature of this power was far too different from the others.

That only left one possible answer.

“Well... Guess I know what I’m up against now.” As Shu arrived at the answer, he felt a cold sweat break out beneath his costume as he realized that he’d played right into their hands.

“Granvaloa has seven Superiors...”

Antimicrobic Soy Sauce, the Human Bomb; Maude Edwards and Scala Edwards, the Avowed Wings; Miroslava Swampman, Above Land and Sea; and Satomi Yamamoto, the Outer War Chronicle.

And two others that were not widely known.

Shu realized that Rusalka, this clan from the adventure fleet...

“The last two are right here.”

...was where they’d been hiding all this time.

He now knew that he was fighting two Superiors at once.

◆◆◆

About Rusalka...

Type Weapon, Cleansing Expanse, Moses—that was the name of the Superior Embryo of Rusalka’s second-in-command: Wall Princess, Ursula.

Its core trait was water control, which wasn’t very unique on its own—there were even low-rank spells that enabled people to do that much.

However, what made Moses so terrifying was its specialization. Bearing the name of the prophet who had parted the sea by simply raising his staff, this Embryo excelled in the size of its effects and their efficiency. Even after creating a wall of water on the surface from deep under the ocean, Ursula still had more than enough magic to cast defense spells on it.

However, this range and efficiency came at the cost of control, speed, and the ability to do precise movements. That made it difficult to use in solo combat, as she could not summon the walls fast enough to protect herself.

However, all of this changed drastically when she was inside Vanessa’s Siren.

Very few opponents could reach her at the depths where Siren operated, which allowed Ursula to use her immense water control to sweep away any enemies in and on the surface. If anyone proved too much for her to handle, she could use water and defense magic to put them in a cage, allowing Vanessa to finish them off with Depthwave Cannon—Siren.

Additionally, if her opponents could travel underwater too, she could protect Siren by controlling the water between them and putting up defense magic that nullified their attacks.

Vanessa and Ursula canceled out each other’s flaws, and together they were the true rulers of the depths.

The reason Ursula’s presence had made Riella so tense—the reason she saw Ursula as a greater threat than even Satomi—was because it meant that Rusalka’s two Superiors were together.

That alone showed how fearsome their combo was—but that wasn’t even the full extent of their capability.

Vanessa’s Siren had a six-person capacity—in other words, a full party. The air cycling ability that enabled submerging couldn’t handle more than that, so any more would prevent extended dives.

However, six was more than enough.

The third Rusalka member present, Yayi, had a clairvoyance power that used water as a conduit. It was her support that enabled them to pinpoint Baldr’s location on the waves and adjust their attacks accordingly.

The fourth member, Seelica, was a Master who possessed an Embryo that could fix machines. Normally, Siren’s Depthwave Cannon left the weapon damaged, and it needed a great deal of time before it could be used again, but Seelica’s Embryo reduced this period to only about five minutes.

The fifth member, CQ, was an expert in comms magic. She could communicate with ships on the surface and even in the heart of Granvaloa, and she excelled at handling Siren’s sonar and other similar equipment.

Rusalka’s strategy was focused around these five core members, plus a sixth they chose depending on their objective or quest.

While Vanessa and Ursula were no doubt a fearsome pair, it was all those on board that turned Siren into a true multipurpose sub.

Two Superior Embryos and four high-rank Embryos, attacking while hidden in the depths—it was an extremely effective strategy here in Granvaloa, capable of easily beating even Superiors, and that was exactly why it was in the interest of national defense to keep them a secret.

Indeed—Shu was now up against a perfect synergy between six Masters.

◇◇◇

War God Ship, Baldr; Interior

“Well, this sure blindsided me.” While he had just recently fought a fellow Superior—Satomi—Shu didn’t quite expect to fight two of them at once directly after. Perhaps he could’ve anticipated going up against the well-known Edwards duo, but it was too late to second-guess his chances.

In silence, Shu gazed at the walls that were closing in. He used what little time he had left to think about the situation, racking his brain for anything that could get him through it.

The defense magic prevented Baldr’s ASW attacks from reaching the enemy submarine. The water walls that Baldr’s firepower couldn’t penetrate were gradually getting closer. His ult and Right of Destruction might have enabled him to break through the walls somehow, but he couldn’t use any of that without a platform to stand on. There wasn’t much dodging space anymore, and soon the phonon maser would be fired again.

Even if Shu sunk himself on purpose like he had against Satomi, he would simply be shot while descending.

Additionally, Baldr hadn’t detected any signs of sonar scanning, which meant they had a means of tracking his position that didn’t rely on that.

The more Shu thought about it, the more hopeless it seemed.

After sifting through every possibility...

“Guess I’ll go with this.”

...he came across one that was theoretically seizable.

What Baldr had, what the enemy seemed to have, and what Shu himself possessed came together to construct a slim path to victory.

“When was the last time I...?” Shu tried to recall something, but the approaching wall cut off his train of thought. He then addressed his Embryo. “Baldr. Don’t even aim. Just keep firing wherever. Doesn’t matter if it hits you too.”

It was an absurd, seemingly desperate move...

“Affirmative.”

...and yet Baldr instantly agreed.

◆◆◆

South Sea, 4,000 Metels Down

“...Huh? What?” Yayi, the clairvoyant on board Siren, was clearly perplexed by what she was seeing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Uh... The enemy battleship just started firing in every direction...”

Her Embryo—Reflection of Clarity, Mazu—now showed a distorted image of the surface.

Mazu’s clairvoyance created images of other locations using water as a conduit, so it couldn’t provide a bird’s eye perspective. Most of what it could show were views from the sea level, and this storm of explosions had made it difficult to focus. Despite its size, even Baldr was hard to see now.

This wouldn’t have been a problem if Yayi could have simply switched to a point of view situated on the water wall around the ship, but that was where one of Mazu’s flaws came in. It couldn’t use water that was affected by other Embryos.

“Is he getting desperate?” wondered Vanessa. “...No, this would be too blatant. I think he’s planning something.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not breaking the walls,” said Ursula. “He’s still caged. It won’t be long until he’s cornered and you can hit him with your ultimate.”

Nothing about the situation suggested their strategy was ineffective. Even if Baldr tried to escape the approaching walls by briefly diving down, it would have to stop firing, which Yayi would instantly notice. Also, since Baldr wasn’t suited for underwater travel, it would slow down considerably, allowing them to easily hit it with the phonon maser.

“The cage is about to get far too small for it,” Ursula added.

“How’s the cannon fix coming along?” Vanessa asked.

“Just three more seconds... Done,” Seelica replied. Vanessa noted that the Depthwave Cannon—Siren entry in her skill list had become usable again.

“Let’s end this, then,” she said. “Siren, start charging.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

The Superior Embryo began charging energy for its ultimate skill. Once the charge was finished, the phonon maser would surely obliterate Baldr.

“How are things on the surface now?” Vanessa asked as she waited.

“Still the same,” Yayi replied. “It just keeps on firing... It’s even damaging itself.”

“What is he thinking?” Ursula wondered. What Shu was doing seemed bizarre—it didn’t make sense even as an act of desperation.

No matter how you looked at it, the enemy had to be planning something.

“Maybe it’s a distraction?” Vanessa asked. “He hasn’t got anything besides that ship that he can use, right?”

“No,” Ursula replied. “And he’s still firing his ASW missiles, but I’m blocking them all.”

No matter how much noise Shu made on the waves, the deep sea remained completely silent. Even the approaching missiles were caught by Siren’s sonar and destroyed by Ursula’s defense magic before they could disturb the water.

“What else could it possibly be?” Vanessa wondered.

“Maybe he’s got other Masters with him just like we do?”

“That’s unlikely. Mr. Asam didn’t say anything to suggest that, and we know through Yayi’s observation that the only people on that ship were Riella and KoD.”

While Shu was logged out, they’d confirmed that Riella was alone on the boat he’d left her in, and that it had only been the two of them when he logged back in.

There was no point at which a third person could have appeared.

“What the hell is he planning, then? Well... I guess we’ll find out once we fire.”

“Charging complete.” Siren reported that its ultimate skill was now ready. The enemy now had nowhere to run, and unless he pulled something out of his sleeve, this would be checkmate.

Vanessa fixed her sights right at the core of the ship above...

“Depthwave Cannon—Siren. Fire!”

...and unleashed the deadly phonon maser.

The sonic vibrations pierced through the sea. Going five times faster than they would in the air, they reached Baldr in less than three seconds.

Siren’s crew fell quiet as the attack’s echoes reverberated through the depths. But once they faded, silence returned to the ocean above and below.

“Yayi.”

“There’s nothing up top.” The waters that Baldr had been stirring up were now as still as glass. Yayi used her clairvoyance to look around, but she didn’t see Shu or even any fragments of Baldr.

She could only assume that he had gotten the death penalty, and as a result they’d both vanished.

“Siren’s sonar isn’t detecting anything either.” There was no sign that the battleship was sinking. The only things left were a few metallic fragments left by the scattered missiles.

“Does this mean...we won?” Ursula asked.

Vanessa remained quiet, unsure how to answer. Her intuition suggested that there was more to this, but all signs seemed to point to Shu having suffered a death penalty.

“Regardless, there’s nothing in the way now,” said Ursula. “We should contact the Edwards and—”

Assured of their victory, Ursula wanted to take the next step to ensure Riella’s safe return.

However, her words were cut short by Siren shaking with great intensity.

Every pair of eyes on the bridge widened in shock. It was as though the submarine had crashed into something. The shaking had felt nothing like the shock wave caused by Vanessa’s ultimate skill—it had clearly been the result of a physical impact.

“Detecting external damage caused by physical contact,” Siren reported. “Activating emergency lockdown.”

“A breach?!”

“But there’s nothing within four thousand metels of us above or below! The sonar never picked up any large monsters in the area either!”

“Yayi... Can you see anything?”

“N-No. We’re too deep. My Mazu can’t see anything without light!”

Mazu used water as a conduit to create views of distant places, but it was rendered useless in the darkness far beneath the waves. Mazu for the surface and the shallows, sonar for the depths—that was how they operated, but in this case, neither had been able to detect any anomalies.

“Ohhh... I see how it is.” As the other members of Rusalka were overcome with panic, Vanessa muttered to herself as though she had just realized something.

She then grabbed the microphone meant for in-vessel announcements and said, “We lost. Well played.”

“Vanny?! What are you talking about?!” The sudden admission of defeat confused Ursula and everyone else present. Not only did they not understand what she was saying, they couldn’t fathom why she had used that particular mic when everyone on the sub was already present on the bridge.

“Man, KoD sure is something... He’s even crazier than I thought,” Vanessa said, half impressed and half terrified.

“Vanny...?”

“Isn’t that right... KoD?” Vanessa asked, turning to face the door at the back of the command post.

“Whale, I’d say I just do what I gotta do.”

The response came from a bipedal whale.

The monster that appeared filled Ursula and the rest of the crew with shock. She quickly began to prepare for a fight, casting her defense magic, and the others followed suit.

“Stop it. Like I said, we lost,” said Vanessa, as though she knew exactly what the thing in front of them was.

Her attitude calmed her companions down a bit, and they realized that there was no monster name above the creature. On top of that, it looked just a bit too comical to be a monster.

It was a cartoonish whale with legs—something that could be the charming mascot of some seaside town.

It was almost like a person in a whale costume...

“That’s KoD.”

“I’m King of Destruction, Shu Starling! Here for a whale of a time!”

...and that was exactly what it was.

The person who’d been fighting them from his battleship on the surface was now all the way down here, inside of Siren.

However, the fact that he was here created more questions than it answered.

“Vanny, just what...?”

“It’s simple,” Vanessa cracked a wry grin as she voiced the only possible explanation. “He swam all the way here. All four thousand metels.”

◇

Shu had commanded Baldr to attack indiscriminately in order to cover his own movements. All the splashing, explosions, and smoke obscured the enemy’s vision, allowing him to dive into the sea undetected.

“It just came back to me. It was during that college trip to Hawaii,” he’d said with a smile as he finally remembered what he’d been trying to recall—the last time he went scuba diving.

Even back then, however, he hadn’t dived into the extreme depths he’d attempted just now.

The name of the costume he was currently wearing was “Ultimate Costume Series, Whalunder,” and it was the MVP reward from the UBM he’d fought on the day he met Riella.

Being all that remained of an Ancient Legendary creature specialized in rapid surprise attacks from the depths and control of the surrounding water currents, it was an incredible diving suit—strong enough to take Shu many thousands of metels down.

Full costume MVP rewards had a tendency to come with many skills. This was meant to make up for the fact that they occupied all gear slots except the ones for weapons and accessories.

The monster was able to survive in the depths due to skills like Water Pressure Negation, Underwater Breathing, Cold Resistance, and Swimming Enhancement, all of which the costume consolidated into a single skill called “Deep Sea Activity.”

Its Current Control skill had also helped Shu accelerate his dive, as well as create layers of water currents that had helped to hide him from Siren’s sonar.

Additionally—and this was something Shu realized only after equipping it—Whalunder had a life-detecting power that didn’t rely on sight or sound, called simply Creature Detect. That made sense to Shu once he’d thought about it—the UBM could not have targeted its prey on the surface without a skill like this.

As the costume had inherited this ability, Shu had used it to track down Siren—specifically, the Rusalka members within it. As the South Sea had been turned into something of an ecological dead zone, they stood out quite a bit.

And so, avoiding the area directly between Siren and Baldr so that he wouldn’t be hit by the phonon maser, Shu had dived all the way down to them.

The defense magic wall Ursula had put up was the kind that reacted to attacks, so it simply let him pass, just as it ignored any combat shrapnel sinking down.

As he approached Siren, Shu had also noticed that it was preparing to fire the ult, anticipated its exact timing, and transformed Baldr into the first form—the cannon—at the exact moment it went off. He even accounted for the transformation delay, ensuring that the deadly phonon maser missed Baldr entirely. It was likely now sinking alongside the remains of its spent missiles.

As that was going on, Shu had reached Siren, punched it open, gone inside, and finally arrived at the bridge.

◇

Vanessa immediately understood what Shu had done.

As he was a pure combat build, she knew they had no hope against him now that he was right in front of them, so she’d quickly taken the mic and announced their defeat.

And thus, the battle between Shu and Rusalka ended with Shu’s decisive victory.

“We had such a huge advantage too,” Vanessa complained. “Since we lost anyway... I’m willing to trust you and take the gamble.”

“Vanny! But then... Riella...” Riella’s role in the coming battle against Abyss Shellder had been on the line, and since Shu had emerged victorious in their contest, that meant Riella would be on the front line.

“You won, so I’ll respect the young lady’s decision. But the moment it looks like the battle’s hopeless, I’m taking her away from it. Even if that hurts her.”

In response, Shu nodded. “Fine by me,” he said, but added, “You’re not gonna have to do that, though. And after fighting you, I really understand what Riella meant. If we team up, we’ll have a chance against that damn crab.”

The members of Rusalka didn’t yet know what he meant by that. However, they could tell that he truly believed they could all take out that abnormal monster... That Irregularity.

Just as he had a plan for beating them, he also had a plan for beating Abyss Shellder.

“You think you can win?”

“Of course. Hate to break it to you, but I’ve never fought a battle I intended to lose,” Shu said as he cracked a smile inside the costume and extended his hand. Vanessa did the same, and they exchanged a handshake.

In the aftermath of a battle that had taught each side what the other was capable of, they came together and forged the key to the Corpse Stronghold’s downfall.

Interlude 7

Corpse Stronghold, Abyss Shellder

I think, therefore I am.

If these words penned by one of Earth’s most famous philosophers were true, then Abyss Shellder had no “I” to speak of.

Back when it had been a simple arthropod, the creature had possessed no capacity for logical thought, and as far as anyone could tell, that remained true even after it had become a fiendish Irregularity ravaging the ecosystem.

The insignificant, filter-feeding monster it had once been and this loathsome monstrosity it had become were one and the same, and yet directly opposed.

Where the former had cleaned its environment, the latter had polluted everything around it with its own self.

Had it not been turned into a UBM, had it simply stayed in the underground lake, had it not been flung into the South Sea, or had it never encountered the clam UBM, that simple creature would have simply continued to live without threatening anyone instead of growing into its own hellish ecosystem.

Its current existence was the result of a mere chain of unfortunate coincidences.

And the one who had set this chain in motion was now observing it through a hologram.

He was Control AI No. 4, Jabberwock—the one in charge of UBMs and the initial designer of what had become Abyss Shellder.

“If Gloria was a monstrosity you accounted for, then this is certainly one you didn’t expect.”

Next to Jabberwock, also gazing at the hologram, there was a beauty veiled in an ethereal egg—Control AI No. 2, Humpty Dumpty. She was the one who had pulled Shu into this incident.

“Throughout these past two thousand years, your UBMs have threatened the environment too many times to count. But this one is especially dangerous, especially since we’ve already welcomed the players, so we can’t deal with it ourselves,” Humpty Dumpty said. “Unfortunately, though, it’s now practically invincible to them.”

The Control AIs had spent two millennia setting the stage for Infinite Dendrogram. During this time, their greatest sources of trouble had been abnormally strong tians like King of Kings or UBMs that had exceeded Jabberwock’s control.

In both cases, the Control AIs had been forced to get involved and take care of the problem themselves—occasionally even using their true forms.

Their most common targets were monsters that no tians could defeat. Abyss Shellder was one such specimen, and were they still in the preparation phase, the Control AIs would’ve absolutely destroyed it by now—in fact, Jabberwock might have culled it himself.

However, that phase was over now. The players were already here, and now that the Control AIs’ top priority was the growth of Masters, their involvement in such incidents had been reduced to the bare minimum.

Even if they had initially caused the trouble, they would now only watch things unfold. The most they would do was guide capable Masters toward it, much like how they had done with Shu.

“This makes me wonder... What does it even live for?” Humpty Dumpty asked as she peered at Abyss Shellder’s hologram. As far as she knew, the creature had no drive but predation. It hunted, empowered itself, split off new versions of itself, and that was it.

Contrary to what its gargantuan size and intricate internal structure might have suggested, its behavior was no more complex than that of a single-celled organism.

“I mean, it’s strange, right?” she continued. “It’s clearly eaten a lot of brains, so shouldn’t it have become a bit more intelligent by now?”

“I see. So you don’t see it as an intelligent creature, then.”

“Many powerful monsters are also extremely intelligent—dragons are the obvious example. It ate a lot of seadragons, so shouldn’t it have gotten their intelligence too?”

“It did. And it still became this.”

“Hm?” Humpty didn’t quite understand what Jabberwock was saying.

“Animals—especially intelligent creatures—feel pleasure when they satisfy their three basic needs. That is how the body encourages fulfilling them,” he elaborated dispassionately. “Not eating means death, not sleeping means death, not leaving offspring means extinction. It’s because of this that acts associated with survival are accompanied by pleasure. This is meant to lower the barrier for performing these acts. If what accompanied them instead was pain, survival rates would be abysmal.”

“That does make sense.” While the Control AIs themselves weren’t exactly “animals,” they could understand this much about organic life.

This was doubly true for Humpty, who was, in a way, as human as one of them could be.

“This also means that if something isn’t necessary, it may cease to be pleasurable.”

“Oh?”

“Abyss Shellder doesn’t need to sleep, as it renews itself by replacing its parts. And since it ate so many slimes, it can create ‘offspring’ on its own by splitting its body. That leaves just one pleasure—eating. That’s all it needs to satisfy its three basic needs.”

The UBM had lost the need for sleep and sexual urges common to most intelligent animals—or rather, it had become a creature whose hunger satisfied all three of them at once.

“And that’s why it doesn’t stop,” Jabberwock concluded. “No matter how intelligent it may have become, it lives for the pleasure of eating and that alone. No amount of supplementary intellect can do anything against animal instinct so focused and pure.”

Despite all the growth it had undergone through its rampant predation, it didn’t have anything resembling thought. It turned other creatures into pearl, ate them, empowered itself with their parts and Resources, and used them to split itself up into new organisms.

These were the only things its instincts drove it to do. Perhaps this life, as simple and straightforward as a slow waltz, had no room for thinking at all.

Stripped even of the pretense of desire, Abyss Shellder was a creature that existed solely for its primal needs.

That was by no means morally wrong—many animals were just like it.

The problem with the UBM was that it had become so massive and all-encompassing that its existence was incompatible with the continued survival of everything else.

“...What a pitiful creature.” It was a slave to the instinct of hunger, and Humpty’s words for it couldn’t be more apt.

Pitiful as it might have been, though, this nature was exactly what made it an existential threat to all life.

