The moment Reina vaulted over the crab carcass, the battlefield exploded into motion once again. She didn't even have to shout or light a coloured pheromone flare. The clouds of barnacles overhead immediately turned their gaping maws on her, spitting volleys upon volleys of spines in her general direction. If it were anyone but Reina, Marisol felt they'd be absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of projectiles, but that water scorpion tail moved in blinding arcs, slashing and deflecting spines so fast it seemed to form a bubble barrier around her.

But for Marisol's part, she couldn't afford to just watch anymore.

Maria wasted no time, darting off clockwise around the crater. Marisol kicked off half a second later in the same direction, skating along the edge of the crater with sharp and quick movements. She felt the pressure, the strain, and her skin stung where she'd been grazed with spines and debris all over, but she clenched her teeth and leaned as far forward as she could without toppling over. Pain or not, she wasn't going to fall behind.

Archive! Locate the closest current swirling clockwise around the crater!

A split-second pause. Then the Archive responded, calm amidst the chaos. [Current located. Twenty meters to your left, flowing clockwise at three-point-five meters per second. Adjust your current trajectory by eight degrees, and within five seconds, you will begin skating along the current.]

[It is being made by Maria, by the way.]

[She is swimming so quickly that she is leaving behind a current for you to skate along.]

She veered sharply, her glaives cutting through the ground like a blade. She had to time the shift perfectly, angling herself into the oncoming flow, and she bit her lip nervously as she tried to feel the invisible current, but… it wasn't so easy after all. She lacked the necessary intuition to perceive it in the heat of battle. She was going purely off the Archive's memory—so the moment she hit the current, it was like she'd been launched from a slingshot, and her skating speed doubled instantly.

'Flow'.

'Speed'.

The underwater current carried her forward with an exhilarating, heart-pounding force. This is what Maria feels every time she swims along a current? A small, trembling grin took over her face as she leaned into it, her glaives tearing effortlessly through the crater's uneven surface. The added momentum was sending a rush of adrenaline through her veins, and she didn't want to stop here. She couldn't stop here. Almost as an afterthought, she activated discharge as well, sucking in water in front of her glaives and expelling them out the back, boosting her speed even further.

More!

Faster!

She vibrated her hydrospines to push just a bit of water away from her, reducing her drag. She straightened her streamlined wings and lined them along her back, increasing her body's sharpness, and if she combined everything with discharge and the additional momentum from Maria's underwater current—she skated a whole circle around the crater, five hundred metres in circumference, in under ten seconds.

Most of her weight was being pulled along by Maria's current—and she swore she saw the blur of the Lighthouse Imperator swim past her twice before she even finished a single lap—but for the very first time in her life, she didn't feel like she was disadvantaged underwater.

And she could go even faster.

"… To El Borde Vellamira, Marisol, my one and only."

"If you're reading this final chapter in my technique book, you must be truly, truly, truly bored out of your mind."

"You must have mastered the other techniques already, and by mastered, I assumed you practised them once, then twice, then a couple hundred more times in the dead of night without anybody noticing, and then when somebody asked you how you got so good without practising at all, you said you were just a natural-born genius."

"Well, that you are—so for the final sand-dancing technique I will impart upon you, it has nothing to do with any dancing technique at all."

The water around the crater churned and swirled violently as Maria surged ahead, her powerful strokes slicing through the current like a predator. Marisol didn't have to see it from a bird's eye view. The Lighthouse Imperator was swimming so fast she was making another cyclone, but this one was far, far, far bigger than the one she'd surrounded Marisol in a week ago—this underwater cyclone was born of pure magic, and it surrounded the entire crater.

It began to spiral, drawn by the sheer force of her momentum, and with each lap, the swirling vortex grew larger and larger, the currents pulling everything toward the center—a cyclone born of pure speed and will, strengthened by her Art that allowed her to twist currents around her in circles.

Rhizocapala, of course, didn't seem to care about what the two of them were doing by spinning circles around him. His barnacles had all but given up on trying to hit them, given they were speeding around so quickly, and were instead focused purely on bombarding Reina with a hundred giant spines.

Even Reina wouldn't be able to hold out against the spines indefinitely, so Marisol had to hurry.

She clenched her jaw, narrowed her eyes, and let herself feel every sensation across her body as she continued skating in Maria's current. More and more pressure was building within her chest, and she held it there, every fiber of her being tightening into a singular focus. She clenched her muscles, feeling the fibers strain, then released them, forcing herself into a cycle of tension and relaxation. Each time, she grew more attuned to her body, more aware of her limits—and then her skin prickled as she opened her mouth for a brief second, taking in a mouthful of freezing saltwater.

