Inspecting the water that the dark sea creatures originated from, it was clear that this wasn't the copper-leached waters I used to emulate it. It was as though the water itself was intertwined with the darkness. Which was strange because I couldn't seem to replicate the effect, no matter how hard I tried. Perhaps I should consult the lich? Entering his silver abode, I made an inquiry on the nature of the dark sea.

"Lich, I would like to ask you a question. What is that dark sea to our east?"

The lich's eyes faintly glowed as though waking up and he responded,

"For someone who claims to be a historian, you do not seem to know of the history of the land you reside in."

I demanded he answer,

"That does not concern you. Answer the question."

The lich sighed.

"The dark sea you speak of is the sea of night. Happy?"

I pressed on

"Elaborate. What are its origins? Why are its waters so intertwined with darkness? Tell me everything you know."

The lich sighed again, deeper this time.

"Fine, what you call a sea is in truth a lake, but one so massive it might as well be called a sea. Regarding its origins around five hundred years ago, the Sea of Night was called the Deep. As the name suggests, it contained the deepest waters known to man. So deep that light could not penetrate its underbelly. No one knows exactly how the waters gained their dark nature, but it is said in the Sun god's scriptures that it contained one of the broken goddess's relics. One so dark and vile that it polluted the rivers and the sea surrounding it. After a hundred years or so of purification, the rivers were cleared, but not the sea. As no amount of purification could quell the darkness there. As for what lay in its waters, I do not know, as only fools would venture out into those blasted waters. Satisfied 'historian'?"

I answered,

"Yes, that explanation was satisfactory."

Pondering on what the lich said, I ordered one of the bats that took the frog into those waters and started lobotomizing it. Slowly peeking into the mind of the bat, I analyzed its memories from the long flight. Sifting through the jargon, I stumbled upon the sight of this sea of night. It was wrong. The black sands and the water seemed to be the same as both were pitch black. The waters were so dark that they could not reflect light. The only thing there that the light could touch was the broken blackstone ruins that surrounded the black sand beach.

The bat rested on top of one of those ruins and after watching the frog enter those bleak waters, the bat saw something emerge from the horizon of the dark waters. A whale, a colossal one as large as the fortress on the first. Its blubber was a darker shade of gray and merely exiting the waters had caused it to blot out some of the light from the sun. As it reentered the waters once more, the surface looked so serene that one could never have expected something of that size to be lurking beneath surface.

Marvelous if I could capture a creature like that, I could create something truly powerful, but alas carrying a whale into an underground dungeon that was a few days travel from its home waters was an impossible task. Though I would like to send some monsters to explore those waters, I have to prioritize my own safety first. So, gathering the sea creatures from the Sea of Night, I first enhance the parasitic tadpoles. These tadpoles were quite small, the size of a pinky finger.

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But for this variant of the tadpole, I would need it to be much smaller. So I shrunk it down as much as I could without it becoming so small that it could not support itself. Shrinking it to the size of a tip of a needle I make it so that it reproduces rapidly these parasites would lurk in the waters dormant until someone or something would drink from the dreaded waters after which the parasite would slowly eat the thing from the inside out. I'll call these vile parasites the black dust.

As they would slowly move through the river's currents resembling black dust. Not the best name, but it is fitting. Taking another batch of parasites, I began to do the opposite of what I did with the black dust I would enlargen them to the size of a large leech I gave them makeshift teeth made from repurposing their internal bones and made their 'mouth' much stronger and gave it the ability to suck blood from its victims and would simply let them go. I would call these the black leeches.

These creatures already possessed a high affinity to darkness, so I would not need to give them any more magics. Taking the eels, I began to elongate them to about five meters long and began to sharpen their already razor-sharp teeth. These would be the bane of any ship that would voyage into the river as they would poke holes in their deck without the knowledge of any sailor and when they would notice it it would already be too late as they would sink into the dark water to be eaten by a myriad of monsters. These would be called the black serpents. While not technically a snake, they resembled them quite well. Now the piranhas, I would envision these to swarm any disturbance in the water. So I have these little creatures with a minor affinity to water enough so that they could use mana to sense disturbances, but with darkness being its major affinity. I gave these piranhas even stronger gills and fins strong enough to leap from the waters but also enough to not die. These would be called the black piranhas, which isn't very original but kept in line with the theme of naming the creatures here with a 'black' prefix.

And finally, the octopus, this would be the boss of this floor. It would be something akin to a Kraken. So, I enlarged it to the size of the former boss of the first Caecus. And realized that the river wasn't wide enough to keep him in, so I excavated the floor of the boss room and let the river flow through it. That would solve the problem. Now I darkened the pigmentation of the Kraken, making it turn black, but if you shined a light on it, it would show purple, which was a neat detail.

I gave the Kraken excellent eyesight enough to see clearly what was in the air above the water. I took each of his tentacles and strengthened them to an impossible degree. One of these could crush steel with, ease let alone a wooden ship. Now I strengthened its beak. It was already tremendously, strong but after an enhancement, it was so strong that even the iron vase that trapped the lich would be crushed with a little effort. I could not create nor find a material that it could not break.

Which was a scary thing. Now, while the black Kraken resembled an octopus in many ways, it contained a dormant ink sac within it. Perhaps it was some sort of vestigial organ that it had no use for anymore. But I could restore the organ to its former glory and so I did. The ink that was contained within it was, mundane so I inscribed an enchantment upon its very, flesh like the bull of, heaven on the third. The process was extremely mana intensive and strenuous to the body of the inscribed, but after a day or so of pure enchanting, I had inscribed on its flesh a beautiful darkness and death mana enchantment. If threatened, the Kraken could expel the ink stored within it which contained obscene amounts of darkness mana.

This could permanently blind a man with a drop. If it touched skin, it would cause instant necrosis and if it touched metal, it would rust and bend. This was the strongest creature I have ever created. It would take five bulls of heaven to defeat something of this caliber. Perhaps the lich in his peak form and with his summons could take this on, but even then, I could not tell who would win the fight. I could say now that I was fairly safe from the humans. Even the strongest one I've known would not get past the third, but you can never be too careful.