“As it is now, it will not stop until it devours everything...and it will even continue after that,” said Jabberwock. “Even if it consumed the entire world, it would become a creature that endlessly split itself only to devour those splits again and again.”

Corpse Stronghold, Abyss Shellder—the calamity of a mighty hunger that fulfilled all base needs. It wouldn’t stop even if it consumed the universe.

Thus, the people of the world took it upon themselves to stand against this monstrosity and drive it back.

Act 9: Preparations

South Sea, Baldr, Surface

The battle between Shu and Rusalka was over. Now that it had been decided they would fight Abyss Shellder together, Shu transformed Baldr back into a battleship. Having turned Baldr into its first form and let it sink, Shu couldn’t recall it initially due to the long distance and lack of visibility. That had necessitated some scouring of the depths before he could retrieve Baldr, but that was all done now.

And now, on Baldr’s deck, next to the large hole it had received during the battle, there stood Shu and one other Master—Rusalka’s repair girl, Seelica.

“Yeah, that sure looks like something Siren’s ult would do,” she said. “What a nice-looking hole.”

“Paw-lease fix it up as quickly as you can.” The hole in question was where the left leg of Baldr’s full offense mode was supposed to be. Were Shu to transform like this, he would scarcely have been able to stand.

“Yeah, sure. Just let me use my Embryo,” Seelica said, and Baldr’s hole began closing—regenerating like a living creature’s wound.

Her skill wasn’t very fast, so it could hardly treat massive damage in combat, but outside of battle, it was more than good enough. And as demonstrated by its quick handling of the damage Siren suffered from its own ult, it still had its uses in battle—minor damage could be repaired in mere minutes.

“A hole this big is gonna take about...an hour and a half,” said Seelica. “Two hours if you include the damage from your own missiles.”

“That’s beary fast. A whole lot faster than Baldr’s own repair speed.” Her Embryo—seemingly a Type Territory—was really useful for any Masters with machine Embryos.

“Just out of curiosity, how long would it take if I blew up the whole ship?”

“A day. No, maybe two full days... Wait, are you gonna do that?”

“Just a question that popped into my head. Fur no reason.” Despite what he’d said, Shu wouldn’t hesitate to do just that if it were necessary. He’d already destroyed Baldr during the King of Destruction job quest, and if the rematch against Abyss Shellder pushed him to, he would most certainly do it again.

“Thanks a lot fur fixing up my ship, though,” Shu said. There was still the possibility that Abyss Shellder would attack first and without warning, so Shu really did appreciate having his ship ready for battle.

“I won’t forgive you for messing up my Atlantis, but we need you for the fight. So yeah.” Atlantis—Rusalka’s spare ship. Seelica was the one who took care of it, and it was functionally her property. With how often they used it as bait, though, its maintenance costs were generally covered by the clan fund. In this battle, Shu had destroyed basically all the armaments she had equipped on it. Since they had been completely obliterated and were more of an add-on than an integral part of the ship, even her Embryo couldn’t bring them back. This frustrated her a bit, and she did want to fix her ship as soon as possible, but she also thought that giving priority to Baldr was probably the better move for both Rusalka and the adventure fleet.

“Thank you beary much. We all need to be ready as soon as possible,” Shu said as he looked at the ship floating next to Baldr—the Adventure II.

While Baldr was being repaired, the crew were all preparing in their own ways. The JotA had been taken out onto the deck, and Shu could see them attaching something to it.

“Shouldn’t you head down?” Seelica asked. “They’re holding a briefing for the upcoming fight, aren’t they?” While those on the Adventure II’s deck were busy with physical preparations, in the meeting room below, they were discussing the upcoming final battle against Abyss Shellder. CQ—Rusalka’s comms expert—had even connected them to Granvaloa, enabling a joint meeting involving all the fleets.

“That’s exactly why I’m up here,” Shu said. “The briefing will cover Granvaloa’s reserve forces, not to mention all kinds of other classified stuff. I’m the top-ranking Master of anofur country, so if I participate, they’d really have to watch what they say.”

As proven by how little Shu had known about Rusalka prior to facing them, there were many things countries tried to keep secret. This was true for every one of them.

Shu himself knew something about Altar that was top secret by any measure—something so secret that the only other person who knew it was the now-imprisoned King of Crime.

Though, even if Shu tried to tell someone that Altar’s third princess was The Evil, it’s likely nobody would believe him.

“So, yeah. Since I’m not down in the den, I’ve got nothing to do, so... I’m just keeping watch while waiting fur the repairs.”

“That so?” Seelica remarked.

Shu had already told Riella his conjecture about Abyss Shellder and how it might be defeated. By now, she was probably presenting that to everyone else, probably accompanied by Granvaloan classified information that Shu had no way of knowing.

Since he had nothing better to do, he’d decided to just stand next to Seelica and watch the repairs. After all, he usually repaired Baldr by just returning the Embryo to its crest, so actually seeing the work was somewhat of a new experience.

“Well, not like we’ll get any chance to relax like this once the fight begins,” said Seelica. “Now’s the best time to get in the right state of mind for it... Though, our Schatten is already scared out of her wits.”

“It sounds like we need her, so she’ll have to grin and bear it.”

Schatten was the sixth Rusalka member aboard Siren. While the other five were a fairly consistent presence, Vanessa and Ursula picked a sixth from among their several dozen clan members, depending upon their objective. Schatten had been given the honor this time.

The role weighed heavily on her, though, and she was currently holed up in her room, repeating “toi, toi, toi” as she knocked on the table. That was a German expression said to ward off the devil, who was jealous of every success. Basically, it was a little spell against failure, similar to the English practice of touching or knocking on wood or the Japanese practice of drawing the kanji for “person” on one’s palm and pretending to swallow it.

After talking about various things, Shu and Seelica eventually began to just watch Baldr’s repairs in silence.

But then, something came to Shu’s mind.

“Just an off-paw question, but... Why ‘Atlantis’?”

“Hm?”

“The name of your ship.”

Rusalka’s cruiser bore a mythological name as though it were an Embryo. “Atlantis” had made Shu think of Mu—another lost civilization that had given its name to Satomi’s Embryo—and he’d wondered if Seelica was trying to express her opposition to Satomi and his status as the leader of the top clan.

“Oh, I got it from an animated movie I saw on this old disk my grandma had,” she said.

“Oh...” Shu did recall that some company famous for its theme parks had made a film like that at some point.

“I do all the maintenance on the ship, so they let me pick the name, and I just went with that.”

“I see. Speaking of names, what’s your Embryo? It’s doing wonders fur my Baldr, so I should know that much,” Shu said.

He noticed Seelica’s expression become a bit stiff as she wrung out, “... Mu.”

Shu said nothing in response. Her Embryo was based on the same thing as that military nerd’s, so he couldn’t help but think that maybe “Atlantis” was actually intended to antagonize him after all.

◇◇◇

South Sea, Adventure II

Currently, there were five people in the Adventure II’s meeting room—Adventure Fleet Commander Riella, her advisor Asam, Vanessa, Ursula, and CQ. The latter three were all members of Rusalka and CQ was their comms expert. Using her magic, she enabled simultaneous and mutual communication between this vessel, Granvaloa, and the Seventh Seabed Excavation Fort located elsewhere in the South Sea. The result was reminiscent of a real-world video call, and holograms of four more people shimmered into view.

These new additions were Military Fleet Commander Morgan Granright, Merchant Fleet Commander Nash Var Grandleft, and two additional Superiors—Antimicrobic Soy Sauce and Miroslava Swampman.

With the exception of the sickly navarch and pirate fleet commander, as well as the Edwards spouses who were still flying around somewhere, this meeting involved all of Granvaloa’s most powerful, both politically and in terms of combat capability.

“I’ll start with an apology. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you and ran off like this.”

That was the first thing Riella said the moment the comms were established.

“You should be. You’ve probably shaved a decade off my life with your shenanigans,” the military fleet’s Morgan said with a scolding tone, though his expression also betrayed some relief that she was safe.

“Well, knowing whose child you are, I am not at all surprised,” said Nash. He had been a friend of Riella’s late mother and father, and his words carried a hint of nostalgia. “Though, Melisande was very worried too. Do pay her a visit and reassure her.”

“Sorry again... But I can’t go back yet. Not until we beat the Abyss Shellder.”

“Riella,” said Morgan. His voice was stern, but Riella continued regardless.

“Please hear me out. If we don’t defeat this thing right away, it’s going to be too late.”

“What?”

In response to Riella’s words, Asam made several documents appear on the room’s walls—this was the data acquired by Satomi as well as the photos taken by Baldr.

Riella used these to present Shu’s theories, making sure to respect his secret identity and refer to him by job rather than name.

As she continued, the expressions on those listening began to change.

“...So all those Mocks are split off directly from Abyss Shellder,” Morgan said with a bitter frown.

“I hardly want to believe that, but it seems we have to face the facts,” said Nash, clearly tense.

“The Edwards spouses said something similar,” Morgan added.

“Oh? Did those two see something?” Vanessa asked.

“Yes,” he nodded. “They said they finally found Abyss Shellder...” The Edwards—the fastest duo in Granvaloa—had recently spotted the UBM and sent in a text report about it. “According to them... It was eating a Mock.” Riella’s eyes widened, and Morgan continued. “After that, it just disappeared into the sea. I thought it was just infighting among various monsters, but King of Destruction’s information paints a different picture.”

The split had used Predatory Absorption to secure valuable body parts, which Abyss Shellder had then taken for itself. Additionally, the influx of unnecessary parts most likely caused it to create another split.

“If that is correct, then the rate of predation increases every time the individual splits consume another monster,” said Nash. “It’s a real spelltree overgrowth...or they’re ‘multiplying like rats,’ as you Masters would say.”

“That explains the increase in Mocks,” Antimicrobic Soy Sauce whispered. He’d defeated many of them and had felt this change himself. “It grows stronger the more it eats, and the rate at which it grows stronger is increasing too...”

“That’s right,” said Riella. “We gotta kill it as soon as possible. Before it spreads to the other seas... No... The rest of the world.”

There was still time to stop it. With the secret of Abyss Shellder’s invincibility exposed, they had something that was just barely capable of beating it, while its splits could all be taken care of by Granvaloa’s forces. But if it obtained any more power than it already had, it would quickly grow beyond the country’s capabilities.

If that happened, there would be no one to stop its spread throughout the seas, and once it was done with the water, it would advance toward the land. That would herald the end of the world itself.

“It does not seem that we have time to wait for Mr. Yamamoto’s revival,” said Nash. Satomi’s death penalty hadn’t expired yet.

“Time is more on its side than ours. We must act now,” Morgan concurred.

“Yeah,” said Riella. “We can’t even wait until tomorrow.”

They were not at full force yet, but if they hesitated any longer, it would all be over.

“We found out how it works today...and we’ll kill it today.”

Hearing Riella’s bold declaration, the other fleet commanders nodded.

“Let’s do this! It’s not just Granvaloa that’s in danger, but the whole world! You’re not a real soldier if you don’t get on this! Yeah! I’m gonna do it!” said Miroslava, full of energy.

“Miro makes it sound stupid, but I’m with her,” said Antimicrobic Soy Sauce, brimming with aggression and resolve. “This is a monster with the capacity to utterly destroy Granvaloa. Letting it live is not an option.”

Vanessa laughed. “We know what makes it so broken now. This’ll be a whole lot easier than last time.”

“We may not have King of Building, but we have King of Destruction,” said Ursula. “I believe we can still do this.”

“It’s decided, then. Lemme explain the plan.”

Riella went on to relay Shu’s idea for how to defeat Abyss Shellder. Some participants had doubts or concerns about this plan, but she insisted it was possible, and Asam as well as Rusalka’s Superiors all took her side.

“So the core of the plan is King of Destruction...a foreign Superior,” said Morgan.

“All of this rests on whether this person can carry out his role,” said Nash.

“I guess you just have to believe us,” said Vanessa. “But he’s the man who saw through our strategy in the first fight. He can find the path to victory even if the odds are low.”

She seemed to hold the opponent who had defeated her in very high regard, insisting that he could make his plan a success.

At this point, Miroslava spoke up. “Uhhh, can I ask something? The only participants in that plan are King of Destruction and the adventure fleet, right? What about us? What do we do?” That was the question that came to her mind upon hearing out the plan.

However, she was the only one who was confused. Antimicrobic let out a sigh, as though he couldn’t believe she’d ask such a question.

“Miro, didn’t you notice something missing from the plan?”

“Huh? But she just explained how they’d beat Abyss Shellder, right?”

“That’s right. How they’d beat Abyss Shellder’s main body.”

“Huh...? Oh!”

That was when Miroslava finally put her hand to her mouth as though she’d just realized something.

Antimicrobic looked at Riella—or perhaps through her and at KoD, the absent mastermind of this plan—and asked...

“Our job is to wipe out all the splits, right?”

It was a role perhaps more difficult than slaying the mighty Irregularity itself.

Riella responded with a nod.

“He said that when Abyss Shellder ate the splits that had powers it wanted, it called them back.” This suggested that it had some means of contacting the organisms that it had spawned and scattered around the South Sea, summoning them when they had collected quality body parts. In that case...

“If Abyss Shellder’s in actual danger, it might call them all back,” Riella said.

A brief silence ensued. Though the number of Mocks out there was unknown, with how many monsters the UBM had consumed here in the South Sea, it was bound to be massive. Definitely more than a hundred, almost certainly over a thousand, and perhaps as many as ten thousand—an enormous army of chimeras, each of them at least as strong as a dragon.

Fending off this horde while fighting the main body was simply impossible.

“Uncle Ante... We want you to watch out for the splits,” said Riella.

“Makes sense,” he replied. “And it’s a job that suits me.”

Antimicrobic Soy Sauce was strongest when fighting immense numbers on his own. If he didn’t have to worry about friendly fire, he could burn away his enemies—along with the very sea beneath them. “There’s a limit to how much area I can cover, though. If the splits come from every part of the South Sea, I won’t be able to take care of the other directions, so...” he said as he tapped Miro on the shoulder. “I’ll leave one to you. Don’t let them slip by this time.”

“R-Roger!” Miro replied, tense but motivated.

“Also... Commander Morgan. If the splits are made from parts the main body didn’t need, there’s bound to be some that fly. I’d like it if Maude and Scala took care of those.”

“Very well. I will pass this on to them. Also, all combat-ready warships that can make it to the South Sea will depart immediately. If they move at top speed, they should at least be able to reach the splits in the west side of the South Sea.”

The military fleet’s Superior and commander exchanged brief words...

“GFRS’s combat units are already active in the South Sea. I will inform them of the plan. We will also send our reserve in the capital and provide supplies to the military fleet if needed.”

The merchant fleet and Satomi’s GFRS made preparations for the final battle...

And...

“...I see I’m late.” The door to the meeting room at Granvaloa opened up, and an old man walked in. He carried a cane, and his back was bent, but the sharp light in his eyes betrayed no signs of age.

“Old Grandrear... Are you okay?” Riella asked. The old man that had finally showed himself was none other than the commander of the pirate fleet, Balthazar Grandrear—the oldest of the four commanders, and the one who’d seen the most strife.

“Hmph. I just felt a little unwell. That’s all. It wouldn’t do to embarrass myself here.”

As he was now the most senior individual present, Bathazar looked over the fellow fleet commanders, as well as Riella on the other side of the comms.

“You youngsters are easy to read. I can see it all written across your faces, plain as day. You’re planning to beat Abyss Shellder with everything you’ve got, right? You should take some of our pirates with you, then. If it’s against monsters, then even our young’uns can go all out. And take this too.”

Balthazar took out an Inventory and tossed it to Morgan.

“What is this?” Morgan asked. He was familiar with its appearance—it was an Inventory meant to store gasses and similar substances. They were mostly used as attachments for diving gear, but since they kept their contents at a consistent temperature, they could also be used for cooling or heating.

However, this one seemed to be built a bit more clumsily than others.

“It’s a parting gift from that stupid girl, Zeta.” Every pair of eyes in the room widened—all of them knew the name of King of Thieves. She’d been a Superior of the Granvaloan pirate fleet since before Miroslava had evolved, and she’d contributed greatly to the defeat of the SUBM, Twin Moby Dick.

However, she’d since stolen a national treasure and fled the country, making her a wanted criminal.

“She gave it to me before leaving,” Balthazar said. “Her words were ‘Tactical nuke. It’s sealed away in a pre-fusion state. Destroying the Inventory will blow away everything in a kilometel radius. I’ll leave it here as an apology for my departure.’”

Morgan’s face turned pale as he realized he was holding a dangerous weapon.

Nash’s expression was also strained as he whispered, “I would prefer that to be handled with care.”

The four Superiors present, who truly understood the meaning of “nuclear fusion,” were all thinking the exact same thing.

Balthazar cracked a smile, seemingly amused by their reactions. “I took it as something to remember that fool by... But there’s no better time to use it than now.”

“Old Grandrear...”

The pirate fleet no longer had a single Superior with them. That Inventory was their final remnant of a Superior’s power—and yet he’d decided to use it in this battle.

Riella was briefly struck speechless. With this, all the might of Granvaloa was consolidated in this one place.

The power of the four fleets, and their Superiors old and new, was now directed entirely toward Abyss Shellder.

“Thank you all so much.”

Riella couldn’t help but express her gratitude...

“We’ll win this...no matter what!”

...and go on to declare that their victory was all but assured.

“Yeah,” said Antimicrobic. “Leave the mobs to us. We’ll wipe them out no matter how many there are.”

“I’ll do my best too!” said Miroslava before the link to the Seventh Seabed Excavation Fort was cut.

“Make sure you come back alive.”

“I promised to teach you how to be a commander, didn’t I?”

“Heh. Mind our ages, you hear? If someone here’s going to be moving on, it ought to be me... You’d better not die.”

Entrusting Riella with their wishes in turn, each of the commanders ceased communication.

The only ones present now were the members of the adventure fleet.

“All right...”

Riella looked over at everyone’s faces...

“We’re beatin’ it for sure this time.”

...and, having surpassed the possibility of defeat, declared the outcome of the rematch.

“Aye, aye, ma’am!” the three replied in unison.

The preparations were done. Corpse Stronghold, Abyss Shellder was the most all-consuming and fiendish menace now ravaging the South Sea. It was only right that the ones to lead the charge against it would be Granvaloa’s pioneers—the adventure fleet.

The final battle was drawing near.

Interlude 8

Grandleft, GFRS Headquarters

The final battle against Abyss Shellder was drawing ever closer.

The news had reached all of Granvaloa, and the participating clans were hard at work preparing for it, with the most obvious example being the most prominent clan of all—GFRS.

“Hurry! We’ve barely got any time before the operation starts! Send out every ship you can!” Since Satomi had received the death penalty, the clan’s advisor—Melisande—had taken on the mantle of leadership.

“B-But... Many of the ships in this area are prototypes, or ones we haven’t even revealed yet!” said one of the members, unsure how to process her order. He was surrounded by others who looked just as perplexed.

GFRS had sent out most of their combat units to the South Sea by now, and their main ships were already operating there. At this point, the only ones they could send to join the military fleet were new vessels they intended to reveal in duels or prototypes that had yet to go through proper testing. Basically, they were all corporate secrets.

“We don’t know if numbers 26 to 30 are even seaworthy!”

“I looked, and they are. Or they should last at least a day, anyway, and that’s enough for the operation. You all did a great job.”

“B-But so much about them is classified! I don’t think the leader would allow this...”

“Classified? Don’t be a fool. If Satomi wer here, he’d say something like, ‘There is no better time to reveal them than now. Let us show those gruesome creatures the power of our technology. In fact, this is a perfect chance to test it!’”

“I really don’t think he—” One of the GFRS members attempted to object, but they were cut off by another member of the clan suddenly logging in.

“I have a message from our leader! ‘I permit using all the weapons we have. There is no better time to reveal them than now. Let us show those gruesome creatures the power of our technology. In fact, this is a perfect chance to test it!’”

“See?” said Melisande with a shrug.

The nearly perfect match between Melisande’s prediction and Satomi’s actual words stunned the still-hesitant clan members into silence. They weren’t sure whether to be terrified of the Appraisal Princess’s eye for people—or raise eyebrows at how well the squabbling pair managed to align themselves when it truly mattered.

Regardless, it was decided that the GFRS would support the operation with all the ships they had.

“All I can do is send our leftover forces,” Melisande said as she watched the new ships depart as quickly as they could manage. “The rest is up to you, Rielly—you and everyone else with you.”

