The punch came faster than anything Marisol had seen.

She'd heard all about mantis shrimps, of course—they were the one crustacean she couldn't miss from any textbook talking about the Whirlpool City and its legendary Harbour Imperatrix—but it was one thing seeing a drawing of the man punching the Swarm God with the Worm God by his side, and it was another thing seeing the real man himself rearing a punch back.

For a brief, brief moment, childlike glee and excitement flooded her chest, and she watched with wide eyes as Andres punched forward with the might of a hundred roaring cannons.

The force of it made the water ripple violently, almost violently enough to knock her off her glaives. His chitined fist shot forward like a missile, his knuckles punching the water with all the strength of a tidal wave. The explosion that followed was deafening. Water erupted out of his elbow, blasting everything behind him for a tremendous amount of propulsion—and his Swarmblood Art, 'Crushing Current', was an attack on par with an Insect God's.

Rhizocapala was shoved away alongside three hundred metres' worth of crustacean carcasses. It didn't matter Andres wasn't aiming for the Barnacle God directly. He'd punched the water itself to send everything in front of him deeper into the belly of the beast. The shockwave was powerful enough that, for a moment, Marisol and Maria stood in empty air. The water around them was gone, vaporised, and hot rain fell from the fleshy ceiling as Andres cleared out three hundred metres of obstacles in front of them.

…

The silence was strange. The absence of weight—water no longer pressing against her—was strange. And the stillness hung for a second longer, like time was suspended, until Kalakos opened her mouth behind them and let more water flood in.

It wasn't slow or gentle. The cold rushed in, swallowing them again, crashing into their skin with the force of a breaking wave, but Marisol didn't sway. Her glaives were stabbed into the fleshy ground. Maria wasn't the slightest bit concerned about being underwater again, either. The two of them were simply staring, dumbfounded, as Andres recovered from his left punch and pumped his arm back slowly.

A sharp crack resounded through the water, and he grunted as clutched his elbow in pain.

"Shit," he muttered, shaking out his armoured knuckle as if the cracks along his arm were but a twinge of discomfort. Bright blue blood leaked out the cracks and clouded the water around him like a fog. "I'm getting old, huh? Now I know how it feels whenever Victor goes even slightly faster than usual. My attribute levels and aura are deteriorating."

As the man continued holding his broken left arm with a grimace, a flicker of light in the corner of Marisol's eyes caught her attention.

[Name: Andres Balboa]

[Grade: F-Rank Mantis Shrimp God]

[Class: Hammer Mantis Shrimp]

[Swarmblood Art: Crushing Current]

[Brief Description: The user can suck in matter through their knuckles and discharge them from their elbows, increasing their punching strength by three times their strength level. Underwater, this Art will increase their punching strength by five times their strength level]

[Aura: ~25,000]

[Strength: ~13, Speed: ~10, Toughness: ~9, Dexterity: ~9, Perception: ~9]

The Archive cleared its throat while she took a peek at Andres' status screen. [The Swarmblood Art of the Hammer Mantis Shrimp Class, 'Crushing Current,' allows the user to suck in water through their knuckles, then expel it out through the elbow for a devastating water-propelled punch. It is not unlike your 'Spraying Discharge' mutation, but the magnitude of his discharge is far, far, far beyond what your mutation allows you to do.]

[However, considering his age and the significant injuries he has likely accumulated over the course of the past three decades, his aura and attribute levels have deteriorated greatly compared to his younger self. It is likely that he can only use his Swarmblood Art twice in quick succession before he must recover.]

Marisol barely registered the words, but the meaning hit her.

Twice in quick succession. One for each arm.

Her eyes narrowed as she glanced at Andres. He wasn't hiding it—he was pushing his body past its limits—and there was going to be no recovery here. Not yet. He'd need at least a month or two to mend his broken arm.

"... And what are you two looking at me all pitifully for?" he grumbled, glaring back at her and Maria. They stiffened immediately as he jabbed his right hand forward. "That Barnacle God's the most slippery bastard there is in the Deepwater Legion Front, but even he can't dodge a punch like that completely—a punch aimed at the water itself, and not at him. Though alive, he's probably just as hurt as I am, so now's our chance to deal damage to Kalakos while he's licking his wounds."

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The thought of Rhizocapala healing and coming back bothered Marisol greatly. If even that punch couldn't kill the Barnacle God, she couldn't even fathom what could, but… he was right.

They had to make the best of the situation.

With Rhizocapala and his giant barnacles out of the picture, Kalakos' stomach was their playground. Marisol followed Maria as the two of them darted toward the fleshy walls, glaives and water drills blurring with speed. Carving through the fleshy walls was no difficulty. They were fast, erratic, lightning sparking from glaives and sharp crustacean shards swirling around limbs—with every cut they made, they left behind trails of glowing, putrid wounds in Kalakos' insides.

[You now have enough firepower to directly deal with a giant remipede's internal structure, huh?]

[Quite the contrast to your previous need for several warships' worth of firepower just to even wound a fleshy wall.]

