After properly putting the fake pretender in her place, I was happy to reclaim my throne once and for all. She pouted and complained in her native tongue that I couldn't understand, but she wasn't important enough to warrant diverting my attention away from my little bath under the sun.

After she realized I was ignoring her, she stormed off, huffing. Secretly, I watched her with interest, quite curious about how the hell that new tail of hers worked.

... How does she even poop now, though? Or piss?

Aaaaand not thinking about it. I'm not a pedophile, please don't arrest me.

Actually, how do I piss? Oh, right, I don't. How? No idea. When in doubt, though, blame someone else. So I blamed the system (I originally made a jew/nazi joke, but it doesn't work here on patron. Sorry for those who got offended!).

I idly ran through my status, thinking over my strategy. 3% wasn't a lot for so much work, but it also was far from little. I suppose I could make a dozen more trips down to the abyss, and by then, I would rank up. That would open up new opportunities, hopefully.

I got up from my throne to make a round through the reef. Just to make sure nobody dared to harass my little protegee, I ferociously displayed my aura, causing the weaker creatures of the area to go into cardiac arrest.

... It felt pretty good. While I was far, far from matching that being that passed by me so long ago, I was catching up quite quickly. Anyways, the new king of the reef was found, extracted from his hideout, and eaten. It couldn't even put up a fight.

When I was finally satisfied that my position in this homeland of mine was firmly secured, I spent the next couple hours taking care of little Shelly. Well, 'take care' might be a bit of an exaggeration. I simply showed her a nice spot to sleep, told her to shut up and stop whining about not having a real home, and then helped her train her spells and kill a couple of weak fish.

When I was satisfied that I'd done my duties for her, I dived once more into the abyss. I will not describe my adventures there since there really isn't much to say about it. I went, I searched, I killed, and I ate. The fights weren't really life-threatening for me, but nor were they easy, I suppose. I almost got slapped by one of the slug's wild tentacles, and that would have hurt.

Although, with my new scales, I would have still been fine, probably. Still, that slug was quickly and brutally murdered for the offense.

The times of desperate fights for scraps of food were more or less over, really. I was big and powerful enough to simply bully my way across the ocean floor, only occasionally having to flee some of the more massive titans, although they seemed to have very little interest in me.

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I ransacked the ocean floor, digging up giant clams and shattering their shells. I plundered the crustaceans who fled or tried to hide, their defenses meaningless before my steel-crushing coils and deadly fangs.

I would say I did some other cool stuff, but in reality, I most or less just bullied my way to victory. By the end of this trip, my spoils of war were quite satisfying. If it was up to me, I would have remained down here for at least another week, however, I needed to go check up on a certain mermaid.

With great reluctance, I abandoned the now much emptier ocean floor and went over to the great reef wall, which this time, I'd always kept an eye on. Then, I began to swim upwards.

I admit, I was a bit spooked. When going downwards, my speed was high enough that I reached the bottom floor fast enough to avoid staying in the middle of the water for too long, hence avoiding the dangerous predators. When going upwards, though, I was slow enough to be in the danger zone for longer.

Thankfully, nothing happened, and I reached the reef safely. I took a sniff and found little Shelly's scent some ways off. And... did I smell blood?

God damn it. I leave for two f*king days and this happens? If she got herself killed I'm going to be pissed. Or at least try to be.

I quickly made my way over, and to my surprise, found Shelly sitting on top of some corals, a pained look on her face. I could see cuts all over her body, and she had many teeth-like marks on her young body.

She was using some sort of magic, as several fishes that looked suspiciously like Killzone inhabitants hovering around her, but not approaching. They were simply circling her, keeping away from her.

She had dark bags under her eyes, and she looked on the verge of fainting. Damn it, now I felt bad for throwing her to the wolves.

Oh well. She survived, and I'm here now. I shouldn't need to say that these fishes were nothing but fodder in front of me.

I made my way over to shelly, casually snatching up any fish that dared to linger around here. One of those bastards was obviously drunk on blood since it tried to bite me. Bad idea.

Shelly looked at me and gave me such a relieved smile that I was honestly a bit taken off guard, and then she fainted. Well, I suppose she was must have been quite tired.

I picked her up with my tongue and dragged her off to a safer spot. Why she was this close to the Killzone in the first place, I don't know. I do, however, remember distinctly warning her about near this area.

I dropped her on top of my throne and tried to think of a way to help her heal. However... What could I do? I'm a snake, and furthermore, even if I was human, I'd have little idea how to help her. I can only hope her constitution is high enough.

I did feel a sliver of regret at having abandoned her for so long, however, such experiences could only help her in the long run. Other than protecting her occasionally and giving her my thoughts on how to use her stats, there really wasn't much I could do for her anyway.

I stood guard over her injured body for an entire day. Her wounds were indeed slowly closing, but she was also quite pale. The smell of her blood attracted a couple of sharks and other scavengers, however, my furious aura alone was enough to send them fleeing for their lives.

Finally, at the dawn of the second day, she woke up. At first, she seemed confused, but then, she shot up, eyes wide and full of fear. I gave her a couple of moments to gather her thoughts before I wordlessly pushed the corpse of some small fishes I'd murdered earlier.

She looked at me with an almost betrayed yet thankful look, which was quite confusing, and then proceeded to messily devour the fishies.

Well... She must have been hungry. Just what the hell did she do while I was away?