Her words were like a prayer for the safety of her friends, fighting for their lives in the far-flung reaches of the sea.

◇◇◇

Granright, Military Fleet Headquarters

A great many vessels were currently departing from the naval port of the city-ship Granright.

The upcoming operation was bound to involve large-scale battles against hordes of Abyss Shellder’s splits, so the military fleet was cooperating with the merchant fleet to secure more equipment and with the pirate fleet to acquire the necessary crew.

However, the majority of the forces they were sending were meant to protect the capital, so while they were necessary for the operation, sending them out was something of a double-edged sword.

That fact greatly concerned Vergil Granright—the vice admiral in charge of this provisional armada. He wondered if it was truly a good idea to strip so much defensive force from the capital.

“Uncle Vergil, I will be praying for your good fortune in battle.” Coincidentally, the person in charge of the capital’s defense was standing right next to him—his niece, Berenice.

“Are you sure you’ll make do with what’s left?” Vergil asked her. “So many ships are departing, and every active member of the Seven Great Embryos is taking part in the operation. I hear that even with Mr. Yamamoto absent, GFRS is dispatching all their forces too.”

As a result, Granvaloa was left with nothing but the city-ship’s built-in defense equipment, the tians operating that system, and any Masters who were not taking part in the operation—most of whom were noncombatants.

Berenice herself had determined this to be the bare minimum level of defense for the capital, and she would stay here to ensure its safety.

But while Vergil worried about the lack of forces at her disposal, she herself didn’t seem the least bit concerned.

“We have Peddy too,” she said. “I believe we can last a few days, at least.”

“But even with the newest The Ocean, you—”

“Granvaloa’s current top priority is hunting down Abyss Shellder. There’s no need for you to worry. We will keep this country safe until our ships return.”

There wasn’t a hint of hesitation in Berenice’s words. Her will was set, and she spoke only the truth. Abyss Shellder was a menace that grew with every passing moment, and it had to be dealt with—thus, she believed that the provisional armada needed to focus on completing the operation as quickly as possible before making an equally swift return.

“...Very well,” said Vergil. “Then let us both fulfill our duties.”

Encouraged by his niece’s words, he took the helm and led the armada toward the South Sea. Berenice remained at the dock and watched the ships until they disappeared beyond the horizon.

Once they were gone, she turned around and walked back to her office. At some point, another woman joined Berenice and was now walking by her side.

The other woman was dressed in the typical robes of a spellcaster, complete with a hood, and had Moebius rings circling her.

“Hmm...” she hummed as she gazed at Berenice’s face.

“Have something to say, Peddy?”

“You look uneasy,” replied the woman—The Ocean, Peddy Attrition. She was another cornerstone of the capital’s defense, and while her words brought no visible change to Berenice’s expression...

“How can you tell?”

...her response was as good a confirmation as any.

“Work experience from the other side,” said Peddy. “I’m a pediatrician over there—though I’m still studying.”

Berenice said nothing in response, but the very air around her made it clear she wanted to point out that she was no child.

“So? Why the poker face?” Peddy asked.

“Taking off on a mission while troubled about what you’ve left behind can negatively impact efficiency and lead to failure—especially when the fate of the country is at stake.”

“So basically, you hid your own concerns so you wouldn’t worry the people on the front lines. I’m not sure if I should call you a contrarian or just a good girl.”

“Shut up,” said Berenice, clearly displeased, as her poker face crumbled just a bit.

“You hid your concerns, but you still gave them basically everything you could,” said Peddy. “Are you planning to just work harder yourself to make up for everyone while they’re gone?”

Berenice said nothing, but in her silence was an obvious yes.

“Ahhh... That’s a bit of a problem for me. I’m involved in this too. You know this will leave us with more work, right?”

“You’ll be rewarded, just as we agreed. You’ll get the money and the information you want.”

“Fine, fine,” Peddy said with a sigh and a shrug, simply deciding to follow her business partner’s decision.

“And? What’s the status?” Berenice asked. “The real reason you’re here is to report something, right?”

“I’m still maintaining ‘the net.’ My magic doesn’t have the volume of the MP freak or the skill of the child-grandpa, but it surpasses them in longevity,” said Peddy, referencing The Earth and The Atmos. “I can easily deal with thousands upon thousands of ordinary monsters. As always, I just stop them, you shoot them, and it’s done. And like you said, we can keep this going for a day or two without any problems. You really don’t have to worry. I’ll protect the capital and you.”

And with that, The Ocean concluded her brief report with a confident declaration—as long as she was here, the city-ship would not sink.

“...I see,” said Berenice, her voice lightly tinged with relief.

“Anyway, time to do my job,” Peddy said. “I’ll be busy until the ships return.”

“Very well. I’ll also do my best.”

And so, the two split up and went to their respective posts.

The combatants at the South Sea needed a place to return to, and it was up to them to keep it safe.

◇◇◇

Grandrear, Grandrear Mansion

“I gave Zeta’s gift to the provisional armada and reinforced them with our pirates.”

Around the time the armada departed, Pirate Fleet Commander Balthazar Grandrear went to have a talk with his sickly son.

“I see. I also think that’s for the best, father.”

Burton had no objections to Balthazar’s decision. If he hadn’t returned the title of commander to his father, Burton surely would have done the same thing.

“We obviously couldn’t dispatch Granvaloa itself or the connected city-ships, and we can’t use Olca’s main body right now, but besides that, we sent pretty much everything we had,” said Balthazar. “It’s a real gamble, but we sure won’t make it over this wave without taking a risk or two.”

“Right...” Burton said, his hands clenching the sheets covering the bed he could hardly ever leave. It was a subtle expression of shame at the fact that he could do nothing but lie there even as his country was weathering a heavy trial.

“Apparently, the individual helping the adventure fleet in this fight is none other than Altar’s King of Destruction,” said Balthazar, pretending not to notice his son’s emotional state.

“Oh... King of Destruction...” The bearer of that job wasn’t entirely unknown to them—they had blood relatives in Altar, after all. “He didn’t join his own country’s war... Why is he helping us in our time of need...?” Altar’s war had cost Burton his little brother’s life, so KoD’s unlikely aid in the current conflict made him feel conflicted and drove him to voice his question.

“I wouldn’t know,” said Balthazar. “King of Destruction or not, he is still a Master. He must’ve had his reasons. Though, once this is all over...it would be nice to talk to him a little.”

Balthazar believed that they could have a chat about his late son, or perhaps his son’s children.

And he was right, for Shu was indeed acquainted with Balthazar’s granddaughter, Liliana...if only because whenever Shu found himself tangled up in some kind of trouble, the two often met in the aftermath.

“That’s true... By the way, you said we sent out most of the capital’s forces... Did the navarch say anything about that?”

“Our man Marvin didn’t join the meeting, but he did give the go-ahead.” Old age had made the navarch as sickly as Burton, and yet Balthazar had still made sure to present Marvin with the details of the operation and receive his permission for it. “The man no longer has the strength to lead the fleet himself... Even throughout this entire storm, he only gave a single order.”

“That being...?”

“We are to protect the Seventh Seabed Excavation Fort at any cost.”

“That one?” Burton already knew that two Superiors had been sent to safeguard the newly discovered ruins, which happened to be in the South Sea. However, this was the first he’d heard of it being an order from the navarch himself.

“It did have me wondering,” Balthazar said. “The Seventh is so new that we haven’t explored it fully, and the devastation of the adventure fleet did put those efforts on hold. Its location in the South Sea suggests that it’s important, and it’s not exactly a base that can be relocated. Still, I wasn’t sure if it was really worth stationing two Superiors there. But now you tell me that’s all because the navarch made defending those ruins a priority?”

Though illness had forced him to resign from his post as commander, Burton had once been the leader of a fleet. In fact, it was because he’d been stripped of his duties that he’d sought a way to contribute to the fleet even from his bed, eventually choosing to gather information through Olca and analyze it to their benefit.

However, what he’d been told just now raised more questions than answers. In fact, it made him suspect that these actions had not been taken for the good of Granvaloa.

“This is just a hunch, but...” Balthazar went on, seeing his son frowning in suspicion. “The order to protect the Seventh didn’t come from Marvin himself.”

“Wh-What do you mean?”

“Right before he gave the order, an old and familiar face stopped by at our capital here. It’s someone Marvin and I have known for half a century...and someone we’re quite indebted to. The time period lines up, so it must’ve been his call.”

Balthazar’s words left Burton somewhat perplexed. It was as though he was suggesting that the navarch wouldn’t have ordered the defense of the Seventh if it weren’t for this person he was alluding to.

“Who exactly are you talking about?” Burton asked.

“The Atmos, Snusmumriken,” Balthazar answered, his voice heavy. Burton’s eyes widened. It was a name he knew well—and he knew the gravity of it.

The Atmos. There were countless jobs, but few were as significant as this one.

Granvaloa had once been home to a tian called “The Ocean,” whose title was passed on to a Master of this same country, Peddy Attrition.

The far-flung land of Caldina had “The Earth,” a Superior currently known as the “Magical Apex.”

However, “The Atmos” had perhaps more weight than even the two of them combined.

After all, Snusmumriken was a living witness—a member of a long-lived race who’d been alive since the time of the war between the pre-ancients and the Extra-Continental Vessel.

For all of known history, no one else had ever held the title of The Atmos. He’d been a Superior job longer than anyone else, and there was no doubt that no one in the world possessed a deeper understanding of magic.

“But why would The Atmos...?”

“Beats me. I don’t know that much about it either.”

If The Atmos would go out of his way to request the defense of the Seventh, there must’ve been something important about it.

Just what exactly could be found beyond its bulkheads—under its lids?

Or rather—what exactly were these ruins they’d found and named?

Burton felt a deep chill—one that was clearly not caused by his sickly state.

“Whatever he’s planning, we’ll just do what we must. We’ll make it over this wave and arrive at a new tomorrow. That’s what Granvaloa is all about.”

“...Right.” The father and son then gazed upon the expansive horizon outside the window, imagining the fatal battle in the South Sea.

Act 10: Operation Southern Cross

Central South Sea

South of the continent, in an area near the exact middle of the South Sea, there sailed a trio of vessels: the adventure fleet’s Adventure II, Shu’s Baldr, and Rusalka’s Siren.

While Siren was a submarine, the waters here were only about five hundred metels deep, forcing them to move on the surface.

The Adventure II was in between the other two vessels, and on its bridge, there was Riella.

“Ursula,” she said. “What’s the status of our surroundings?”

“The area has been cleared of Mocks. Our scans aren’t picking up anything more. We are free to proceed with the operation.”

“Any word from the other fleets, old-timer?”

“Mrs. Edwards has reported that the Superiors have already arrived at their designated positions. Mr. Antimicrobic Soy Sauce is in the area to the east, while Miss Swampman is to the north. Mrs. and Mr. Edwards themselves are patrolling the surrounding skies.”

“And to the south and the west?”

“The south has GFRS, as well as the Masters who were already hunting Abyss Shellder here. As for the west, there’s the capital’s provisional armada. They have not yet arrived, but they are on their way.”

All together, Granvaloa had five core forces here in the South Sea: the adventure fleet in the center and one in each of the four cardinal directions. This was all part of the operation meant to fight and finally defeat Abyss Shellder—their positioning was intended to stop any of its splits from coming to its aid.

“...‘Operation Southern Cross,’ huh?” This name, which referenced their cross-like positioning, had been coined by none other than Shu.

Riella did not understand why he’d chosen that name, but according to Shu, the world Masters disappeared to—“Earth,” as it was called—had a cross-shaped constellation in its night sky.

Part of a group of constellations, it was the smallest of them all, but it never disappeared from the southern sky, and it had guided countless sailors throughout the ages.

As the upcoming operation against Abyss Shellder would decide the fate of this entire ocean, Shu had thought it a fitting namesake.

“...Deep down, is he actually a bit of a romantic?” Riella muttered with an amused chuckle. She did feel that the bear costume he always wore made him seem better suited for fairy tales than anything as serious as this.

“Commander, our forces in the west are now prepared.”

“All right.”

At Asam’s report, Riella immediately switched her focus.

“Vanessa, you ready?”

“We are. Schatten! Let’s do this!”

“R-R-Right...!” A rather timid and gloomy-looking girl replied to Vanessa’s address. She was the one they’d chosen as the sixth member to board Siren this time, and with the operation about to begin, she was nearly losing her mind with worry. The ritual seemed to have done little to help.

“Don’t mess up now,” said Vanessa. “If you do, all this positioning will be meaningless. We’ll wind up back at square one and we’ll have to search for Abyss Shellder all over again.”

As proven by its ability to approach without being spotted by Satomi’s many sensors, Abyss Shellder possessed a large array of stealth skills. The adage of “First Look, First Shot, First Kill” did not apply to it whatsoever.

However, Schatten was the key to allowing the adventure fleet to strike first.

“Ohhh dear... What a big responsibilityyy...” Having been told that her actions could decide the fate of all Granvaloa, Schatten’s eyes began to fill with tears as she summoned her Embryo.

What appeared were two boxes, reminiscent of Japanese wicker clothes baskets. One was small, the other large, and while the former was white, the latter was black.

This was her Embryo—Varied Weal and Woe, Shita-Kiri Suzume.

As the name suggested, it was based on the Japanese fable of the same name, whose title roughly translated to “The Sparrow with the Slit Tongue.” In it, the small basket contained treasure, while the large basket unleashed a variety of deadly creatures.

Thus, the Embryo’s core theme was randomly summoning either items or monsters. Its ultimate skill was “As Rope Twists Weal and Woe—Shita-Kiri Suzume.” It could only be used once a week, and had three stages.

First, the user had to pick one of ten threat levels.

Second, the large basket opened, releasing a monster that had to be defeated.

Third, the small basket opened, granting an item.

Upon hearing how it worked, Shu couldn’t help but notice that the baskets were opened in a different order in the original story, but that wasn’t important. It only meant that the user could not obtain the reward if they failed to overcome the monster first.

What was actually important in this case was that the monsters and items weren’t created from nothing, but randomly summoned from the surrounding area based on the selected threat level.

The higher it was, the greater the area—and the greater the chance of summoning a powerful monster. With the threat level set to max, it would summon the strongest monster it could find.

Basically, its ultimate allowed the large-scale teleportation of monsters and items.

As things currently stood, this ability should’ve been able to draw in Abyss Shellder, no matter where in the South Sea it was. Since most of the local monsters had been hunted down by the UBM and its splits, it was very likely that if this Embryo’s ult was used here, it would summon the fiendish creature itself.

“By the way, what if it ends up summoning some fur-ocious UBM we don’t even know about yet?” No matter how terribly Abyss Shellder might have ravaged it, the South Sea was massive. It was unlikely that another mighty UBM might still be lying dormant nearby, but there was still a slim possibility.

“Eeek!” In response, Schatten only yelped and began to tremble.

“KoD, please do not scare her like that,” said Ursula with a sigh.

“Schatten,” said Vanessa. “Whether this works or not, we’ll handle whatever comes out. You just focus on doing your job.”

“R-Right!” The girl nodded before sprinting out of Siren’s command post.

Schatten ran down the hallway and passed the bridge to step out onto the top of the submarine before she spoke.

“A-As Rope Twists Weal and Woe—Shita-Kiri Suzume!” Having set the threat level to maximum, she activated her ultimate. A moment later, the large basket began to rumble as an ominous light leaked out of it. “I-It’s ready...! A-All that’s left is to open it!” Schatten said as she gently lowered the basket into the sea.

Ursula took over from there, diverting the currents in the area so they ran in front of the three ships.

When it was several kilometels away, Riella made one final confirmation.

“Are we all ready?” Each vessel went on to respond.

“Commander, the JotA can be fired at your order... And we received a report that the purge unit is prepared, as well,” said Asam from the Adventure II.

“There are no issues on our end either. While controlling the currents, I also placed the surrounding waters under Moses’s effect. I can use the skill at any time,” said Ursula from Siren.

“No problems here either. My ult’s good to go whenever,” Shu confirmed from Baldr’s bridge.

All of them were prepared for what was to come.

“...All right,” Riella said, pensively closing her eyes and briefly contemplating the past before opening them again and picking up a mic.

“Three months ago, the adventure fleet lost a battle against Abyss Shellder.” Asam, the members of Rusalka, and countless others had suffered a staggeringly painful defeat where they had proven powerless against Abyss Shellder—and it had only gotten stronger since that moment.

That was when Riella had lost her father, along with most of her crew losing their friends and families.

“We later sailed out to sea for revenge...only to lose again.” The Corpse Stronghold had grown far more powerful since the fleet’s first defeat, and even with the assistance of Shu and Satomi, Riella could not topple it.

Twice they had challenged it, and twice they had failed.

However, it hadn’t been for nothing. Through their second defeat, they found hope—and the possibility of victory.

“But we won’t lose a third time. This is our final battle!” Riella declared to all those present. “Let’s win this. Let’s seize this victory...and put an end to this disaster!”

Her words were followed by countless war cries, marking the beginning of the adventure fleet’s last and greatest battle here in the South Sea.

“Operation Southern Cross...commence!”

And with that, the curtain rose on their final stand.

Right as Riella made her proclamation, Ursula opened the basket floating in the water. A moment later, a strange light spewed out of it...calling forth a fiendish creature hauling a mountainous silver shell.

Riella’s eyes widened. Not a soul in the adventure fleet could have failed to recognize the beast.

It was their mark—Corpse Stronghold, Abyss Shellder.

Just as intended, the basket summoned the greatest menace in the sea.

“Ursula! You know what to do!” Shu roared as he charged with Baldr toward the UBM.

Meanwhile, Ursula, still inside of Siren, used Moses’s skill.

“K h e... K h a.” Abyss Shellder had suddenly appeared here on the surface from the depths of an entirely different part of the ocean, but it still understood exactly what had happened.

As it was an abnormality born from an Accident Circle that had whisked it away from its original home beneath Legendaria, it could tell that this teleportation was something similar—and just as there had been back then, there was prey here for it.

The warship that approached it, the two vessels that stayed behind, and perhaps even the people on board were nothing but food to Abyss Shellder, and its hunger seized full control.

Abyss Shellder was a monstrosity with impenetrable defense and countless means of attack. It was already clear from the previous battle that none of Baldr’s armaments would do anything here.

And that was why...

“There is a Path Before Me—Moses.”

...they needed Rusalka’s help.

A mere moment after Ursula used her ult, the sea parted.

With Abyss Shellder in the middle, the ocean opened up like a gargantuan pit trap, ultimately creating a circular wall of water eight thousand metels across. Instead of rising up, the surface pulled back to expose the seafloor just five hundred metels down.

The brine wall and the seabed created a circular zone that looked somewhat like a colosseum—an arena for the conflict to come.

And now, a battleship was charging toward the stage.

Hovering at full power, it soared off the edge of the water wall and plummeted toward the seabed.

“Unmatched God of War—Baldr.”

But as it fell, the battleship’s form changed drastically.

Its prow became its legs, the main cannon its arms, a face emerged from its bridge, and finally, it assumed a humanoid shape. Instead of a vessel, it now looked much like a person—or perhaps a god.

With its massive limbs, the god landed on the now-dry sea floor.

This form was Baldr’s strongest card—its Full Offense Mode. It now stood upon solid ground, the very image of a deity wrought in metal.

Hardened by the immense pressure of the ocean above it, the ground could support Baldr’s weight. Ursula was capable of giving Shu an environment where he could easily fight in his ultimate form, and that was why Riella had said she was necessary.

“K h e k h a k h a!”

However, the steel god didn’t scare Abyss Shellder one bit.

This wouldn’t be its first time fighting a large humanoid, after all—and that opponent had fallen, become part of Abyss Shellder, and now wandered the sea as one of its Mocks.

Because of this, Abyss Shellder didn’t see Baldr as anything more than food.

It was certain that the steel god charging toward it was only capable of feeble resistance. Thus, it would welcome the giant with its silver shell—its invincible defense, empowered by countless resistances.

Indeed—the Corpse Stronghold’s shell was invincible. It had remained unbroken even as it weathered the assaults of countless human weapons, Embryo skills, and the fury of other monsters.

However, Abyss Shellder had no idea that there was no one in the world more destructive than Shu, King of Destruction.

Though it might have known how to fight large humanoids...

...it knew nothing of the opponent that now faced it.

“Shinen.” A move called “branch twister”—a spiraling fist of steel that shattered the supposedly invincible shell.

It was accompanied by King of Destruction’s ultimate skill, Right of Destruction.

The slime-shell should’ve been immune to physical damage, and still it was shattered into motes of light.

This was the first obvious damage the Corpse Stronghold had suffered since it had assumed this form.

