It took less than ten minutes for the first sign of danger to appear. I saw another of the strange, transparent creatures in the distance, slowly making its way through the ocean. I frowned, before I tightened my grip on Erik and Felix’s arms and stopped moving. It wouldn’t do for the creature to set its sights on us and chase us around. I only had enough mana to keep myself underwater for three or four hours, and that was if I was on my own. Since I was now healing three people, I only had enough mana for an hour and a little extra wiggle room, before we would need to return to the surface. Since I wanted to save at least twenty minutes to return to the surface, that only gave us twenty or thirty minutes to search. Fleeing from one of the transparent creatures would consume time and mana we couldn’t afford to waste.

However, luck wasn’t on our side.

As I sat there, eyeing the transparent creature and praying it wouldn’t notice us, its movement suddenly halted. Then, ever so slowly, it started swimming towards us, bobbing so slowly and gently in the waves that I could have mistaken it for a piece of my imagination, if I didn’t already know how dangerous this thing was.

Mentally cursing, I wished I could ask Felix and Erik what their thoughts were. We could either give up for the day, or keep searching while hoping the transparent creature wouldn’t catch up to us. However, we were underwater, so we couldn’t talk to each other right now. And the other two couldn’t even see what was happening. Which meant the decision of whether to continue or try again tomorrow, a decision that might kill the three of us if I made a mistake, lay solely in my hands.

I glanced at the transparent creature again, and then felt my mana reserves. We still had more than twenty minutes left, after factoring in return time. But wandering around while the transparent creature chased us was far more dangerous than just hiding and waiting for a new black pearl to form.

I gritted my teeth, and decided to keep going. Even though it was more dangerous this way, the outsiders could find our islands and attack any day now. We needed to find a black pearl as soon as possible. We didn’t have time to wait for better conditions. I just hoped this wasn’t the wrong decision.

I began pushing us a little faster with my water control, hoping to lose the transparent creature, but it remained doggedly fixated on us, even though we were slowly pulling away from it. Since it wasn’t using its teleportation ability, I refrained from using mine, since it was more expensive, and I was already worried about mana costs.

Things continued like this for another ten minutes, with our group of three gradually pulling away and the transparent creature insistently trying to catch us. Suddenly, the water and mana in our surroundings start swirling, before they began getting pulled towards a specific spot in the distance. I felt the urge to sigh in relief, even though I couldn’t breathe.

Thank the ocean mother, another one started forming. Once I saw the mana start to pull towards a location in the distance, I avoided looking directly at it. I knew that my Willpower wasn’t high enough to keep my mind safe if I saw a black pearl from my previous experience underwater. Instead, I looked downwards, trying to see if the great ocean monster had spotted the black pearl. Luckily, I couldn’t see any of its eyes or tentacles yet, meaning we weren’t competing with the king of the ocean for this black pearl.

Since we weren’t competing with the great ocean monster, I began swimming towards the location of the black pearl, while keeping my eyes away from the object in question. At the same time, I quickly slid my hands up to their elbows, before tapping the outside of their elbow four times. It was the signal to let them know I had found a black pearl, and we were closing in on it. I saw both of them nod at me once, and then they both gritted their teeth and began preparing. I grabbed their hands again, and began pushing us faster. I hoped that there weren’t any other dangerous ocean creatures nearby; if there were, I wouldn’t be able to fight back very well, because I needed to avoid looking at the black pearl or we would all die.

Luckily, there didn’t seem to be anything nearby, apart from the transparent creature that had been following us. We had enough of a head start that we should be able to steal the pearl and flee towards the surface with time to spare, even if it started teleporting after us. We got closer and closer to the spot all of the mana and water was rushing towards. Out of the corner of my eye, I could also see that the transparent fish was also swimming towards the black pearl. It had finally lost interest in us, but it was now chasing after our objective.

I took a deep breath, and prayed that my guesses about distance and location were accurate. Since I couldn’t see the black pearl without going insane, I was mostly guessing where it was and how close it was.

Then, I grabbed Felix’s arm, pointed his hand towards the spot where mana and water were converging, and tapped his shoulder twice to let him know it should be within 100 meters.

