The water had disappeared.

Not drained. Not pulled away by force. It had simply ceased to exist in a perfect, unnatural void beneath the ship. The transition was silent, too precise to be a collapse.

And it wasn’t just an absence of water—it was an absence of everything. No light reflected off the surface, no ripples formed at the edges. It was the absence of space itself.

Orn recognized the danger immediately. This was not just a Depth Dweller rising from the sea. This was something actively rewriting the battlefield before it had even begun.

Tark’s grip on his spear tightened, but he didn’t move. Alya reinforced her hold on the ship, preventing the sudden loss of water from destabilizing them. Ikar stood completely still, his eyes sharp, focusing on the shift in space. The Hunters on board had stopped their preparations and were now frozen in place, watching.

The first thing to emerge from the void was not a body, but limbs.

Long, segmented, and wrong, they reached outward without moving in the way limbs should. Their structure was almost familiar—almost like something that had once belonged to a living thing. But the way they moved, bending in places where joints did not exist, spoke of something that had no natural form at all.

Then came the torso—or something that resembled one, at least that's what they thought. The material of its body did not look like flesh or chitin, but shifting fractured reflections of the sea above, as if it were made from the very thing that had vanished beneath it.

Orn's instincts sharpened. He could tell it was composed of water.

Which meant that it did not remove the water, but had taken it as it's form.

Alya’s voice remained level, but there was a sharpness behind it. "That’s not normal."

Ikar inhaled slowly. "No. It isn’t."

Orn wasn’t surprised. A Depth Dweller that could dissolve and reconstruct its own form from its surroundings was not unheard of, but the implications were worse.

Orn’s mind raced through the possibilities. If it had remained dispersed before now, then it had either been observing them or ensuring its presence went unnoticed. But that raised another question.

Why?

Creatures of this level did not need to hide. Even the strongest Hunters could only fight within the limits of their abilities—Depth Dwellers of this tier did not avoid battle unless they were preparing for something greater.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

If it was surfacing now, then it was because it no longer needed to remain hidden.

That meant one of two things.

* Either it believed it had already won.

* Or there was something else it had been waiting for.

Tark finally spoke, his voice even. "Orders?"

Orn exhaled slowly. "Hold your position. If it moves toward the ship, strike immediately."

Tark adjusted his stance, shifting his grip. "Understood."

The entity did not attack. It continued to rise, forming itself piece by piece, limbs folding and unfolding in ways that suggested it was not bound by a single, stable shape. There were no eyes, no mouth, no indication that it saw them at all. Yet its presence was undeniable.

Alya kept her focus locked on it. "Is it intelligent?"

Ikar’s jaw tightened. "You already know the answer. If it wasn’t, we’d already be dead."

Orn agreed. This was not an instinct-driven beast lunging at prey. It was adjusting its shape deliberately. That level of control did not belong to a mere Depth Dweller.

"How long do we have before it finishes stabilizing?" Orn asked.

Ikar took a slow breath. "It’s already stable. It’s just deciding what form to use."

That was not what Orn wanted to hear.

He had seen Depth Dwellers shift their forms mid-battle, adapting to their opponents. But this one was choosing before combat had even started. That meant it was selecting the most efficient form based on what it had already learned when they fought the other Wretch.

Alya glanced at him. "This thing didn’t surface because of the attack, did it?"

Orn shook his head. "No. It was always going to come up. We just gave it the perfect excuse. Not that it needed one."

Tark exhaled sharply. "Then we should have hit it harder."

No one disagreed.

Orn’s grip tightened slightly on his weapon. "Ikar, can you cut it apart?"

Ikar frowned slightly, his focus shifting. His ability was about removing connections. He could cut apart space, break the continuity of an enemy’s presence, forcing it to exist in separate, fragmented pieces. Against a Depth Dweller that relied on maintaining a singular form, that would be devastating.

But after a few seconds, Ikar’s frown deepened.

"No. It’s not holding itself together in a way I can sever."

Orn didn’t like that answer. "Explain."

Ikar exhaled. "It’s using the water itself as a stabilizer. If I sever it, it’ll just reconstitute from its surroundings." His fingers curled slightly. "I’d have to isolate it from the sea entirely. And that’s impossible unless we—"

He stopped.

Orn understood immediately.

The only place it wouldn’t be able to reform from water would be the Absolute Sunlight.

But that wasn’t an option. They were in the middle of the Dead Sea—and dawn was still hours away.

That meant there was only one other way to kill it.

They had to force it to take a true physical form.

And that meant one thing.

They had to make it bleed.

Orn inhaled slowly, adjusting his stance. "Tark. You’ll hit first. Ikar, sever the moment it stabilizes. Alya, reinforce the ship’s position in case it tries to displace the water around us again."

No hesitation. No further questions.

Orn's voice was calm.

The moment Ikar senses a difference in it's constitution, the battle would begin.

And then a moment later, a shout was heard.

And it wasn't Ikar's.