"Do you think your mama is invincible when she dances in a sandstorm?"

"Do you think your mama feels nothing when she's getting pelted by a thousand grains of sand?"

"Of course not."

"Mama feels everything—she feels the winds shaving away at her skin, she feels the grains slipping past her mask and ear plugs, and she feels her body failing her. She feels her muscles screaming at her to stop dancing, she feels her bones creaking and threatening to snap off their joints, and she feels her heart wavering. Telling her to love herself. Telling her to protect herself."

"But… we're Sand-Dancers, after all."

"We love the thrill of danger."

"We love the pounding, vessel-bursting excitement that comes with speed."

"We're beautiful masochists, and we're proud of that."

"So when you're out there on the great blue, getting stabbed by stormy rain droplets, getting smashed by tidal waves, and you feel like you can't keep yourself in your own body anymore… I want you to take a deep breath, keep a mouthful of water in your throat, and hold it in as long as you can."

"You will suffocate. You will feel like you're dying. You will feel like throwing up, gasping for breath, and falling to your knees, but I guarantee you, for as long as you're 'holding it in', you won't feel anything else."

"No pain."

"For as long as you're holding that mouthful of water and suffocating yourself, you will be invincible."

"This is my final technique: 'Steel Charge', for when you are being battered down by the world, and all you want is to go even faster."

"Go, Marisol."

"Lightning at your heels."

The saltwater was cold. It stung her teeth, chilled her tongue, and made her feel like choking and gasping for breath she couldn't take underwater, but the pain on the inside made the pain on the outside feel inconsequential as a result. The Archive shouted [Stimulating release of focus-enhancing adrenaline!], but she barely heard it ringing in her ears. She felt as though her skin was tightening, hardening, turning into flexible steel—graceful but powerful—and when she could finally feel pain no longer, she allowed herself to calm down for half a second.

Then she activated her Art, and lightning roared around her glaives as she raked them with her nails, drawing blood.

Focus!

Don't let the pain knock you out!

But she didn't feel anything. The speed she was skating at, the cyclone Maria was whirling around the crater, and the horribly cold and salty water she was holding in her mouth—all of it counteracted the fact that she was leaking electrified blood from her glaives, and her blood trails chained her lightning, swirling around the current as she continued skating in circles.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

[...Charge Glaives, after all, is not exactly the magic to electrify your glaives, but the magic to electrify your blood with bioarcanic essence,] the Archive said. [The lightning simply manifests externally on your glaives, hence the name. Therefore, if you can leave your blood behind underwater while skating in circles, the blood droplets will retain their electrified properties and chain the lightning, creating an electric cage around your target.]

[You did this unconsciously against the Mutant-Class wraith shrimp, but now that you know how it is done, you can repeat it underwater and have Maria's cyclone swirl your blood even faster, even harder—and thus the lightning cage can even become a lightning cyclone.]

The lightning followed her. Chased after her. She was leaving behind a trail of pure pink and blue, and if anything, the sharp jolt of electricity in her veins made her skate even faster.

[{Temporary} Speed: 6 → 9]

For a brief, brief moment, she caught up to Maria, and she swore she saw the Lighthouse Imperator blinking pointedly at her as they circled around the crater side by side.

"... Not bad, newbie," Maria said, her voice a garbled, barely decipherable mess. "Can't say ah've ever pulled this technique off before."

The technique, of course, referring to the lightning-infused cyclone they'd churned up around the crater. Marisol couldn't see the whole thing, but she didn't need to. She felt it. Goosebumps on her skin, her hair on the back of her neck standing up straight.

She'd no idea what it looked like from the outside, from the Imperators and Guards' perspective, but it had to be cool as hell. Scary as hell.

Rhizocapala stopped commanding his barnacles to fire on Reina as he looked around him, trying—and failing—to latch onto their blurry forms with his stark eyes.

How's this for a dramatic arena, Barnacle God?

And now, we close in!

Maria took the lead, swimming at a slightly inwards angle to slowly shrink the radius of the cyclone. Marisol followed suit, keeping her Charge Glaives activated, her stamina draining massively by the second. All told, she'd only really used her Art once—the first and last time was against the wraith shrimp, and since then? Never. She'd never figured out how to activate it safely underwater, because there was no safe way to do it, and she had to electrocute herself whenever she wanted to use it.

She had thirty seconds left, give or take, before she had to turn it off or risk killing herself.

Shrink the cyclone!