“K h... K h a?!” Deep within Abyss Shellder, enslaved by its hunger—within its mind, normally suppressed by instinct—there was now a tiny spark of shock and fear. Even a human could see its panic, and it didn’t escape Shu’s notice.

“‘Invincible,’ huh?” Shu said. Within the steel god, having changed his Mythical MVP reward from bear costume to godcloth, he spoke to the creature.

“Listen up... Anyone who’s called ‘Invincible’ is just begging to get their ass kicked someday.”

Facing the monstrosity deemed impossible to defeat by countless people, monsters, and even the Control AIs, Shu flatly stated that nothing could remain invincible forever.

“And for you, that ‘someday’ has just arrived.”

Shu assumed a combat stance, and the steel god moved in sync with him. Then, he faced Abyss Shellder...

“You must be real proud of your invincibility...but King of Destruction’s here to smash it into pieces.”

...and issued his royal decree.

King of Destruction had set his sights on the invincible fiend.

◇◆◇

Western South Sea

Nearly a hundred vessels sped from Granvaloa toward the South Sea. This was the provisional armada composed of members from both military and pirate fleets of the great naval nation—many of them Masters.

Unlike those who were already in the South Sea, this armada risked not being fast enough to arrive on time for the operation, but some Masters present had ultimates and limited-use skills that allowed them to speed up travel. The armada thus arrived at its destination in only half a day.

“Admiral! The adventure fleet has commenced the operation! They have successfully summoned and engaged the target!” an operator reported.

“We’re past the first stage, then. On to the next one...” said Vergil Granright.

The vice admiral, now serving the role of admiral for the provisional armada, kept his wits sharp as he took up a comms device.

“Valued compatriots, this is Vergil Granright, leader of this armada. I will explain the operation one more time.”

Military fleet, pirate fleet, and GFRS’s latest constructions—he called out to every tian and Master on every ship in the armada.

“About four hundred nautical miles away from this vessel, the adventure fleet has begun their battle against Abyss Shellder.”

On Earth, four hundred nautical miles was a substantial distance. But in the seas of Infinite Dendrogram, where aquatic creatures that could move nearly at the speed of sound weren’t terribly uncommon, that was little more than a stone’s throw away.

“Our goal is to stop anything that would get in their way—namely, Abyss Shellder’s splits. It’s likely they will gather to aid the main body. We must eradicate every ‘Abyss series’ monster the instant we spot it and ensure the adventure fleet concludes their operation! We must hold the line a mere half an hour at most! That is our mission!”

The people on the ships began using their enemy scan spells and Embryo skills. The sonars and radars on the ships were also working at full capacity—not even a minnow could pass by unnoticed.

Soon enough, a spotter had something to report.

“Ah! We’ve located some large creatures nearby! They’re scattered...but they’re all advancing eastward!”

“They’re on the move already...!” During the briefing, they’d estimated that Abyss Shellder would call the splits when it sensed it was in danger. However, it was summoning them already, even though the battle had just begun, and its defeat was by no means a certainty. This was because Shu’s Right of Destruction had partially annihilated its shell, causing Abyss Shellder to recognize him as a threat like none it had ever faced.

Perhaps if it had human-level intelligence, it might’ve considered the downsides of summoning every one of its scattered splits and decided against it, but as it acted solely on instinct, Abyss Shellder took what it felt was the quickest and best course of action.

“All vessels! Separate into your designated groups and hunt down every single one of those Abyss monsters!”

At Vergil’s order, the provisional armada split into four groups. Three of these took a position to the east, northeast, and southeast of the armada’s initial location, placing them at the border of the western area they currently occupied and the central South Sea zone that had already been cleaned up by the adventure fleet. Composed of the speedy new GFRS vessels, this group was meant to pursue any splits that managed to slip through their front line.

The remaining ships stayed where they were, assumed a formation with the military fleet at its center, and prepared to face the splits heading from the west.

“First wave incoming! There’s over fifty of them!”

“Ninety degrees starboard! Ready all broadside cannons!” The flagship quickly turned as the magic cannons comprising its main battery began charging up.

Soon after, a twisted horde as chaotic as it was massive appeared over the horizon—Abyss Shellder’s splits had arrived.

“FIRE!”

Vergil’s shout prompted nearly thirty vessels to unleash all the firepower they had, accompanied by long-ranged Embryo skills from their decks.

That alone shattered the bodies of a great many Mocks, turning them into light.

However, one that survived the bombardment quickly closed in on the ships.

“LET’S GOOO!”

Suddenly, a Master who was clearly a melee combatant specialist lunged toward the split and slashed it with the blade clutched in his hand. The Type Arms weapon instantly severed it in two, and right before the Master fell in the water, another Master cracked a fishing reel like a whip, caught him, and reeled him back onto the deck.

Culling their numbers with long-range attacks and having their vanguard Masters finish off any that managed to draw near the ships—this was the armada’s core strategy.

“The first Abyss wave is destroyed!”

“The second one entered our scanning range! Two minutes until they’re in range!” The splits were as numerous as they were swift, though. Their speed and numbers served as shadowy proof of just how many creatures Abyss Shellder had ravaged here in the South Sea.

“Continue intercepting! Don’t let even one of them make it through!”

However, the armada didn’t falter. They couldn’t, for they helped carry the fate of Granvaloa on their shoulders.

Just as the Mocks were putting their lives on the line to defend the main body, so were these sailors giving their all to hold them at bay.

Granvaloa and Abyss Shellder—two great powers that called the sea their home, both doing everything they could to ensure they had a future.

And this was happening in other areas, as well...

◇◆◇

Northern South Sea

In the area of the sea north of where the adventure fleet was fighting Abyss Shellder, about four hundred metels below the surface, lurked a giant robot quite unlike Shu’s Baldr.

It was Miroslava Swampman’s Superior Embryo, and it was a Type Gear bearing the name of Vodyanoy—a water spirit said to be capable of shape-shifting.

“They just keep on coming!” Miroslava herself sat in the cockpit within its head, where the information gathered from the robot’s optical, audio, and thermal sensors was consolidated onto a monitor system that showed her the scope of the split horde.

At the same time, Vodyanoy’s vision-guided targeting system fixed on one of the splits.

She pulled the trigger, firing a few dozen torpedoes from the robot’s shoulders. Guided by visual feedback, they all struck the chimera, quickly shattering it into glittering bits of light.

“All right!”

“Another one is approaching from behind.” At Vodyanoy’s warning, Miroslava pointed the robot’s right arm directly behind her, its mechanical joints handling the movement with ease.

Its forearm then seemed to expand, revealing a Gatling gun that surrounded the robot’s entire arm. It spun far more quietly than such a massive weapon ought to before firing projectiles from every barrel—not bullets, but elongated metallic fléchettes.

The ensuing storm filled the approaching frog-like split with holes and quickly turned it into more motes of light.

“There’s more of them than I thought...!” Miroslava said, panting. “Noy! How much ammo have we got left?”

“Forty-five Guided Torpedoes. Five Fléchette Gatling cartridges.”

“Waaahhh! We should’ve made more!” While a giant robot Embryo just like Baldr, Vodyanoy didn’t have the absurd number of features that Baldr did. While Baldr changed forms with every evolution, Vodyanoy had been a robot from the start and simply grown bigger and more powerful. The only ammo it could create were the aforementioned Fléchette Gatling cartridges and Guided Torpedoes.

In exchange, it had great offensive, defensive, and movement capabilities, while also being cheaper to deploy than Baldr. Overall, it functioned as a highly reliable solo combat-type Superior Embryo.

In a defensive battle such as this, though, Baldr’s wide-scale extermination ability would’ve certainly come in handy.

“Where’s the next chimera?!”

“Five hundred metels ahead. Number: one.” Vodyanoy displayed an image on the monitor system, showing the giant humanoid chimera that was now approaching them.

Miroslava quickly fixed her sights on it and fired the torpedoes twice in quick succession. They soon struck their target, and the shock wave traveled through the water to shake Vodyanoy and the image in its monitors.

“Next!”

“Warning: the target is still active.”

“Huh?!”

A moment later, the giantlike chimera emerged from the bubbles created by the underwater explosion, its form clearly visible as the monitor stabilized.

However, its appearance had greatly changed.

Its body was now covered in bulky armor, though it looked more like the bronze man Talos of Greek mythology than a robot like Vodyanoy.

The monster’s got armor? From where? And when...?! As Miroslava puzzled over this, the humanoid chimera closed the distance between them and threw an armor-clad punch at Vodyanoy.

The impact rattled the robot’s frame, but Miroslava quickly recovered and maneuvered the robot to fire its Fléchette Gatling at point-blank range.

However, the giant chimera’s armor deflected every projectile.

“This one’s really tough!” Miroslava then chose to back away and once again fire the shoulder’s Guided Torpedoes.

They landed again, and through the bubbles, Miroslava was able to clearly see the explosion shatter part of its armor—as well as its instant regeneration.

Her eyes widened, but it didn’t even end there.

The giant chimera’s armor was different than it had been a moment ago, as there were now giant claws on its forearms, clearly meant for offense.

“Wh-What kind of monsters do you mix to make this?!” Just barely dodging the claws, Miroslava activated Vodyanoy’s magic rocket boosters—which looked much like aquatic motors—and charged in for a punch.

The humanoid chimera’s body shook at the impact, but it appeared to have suffered very little actual damage.

“First the armor, now these stats... It’s not a normal Mock!”

The creature was suffering some internal damage with every attack, but as the fight went on, every strike only made its armor grow in size and become better geared for offense.

“Conjecture. Confirmed the activation of an alchemy-like skill. It generates metal using seawater as its base.”

“Huh?! That’s like...Twin Moby Dick...!” Biframe White Whale, Twin Moby Dick—the SUBM that had once attacked Granvaloa. It had been a fearsome creature with the power to create its own weaponry and endlessly regenerate as long as it had an ample supply of seawater.

While the giant chimera’s actual wounds didn’t heal, and it wasn’t generating anything that could be called an actual weapon, it was obviously using a skill no normal monster could possess.

“Is it a...?” The creature’s powers sparked two concerning questions in Miroslava’s mind: What was this chimera made of, and how many more were created the same way?

“The others are in danger...!”

◇◆◇

Western South Sea

Although they’d sustained some damage, the armada in the west had managed to hold back the second wave too.

“The second wave has been eradicated.”

“All vessels, run damage control and reload your weapons,” Vergil ordered. “Any sign of the third wave?”

“There is, though it seems slower than the second. We estimate it will be ten minutes until they arrive.”

Each and every split was rushing toward Abyss Shellder as fast as they could. Because of this, there was barely any cooperation between them, and they either arrived in waves that arose naturally from their initial positions and differences in speed, or simply as scattered individual units. This could be seen in the fact that the second wave was generally slower than the first. They compensated for this lack of speed with high endurance, though, so exterminating the next wave took a bit longer.

They would’ve been far more dangerous if they had all come at once. Had the splits coordinated their approach, the long-range attacks wouldn’t have destroyed enough of them, and the armada would’ve suffered greatly.

“Ten minutes...” That was slightly earlier than the time given to them by the adventure fleet. Vergil hoped that they would defeat the main body before the third wave arrived.

But then...

“Something new has entered our scan range! It’s fast!”

“It’s supersonic! The speed is...three times the speed of sound?!”

...he heard the reports—borderline screams—from the spotters.

“There’s a lone chimera coming in from the northeast! Separate from the third wave!”

“The northeast?! But that’s where the second group went!”

“They... We can’t contact them!” Only ten or so minutes had passed since the armada had separated into four groups, and yet that was enough time for one of them—a group of vessels numbering in the double digits—to be sunk completely.

And according to the spotters, this had been done by but a single chimera.

“Could it be Abyss Shellder...? No, the adventure fleet still has it occupied.”

“It’s entered our visual range and— Ah?!” A spotter reported that the chimera in question was now visible, but the shock of the sight left him speechless. “What in the...!”

Vergil turned to the direction given to him by the spotters and saw the creature with his own eyes.

No—saw wasn’t the right word. He could only confirm that it had passed by.

By the time he turned to look, the chimera had already flown past one of the vessels.

As it did, it struck through it.

The hole the monster had opened in the ship split the entire vessel in two, and the subsequent explosion set its remains ablaze. The chimera responsible had already disappeared into the other side of the horizon.

“That’s...!” Though only for a moment, its large body enabled Vergil to see its true form—that of an avian chimera.

“The target is turning! It’s charging into our armada again!” Another report screamed out from the comms device.

There was clear intention in the chimera’s movements. Rather than rushing to aid the main body, it prioritized breaking the wall of ships that was keeping the other splits at bay.

“Intercept it! Aim in that direction and begin bombardment!” Vergil’s order spurred every ship to go on the offensive. Hitting a target moving at such a speed was difficult, so he intended to welcome it with a wide-scale barrage. They’d lost one ship, and some had been rendered incapable of attacking by that first assault, but still, there were twenty vessels ready to fire.

“Release the GFRS air mines too!” Vergil also ordered them to use GFRS’s antiair weapon—the air mines that even Satomi had used on New Yamato.

With so many vessels peppering the air with mines, most were certain that even the supersonic chimera would have trouble passing through unharmed.

“K E E E E E E E E E E!”

But then, as if mocking the very idea, the avian creature flew straight into the storm of gunfire and cloud of mines. Countless shells pierced it, and a wall of explosions blocked its path.

However, the chimera broke through this aggressive defense without even losing a feather. Using the momentum from its charge, it went on to pierce two vessels and sink them both.

Vergil’s eyes widened as the operator reported, “The attacks landed...but had no effect! A-Admiral...!”

The operator sounded confused, but Vergil could clearly see why.

Upon charging toward the ships, the chimera had formed a barrier around itself.

Defensive magic? No! If anything, it’s an offensive power! It creates a high output veil of energy that overwhelms and crushes all that approaches it! But...the South Sea has no native monsters with skills like that... Being a member of the Granright family, which was tasked with handling Granvaloa’s military affairs, Vergil had a good grasp of the types of monsters that lived in the South Sea, and he had no memory of any that could create barriers of this nature.

“Wait!” That was when he came upon an answer.

“Was it made...using UBM parts?!”

In hindsight, this wasn’t unexpected. Abyss Shellder had ravaged the South Sea. It only made sense that it would’ve fought other UBMs in the process, and just like with the clam UBM it had consumed and subsumed, it had acquired the unique features of those other UBMs as well. Deeming some of these unnecessary, it had chosen instead to use them as a base for chimeras that matched—if not surpassed—the UBMs from which they were created.

This winged chimera was the Abyss Outwing, or Abyss OW, and it was the result of grafting avian body parts onto a UBM with a high output barrier skill.

Destructive wings that denied all those outside their barrier—were it still a UBM, it would certainly be ranked near the top of Ancient Legendary.

“This is bad!” Panic began to spread across Vergil’s face—and not just because this would be difficult for the armada and its Masters to deal with.

His concern was the same one Miroslava had voiced up north.

“There could be more!” If this Abyss OW was a split created from a UBM... If Abyss Shellder could use UBMs as materials...

...then there were bound to be several of these in each area of the South Sea.

◇◆◇

Eastern South Sea

When the adventure fleet commenced their operation, Antimicrobic Soy Sauce was all by his lonesome, standing on the sea.

In his left hand, he held a chain extending into the water, and in his right was an unlit cigarette. Beneath his feet, there was what looked like a small platform.

This platform was a type of special equipment he had, and it assisted him in his battles at sea.

While he had the job of Great Admiral, which enhanced the power of armadas, he himself rarely led any groups of ships. This was because this SJ and his Superior Embryo had little synergy.

He was not entirely satisfied with this state of affairs. However, Antimicrobic had inherited this job from the previous Great Admiral—Morgan’s father, who had been a dear friend of his despite their difference in age. After the previous Great Admiral had died in an SUBM attack, Antimicrobic had taken on this job as a memento.

This wasn’t the only thing he’d inherited from him, though.

“They’re here.” He shifted his gaze up to see countless chimeras approaching from the east. He had no means of knowing this, but their numbers were three times greater than that of the first wave that had attacked the provisional armada in the west. This didn’t even include the ones that weren’t visible from the surface—the many splits that swam beneath the waves, through the sea itself.

Being at the top of Granvaloa’s kill rankings, Antimicrobic also noticed that some of the monsters had body parts he didn’t recognize. It only took a moment for him to realize what that meant.

“New species...? No. UBMs, huh?” Indeed—just like the giant in the north and the avian creature in the west, there were several chimeras present that had been made using UBM body parts.

Perhaps because this location was far from the heart of Granvaloa and couldn’t be cleared of monsters as easily, or perhaps because Antimicrobic was currently close to the seas around Tenchi, an area known for its powerful monsters. Whatever the case, the chimera forces here in the eastern South Sea were far greater than the rest.

And yet, only a single person stood against them—Antimicrobic Soy Sauce.

He was outnumbered to such an extent that the struggle to come ought to barely qualify as a battle.

Still, he stood on the waves without flinching. His eyes were fixed on the swarm charging toward him—no, charging to the aid of Abyss Shellder.

However, his ears then picked up a certain sound.

It was the call of some creature, but it sounded almost like a sneer.

Was it just an animalistic noise that happened to resemble a scornful laugh? Or was there a split here made using intelligent monsters that was now using what remained of its mind to mock the lone man attempting to stand in their way? Perhaps it was simply laughing at how frail humans were compared to the vastness of the sea and its fearsome creatures.

There was no telling which of these was true...

“What are you laughing at?”

...but that didn’t change his plans.

“Does it look like the odds are against me? Or are you delusional enough to think you’re about to deal a blow to the ocean itself? To Granvaloa?”

He wasn’t raising his voice, but his words might have reminded a listener of a lava flow ready to burst from an active volcano.

The boiling point of this man’s anger, however, was far lower than that of rock—especially when dealing with the enemies of Granvaloa.

“You shouldn’t make light of us, fodder.”

Thus, he paired his words with an attack.

Forming the fingers of his right hand into a gun, he pretended to fire at one of the chimeras.

“...G E H?” A moment later, the monster at the front of the swarm—a special split made using UBM parts—found that a circular hole had opened up in its chest.

Its now-detached head watched as its body sank into the sea, and both halves were transformed into motes of light.

“Three shots, one hit. You went a bit to the right. Adjust.”

“Okay, daddy.” Antimicrobic’s words were met with a response from the thing he was standing on.

Looking down, one might notice that the platform he was standing on had greatly changed. It had transformed into something like a gun battery with countless weapons mounted on it—almost like a tiny battleship.

The platform—or what had appeared to be a platform—then emerged slightly from the water, revealing itself to be a metallic baby whale.

Antimicrobic had been standing on an armed creature of the sea.

“Don’t call me ‘daddy.’ Use either ‘Master’ or ‘Ante.’”

“Okay, daddy.”

I feel like you’re not listening, Antimicrobic thought as he looked at the little whale with a raised eyebrow, but it was hard for him to press further. After all, both in terms of ability and intelligence, this young creature was still growing.

It was the Steel Whale Heir, Moby Dick Right—Antimicrobic’s reward for his part in the defeat of Twin Moby Dick. Counting as special equipment, it was a Superior MVP reward, and an autonomous weapon with the ability to grow stronger.

It was almost like the reincarnation of the monstrosity that nearly destroyed Granvaloa, and Antimicrobic regularly fed it XP—Resources—to nurture it into Granvaloa’s mightiest weapon instead, always ready to defend the naval city.

Though it was already powerful enough to obliterate the UBM chimeras in a single shot, Antimicrobic wasn’t satisfied yet.

“That one wasn’t higher than Epic tier,” he said. “Next.”

The battle against Twin Moby Dick had taken the life of Antimicrobic’s dearest friend, but he didn’t hesitate to use the monster’s remains for Granvaloa’s sake.

After all, when he inherited the friend’s job, he’d also inherited the role of Granvaloa’s protector. He couldn’t be picky about the means to that end.

“Okay. I’ll fire. I’ll fire lots!”

True to those words, Moby Dick Right continued firing. The piercing shells from its guns quickly turned many chimeras into bloody mist.

Soon enough, they began spacing themselves out to avoid the gunfire. Though technically composed of two beings, their enemy was a single unit. Dispersing themselves to avoid collateral damage was the correct move.

However...

“Spots B and F. Incendiary.”

“Okay, daddy.”

Listening to Antimicrobic’s words, the little whale switched ammo type and fired where directed. However, both of the projectiles missed all monsters, simply landing in the sea.

And then, violent explosions burst from the surface of the water.