The wooden block Felix was holding transformed into a net of wood, with a single strand of ‘makeshift rope’ wrapped around his arm. The rest of his wooden net flew towards the black pearl. Felix rubbed my wrist, letting me know he had hit something and caught it in his net.

Praying we had netted a black pearl and not a monster, I grabbed Erik’s hand and transferred it to the rope Felix had made out of wood, before tapping his thumb three times. His runes started glowing, and he squeezed my hand twice, to let me know something was cloaked successfully.

I turned my gaze towards the black pearl, and saw a bright red, pissed off translucent monster right in front of us. Now that it had lost sight of the black pearl, it was enraged.

I immediately blasted us with a jet of water, shoving us away from the creature as a hideous mouth materialized out of thin air and clamped down on our former location. It didn’t catch any of us in the middle of its bite.

However, it did catch Felix’s wooden rope, before biting clean through it. With Felix’s connection to the wood severed, the rest of his net stiffened, becoming ordinary, rigid wood. And, more importantly, Erik’s stealth ability stopped working, exposing the black pearl to the ocean dwellers again. And this time, since I had thought it was safe, I also saw it.

My mind began to bend and break, and the water began to corrode my thoughts. I wanted to swim closer to the black pearl, and become one with the ocean around me. I felt something coil around my waist, but I didn’t care. Even if the transparent fish ate me, if I could touch the pearl it would be worth it. I let go of Felix and Erik’s hands, and stopped healing them. They didn’t matter.

Just as I started propelling myself forward, intending to beat the translucent creature to the pearl and seize the pearl for myself…

I was suddenly jerked backwards, my head stinging from the whiplash as I was swung around. My line of sight with the pearl was broken for a moment, giving me just enough time to tear my eyes away from the black pearl. I quickly searched for Felix and Erik, who were both drowning, and realized Felix had realized what had happened the moment the cord of wood was bitten off. He had used the remaining cord to wrap around my waist, and when I let go of both of them, he had immediately jerked me around in a last ditch attempt to keep us alive. I quickly began healing them again, and then looked in panic at the translucent fish.

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Luckily, its gaze was now transfixed on the black pearl’s location. However, during our brief moment of distraction, a new contender for the black pearl had come.

Out of the corner of my eye, I also saw a golden, glowing worm that sent shivers of danger down my spine. Even though it was much smaller than the other creatures of the ocean, perhaps only twice my size, my senses started ringing with terror as I saw the worm wriggle towards the black pearl.

The translucent fish, noticing its new competitor, began freezing the ocean near the golden worm, but the ice hissed and began melting the moment it got near the golden worm. At the same time, water around the golden worm quickly became murky.

Was it using some sort of acid ability? I felt my fear grow deeper, as I wondered how far the acid from the glowing worm would spread before it lost effectiveness. Worse, I didn’t know exactly where the black pearl was anymore. Now that it had finished forming, it wasn’t drawing mana and water towards it as rapidly as before, making it harder to locate. And two ocean monsters were in the area, both of which could kill our group in ten seconds flat if something went wrong.

The glowing worm straightened out for a moment, before its body suddenly jerked forward. It jetted towards the black pearl at an unbelievable speed, before half of its body left my field of vision. I saw it began to wrap itself around something, and I heard a strange hissing sound, before I saw more ice start to form near the golden worm. I heard two unearthly shrieks, and I saw the golden worm get batted away for just a moment. If I wanted to keep fighting for the black pearl, this was probably my last chance.

Was this salvageable?

I took a gamble, using my teleportation ability to reach towards where I thought the black pearl probably was. I had never been perfect when opening teleportation gates with my ability, but I prayed that just this one time, I could open the teleportation spot where I wanted it to be. Then, I reached out with my left hand and grabbed at the ocean, praying my luck was good.

Something hard, wooden, and net-shaped appeared in my hand, and I quickly dragged it through the gate. At the same time, I heard a horrible hissing sound, and bright pain exploded across my left arm. Ignoring it, I moved the pearl near Erik, making sure not to look at the black pearl. There wasn’t enough time to worry about the aftermath. I pushed the wooden net near his hand, and saw him wince, before he made the pearl invisible again.

I looked up, to see my arm melting. Flesh was falling away from my skin, and blood was pouring out of my skin. I apologized to Erik in my mind, knowing his arm must also be melting, and grabbed Erik’s good arm with my right hand. I moved it to my knee, which he grabbed, before I took another look at the two sea monsters.