Faster!

Rhizocapala snorted as he picked up a giant crab carcass and tossed it their way. It missed, of course, and he watched the carcass incinerate and vaporise into ash as it tried to exit the cyclone. Between the sheer cutting speed of Maria's current and her lightning blood swirling around the current, nothing could get in and out of the cyclone. If Rhizocapala tried to eject his heart, he'd fling himself right into her lightning—so he couldn't run. He had to fight.

And with Reina dashing in as well, he had to fight all three of them in close-quarters, perhaps his one and only real weakness in actual combat.

Still, he managed to laugh and rearrange the barnacles across his arms into cannons as the three of them closed in, shrinking the cyclone ever so slowly towards his mound of giant crab carcasses. Twenty seconds. Ten seconds. Marisol tilted her body hard right at the five second mark, exactly the same time as Maria detached from her own cyclone, and then all three of them lunged inwards at Rhizocapala.

Reina reared her scorpion tail behind her, coming in from the south. Marisol spun eight times as she launched into a War Jump, glaives crackling with lightning. Maria darted straight at Rhizocapala as she twirled her entire body, turning herself into a living drill, and as the Barnacle God simply stood there in waiting of their three-pronged killing blow—

Another scorpion tail pierced through the lightning cyclone from the outside, dispelled it in an instant, and impaled Rhizocapala through the chest.

Then the tail reeled, dragging Rhizocapala fifty metres back in an instant, and all three of them slammed into each other with painful gasps.

… What?

Marisol spat out the mouthful of water she'd been holding in as she rolled down the mound of crab carcasses, her Steel Charge wearing off, her body tingling like it'd never felt exertion before. In a daze, she managed to scramble onto her glaives, but as she held her head and stumbled around groggily, trying to regain her bearings, she felt she heard someone shouting at her.

Telling her to move.

Rei… na?

No.

Not her.

Her head was spinning. Her eyes were blurry. In the distance, a scorpion tail darted at her face, but she didn't register it coming at her for half a second—and then Maria leapt in front of her with debris drills for arms, blocking the tail in her stead.

Blood sprayed across the water as Maria crumpled against her, and both of them toppled over, the Lighthouse Imperator's body knocking the dizziness out of her.

Her heart immediately dropped like a stone. Instinctual panic ripped through her chest. She sat up straight, pulling herself out from under Maria, and then throwing herself to the Lighthouse Imperator's side.

Maria's form was limp, her face pale, her breaths ragged. Her jaw—it was wrong. Torn, hanging at an unnatural angle, with blood pouring from the gaping wound in slow, viscous streams. Marisol forced down the bile rising in her throat as she pressed trembling hands to Maria's face, trying to stem the flow.

She… took the hit for me?

[Her Art severely reduced the damage. She would have died immediately if she had not—]

What do I do?

How do I stop the bleeding?

[Take off your cloak and wrap it around her jaw. She should have a tier five mutation that reduces blood loss, so if you do it quickly, her chances of survival would increase drastically.]

Maria's glazed eyes shifted weakly towards her, but no sound came as she ripped off her cloak and did as the Archive instructed. Behind them, Reina managed to scramble to her feet as well, rigid, her tail poised high, scanning the far edge of the crater.

A furious hiss of water shifted Marisol's attention away for a brief second as her gaze followed Reina's.

Who… is that?

What… is…

…

At the crater's edge stood a second human-like bug, her silhouette sleek and ominous against the quieting currents. She had braided locks of hair tied back in a ponytail. Her body was dark and glistening, the armored plates of her carapace interlocking like ancient obsidian scales. Pale, phosphorescent patterns snaked along her limbs. Her four unusually long and lanky arms ended in cruel, serrated pincers, each one twitching in restless anticipation, but it was her scorpion tail—a monstrous, segmented appendage tipped with a jagged, glinting stinger—that drew the eye. It coiled around her, loomed above her like a poised guillotine, and impaled on it was Rhizocapala, who was grinning at the three of them.

Marisol heard the Archive saying something again, but she didn't need to hear it this time to know it was the third of the Four Leviathans: Eurypteria, the Water Scorpion God.

… Shit.

How could I've forgotten?

Victor said this would happen.

If Rhizocapala was in mortal danger, she'd—

"Were you planning on dying here, hermano?" she growled, driving Rhizocapala into the ground with her tail, and the Barnacle God chortled out a pained laugh as he practically bounced off the hard rock. "You? A Insect God defeated by three lowly bugs? What were you thinking, just standing there trying to take that water strider's lightning head-on?"