Behind the two of them, Andres wasn't resting. His left arm may be broken, but he still had his right arm, and his fist hit the ground again, sending waves of shock through the flesh beneath them. Water rippled away from him with every blow, and he yelled at them to keep going. Keep hurting.

Marisol didn't need the reminder. Her blood was singing with excitement. Each strike—each slice—was another step toward taking this damn god down from the inside. The walls around them buckled and twisted, Kalakos screaming in silent agony. It didn't matter how tough she was on the outside. Staying in her colossal form wasn't a mistake when it came to taking down the Whirlpool City and chasing after their fleet, but against a physically tiny team of invaders…

…

… Something felt off.

It felt a bit too easy.

And then it hit them all at once as Marisol and Maria joined up back with Andres, ready to sync up their next attack on the ground—a wave of nausea stronger than Andres' killing pressure slamming into her chest, cold and heavy.

Her stomach flipped, and her senses dulled for a split second. Maria and Andres stiffened beside her as the fleshy, bleeding stomach walls around them pulsed. The bioluminescent pinkish-purple glow brightened, flickering as if Kalakos was just now coming alive, thrumming with energy.

Water began to move in unnatural waves, bucking against them like it had a mind of its own.

Then, Kalakos' growling voice boomed from everywhere.

"Did you think it was going to be so easy?"

Marisol clenched her jaw and pushed the rising bile down, but she felt it herself before the Archive spoke. The water around them thickened, heavy and sour, as if the whole space was sucking in a deep breath. The acidic stench clawed at her gills, but it wasn't just the stench—there was something more behind the sudden change.

Her skin prickled with warning.

[Environmental data shows rising acidity in the water!] the Archive shouted. [To wit, the remipede is the only crustacean in the whole world known to possess venom glands! Prepare yourself!]

Then came the rumble.

A low, bone-shaking tremor from deep within the belly of the beast.

She squinted forward, trying to see through the blinding haze of bioluminescence. Her eyes locked onto the far distance. Water rippled in a great wave a hundred metres tall, rolling toward them like a living wall.

… But it wasn't a wall of water.

Her stomach twisted as the wave grew closer, its colour darkening. It wasn't water—it was a tidal wave of hissing, glowing purple acid, moving faster than anything she'd ever seen. Her pulse hammered in her throat. The acidity burned even several hundred metres away from the wave, so thick it made her muscles clench unwillingly.

Swarmblood Art!

There was no time to think. No time to plan. The wave was five hundred metres away, but it was moving too fast, already too close. She dug her glaives into the ground, her mind a whirl of focus and instinct as she lit them up with lightning, but her heart pounded in her chest, icy fear crawling up her throat.

This killing pressure…

It's… on another level again.

She could barely move. She could barely maintain the lightning around her glaives as she stared the towering wall of acid in the face—but then Andres stepped forward before her and Maria, rearing his right arm back.

His punch aimed straight for the wave. His body, broken and battered, unleashed the last of his power. Crushing Current hit the acid with an explosion of force—and Marisol saw his right arm immediately snap with the impact—but the punch did its job. It dulled the wave's impact just enough to save all of them from instant death.

The world around Marisol became a blur of heat and pressure. She was shoved backwards, and the lightning was ripped from her glaives as her body hurled backwards like a ragdoll. She tried to hold on, tried to dig her apiclaws and glaives into a fleshy wall somewhere, but everything happened too fast. One more sickening jerk, and then—

Darkness.

The three of them were shot out of Kalakos' mouth by her massive acid wave, and now they were all sinking into the great blue.

… What?

The world was still spinning. Her mind couldn't catch up. Her body was heavy and numb, and her thoughts were… fuzzy.

Her eyes fluttered open and shut, the world flickering in and out of focus. She saw Maria and Andres beside her, sinking too, their forms just mere shadows in the depths.

Not good. Not good.

She felt herself slipping. Her limbs felt like lead, and the cold drag of the water was unbearable. Her instincts screamed at her to wake up, to push through, but even though Andres had dulled the instant-kill acid wave with his punch, sprays of acid had splattered onto her skin, her muscles, her bones—her entire body was steaming and hissing, and she couldn't muster the strength to move now.

As she sank, the Archive pulled up a live map of the great blue from the top-down.

[Live map active. Satellite moths report.]

And Marisol's heart dropped as she watched the top-down view of Kalakos' acid beam tearing across the great blue like a giant rapture, erasing everything in its path.

Several kilometres.

That was how far Kalakos' acid beam travelled, and her eyes widened in horror as three Whitewhales—pulling the giant horseshoe crab island along—became decimated in seconds, simply grazed by the edge of the beam.

How many people were on the Whitewhales' backs?

How many people were on the edge of the island that was vanished and disintegrated by the beam?

There was a laugh. Deep. Cruel. It closed in on her, echoing across the great blue, and it was a sickening reverberation that carried with it the weight of a violent promise.

"... I can do that again in fifteen minutes." Kalakos cackled, deep and mocking. "Fear me, and be terrified, but you won't escape.

"None can run from the Swarm."

And then everything faded. Kalakos' laugh, her promise, the echoes that followed—darkness closed in on Marisol like a final embrace.

Everything went black.

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