The two locations struck by the shells detonated at the same time, each engulfing over twenty chimeras in flames. Bits of light rose from their remains, some of which were absorbed by Moby Dick Right.

By the time Antimicrobic Soy Sauce had taken up his position here, he’d already created a number of such “fuel pools.” The local tidal currents were slow, and these patches of flammable liquid were still scattered throughout his estimated combat area. Even as he fought, he continued to make more—that was why he was keeping Abura-Sumashi lowered into the water.

“G H E E E E E E E E?!”

“H H O O O O P H A A A!”

Faced with the raging inferno—a rare sight out here in the sea—the chimeras’ instincts took over, and they shrieked in panic.

Some of them tried to sniff out the fuel from the water, but that effort was pointless. Abura-Sumashi made liquids explosive but left all other traits unchanged, including their appearance and scent.

The Superior MVP reward’s firepower, combined with these fuel pools that served as traps, made this entire area into Antimicrobic’s killing zone.

“You’re no match for me alone...and Abyss Shellder is no match for Granvaloa.”

Watching the dwindling chimera horde, he made his declaration.

“The sea doesn’t belong to you consumed, conjoined, and regurgitated freaks.” His speech was directed at Abyss Shellder—the fiend that had ravaged the South Sea, produced many casualties, and left Granvaloa wounded. “It belongs to us. Bound not by flesh, but by will.”

Masters had a fundamentally transient existence here. Their opinions on whether this was a world or a game differed from person to person.

“If you would destroy Granvaloa, then I’ll use this entire ocean to burn you all to bits.”

And now, a man who had entered Infinite Dendrogram expecting a game, but now saw it as a world—a Master entrusted with his late friend’s determination—stood tall and cried out with pure clarity of purpose.

“Don’t make light of us Superiors... The Seven Great Embryos of Granvaloa.”

He spoke not only for himself, but for all his comrades scattered across the South Sea.

“Bring it on. I’ll turn all your jumbled-up parts to ash”

Showering the approaching chimera swarm in Moby Dick Right’s firepower and his own explosive flames, the strongest man in Granvaloa destroyed every last one of them—UBM or not—with a cruel sense of equality.

Not a single split from the eastern South Sea would reach the center.

◇◆◇

Northern South Sea

The UBM-based split that had appeared in the north—Abyss Alchemist Titan or Abyss AT—had been made by taking a large gorilla-like monster from the shallows and giving it parts from aquatic creatures, as well as the power of a UBM that could turn seawater into metal armor. Since Abyss Shellder itself did not need any more defensive skills, it had used this one to make a split. This was also why it had created the Abyss OW in the west.

However, Abyss Shellder had not deemed those powers unnecessary because they were weak.

The metal armor made from seawater was almost as strong as Mythical metal, making it extremely tough. Destroying it took a lot of power, and on top of that, it instantly regenerated. To top it off, it also had fins that enabled effective movement in the water and high stats that were well suited to close combat. By any measure it was a terrifying threat.

“Ngh...! I dunno how to finish it off! If only I had an ult!”

Ultimate skills were perhaps the strongest trump cards available to Embryos, yet Vodyanoy still did not possess one. While they were never guaranteed to get it during any evolution, an Embryo that still didn’t have it even after becoming Superior was a rarity indeed.

As powerful as Vodyanoy was, there was little doubt that their current predicament was the result of its lack of options for decisive action.

“Behind. Three chimeras are approaching the line of defense.”

“Ugh! You little...!” Miroslava quickly turned away from Abyss AT and fired Guided Torpedoes at the chimeras trying to advance.

They were quickly reduced to bits of light, but Vodyanoy also suffered.

“The damage to the unit has exceeded twenty percent.”

Hearing that, Miroslava silently considered her situation. Things were gradually getting worse for her—at the rate things were going, Vodyanoy would either be destroyed or be rendered unable to act fast enough to stop chimeras coming through.

She had to find a way to get rid of the greatest threat currently present—Abyss AT.

“The regenerating armor gives it higher defense than ours, while our offense is basically on the same level. As for our speed... Well, we’ve got rocket boosters, so we win there, at least, but...”

Speed alone wasn’t enough to break through Abyss AT’s inexhaustible armor.

Miroslava spent a moment thinking what options she had, ultimately finding herself looking down.

The monitor displaying the surrounding environment currently showed the layout of the seabed.

However, snaking right below her, there was a deep crack—an ocean trench.

“Noy, what’s the depth of that trench?”

“Unknown. Our scanning range is fifty thousand metels. That is the minimum depth. The maximum cannot be measured from here.”

Infinite Dendrogram’s seabed had a number of trenches like this, but they rarely saw much exploration. This was due to the existence of unknown monsters, as well as the unbearable water pressure within those depths.

Even Granvaloa had only three things that could withstand it: Rusalka’s Siren, GFRS’s deep submersible vehicles, and...

“Noy. I’m gonna take a gamble!”

“Affirmative. Thoroughly checking all parts of the unit.”

Understanding what his Master was planning, Vodyanoy also did what he had to do.

Her hands sweating, Miroslava tightly grasped the control column...

“Charge!”

...and pushed down the pedal, instantly gunning the rocket boosters to full power in order to carry the robot straight toward Abyss AT.

Grabbing the chimera with both arms, she had Vodyanoy drag it into the deep trench.

The boosters were powerful, and it didn’t take long for the light from the surface to fade into the distance. The multidirectional monitor system within the cockpit quickly lost the capacity for optical observation, switching to a green wire frame model of its surroundings based on sound and temperature data.

Soon, they had passed the three thousand metels mark. The number showing the ambient temperature dropped as the one indicating pressure only grew higher and higher. It was now hard to tell if the shocks and sounds Vodyanoy was experiencing were attacks from Abyss AT as it tried to escape the grip or signs of an impending implosion.

However, Miroslava knew that they could go deeper.

After all, Vodyanoy was an amphibious, all-rounder Superior Embryo. Its core trait was “combat in any environment,” and that included the deep sea.

During tests, we didn’t go deeper than six thousand metels...and that was when we were in top shape! This could be dangerous now that we’re damaged. But...

Miroslava couldn’t think of any other way to defeat this armored chimera other than diving into these depths. The armor didn’t cover its entire body—some parts of it were exposed to allow easier movement in the water. It was somewhat like a large fishman that merely happened to be wearing armor.

This meant that even if it was tough against blows and explosions, its defense against water pressure likely wasn’t all that impressive.

Because of that, this dive was like a game of chicken between Vodyanoy and Abyss AT—a game where the loser was whoever was crushed first.

The chimera’s mouth was open, but it couldn’t make much of a sound underwater. However, it was still struggling to break free, trying to destroy Vodyanoy and ensure its survival.

They were now five thousand metels down, and yet the creature was still alive.

As Vodyanoy was already damaged, it was starting to look like it would be the one whose strength failed first.

“Not yet!”

Even so, Miroslava held the rocket booster pedal all the way down.

Letting this enemy through would endanger the operation. She simply had to complete her task—to defend this part of the sea. It was her mission as a member of the military fleet, as one of the Seven Great Embryos, and as a Master who loved Granvaloa.

“Not yet... Not yet!”

However, despite her wishes, Abyss AT was still alive even six thousand metels deep. It was starting to seem like Abyss Shellder might’ve given it a skill that made it resistant to water pressure.

Soon after that, Miroslava heard something that was quite different from the ones she’d been hearing thus far.

“We are at seven thousand metels. Water pressure limit reached. Delving deeper may result in implosion.”

The one who had reached their breaking point first turned out to be Vodyanoy. Perhaps it could’ve gone deeper if it hadn’t been damaged—but as it was now, this was its limit.

“So this is as deep as we can go?”

“Affirmative.”

“I see.”

At Vodyanoy’s words, Miroslava closed her eyes...

“Then I’m taking another gamble!”

...and used the control column to completely invert Vodyanoy’s direction.

Still clutching Abyss AT, the robot that had been dragging the chimera to the depths was now preparing to push it back to the surface.

The creature’s instincts were overwhelmed by shock as it realized what was about to happen...

“GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

...but Miroslava roared before it could do anything.

“Limiters off. Rapid ascent.”

Responding to her call, Vodyanoy pushed the rocket boosters beyond their reasonable limits.

With a speed even greater than what they’d reached in their descent, they raced toward the surface.

This battle would be decided by who could better withstand the depths. However, those depths weren’t dangerous solely because of the immense water pressure.

The true terror was in the ascent.

In the deep ocean, creatures countered the extreme pressure by changing their own internal pressure. The fact that Abyss AT could withstand such great depths meant that it had adapted fast enough to handle the dive.

But what about the other way around?

The real danger wasn’t in the diving, but in the surfacing.

The bodies of living creatures handled decreases in water pressure far worse than increases. If external pressure fell by too much too quickly, a creature’s internal pressure would burst like a spring suddenly released after being held down.

Abyss AT was overcome with shock as the rapid ascent caused its body to change shape. The rapid drop in water pressure made the gas inside it expand, inflating it like a balloon.

Its STR alone could no longer hold itself together.

This was exactly what Miroslava gambled on.

Abyss AT was a humanoid giant—a mammal-like creature. As such, it likely had an organ analogous to lungs, and this kind of rapid ascent would destroy it.

However, Vodyanoy was close to its limit too. The two rocket boosters were starting to suffer damage, and they now seemed on the verge of exploding.

“KEEEEP FLYYYYYYIIIIINNNG!”

Still, Miroslava set aside her fear and kept her foot on the pedal.

Eventually, the robot and the chimera broke through the sea’s surface and shot into the air.

And the moment they did, Abyss AT exploded. Unable to bear the quick change in pressures, it burst open from inside.

Surrounded by the motes of light the creature had left behind, Vodyanoy activated its optical sensors.

“Next!”

“Four o’clock, down. Number remaining: five.”

The moment Vodyanoy responded, Miroslava punched a control column switch that was behind a glass cover.

That caused Vodyanoy to eject its right rocket booster, which was seconds away from exploding...

“We won’t stop...until the end!”

...and they threw it straight toward the escaping throng of chimeras.

The rocket booster detonated, creating a massive fireball that took out all five.

“Next!”

“Number: three. Two o’clock, four o’clock, six o’clock.”

“This isn’t over yet!”

Though the major threat was gone, Miroslava refused to relax even for a moment.

Using what she’d learned under Antimicrobic Soy Sauce at the Seventh Seabed Excavation Fort, she did her utmost to make sure not a single chimera made it past her.

These efforts were not in vain, and she protected the northern South Sea without even one of Abyss Shellder’s splits surviving.

◇◆◇

Western South Sea

“Steel Rocks has been sunk! We have fourteen ships left!”

“Ngh! A single chimera, giving us all this trouble...!” Abyss OW—the UBM-based chimera that had an offensive barrier and flew at supersonic speeds. It negated all antiair defenses and sunk ships by simply flying through them, devastating the armada positioned in the west.

“Admiral! The third wave will arrive in two minutes!”

Vergil growled in frustration. The third wave of splits was nearly upon them—a horde that was slower than the first two, but more than likely made up for it with greater defensive and offensive power.

Their incoming assault, combined with the damage wrought by Abyss OW, meant their situation could scarcely get any worse.

“If it comes down to it...” Vergil muttered, looking at the inventory given to him by the military fleet commander—the tactical nuke left behind by King of Thieves, Zeta. This would surely allow them to wipe out the entire third wave.

But there was a problem with that—it wasn’t a missile or any other kind of projectile.

It was essentially an Inventory that simply contained a nuke, and it could only be activated by destroying it.

They had combined it with a timed detonation device to turn it into somewhat of a tactical mine, but Abyss OW’s rampage was making it impossible to deploy or even rig the timer.

Worst comes to worst, I’ll have no choice but to destroy this Inventory myself and take out the third wave along with this ship. Like many Granvaloan vessels, Vergil’s flagship was equipped with a system that enabled a single person to control it. If necessary, he resolved to evacuate the crew and destroy the third wave by sacrificing himself.

But then...

“Ah! Admiral! The avian is charging again... It’s heading straight toward us!”

“Nghhh!” As though to render Vergil’s determination moot, Abyss OW finally set the flagship as its target.

I’ll use it on that one, then... But wait—would it even work against its monstrous barrier...?! Tactical nuke or not, there was no guarantee that the weapon could tear through a barrier that hadn’t flinched before countless antiair guns and airmines. Even if it could get through, it might not be able to actually finish the creature off.

However, he felt that it was better to gamble on that possibility than to simply sink, taking this precious weapon to the bottom of the ocean with him.

I’m sorry...! Vergil thought.

He could already see Abyss OW charging at the flagship. It might’ve been too fast to spot when it was passing by, but now that it was flying in his direction, it was clearly visible. Though only a distant point at first, it was quickly growing larger.

Abyss OW was seconds from impact. There was no time to move the ship out of the way. Burdened by the thought that this would also cost the lives of his crew, Vergil prepared to activate the Inventory.

And then, Abyss OW’s wing exploded.

“K E E E...?!” Bleeding from the resulting wound, the chimera went into a tailspin and only barely managed to stabilize its flight before taking off into the sky.

Chasing after it was a slightly damaged fighter jet—if it could be called that. Though the flying object had the body shape of a two-seater fighter, it was soaring on bat-like wings.

“That’s...Byakhee!” Vergil instantly recognized it.

It was one of the military fleet’s Superior Embryos, as well as the single fastest vehicle in Granvaloa—the Type Rule Gear known as Beyond Worldly, Byakhee.

“If that’s here, that can only mean...they’re here too! The Edwards!” Picturing the faces of the duo riding Byakhee, Vergil’s eyes began to tear up.

“Admiral! We have a message from Maud Edwards: ‘Sorry we’re late. We’ll take care of this one.’”

“Don’t apologize!” The Edwards had been using their incredible mobility to observe on a far greater scale than anyone else taking part in the operation, even watching over areas that the others couldn’t hope to reach.

In a way, they were invaluable to the plan’s success.

The damage to Byakhee was proof that they had already gone through some deadly battles.

And yet, when they learned of the western armada’s situation, they rushed here at a speed that was nearly incomprehensible.

In that case...we will do all we can to ensure their assistance is not in vain! Vergil wiped away his tears before taking up the comms device.

“All vessels! The Edwards will slay the avian! As they fight, we will use our tactical weapon to destroy the third wave!”

Thus, the ships that still remained resumed enacting their plan.

High up in the air, Abyss OW battled Byakhee.

Rising in altitude, they both moved at incredible speeds as they attempted to destroy the other.

“K H E E E E E E!” Wrapped in its barrier, Abyss OW repeatedly charged toward Byakhee.

“Whoa! That was a close one!” Scala evaded each attack with a sharp turn, and the blade mounted on the underside of Byakhee struck the avian monster’s barrier.

However, instead of tearing through it, the blade was deflected and damaged.

Scala then fired the machine gun on the plane’s nose, but Abyss OW’s barrier remained unbroken.

“K H E E E E E E!” Abyss OW itself was aware that this barrier was a special power that none of its kin possessed. It was too costly to use in the water, but here in the air, this barrier was an incredibly potent defense. Just like its avian body, this power was superfluous to Abyss Shellder itself, but extremely effective for any creature it spawned.

Thus, Abyss OW’s instincts practically shouted that there was no reasonable way for it to be defeated in an aerial battle.

However, whatever remnants of intelligence that might have existed in the body parts comprising it couldn’t help but ask: Then how did I receive this wound on my wing?

There was no sign that its barrier had been broken. The enemy’s attacks couldn’t penetrate that wall even now.

Thus, the last scraps of its mind, buried beneath its instincts, questioned how it had been injured.

“We’re really high up!” said Scala. “I can’t go much faster than this here!”

“Yeah,” said Maud. “But that’s not a problem anymore. I see it.”

The next moment, Abyss OW also spotted something at the edge of its vision.

It didn’t know what that thing was. However, both instinct and intelligence agreed that something wasn’t right here—that Abyss OW had to do something, or it would die.

But before the panic and intuition born of this pseudo-thought could take over its brain...

“Out of Sight, By Your Side, Granting Death—Tindalos.”

...the avian’s neck exploded, decapitating it.

Still showing panic and confusion on its face, the severed head fell into its own barrier, utterly destroying it.

At the same time, back on the sea, a nuclear bomb was detonated, and the third wave was consumed in the conflagration.

◇◆◇

Southern South Sea

The forces in the Southern South Sea didn’t have a single Superior.

Instead, they had Satomi’s will, in the form of the GFRS combat division that had departed before the provisional armada, as well as the other Masters who had already been hunting the chimeras here.

Despite their lack of a Superior, they had no shortage of forces.

Using weapons created by Satomi himself, they were able to fulfill their duties for a long while.

However, like Antimicrobic on the eastern side, and perhaps also due to its great distance from Granvaloa, the south was crawling with splits.

Outnumbered, GFRS’s combat division was gradually losing their ships.

But the difference in quantity wasn’t the only problem—there was also one chimera that was clearly more dangerous than the rest.

It was the Abyss Blast Dragon, or Abyss BD—a UBM-based split equipped with a charged particle cannon. It was perhaps the strongest of them all.

How had it come to possess such a power?

For all they knew, Abyss Shellder might’ve consumed a UBM born from a pre-ancient weapon. As powerful as the ability was, it was hardly befitting of a living creature, which might have been why the main body had deemed it unnecessary.

Still, it was truly a force to be reckoned with. Fired from its maw, the beam of light had destroyed GFRS’s warships with intense heat as though burning away a stain on the surface of the ocean.

Their air mines and other defenses meant nothing against this weapon. Overwhelmed, they were sinking, one by one.

“Maaan. Look at him, spewing them beams from outside our range. No way we can deal with that,” said one of the GFRS Masters, as if he’d already given up.

He was also a crafting job, though, so there was a part of him that found the cyborg kaiju rather impressive.

One of the Masters who had been in the hunting party since the very start didn’t like his attitude, however.

“Now’s not the time for yapping! If that thing breaks through, it’ll ruin the operation!” This UBM-based split might’ve actually possessed more firepower than Abyss Shellder itself. With the adventure fleet surely struggling against the main body, allowing Abyss BD to enter the scene could be fatal.

“Well, I’d say we’re already doing all we can...”

The moment the GFRS Master spoke those words, though, a different ship fired its missiles.

However, before they could reach Abyss BD, they were shot down by a laser cannon on the creature’s back.

“It’s just got no weaknesses. And I guess it must’ve been based on a dragon with Auto Restoration, so it just instantly fixes up any artillery damage. I swear, it’s like we’re up against, like...Godzilla lite.”

He dropped the name of the world-famous movie kaiju to further emphasize how helpless they were in the current situation.

“Ugh! In that case, we’ll get vanguard Masters to latch on to it so we can at least take out its anti air capability!” The Master who was a hunting party veteran gathered his courage as he prepared to bring the fight to the creature, but then...

...a siren rang out.

However, it was no usual siren, instead sounding more like a song.

That was intentional. No matter who they were or where they heard it, this was a wave of sound that every Granvaloan simply had to know, informing them of what was about to happen.

“You can’t be serious.”

“What? Now? But this is the South Sea!” As the two were overcome by shock, the speakers on every ship let out a perplexed voice.

“Th-There’s something on the radar! An ultramassive creature is approaching from the Outer Ocean...!”

That message confirmed that the siren’s warning was true, and that realization froze everyone in place.

And it wasn’t just the people aboard the ships—Abyss BD and the other chimeras began to act strangely as well.

They were no longer advancing toward Abyss Shellder or attacking the humans trying to stop them.

Instead, they were facing away from their opponents...and staring toward the south.

Trembling with rage—or perhaps merely trembling—their instincts told them that something they simply couldn’t ignore was making its approach.

It was almost as if they were bound by a memory imprinted into the very cells of the monsters they’d been created from.

“Do you see that?”

“How could I not?”

The thing approaching them was beyond the horizon—yet clearly visible.

Looking at it was like seeing far beyond the borders of the sky. It was so unbelievably, unimaginably massive that its presence was clear even from this vast distance.

At first glance, it looked like a pure black sea serpent, but the way its gargantuan body undulated as it approached also called to mind an eastern dragon swimming through the clouds.

However, both sea dragons and eastern wyrms were far too small for either of them to be an apt comparison.

This was a monstrosity that looked down upon both the people and the chimeras from beyond the horizon, and it seemed to be nearly two hundred kilometels in length.

With a size that could encircle an entire section of the sea, it was the single largest monster that had ever existed, past or present.

Its name was Seadragon King, Drac-Stream.