Rhizocapala let out a wet, rasping chuckle, blood bubbling at the edges of his mouth. "Lose? Me?" His grin widened, grotesque and wrong. "Ye worry too much, hermana. 'Ah was just startin' to have fun."

And Marisol felt a shiver run through her.

Her plan—the cyclone, the lightning, the three-pronged attack—had felt like certain victory.

Now, doubt twisted in her gut.

Was he playing with us the whole time?

Did he have something up his sleeve he could've used against us?

If Eurypteria hadn't intervened…

But she wasn't allowed to enter her downward spiral of horrid thoughts. Far in the back, in the direction of Depth Four, massive war horns sounded, and she whirled around just in time to see dozens of giant spotlights piercing through the mist.

Diving bells.

Lots of them.

After all, before they'd even engaged Rhizocapala in battle, Maria had planted the mist-dispelling flag at the end of the narrow valley, and while it may have taken it a while to finish doing its job… there was no mist anymore. Between their flag and their cyclone, Depth Four's haze had been swirled away completely, and that meant reinforcements were coming.

Eurypteria tilted her head slightly, her eyes sharp but looking mightily irritated. If it weren't for the quickly arriving Imperators and Guards, no doubt the water scorpion would've gone right for their throats, but the Imperators were standing guard by the edge of Depth Three for this exact scenario. Even if Rhizocapala had to be 'rescued' by another Insect God, the reinforcements would arrive quick enough to stop the two bugs from ganging up on the three of them.

So Eurypteria turned and clicked her tongue, dragging Rhizocapala's impaled form behind her like a ragged puppet.

Marisol, for her part, was more than grateful they were choosing to withdraw from Depth Four, but someone else didn't agree.

Reina's voice cracked through the water like a whip, sharp and furious.

"Eurypteria!"

And Reina surged forward, her scorpion tail arcing high. Marisol blinked. Between the suddenness of Eurypteria's arrival, Maria's injury, and Reina's outburst, she finally regained her reaction time—and she threw herself forward, grabbing Reina around the waist and holding the Lighthouse Imperator back with all the strength she still had left.

But Reina's screams were raw as she challenged Eurypteria to a duel, and the Water Scorpion God only paused for a moment, glancing over her shoulder to narrow her eyes with faint curiosity.

"... A water scorpion tail?" she murmured. "How quaint. I must've met you before and gave you my blood. Do I know you?"

Reina continued to thrash, her muscles taut and trembling with fury, so Marisol resorted to extending her apiclaws and cutting into her calves. That made her trip as she tried to lunge forward, and she whirled backwards to glare at Marisol—but then she saw Maria lying on the ground as well, jaw wrapped in a bloody cloak, and that bloody anger was replaced almost instantaneously by something even darker.

Fear.

Worry.

Eurypteria watched their silent exchange with detached amusement, and then she turned away, dragging Rhizocapala's limp body behind her. As the two Insect Gods disappeared through a valley on the other side of the crater, thirty diving bells or so soared over their heads, their bright lights slicing through the water like beacons. Imperators and Guards alike spilled out in organized chaos, their shouts muffled by the water as they each rushed to their posts.

Some immediately began constructing temporary outposts, erecting steel scaffolding and hammering posts into the seabed to fortify their position. Others fanned out across the canyons, their armored silhouettes disappearing into the mist as they moved to secure vital chokepoints. A squad worked to position heavy bioarcanic cannons, another drove spiked barricades into the ground to block potential advances, and the clang of metal on metal rang through the water. Of course, one group rushed towards Marisol, Reina, and Maria as well, and they carried net-like stretchers and boxes of medical equipment.

Marisol didn't need telling twice. She recognised Claudia, the Fourth Lighthouse Imperator, amongst the medical team, and she could do nothing but watch with trembling hands as they pulled Maria onto the stretcher and hauled her into a diving bell. Reina somehow had enough strength left to follow after Claudia by herself, but someone else had to drag Marisol up by the arm, pulling her into the same bell as well.

The entire time, she couldn't help but think it wasn't worth it at all.

They didn't manage to kill Rhizocapala.

Maria was wounded—terribly wounded—and while they'd successfully reclaimed Depth Four, they could've just stuck with their original plan, and nothing would've changed.

Marisol was the one who'd pushed for the plan to kill Rhizocapala, and on that front, they'd failed.

… Archive.

Silence for a moment, as though the Archive wasn't fully here with her.

Then it finally responded after a pause.

[What is it?]

Play back our fight with Rhizocapala.

Just where… did it start going wrong?

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.