“Ummm... And what brings you here?” While the GFRS Master blurted out those awkwardly polite—or politely awkward—words, the hunting party Master remained silent and simply kept staring at the Seadragon King.

He already knew that Granvaloa had challenged it multiple times in the past.

But now, he couldn’t help but think...

They challenged this?! Were they insane?!

It was like the idea of an ant fighting a human, but even that comparison fell short. The creature before them was simply that beyond comprehension.

And now, this unfathomable being had appeared right here in the South Sea.

The Seadragon King supposedly traveled only in the Outer Ocean beyond the Four Seas, as well as the Boundary Seas between them.

The only time the Master had heard of it entering the Four Seas was in a Granvaloan fairy tale—specifically, one about the founding fleet commanders encountering it in the East Sea near Tenchi.

Basically, this was a moment straight from the pages of mythology.

“This is my first time seeing it, but... Look at that! That’s crazy!” While the hunting party Master was at a loss for words, the GFRS Master voiced his thoughts, clearly amazed. Using glasses equipped with the Telescope skill, he could see it with far greater clarity.

Because of this, he discovered that the Seadragon King’s body was made of a clear liquid. The dragon was simply so massive that light failed to penetrate all the way through it just as light failed to reach the depths of the ocean, making it appear pitch black.

The GFRS Master could tell this much due to the slight refraction he saw using Telescope.

That reminds me that a lot of info about this thing is top secret...and picking a fight with it puts you on the wanted list too, he thought.

However, this encounter made him understand that messing with this entity for no good reason was foolish to begin with.

“Though, really... Why’s it here?” Everyone and everything here in the southern South Sea were now frozen like deer caught in headlights, but the Seadragon King continued its advance.

Eventually...

~~~~~~~~.

With a sound much like a sea rumble, it twisted its gargantuan form.

It seemed to have merely grazed the surface of the sea with its head. However, this subdued move alone made all the waters around them shake wildly.

“Th-The hell...?!”

“Th-The Seadragon King’s uh...attack...? Made the split swarm behind it...disappear.”

“...What?”

“That one move took out like a couple hundred of them... Yes.” The spotter watching the radar was too shocked to even report properly.

The GFRS Master once again used the Telescope skill to look at the creature.

Upon closer inspection, he saw small bits of something inside its head, which quickly dissolved into light.

It must’ve killed the monsters with just a bite—all two hundred and fifty of them.

“GFRS, we’re retreating. Direction doesn’t matter as long as it’s not south.”

After seeing what the dragon had done, he—the subleader of GFRS—ordered all the ships under his command to retreat.

“H-Hey!”

“That move it did was meant to kill as many of them with as little effort as possible. The Seadragon King is holding back to minimize the effect it has on us.”

The veteran hunter’s eyes widened. The idea that a creature like that was being considerate of human life shocked him, but he digested it in no time, for it matched what he’d heard about it in Granvaloa.

The Seadragon King attacked humans only in self-defense, or when it encountered them on the Outer Ocean.

“So, yeah. We’re in the way, so let’s back out. Our forces are better used elsewhere.”

“All right.” The hunting party’s Master contacted his allies, and soon all Granvaloan forces began retreating from the southern South Sea.

The chimerical splits, however, stayed where they were. They didn’t rush to Abyss Shellder, nor did they try to run away.

There was a conflict between the fear emerging from their instincts and the orders given by the main body that rendered all of them immobile. It was hard to tell what was more impressive: a terror so deep that it paralyzed creatures who would happily obey an order to be consumed, or a command structure so rigid that it rivaled the dread inflicted by the Seadragon King.

However, two things were certain here.

Fighting the Seadragon King was hopeless, but escaping the Seadragon King was impossible.

That meant that there was only one conclusion for them—death.

“G N E E E E A A A H H H!” The split that shook off its paralysis first was Abyss BD.

As though fighting back its fear, it charged its particle cannon to full capacity.

The Seadragon King was already in its range, and the chimera fired this all-out attack as soon as it was ready.

The heat it contained could’ve instantly evaporated a two-hundred-metel battleship.

This was followed by attacks from the other splits—countless breath weapons and similar assaults.

In their desperation, they created an overwhelming and oppressive storm of offense. If unleashed upon the Master armada that had just retreated, it would’ve surely left them devastated.

~~~~~~~~.

However, it did nothing to the Seadragon King—and not because it was too massive.

Spread all across the monster’s surface, there was magic of the “sea” element—an energy-reducing defense magic that simply made all the incoming damage disappear.

Fundamentally, it was the same as the walls Ursula had used in the fight against Shu, but the scale was on another level.

If the effectiveness of magic relied on MP, then the Seadragon King’s magical power was far above that of humankind, Superior jobs included. The only potential exception was the Magical Apex himself, The Earth.

“Whoa... Yeah, it’s over for them. The charged particle cannon feels like a peashooter now... Hm?”

As they retreated, the GFRS subleader watched this overwhelming defense in action.

But then, his Telescope skill noticed a change in the dragon’s body—something separate from the defense magic on its surface.

This defense magic was inside it.

“What’s that?”

Granvaloa had challenged this creature in the past. The way it had fought then was terribly simple, using only its incomprehensible size to simply crush its enemies, or occasionally bite them like it had done to the chimeras a moment before.

That should’ve been all it needed. That should’ve been more than enough.

But now, within the Seadragon King, there was defensive magic...and a pale blue light.

That blue color was one that some people of Earth were familiar with, and it was gradually growing stronger.

The GFRS subleader watched this in silence, attempting to guess what was happening there.

Right now, within its body, the Seadragon King was generating tritium.

Using fusion reactions, it was filling its form with immense heat. Sea magic dampened its effects and prevented the dragon from damaging itself as it charged up as much power as it could.

The pale blue light... The Cherenkov radiation was the result of charged particles accelerating within its liquid body.

Indeed—it was using the same weapon as Abyss BD, but yet again, the scale was on another level.

The light within the Seadragon King was many times greater than the chimera’s had ever been.

“Speed up some more! Hurryhurryhurry!” Imagining what would happen soon, the GFRS subleader broke out in a cold sweat and desperately barked orders.

Soon enough, the Seadragon King opened its maw and partially deactivated the sea magic dampening its interior glow.

The next moment, there was a torrent of light.

The gargantuan head of the massive serpent spat out a blue beam that instantly wiped away Abyss BD and all the other splits.

No. “Wiped away” wasn’t apt—they simply evaporated.

The stream of blue light annihilated everything in its path, and the resulting steam explosion left vast clouds spreading over the surrounding sea.

And once the light and heat had passed, not a single living being was left.

The blast had evaporated so much water that there was a hole left on the surface of the ocean. In the moment before the sea rushed in to fill the gap, it stood as a monument to the Seadragon King’s wrath.

With the splits gone, the dragon looked toward the north—in the direction of the adventure fleet’s battle against Abyss Shellder.

However, instead of heading toward it, the dragon simply turned around and returned southward, back to its rightful place in the Outer Ocean.

Once it was all over, the now-distant Masters observing all this finally mouthed a couple of words.

“I’m glad it’s on our side.”

“For now, anyway...”

They were greatly relieved that the Seadragon King had decided to take action not against humans, but against Abyss Shellder.

◇◆

Albeit with some unexpected turns of events, the forces in every direction continued their fight.

Eventually, half an hour had passed since the start of the operation, and not a single defensive line was breached.

They had all successfully fulfilled their roles.

It was up to the adventure fleet to see to it that it was not in vain.

Act 11: Within the Light

Before the Briefing, Adventure II

Before the four fleets and the Superiors held their briefing, Shu had a conversation with Riella about his plan to slay Abyss Shellder.

“Half an hour?”

“Yeah—that’s what’s gonna decide if we can win or not.”

That was the time limit the defending forces had been given, and the one who’d set it was none other than Shu.

“Why’s that?”

“Like I said... As it is now, Abyss Shellder negates all magic, heat, electricity... Basically all energy-based skills. The only thing that works against it are purely physical attacks.” By exploiting its Predatory Absorption, Abyss Shellder had gained countless resistance skills, focusing all of them into its shell and building an invincible defense that kept it unharmed even against JotA—a plasma weapon with the power of a small star.

“But the problem is that its physical defense is insane too. That military nerd used his data to estimate that it’s roughly 200,000.”

“Tch... No creature should be that tough.” Even Mythical metal—the hardest material modern tians could use—only boasted a physical defense in the range of 30,000 to 50,000. A defense as high as Abyss Shellder’s was rare even among its fellow Mythical monsters.

“My own attack power is about 180,000,” Shu said. “Knowing that it’s got Damage Reduction too, I’m sure even my punches won’t do much.”

“I get that it’s a little late to say this, but don’t break my damn ship, okay?” said Riella—and who could blame her? Shu had one of the highest STR scores of any human being. His bare fists were stronger than even battleship artillery.

“There’s my Baldr’s ult too,” Shu went on. “The giant robot transformation. Its stats are based on my STR, and as long as that’s active, Baldr’s attack power goes up to about 360,000.”

“Way above that monster’s defense, huh?”

“Yeah...though the ult only lasts half an hour.”

And at that moment, Riella understood the reason for the time limit.

“The transformation also uses a special item produced by Baldr himself...but we only have one of them left, and there’s no time to make more.”

“So if ya don’t beat it in half an hour, it’ll all be over for us.”

“Pretty much.”

The invincible UBM, Abyss Shellder—currently, the only Masters known to possess a high enough physical attack power to break through its defenses were Shu and Dryfe’s King of Beasts.

There was no time to search for a third, and they had no means of contacting KoB. This meant that if Shu didn’t fulfill his goal in half an hour, their defeat would be set in stone.

The fate of the world depended on those thirty minutes—and on just one single person.

It was a difficult task with immensely high stakes, and yet...

“But you can pull it off, right?”

...Riella had unwavering trust that Shu could do it.

“You think so?”

“When we first met, ya beat a UBM. Then ya beat Yamamoto, and then even Vanessa and Ursula. Ya won every battle I saw ya fight. That’s why...I’m gonna trust that you’ll win this one too.”

“You’re furgetting my first loss against Abyss Shellder.”

“But you’ve got a chance of winnin’ now, right?”

“Yeah. That much is true.” Shu now had the information and the combat environment he needed to achieve victory. His chances of winning, however small, were no longer zero.

“Then I’ll believe you’ll do it. I mean, we’re friends who’ve been rocked by the same waves,” Riella said as she extended her hand, just as she had done before the fight against Satomi.

This was how they’d been since the start. The day they met, before the fight against Satomi, and the moment they recovered after their defeat... One would extend their hand, and the other would grasp it.

They’d done this every time they’d resolved to face some threat.

Without Shu, Riella’s voyage would’ve surely been over by now. But without Riella, Shu wouldn’t have won against Satomi, or have gained the means to fight Abyss Shellder.

The two of them supported each other as they fought, and through that, they’d developed trust for one another.

And now, once again, Shu took the hand Riella gave him.

“I’m bettin’ it all on you. Do your thing, partner.”

“’Course I will...partner.”

Following these last words of confirmation between trusting allies, the fateful battle was now at hand.

◇◆◇

Central South Sea

The seabed battlefield, opened by Moses parting the sea.

Within this mighty gap, there raged a battle between a steel god and a silver fiend—a clash so intense it was truly the stuff of myth.

Through Shu’s STR, Baldr had received immense stats across the board. However, Abyss Shellder had an incredibly high level and stats as a baseline, gained by consuming and claiming the powers of countless monsters, even UBMs.

The sheer number of Resources it had acquired had allowed it to break the monster level cap of 100, while at the same time it had slowly replaced its body parts with stronger, more synergistic ones. On top of that, anything it had not deemed useful had been turned into one of its splits.

This made Abyss Shellder a chimera with no signs of the instability common to the monster type, and granted it immense stats and countless skills that made it seemingly unstoppable.

In terms of stats, Abyss Shellder and Shu were basically equal—but in a melee brawl, Shu’s fighting technique put him above the UBM.

Additionally, the fiend’s resistance skills were meaningless against Shu’s attacks.

His job ult, Right of Destruction, enabled him to destroy even indestructible objects as long as they had a defense below that of his attack power. This overwhelming offense surpassed Abyss Shellder’s invincible defense, letting each and every one of Shu’s blows break the creature’s shell.

Thus, in a melee brawl, the victor would be Shu.

However, that wasn’t the only deciding factor.

“K H O O K H A A A A A A A A!” Abyss Shellder transformed the shell on its back to reveal a horde of monstrous heads—a sight reminiscent of the hundred-headed dragon Ladon from Greek mythology. Together, all of them released a calamitous storm that carried the destructive might of many elements at once.

It was too much even for a defense magic specialist like Ursula—this could be seen in the fact that the spell she’d cast upon Baldr before the fight had already been broken. And as she was focused on channeling Moses’s power to maintain the battlefield, she wasn’t able to apply it again.

Vanessa’s Siren also couldn’t do much on a battlefield turned into land. She could only keep an eye on the surroundings while protecting Ursula so she could keep the sea parted.

There was also the Adventure II, but while they had taken out and prepared the JotA, they weren’t taking action yet.

“K H O O K H A A K H A A A A A A...!”

The violence spewed from the hundred heads had the power to instantly turn a person into ash. The ceaseless flow of destructive skills was too much even for Shu—he couldn’t evade everything, and the damage gradually started to build up.

However, retreat wasn’t an option for him.

Most of Baldr’s weapons didn’t scale with Baldr’s attack power, making them largely ineffective in the face of Abyss Shellder’s defense and resistances. Shu couldn’t use anything but physical blows, so if there was any distance between them, he’d have nothing.

In an exchange of attack skills, Abyss Shellder had the upper hand.

Thus, both of them fought from up close, both dealing and sustaining heavy damage.

This was not a melee brawl or a ranged shoot-out.

It was a fight to the death, and one in which both sides had the means to end the other.

“SHINKAN!” Shu shouted the name of another move—“trunk quaker.”

“K H O A A A A A A A!” the UBM roared as it retaliated in desperation. Despite the intensity, neither of them showed any intention of backing away.

The steel armor burned, melted, and fell away, while the silver shell shattered, detached, and turned to dust.

An exchange of attacks that literally whittled them both away—a one-on-one battle of attrition.

However, this was not an equal struggle—and the one at a disadvantage here was Shu.

Its movements are nothing like they were last time! As he fought, Shu felt something off.

Before going into this final battle, he’d looked back at his last attempt and checked Satomi’s data multiple times.

Using that as his baseline, he tried to predict Abyss Shellder’s movements as he fought it now.

While its form was too bizarre, too distant from people or other monsters to be fully readable, he should’ve still been able to anticipate its actions with some degree of reliability.

However, a lot of his predictions had turned out to be off the mark, which had led to him suffering more damage than expected.

The monster’s stats weren’t much different from what Satomi’s data had shown. While Abyss Shellder had consumed more creatures and grown a bit since the last battle, Shu had taken that into account...and yet, he still could not guess its movements reliably.

What’s different here? As Shu puzzled over this, he continued fighting as best as he could, driving strike after strike into Abyss Shellder even as the fiend spewed an endless barrage of attacks in return.

However, Shu would never learn the answer to his question, for the thing he’d failed to read was inside Abyss Shellder.

Based on the previous battle and the creature’s mode of operation, Shu already knew that it was driven by instincts centered around consumption. That assumption was entirely correct—just as Jabberwock the Control AI had theorized, Abyss Shellder was a slave to the instinct of hunger.

It was fighting by instinct even now, but hunger wasn’t in charge.

It was something much more primal—the instinct for survival that stood side by side with the fear of death, the most basic drive of all living creatures.

Abyss Shellder now harbored a deep fear of this threat that possessed both the means and the will to destroy it. This was only the second time Abyss Shellder ever exhibited this instinct, with the first time being the fight against the clam UBM that had become a core part of its body.

Shu Starling had filled it with the fear of death for only the second time in its life, awakening the mind that had long lain dormant within the creature.

It wouldn’t rely on its invincibility now. In fact, it had completely abandoned the idea that it even was invincible.

Driven by a sudden understanding that death now loomed over it, Abyss Shellder was overcome by intense murderous intent—a need to kill before it was slain itself.

That was why its actions were so unpredictable to Shu.

Perhaps if Abyss Shellder had known that Shu could only fight for a limited time, its movements might’ve been more like he expected.

Without this knowledge, though, the UBM couldn’t even consider running away. Suddenly faced with a being that was actually capable of harming it, it couldn’t possibly choose to leave it and escape.

“K H O O K H O O O A A A A A A!” Its survival instincts were screaming, telling it that this threat must be eliminated.

The strongest chimera of all time, the monster that had ravaged the South Sea, was now lashing out in a desperate attempt to defend itself.

It matched the power of the Tri-Zenith Dragon Shu had once faced, but while his fight against Gloria had been a melee clash of pure might, Abyss Shellder was now releasing a raging maelstrom of abilities that greatly complicated the situation.

The shower of attacks damaged Baldr whenever it hit, and that caused devices inside the robot to explode, damaging Shu himself in turn.

Even as he spilled his opponent’s blood, his own was beginning to drip down his face.

“Ha!”

Even so, he didn’t back away.

He knew that victory could not be found on the path of retreat, and he was well aware that the only way to defeat this creature was to give his all and not look back.

“OOOAAAAGGHHHHH!” He roared with conviction, announcing to the fiend that he would win.

Along with the fearsome war cries of both combatants came a flurry of beams and fists. Each of them was slowly wearing the other down.

◇◆

Riella was watching the deadly battle from the Adventure II, floating at the edge of the battlefield.

It was a fatal battle straight from the pages of legend. She was almost certainly the first of her commander bloodline to witness a fight like this.

It was so intense, in fact, that the Adventure II was liable to catch a stray blow that instantly evaporated the entire vessel. Not only that, but if Shu fell, Abyss Shellder would certainly target the ship—and her death would come swiftly after.

Even so, she kept watching the battle, not looking away even for a second. She couldn’t possibly miss the fateful moment that was swiftly approaching.

“Shu...” Riella murmured.

Her partner was wounded. With each scratch, there was the shadow of a possible defeat and death, and it would have been a lie to claim it did not fill her with fear.

However, she refused to back away because of that.

Their chances of victory seemed slimmer than ever, and some members of her crew suggested they retreat, but Riella stayed put.

After all, she was the one who’d decided to bring him into this fight—and to start this entire battle in the first place.

In silence, she continued watching the scene, lost in thought.

At first, she had been driven by her grief at losing her father and the hatred that loss had inspired. She hadn’t been able to sit idly by, and she’d intended to give her all to obliterate this Abyss Shellder.

At that point, her role as commander of the adventure fleet had become entirely secondary to her own feelings.

If the Abyss Shellder she so loathed was a slave to instinct, then she was in thrall to her emotions. She couldn’t escape them—and if she hadn’t let them take control, she would’ve surely fallen apart.

Quietly, Riella muttered Shu’s name again.

What if he had offered her his assistance precisely because he’d seen right through her and had known that she was on the verge of breaking? That was the possibility Riella was considering now.

It was obvious that Shu could’ve easily returned to the continent all by himself. Even if Baldr’s hovering attracted some monsters, he had more than enough power to repel them and cross the sea.

With that in mind, it seemed likely that he’d offered to help Riella not because she’d offered to take him to the mainland, but solely for her sake.

She would never ask him if that had been his intention—not directly, anyway. Whether or not her guess was correct, he would only dodge the question with a joke or pun.

However, it was exactly that attitude of his that Riella had found so healing.

Even as she struggled, even as she felt she might break beneath the strain, Shu saved her life and went on to support her.

When he insisted that they were equals, she’d responded by putting her life in his hands, and together they’d won against Satomi and recovered from a terrible defeat.

Now, the two of them had given everything they had to set up a battle they could actually win.

Riella was no longer a prisoner of her emotions. Because of all she had experienced, as well as the realization that vengeance wasn’t her only reason for fighting, she would never back down.

After all, there was something she had to do.

Thanks to the time she’d spent with Shu—a time that had been brief, but had left her feeling like she’d known him forever—she now knew that her actions could protect others. This wasn’t something she’d learned, but something she had remembered—something Shu had reminded her of.

There was no doubt that what she was feeling right now was the feeling shared by all who stood in front to protect all those behind.

A feeling familiar to the first adventure fleet commander...as well as her beloved father.

“Shu...”

That was exactly why Riella kept watching Shu’s deadly brawl.

She couldn’t afford to miss the crucial moment. “We’re gonna win this.”

Grasping a trigger in each hand, Riella waited until it was time for both of them to seize the possibility.

◇◆

The intense battle continued, and before long, twenty-seven minutes had elapsed.

They were drawing ever closer to their time limit, and yet Shu and Abyss Shellder both still stood.

Neither had survived unscathed, though—this clash between destruction and brutality had left both heavily damaged.

Baldr had already lost his left arm. The robot’s armor was covered in cracks, and some patches of it were entirely gone. Shu himself was bleeding heavily from his head and had suffered a number of broken bones.

However, the battle had also changed Abyss Shellder. It had already lost two thirds of its supposedly invincible shell. The heads within were now fully exposed with nothing to hide behind, and there were now significantly fewer of them.

However, the crustacean within the shell wasn’t nearly as damaged as Baldr—and in fact, the wounds it had suffered were gradually closing up.

This was due to a fundamental difference between the two combatants.

While Baldr was an Embryo, it was also mechanical. It couldn’t be healed in combat without the help of a repair-focused Embryo or something similar. Seelica’s abilities qualified, but she couldn’t use them while Baldr was in the middle of such an intense battle, nor could her repair speed possibly keep up with the damage.

Meanwhile, Abyss Shellder was a living creature. A few of the monsters it had consumed had possessed the Auto Restoration skill, and thanks to that, its HP was still almost at maximum.

Thus, even if they were both dealing the same amount of damage to each other, Abyss Shellder would eventually come out on top.

As though to prove this point, right as the time limit was at hand, Baldr fell to its knees.

It looked almost like an admission of defeat.

The sight filled Abyss Shellder with relief. Baldr really was damaged, and heavily.

The robot no longer possessed the power to keep fighting.

“K H O... K H A... K H A K H A!” As the thing Abyss Shellder so feared crumpled to the ground, its survival instinct subsided, once again letting hunger take control.

It wanted to consume this major threat and take its formidable power for itself.

Abyss Shellder didn’t know for sure if it could eat an Embryo—it was clearly different from an item or a monster—but the ravenous monstrosity felt it could devour anything. It had already consumed the weapon UBM that had served as the base for Abyss BD, after all.

Based on that, it suspected Baldr was just as edible.

Driven by the same unfamiliar hunger it had felt when trying to eat Mu, Abyss Shellder entrusted itself to this overwhelming instinct.

“K H O K H A K H A...!”

Thus, it covered Baldr in its Pearlification liquid.

The change wasn’t extreme—the affected surface only became pale and crystalline—but that was enough confirmation for Abyss Shellder. Its defeated opponent was definitely edible.

Controlled by instinct, it approached the pearlified Baldr and bit into it.

This is exactly what the kraken split had done when it had devoured the serpent—in the end, Abyss Shellder was still nothing more than a slave to the warped instinct it had acquired by sheer chance.

And now, the very hunger that had devastated the South Sea would be the fiend’s downfall.

“Right where I want ya.”

Shu’s voice resounded from Baldr as though they shared the same lifeblood.

At this moment, Abyss Shellder’s actions now perfectly aligned with his predictions.

While it couldn’t eat normal weapons, Shu did believe that it could probably consume Embryos—he’d seen it try to consume Satomi’s Mu, after all.

Thus, he’d guessed that if Abyss Shellder thought itself victorious, it would immediately try to devour Baldr too.

This was Shu’s final plan—the action he’d always intended to take if he found himself outmatched.

An invitation to death, using himself and Baldr as bait. It was Shu’s final trap, and one Abyss Shellder could only fall into if hunger once again dominated its entire being.

“Guess my job here is done...” Shu muttered, gathering more power into the steel god’s right fist than he ever had before.

Maybe he couldn’t keep fighting, but he still had the strength to throw just one more punch.

That punch was King of Destruction’s final ultimate—the power that obliterated anything it struck, at the cost of destroying himself and the very space around him.

The name of this all-powerful skill was...

“WORLD BREAKER!”

And with that cry, the inexorable hammer fell.

◇◆

Space itself shook and collapsed as everything in the area was shattered.

Having suffered a direct hit from this devastating attack, Abyss Shellder had lost half of its body.

“K h o... K h a... K h a...”

However, it was still alive.

Its shell was completely gone, and there was a massive hole where its back should’ve been. The countless heads that had served as its offense had been obliterated as well.

Such severe damage would have been fatal to most living creatures.

Yet Abyss Shellder was still alive.

Auto Restoration and its other healing skills were now working at full capacity to repair the damage, and anyone observing the creature’s stats would have seen that its HP was quickly climbing back toward maximum. Any internal damage was quickly healed even as the visible wounds on its body knit themselves back together.

As it was now, Abyss Shellder had simply returned to its original form, and it was still in excellent shape. Its regenerative powers still functioned, and its stats were still immense.

With Baldr on the verge of breaking, Abyss Shellder could now seize an easy victory.

“I knew it...” Shu watched the creature from within the collapsing robot.

Baldr had already lost its arms. Its torso was gradually being Pearlified, and its head had been cracked open by intense force, exposing the cockpit inside.

It was through this crack that Shu watched Abyss Shellder regenerate.

He’d anticipated all of this. If the UBM could gain the skills of other monsters, it was almost a given that it could survive critical damage, perhaps even being able to regenerate from a single cell. Its invincible defense was complemented by its inexhaustible vitality.

It wasn’t something Shu could take down all by himself.

In fact, he’d been counting on that.

Shu’s job was already done.

“I knew it... The shell doesn’t regenerate.”

While Abyss Shellder’s body regenerated, there was still no sign of its silver shell. Even the shattered head had returned—and yet the mighty shell it so relied on was nowhere in sight.

Every time Baldr had chipped away a piece of the shell, it had gotten smaller and stayed smaller.

And now, it was completely gone.

“I heard this from someone who tamed a metal slime... For those things, their volume is their HP. And to recover...it’s gotta eat the same kind of metal.”

The shell was an alloy of metal slimes with many resistance skills and the power to change shape. This was something Shu had discovered from the data Satomi had collected.

And that was why the shell couldn’t regenerate the way the rest of the body did.

That had always been Abyss Shellder’s weakness.

“But you only eat creatures that you turn into pearl. You never went for any actual metal, so you couldn’t increase the shell’s volume or fix its lost parts without finding more metal slimes.”

The UBM usually kept its claws and legs outside of its invincible shell, and hid within it only when faced with dangerous attacks like the JotA’s blast. This was surely because it had been unable to make its shell large enough to cover it completely at all times. While it may have found a vein of metal slimes, it still wasn’t enough.

Its carnivorous instinct drove it to focus solely on hunting and devouring other creatures. Unless Abyss Shellder found more metal slimes, it would never make its shell larger or be able to fix it.

Not only that, but Abyss Shellder was not aware its invincible shell didn’t regenerate. After all, it was invincible. The shell had never been truly damaged before Shu had obliterated it just now.

This was exactly what Shu’s job had been all along.

“Your resistance skills are gone... I destroyed your so-called invincible shell.” Shu simply repeated his declaration at the beginning of the fight—a declaration of what he had hoped to achieve.

“It’s over.”

There were two problems Shu had faced going into this battle.

Ursula had solved one by providing a battlefield that allowed Baldr to fight in robot form, but it was still uncertain if he could finish the job by himself.

The solution to that, however, was awfully simple.

“I’ve helped you all I can,” Shu said. “The way’s clear now.”

Those words were a reference to something else that had been decided at the very beginning of it all.

Though... If you’re gonna help, then I’m okay with that.

It’s a deal.

He and Riella had made a promise, and he’d just upheld his end of the bargain.

“Do it...partner.”

“On it!”

And then, Riella pulled the trigger in her left hand—the remote that fired the Javelin of the Atmos.

A moment later, the Adventure II fired a ball of light so bright it seemed as though the sun itself had descended into the sea.

This attack—this moment—was the reason Riella had been watching Shu’s fight so closely.

With Abyss Shellder still immobilized by its regeneration, the beam struck the creature...and now it had no invincible shell to protect it.

“K h o—” The explosive wind generated by the searing hot plasma drowned out the UBM’s pained shriek.

Everything, even the air and sound itself seemed to be burning as the JotA, once so easily repelled by the monster’s armored shell, began to gradually evaporate Abyss Shellder’s body.

Yet the creature still screamed, even though it could not be heard, and clung stubbornly to life. Its survival instincts taking control for the third time in its life, it activated its many regeneration and defense skills.

Abyss Shellder was a fearsome Irregularity indeed—a mighty monstrosity that surpassed even the limit of Mythical tier creatures. Perhaps it could actually survive being engulfed by this miniature sun.

However, they had no more attacks to throw at Abyss Shellder. Baldr was out of moves, Siren’s phonon maser wasn’t in range, and Moses’s torrents couldn’t even approach it.

There was only the last JotA cartridge, but the weapon hadn’t cooled down enough to be fired a second time. If they used it now, it would surely explode, taking the Adventure II with it.

Everything now came down to whether or not the searing plasma could melt Abyss Shellder faster than it could regenerate.

Or so it seemed, anyway. There were two people present who didn’t see it that way.

“Riella! Do it!”

“Purge unit! Activate!”

Directly following Shu’s and Riella’s shouts, explosive bolts blew away the parts fixing JotA’s platform to the Adventure II, freeing the weapon from the vessel.

“Eject!” Riella then pulled the trigger in her right hand, activating countless boosters on JotA’s platform.

This was their final resort—to fully utilize and thoroughly expend the Adventure II’s strongest weapon.

If firing it again would make it explode, they would just let it—once they’d separated the entire platform that held it and sent it hurtling toward Abyss Shellder.

Spewing fire, the repurposed missile boosters gave this weapon the power of flight. The “Javelin” in its name had never been more apt.

Like a spear, the gun flew toward Abyss Shellder, whose body was still melting in the flames.

“...K H H, K H A!” The plasma had blinded Abyss Shellder, and the sounds of its own burning body drowned out everything else. Its scent organs had been burned away; it felt only heat and its sense of taste no longer had any meaning.

Trapped within an infernal hell that stripped it of its senses, Abyss Shellder still felt that something that could end it was drawing near. Whether through one of its many skills or sheer intuition, the monster knew for certain that if it did not do something, it would die.

“K H O O K H A A A A A A A A A A!!!” Drawing on what little power it had left, Abyss Shellder called upon its skills. Compared to the might it had displayed against Baldr, the effect was awfully weak—a shock wave that probably couldn’t even sink a single battleship.

However, it was enough to knock JotA off its course.

Riella gasped as her final move was neutralized, while Abyss Shellder was overwhelmed with relief despite its ongoing agony.

Asam, Vanessa, and Ursula’s minds raced, but none of them knew what to do.

One man, however, had already leaped into action.

“Saw that one coming.”

Chasing after the deflected Javelin of the Atmos, the steel god had taken to the air. Though armless and partially turned into pearl, Baldr leaped high into the sky, just as it had in the battle against Satomi.

“You were a tough one, Abyss Shellder... No doubt about that,” Shu whispered as he soared through the air and prepared for his final act. Through their fatal clash, one in which both of them gave their all and more, Shu felt he knew Abyss Shellder’s power better than anyone else.

And that was exactly why he’d already considered the possibility that it would struggle until the bitter end.

“It’s over!” Soon enough, Baldr reached the deflected JotA...

“KODACHI!”

...and its kick sent the Javelin speeding toward the monster below.

Like a bolt of judgment thrown by an enraged god, it flew from the heavens to the earth, piercing straight through the melting flesh.

And right before it detonated, it released its final light.

Another drowned out scream. A flood of plasma both inside the creature and without.

The resulting heat was something even Abyss Shellder couldn’t withstand.

Surpassing its regeneration and defense wholesale, its body evaporated at an immense pace. The many parts it had acquired all turned to ash and vanished.

Everything that made up the most powerful chimera ever to live was now melting away. Its flesh, its skills, and even its instincts were annihilated.

When everything else had been taken from it, Abyss Shellder was reduced to a final clump of brain cells—a simple creature that had nothing...

“...K h o... K h a...”

...the last thing that came to its mind’s eye, now free of hunger, was the scenery of the underground lake where it had been born.

Thus, Abyss Shellder vanished in the light. The mighty Irregularity perished as the immense Resources comprising it returned to the world like snow falling on the sea.

This was the conclusion to the South Sea Incident that almost ended the world.

Final Chapter: Beneath the Clearing Sky

Granvaloa, Ferry Harbor

“Hm...” Clad in the usual bear costume and his back facing a ferry, Shu was looking out at the ocean.

It had already been a week since the South Sea Incident concluded. Following Abyss Shellder’s defeat, the Adventure II and the ships from all fleets returned to Granvaloa.

The memorial services for those who had given their lives throughout it all, as well as ceremonies celebrating the victory, had only ended yesterday.

While Shu had politely refused to participate, he had stayed to watch everyone’s triumphant return—including Riella’s.

And today, he would depart for the kingdom.

The ferry behind him was a regular service connecting Granvaloa to Altar’s port city of Keyora, and it would only take about three days for it to reach its destination. Shu already had a ticket, and he was now just waiting to depart.

Well, actually, he was waiting for...

“Hey, ya could’ve told me you were leavin’ today.”

With a light thud, someone punched the bear costume’s stomach.

Looking down, he saw Riella with a sulky expression on her face.

“Well, I would’ve left without saying goodbye if I had to. I mean, you did seem unbearably busy.”

Once they’d returned from the South Sea, Riella had been overwhelmed with all sorts of business.

She’d been in charge of the successful hunt, after all, and now served as the representative for those who lost their friends and families. On top of that, she was a major figure in Granvaloa’s domestic affairs, and she still had much to learn about that.

Not to mention that she now had to consider what to do with the certain something she’d happened to acquire.

“Are ya sure it’s okay for me to have gotten the reward?”

“Well, you were chosen as the MVP, so that’s what you are. And I was just there to lend a paw, remember?”

The MVP reward for the defeat of Corpse Stronghold, Abyss Shellder had gone not to Shu, but Riella. Though Shu was the one who had broken the invincible shell, the damage he’d dealt to the main body had been almost completely healed.

Because of that, the game had likely deemed Riella’s JotA—the weapon that had actually taken its HP to zero—was the greatest contributor to the fight. On top of that, she had organized Operation Southern Cross and called upon the fleets to stop Abyss Shellder’s army of splits while the adventure fleet dealt with the UBM itself.

Regardless of the reason, Abyss Shellder’s MVP reward had gone to her, and something about that didn’t sit right with her. With all Shu had done, up to and including the final blow, Riella believed that it should’ve gone to him.

“It’s Mythical, though... Wouldn’t you have wanted it?”

Abyss Shellder was an Irregularity, but it counted as Mythical. Still, its MVP reward was among the greatest in its tier, giving immense power to the wielder.

“Well, my costume’s actually Myfurcal too.”

“There’s a whole buncha things that’ve surprised me about you, but that might be near the top,” Riella said with a wry chuckle.

“Hey, like I said the day we met,” Shu said with a smile of his own. “This is all just my payment for the ride. I made it here, and that’s enough for me.”

“All right.”

“That aside, I reckon you’ll be up to your ears in work now.”

Riella’s achievements during this incident were unmatched. Soon after inheriting the adventure fleet, she had defeated what was perhaps the greatest threat Granvaloa had ever faced, avenged her predecessor, and even become the owner of a Mythical MVP reward—a rarity among tians. Many were saying that despite her youth, she was worthy of being the next navarch.

It all seemed like a bit much to expect of someone who could still be called a child.

“I sure will be, but it’s all my duty, you know. I won’t regret any of it one bit.”

“I see.” With that, they both fell silent and spent a few moments just gazing at the sea, just as they had once before.

“By the way, what’re the others up to?” Shu broke the silence with a question.

“The old-timer’s covering for me so I could sneak out and come here. The rest of the fleet’s busy with the stuff we were puttin’ off so we could go on the hunt... Oh, and the galley’s head chef spends all his time makin’ pork dishes. You know anythin’ about that? He keeps talkin’ about some bear and pig paradise with this freaky look in his eyes.”

“I-I have no idea what you’re refurring to...” Shu feigned ignorance, refusing to contemplate the side effects of his cooking.

“That so? Oh, and Vanessa’s clan already went on patrol.”

It wasn’t just Rusalka—all the Superiors had been given various tasks as follow-ups to the South Sea Incident.

Many things postponed for the mass mobilization of Granvaloa’s forces now had to be done, but mainly the Superiors were patrolling to confirm that all the splits had been eradicated.

The ones that rushed to Abyss Shellder’s aid self-destructed the moment it disappeared, but there was no guarantee that every single individual had been destroyed.

As a certain Superior had once said, “I wouldn’t want this to end like a monster movie that blatantly foreshadows a sequel.” A surviving split that had both Predatory Absorption and Pearlification would be a major problem, so they had to make absolutely sure that none were left.

“By the way, Yamamoto had a message for ya.”

“The military nerd?” King of Building, Satomi Yamamoto had already returned from the death penalty he’d received during the first battle against Abyss Shellder. However, while both were in Granvaloa, Shu had purposely avoided bumping into him.

The reason was simple—Satomi would be a pain in the ass.

“He said he’ll eventually get back at you with his reborn New Yamato.”

“He hasn’t let that go yet?”

On a somewhat related note, GFRS had a bit of a quarrel with Rusalka regarding New Yamato, and Schatten had been the cause. Her Shita-Kiri Suzume’s ult summoned a monster and then an item once the monster was defeated. The first part was intended to be a negative—the drawback—and the item was the desirable effect.

Because of this, after Abyss Shellder’s defeat, Schatten had summoned an item, and what she had received were the sunken remains of New Yamato.

Satomi had gotten the death penalty when it sank, so he hadn’t been able to store it away and thus must’ve lost ownership of it. Considering what it was, it only made sense that it should be treated as the rarest item in the area, and so it was summoned as the reward for Abyss Shellder’s defeat.

The clans—specifically, Satomi and Ursula—had argued intensely about who actually owned the wreckage, and ultimately, it was decided that Satomi would buy it off Schatten for a handsome sum.

Supposedly, despite being key to the entire affair, Schatten had spent the entire negotiation in a state of panic.

“It’s good for us, though. With Yamamoto lockin’ in on ya, he probably won’t cause problems for anyone else.” This was supported by the fact that since returning, he hadn’t once mentioned anything about a comparison test against the Adventure II. That alone showed just how fixated he was on his current target.

“Why are so many weirdos so obsessed with me?” Shu said with a sigh as he looked back upon the past and saw the faces of Humpty, Sechs, the Magical Apex, and the Technical Apex.

“Dunno about the others, but I’d say you’re at least as weird as Yamamoto himself.”

“...I have bearly an argument against that.” This wasn’t even a matter of obsession—basically all of Shu’s acquaintances and friends could be called weirdos, oddballs, eccentrics, and anything else in that vein.

Birds of a feather did indeed flock together.

“But it’s because you’re a weirdo that we’re here right now.” Without Shu, Riella would’ve surely died, and Granvaloa wouldn’t be enjoying its current peaceful era. “Lemme say it again: Thanks, Shu. I couldn’t have done it without ya. You’ll accept my gratitude, at least, right?”

“Sure. I’ll take it... Oh, right. I got something fur you too,” Shu said as he reached into his front pocket, took out a note, and handed it to Riella.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a passcode you can use to contact me through DIN. Hit me up if you’ve got a lot on your paws. I’ll rush over the sea and be there in a flash.”

“Heh. Really? With your hovercraft?”

“Fur real!” The two then exchanged amused smiles.

This peaceful, pleasant moment continued until...

“It’s time,” Riella said.

“Yeah.”

...the sound of a steam whistle announced that Shu’s ferry was about to depart.

“See ya, I guess. Let’s meet again someday...partner.”

“Yeah. See ya...partner.”

Both of them extended their hands at the same time—something they had done since their first meeting.

This time was a bit different, though.

Still grasping Shu’s hand, Riella stood up on tiptoe...and her lips gently touched the mouth of the bear costume. She couldn’t quite reach, so it was more like the chin than the mouth, but it lasted for several seconds, if not a bit longer.

Soon enough, though, she backed away.

“Hey now...”

“That’s another bonus! You’ve given me way too much for me to thank ya with just words and a ride!” She followed up her first kiss with that bold declaration before putting on an impish grin and adding, “I’ll go for your real face next time!”

“You’re ten years too young.” The kiss had caught Shu completely off guard. He hadn’t seen that coming at all. Rather than making him angry, though, it had only made him feel a bit awkward, like he’d been somehow outwitted.

“Well, ten years it is! Lookin’ forward to it!” Riella said with a bright smile as she waved goodbye and ran off.

◇

A few minutes after Shu and Riella said their goodbyes, Shu’s ferry departed, leaving ripples in the water as it headed toward Altar.

“You didn’t want to stop him?” As Riella watched the ferry grow distant, an elderly voice called out to her.

“Old Man Grandrear... Were you here the whole time?”

It was none other than the commander of the pirate fleet, Balthazar Grandrear.

“Well, he’s one of Altar’s Superiors, so I had some questions for him. But your talk with him is far more important than this old geezer’s grumbling.”

He’d come to ask Shu about his family in the kingdom, but had chosen not to ruin the pair’s farewell.

Though, the realization that Balthazar witnessed Riella’s kiss did make her cheeks flush a bit.

“Now, I ask you again: Are you sure you shouldn’t have stopped him? You have feelings for him, don’t you?”

“...Yeah, I’m sure.”

What Riella felt for Shu was certainly more than just trust. Perhaps he could even be called her first love. “This is fine, though. He only does what he thinks is right, so if he didn’t think he should stay, that’s my answer right there.”

Even if she’d expressed her true feelings and asked him to stay by her side, Shu would never have compromised himself—and Riella had faith that he wouldn’t.

“He must have people waitin’ for him back there too,” she added.

“Probably.”

Perhaps that man would one day help Balthazar’s granddaughters too—or at least, the eldest Grandrear had a feeling he might.

“There’s also that promise we made,” Riella said as she looked at the hand that had shaken Shu’s and smiled. “We did say we’d meet again.”

They would surely be reunited one day, and until then, Riella was determined to show him just how much she could grow.

This day, the sky above Granvaloa was free of clouds, clear and bright.

It was a perfect mirror of Riella’s heart.

The End

To the Next Stage

February 24th, 2045, Reiji Mukudori

I came back home after finishing the second exam for the place I wanted to go to the most—T University. Now, it was time to spend days anxiously waiting for the result.

“Hm?” But just as that thought crossed my mind, I got a call from my big bro.

“Bro? What’s up?” I said as I answered.

“Yo! Reiji! I heard you finished your exams.”

“Just came home from the last one. Now I’m just waiting to hear back. Oh, and before you say it, I’m not starting Infinite Dendrogram yet. I’ll get on it once I know I’ve passed and I can finally start to relax.”

No matter how many times I refused, Shu had kept recommending the game to me even while I was busy studying for my exams, so I just went ahead and turned him down before he could even say anything. Seriously, this guy had even invited me on the day before the National Center Test!

Honestly, I had spent over a year wanting to play Infinite Dendrogram, but I’d promised myself that I’d set aside all entertainment until my exams were done, and I had no intention of going against that.

“Hey, don’t worry. That’s not what this is about. I just got home myself and felt like talking to you a bit.”

“Came back? Were you on some trip?”

“I went out to sea for a little bit.”

The sea? In February? Did he hit the tropics or something? I wondered.

“I was drifting on the vast ocean when a small but gutsy captain took me onto her ship, where I helped get rid of a monster that was messing up the ecosystem and ultimately saved the world.”

“What are you talking about?!”

It’s like I’m listening to a fictional character! Stop acting like our sister!

“That’s a page furom my Dendro adventures.”

“Ohhh. Man, that scared me for a second... Wait, ‘furom’?” Did I mishear, or was he making a really stupid pun?

“Well, I’ll tell you more about it later. Maybe after you join me on this side.”

“You’re gonna just tell me about it before then anyway.”

“Ha ha ha. Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, I hope you get into that school. I’m pretty sure you made it, though.”

With that, Shu hung up.

I still didn’t really get why he’d called in the first place. Maybe he really did just want to chat and it wasn’t any more complicated than that. Though...

“Infinite Dendrogram...” His voice had held a hint of joy as he’d talked about it, as though he’d had truly priceless experience.

It made me a bit jealous, to be honest.

“If I pass...I’ll finally be able to get on that game myself.”

Would I have experiences just as valuable?

“Well, regardless, I sure hope I don’t have to save the world, at least. That’d be a bit much.”

Then again, the odds of getting caught up in something like that were probably pretty damn low.

What kinds of encounters and adventures did await me in the virtual world, though?

That was a question I could not yet answer.

To Be Continued in Infinite Dendrogram

Afterword

Bear: “Time fur the afterword! I’m the Bear, Shu Starling!”

Navy: “And I’m the Navy, Satomi Yamamoto... Wait. Hold on.”

Bear: “We’re up fur the second volume in a row.”

Navy: “Why is it me again? Why not the adventure fleet commander? There’s nothing stopping her this time.”

Bear: “You saw how we pawrted ways, right? I’d be pawretty awkward if we just met up again here right after.”

Navy: “Well... That’s true. But there’s a bunch of others who have illustrations now, right?!”

Bear: “Antimicrobic Soy Sauce and Miroslava are strangers to me, so that’d be awkward in another way, while the two Superiors from Rusalka threw up their paws and refused.”

Navy: “We had the right to refuse?! I would’ve done that too!”

Bear: “Well, you’re also the only Granvaloan Superior who didn’t get much of a spawtlight this volume, so the author, mindful as he is, decided to at least give you a place in the afterword.”

Navy: “You call that mindful?! And my data was really valuable! I did plenty!”

Bear: “The author also said that the deadline fur this afterword was only two days after he got its page limit, so he went fur a duo that’s easy to write.”

Navy: “I hate this...! Wait, what caused the crunch?!”

Bear: “It must’ve been that the volume’s release date was pushed furward, so it didn’t come out during the New Year’s period. It’s the ‘end-of-year advance,’ as some call it. There’s also the fact that it’s been a while since we had releases so close togefur.”

Navy: “Well, I guess they couldn’t delay the second part too much... I get it.”

Bear: “All righty. With the military nerd subdued, let’s continue from where we left off last time and share some more tidbits about this pawblication. Furst of all, like we said in the last afterword, the Southern Cross was originally a Blu-ray extra that’s been improved in various ways. It got illustrations from Eri Kuroda and another editing pass, as well as some added text—including entire scenes.”

Navy: “What stands out there are the scenes involving our Melisande.”

Bear: “At furst, there weren’t even any plans fur her to have a design or an illustration—yet in the end, she got both. What a miracle! Anyway, the added scenes generally focus on things that just bearly didn’t make it to the original Blu-ray extra. This includes the stuff about the fleet heirs besides Riella. They also furshadow something that’ll eventually happen in the main story.”

Navy: “Heh. And on that day, the main story will see the power of my weapons!”

Bear: “...”

Navy: “Hey, don’t just sit there saying nothing. That can only mean two things: that I said something cringe or that my future is bleak. Both are bad for the heart.”

Bear: “Well, putting aside whether your stuff’ll be all that pawerful... Another standout thing that was added featured a couple that hasn’t had much spotlight yet—the Edwards spawses.”

Navy: “So that’s the kind of people they are, huh...?”

Bear: “They’re also beary closely tied to the main story and one of the main characters—specifically Rook. It was mentioned in volume 4 that someone had asked Rook’s father to investigate Dendro, and here it’s revealed that this ‘someone’ was Maude Edwards. He’s essentially the reason fur Rook getting into Dendro.”

Navy: “That reveal sure took a long time...”

Bear: “It’s a beary good example of how all these stories are connected not just in Dendro, but outside of it too. Please look furward to more of it. Anyway, it’s a good place to move on to the comment by the author.”

Dearest readers, thank you kindly for your purchase. I am the author, Sakon Kaidou.

I am deeply grateful that you’ve decided to take in hand the second part of this story.

This SP series was well received, and the editor recently gave me permission to continue it into a third volume. This wouldn’t have been possible without your encouragement and purchases.

I will have to consult the editor regarding what I could add to this series next, but there are a number of side stories that never made it to the main publication, and I am hoping I can deliver them all to you here.

Anyway, Southern Cross was a story set in the maritime country of Granvaloa, away from the continent where the main story takes place. It featured many new faces and an almost entirely unfamiliar cast, but it would make this author very happy if you grew fond of some of them.

These Granvaloans will also appear in volume 23 of the main story, set to release this spring. Paired with this Southern Cross special, I believe it will truly be something to look forward to, and it would bring me joy if you do.

Thank you for your continued support for Infinite Dendrogram.

—Sakon Kaidou

Navy: “Heh... It seems that my time in the spotlight isn’t over yet.”

Bear: “Actually, you’re not coming back fur volume 23.”

Navy: “Wh-What...?”

Bear: “I mean, it’s set on land, and your battleships are sea only. You’ve got no claws to be there.”

Navy: “Battleships are supposed to be sea only! Your anime hunk of scrap is bullshit!”

Bear: “But its bearsatility makes it easier to use and gives me more scenes. It’s a matter of compatibility. Like these afterwords. Speaking of which, you’re perfect fur this.”

Navy: “I’m not about to accept that...!”

Bear: “C’mon, military nerd. You’re beary well suited fur this, which is why you got to appear in this volume even though you weren’t in the actual story.”

Navy: “Hey! I got an illustration! That counts as an appearance, right?!”

Bear: “The jury’s still out on that one.”

Navy: “You little...”

Bear: “Anyway, that’s it fur this afterword. We don’t have a time frame fur the next SP volume release, but please keep an eye out for it.”

Navy: “I’ll get back into the spotlight someday...!”

On the Seadragon King

Grandleft, GFRS Headquarters

The following occurred several days after the operation, soon after the remains of Satomi’s New Yamato had been reclaimed from Rusalka.

“Hm... But why?”

“Satomi? What’s the matter?”

Melisande walked into Satomi’s office, letting herself in as she usually did, and found him deep in thought, gazing at a monitor.

“Huh? Oh, Melisande. It’s nothing. With all that annoying business out of the way, I’ve finally got the time to look at the records for Operation Southern Cross.”

“Oh, right. You weren’t a part of that.”

“Ngh...”

“Also, the ‘annoying business’? You have no one but yourself to blame for that whole situation. I’m the one who had to mediate your negotiations with Ursula when they turned sour, anyway. Since your defeat was regarded as invaluable data for gauging Abyss Shellder’s power, I was able to secure the funds for you, but none of this would have happened if you hadn’t been so fixated on testing your New Yamato against Riella’s fleet. And New Yamato sinking didn’t even have anything to do with Abyss Shellder. Do you understand all of that?”

The merchant fleet had compensated Satomi for the ships he’d lost in the fight against the UBM. By combining this money with his own, he’d been able to purchase New Yamato from Rusalka.

However, he’d still lost an immense amount of wealth, and in order to finance repairs for the massive ship, he would have to spend quite a while subcontracted to the merchant and military fleets, using his Mu to build ships for them.

Strangely, in about three months in Dendro time, a certain Dryfean Superior would use his own Embryo in a similar manner for fundraising purposes, making money by creating pets.

“I do,” said Satomi. “And I am grateful for what you’ve done here.”

As Melisande had secured the funds and handled the negotiations, even someone like Satomi couldn’t help but feel indebted to her.

“You should be grateful all the time. Anyway... You said you were just looking at the records? What was bothering you so much, then?” Melisande asked, remembering the face he’d been making when she came in.

“There’s just a little something that I don’t understand.”

“About what? Abyss Shellder? Or the King of Destruction, maybe?”

“I don’t care about the dead UBM, and I’ll definitely get back at that mecha anime nerd eventually, but this isn’t about him. It’s the Seadragon King.”

“Oh. That.”

During Operation Southern Cross, the Seadragon King, Drac-Stream—the largest creature in the seas—had made an unexpected appearance. The members of GFRS had recorded it wielding its immense power to destroy Abyss Shellder’s splits.

The sight of the creature must’ve left a strong impression on Satomi, and Melisande could relate. If anything, it had impacted her even more. The Seadragon King was the oldest and largest monster of all, the very being that Valoa the Grand had fought and formed a contract with, and the “wall” that Granvaloans would one day have to surpass.

“What was it doing in the South Sea, anyway?” Satomi wondered.

“My guess is that one of Abyss Shellder’s splits entered the Outer Ocean. The Seadragon King must have realized that that chimera was part of a greater whole and went to kill the source.”

Drac-Stream was an entity that stood in the way of anyone who tried to enter the Outer Ocean and venture toward the new lands beyond. This was the world’s most ancient law, and Melisande guessed that the Seadragon King had appeared because that law had been broken.

“A long time ago—long before Granvaloa was even established—there was a continental country that met its end for a similar reason. As for why it turned back once it destroyed the splits... It must have realized that humans were fighting Abyss Shellder and chose to see how that would go.”

“But Granvaloa... Ohhh. We’re an exception, right?”

“Yes. Thanks to the contract between the Seadragon King and Valoa the Grand.”

There was historical evidence of Drac-Stream communicating, negotiating, and forming a contract with human beings. There was no doubt it possessed the intelligence to figure out everything Melisande claimed it had.

“The contract enables Granvaloa to challenge it. Those who enter the Outer Ocean will still have to fight it, but the country itself will be spared... Though, John’s attempt did scare the life out of me.”

“Oh. That...”

John Voyager—a once Granvaloan, now freelance Superior who seemed to cause trouble everywhere he went. Remembering him made both Satomi and Melisande let out a sigh.

John was a Master not associated with any group, traveling as he pleased, selling whatever he salvaged, and generally operating on the fringes of the law.

However, he had once made an unsanctioned entry into the Outer Ocean—where he was, of course, attacked by the Seadragon King.

This action was strictly against Granvaloan law, and it instantly landed him on their wanted list. Since then, he’d lost all restraint and had begun committing even more crimes, like raiding ruins even if they’d been claimed by Granvaloa.

John’s new activities had greatly enraged Antimicrobic Soy Sauce, to the point that he dedicated a good amount of his time between quests to leveling Moby Dick Right while searching for John.

As troublesome as John had become, he had once been a valuable trading partner who had provided the merchant fleet with excellent salvaged items and materials, so Satomi and Melisande were a bit conflicted about his current status. John had also had positive relations with the previous adventure fleet commander, so many among their number likely felt the same.

However, not only had he not shown up to avenge the late fleet commander, but John had also unceremoniously snatched the commander’s Superior Job. That meant he’d definitely earned the ire of the fleet’s current commander, Riella.

The Seadragon King, Antimicrobic Soy Sauce, Riella Granfront... John Voyager seemed to be quite good at making people angry.

“Well, even if he didn’t have permission, he was still a Granvaloan, so the Seadragon King just viewed it as a challenge, and nothing more came out of it,” said Melisande.

“I’m glad the Seadragon King is lax like that... Though, we’ll still be sending out proper expeditions, right?”

“Of course. Granvaloa wants land, so exploring the Outer Ocean is very important for us. And now we have Masters—people whose lives we don’t have to consider. That has greatly reduced our apprehension about these ventures.”

“Don’t we have human rights too?”

“I’m just saying you’re perfectly suited for the job.”

Masters could come back from death in just three days, and the Seadragon King wasn’t persistent enough to chase Masters it had already killed—or those like John, who had escaped.

“We still have to recover from the Abyss Shellder incident, though, and the Four Seas Journey is right around the corner. But even if it takes a while, I’m sure the next expedition will happen in my lifetime, at least.”

“Well, that means we have plenty of time to prepare.” Satomi nodded as he considered Granvaloa’s grand endeavor.

Ignoring certain areas of Legendaria, this planet’s gravity is about the same as Earth’s. That means its size must be similar too. But if it is, then the world as depicted on the maps is too small.

The continent was about as big as Eurasia. Even taking into account the seas around it, the planet had to have a great deal of surface area that hadn’t yet been documented. That alone was proof that there was a world beyond the Outer Ocean.

Arriving at a vast, undeveloped land beyond the Outer Ocean and establishing civilization there... It feels a bit out of genre, but I’m pretty intrigued.

Granvaloa had challenged the Seadragon King in the hopes of reaching these new lands, but hadn’t seen much success. Still, they had refused to give up, and though Satomi approved of their frontier spirit, a certain question came to his mind.

“Melisande, can I ask something?”

“What is it?”

“If someone enters the Outer Ocean, the Seadragon King shows up to stop them. However, there’s only one Seadragon King. I know the East Sea belongs to Tenchi, but what if we sent out multiple ships across several other seas at the same time? Wouldn’t some of them be able to explore the Outer Ocean for a good while?”

Even if the Seadragon King eventually found them, this could give some ships some time to investigate the forbidden waters. The risks could be minimized further by using an all-Master crew and high-speed ships, and since Masters could also bring back information even if they died, their experience could be used to craft a more detailed expedition plan for the future.

That was the idea behind Satomi’s suggestion. However, Melisande shook her head.

“Do you really think our ancestors never tried that?”

“Huh?”

“I suppose I can tell you this... You might as well be one of us at this point,” she said after a moment of hesitation. Then, she explained something that had happened in the past—a piece of classified Granvaloan information “There was once an expedition much like the one you just proposed. It was about two hundred years ago, and they didn’t have Masters back then, so they sent out three armadas full of fast ships equipped with long-range communication devices.”

That had been about four hundred years after Granvaloa was established. By that point, it had become a stable country and built city-ships besides Granvaloa itself, placing them around the seas and turning the waters surrounding the continent into its territory. The country’s four hundredth anniversary must’ve seemed like a good moment to attempt an Outer Ocean expedition.

“How did it go?” Satomi asked.

“First, the armada that went from the North Sea encountered the Seadragon King and was destroyed the very moment it entered the Outer Ocean.”

“...‘The very moment’?” Satomi raised an eyebrow at these words, but Melisande didn’t elaborate and simply continued.

“Next, the armada of the South Sea also encountered it and were destroyed right when they entered the Outer Ocean. The time between these events was...two hours.”

“Huh?”

“Finally, the West Sea’s armada was destroyed too. They entered the Outer Ocean three minutes after the South Sea’s armada was sunk.”

“HUUUHHH?!”

The information she’d so casually revealed was completely shocking. It had two implications that made the Outer Ocean exploration far more challenging than it first seemed.

“That is what was learned from the time stamps on their final communication. Do you understand what that means?”

“No matter where it is, the Seadragon King knows if someone enters the Outer Ocean, and can appear before them regardless of the distance.”

“Exactly.”

It had a gargantuan form, astounding sea magic, and a charged particle beam, yet that wasn’t all the powers the Seadragon King could bring to bear. It also had the ability to cover vast distances in the blink of an eye, truly acting as a living wall that stood between mankind and the wider world.

The Seadragon King must have been operating on laws of its own in order to do something so absurd.

It usually just migrates through the Outer Ocean, but its response to intruders is incredibly quick, Satomi thought. It’s less like a living being and more like...animate security software.

Though Infinite Dendrogram was sold as a game, as someone who had become a Superior, Satomi couldn’t write this off as simple game mechanics. He thought there had to be something more to the Seadragon King’s absurdity—something that went beyond the game’s setting.

“That means we can’t avoid it with numbers alone. All we can do is either outmaneuver it using perfect sensors and extraordinary speed...or defeat it directly.”

“If only that were easy,” Melisande said with a shrug.

They failed at this so many times, yet they still haven’t given up, Satomi thought, gazing at Melisande. They still want to carve a path into the unknown world.

Their dedication made him imagine what he could do, and after a few moments...

“Melisande. I just had a stroke of genius.”

“Got another one of your ideas? Let’s hear it.”

“We’ll build a Yamato that’s eight hundred times bigger.”

“...What?” Melisande tilted her head, unsure what he meant.

“It’s four hundred times bigger than the New Yamato you know.”

“Oh. That... But that’s physically impossible!”

A battleship two hundred kilometels in length—that dwarfed even Granvaloan city-ships.

“Why would you make something that stu— Oh.”

That was when she realized the significance to “two hundred kilometels”—that was close to the estimated size of the Seadragon King.

This meant that Satomi thought they could defeat the Seadragon King by simply fighting it with a weapon just as large—a brute force approach if there ever was one.

“Well?! Don’t you think that’d do it?!”

“No. Our fleet doesn’t even have the unbelievable funds and resources we would need for that. Also, a ship that size wouldn’t fit inside Mu, so you wouldn’t be able to use it like New Yamato.”

“Good point...”

“There’s no need to rush,” Melisande said with a sigh. “We won’t be fighting the Seadragon King for a while yet. There are many things that must be done first.”

“That’s true.”

They first had to help Granvaloa recover from the damage done by Abyss Shellder, then repair New Yamato, then prepare for the Four Sea Journey which would surely happen this year.

There was much work to be done—and plenty of things to look forward to in life on this side of that living wall.

“I’ll help you brainstorm, so let’s think up some better ideas. And not just for the Seadragon King.”

“...Very well. Let’s get to it, then, Melisande.”

Melisande stood by Satomi’s side as they began to discuss the future.