The translucent fish was now bright red, and was looking straight at me, and the glowing worm was pointed at me like an arrow. Both seemed pissed beyond belief. I swore in my head, before I threw as much mana as I could spare into water manipulation. Then I began jetting towards the surface as fast as I could.

At the same time, water around me turned into two Miria-shaped illusions, before swimming in different, random directions. I hoped it would be enough.

The golden worm jetted directly towards one of the illusions, before coiling around it and crushing it into fragments of light. For the moment, it was distracted. The translucent creature, however, swiveled its gaze directly towards me, before teleporting towards us.

Desperate, I tried to blast the translucent fish away with a jet of water, but its teeth were too close. I felt my leg jerk, as part of Erik’s body was caught in its jaws and he was nearly yanked off of me. Hee opened his mouth, and a soundless scream of horror echoed through the ocean.

Erik’s left leg, and a huge chunk of his stomach disappeared into the translucent fish’s stomach. I began pouring more healing into his body, ignoring the shaking of my left arm as my skin and flesh continued to melt, and kept pushing us upwards. My teleportation finally came off of cooldown.

The transparent creature was unsatisfied with its first bite, and eyed us again, before it started swimming towards us. The glowing worm finished wriggling, before it jetted towards us again. Seconds crawled by as I searched for a way to survive. The translucent creature teleported towards us again-

And I immediately opened a gate and pushed us through it, perfectly dodging both attacks in the nick of time.

The ocean’s darkness started to disappear, replaced with sunlight from the surface. But we were too far away from the surface. I felt despair start to cloud my vision as I realized we weren’t going to make it. The acid from the golden worm was still eating into my body, and Erik was seriously injured. We still had too much space to cover before we would be safe, and there was no way I could keep us alive long enough.

The glowing worm chased after another illusion I made, sparing us from melting in a puddle of acid, but the transparent fish showed more intelligence. It began freezing the area around us, and I started panicking as my body temperature started to plummet.

We couldn’t die here. We had to make it to the surface, or everything we did would be for nothing. I didn’t want us to die.

I dropped my illusions, freeing up my mental faculties and allowing me to focus on other abilities. I started batting away the freezing water with water control, replacing the water around us with warmer water as I continued pushing us to the surface. The transparent creature teleported towards us again, and I teleported away right before we died.

The glowing worm, seeing its chance, drilled towards us, and I felt another split of searing pain start to appear on the left side of my body as the murky water surround it touched part of my face. I used water manipulation to drive it away, but that left me open to the ice of the translucent fish.

If this kept up, there would be no escape. I glanced around, before I found the only way out.

I pushed us forward with another burst of speed, trying to open up space between us and the transparent fish. The golden worm kept swimming towards us again as I bore with the freezing temperature, feeling my body start to die. Then, a second before my teleportation ability came off cooldown, I stopped moving.

The glowing worm, seeing its chance, swam towards us, and the transparent fish seemed pleasantly surprised that it didn’t need to waste a teleportation to eat us. Its jaws appeared out of nowhere, rapidly closing in on us, at the exactly same time as the murky water of the golden warm started tearing into my flesh again…

I teleported upwards at the last possible second.

The acid from the glowing worm started to drill into the transparent fish instead, causing it to unleash an unearthly screeching sound as it finally experienced the golden worm’s acid. It stopped focusing its ice power on us, and began freezing the glowing worm instead. This caused the glowing worm to also stop targeting us, and it began swimming towards the transparent fish. A hissing sound began to emerge as the two fought below us, and I took it as another opportunity to throw more mana into pushing us upwards. A few seconds later, the burning sensation on my face spread to my left eye, and my sight suddenly disappeared. Half of the world plunged into darkness, even as the shadow of the ocean started to fade away. I pushed us further and further towards the surface, praying the acid wouldn’t reach my brain or spread any further. Luckily, the two ocean monsters fell for my ploy, and had started fighting each other. Without their constant attacks, I was no longer freezing to death.

We pushed forward for several more minutes, the fight of monsters getting further and further away as we approached the surface of the ocean. My left arm started to look more like soup than an arm, and I could feel hot tears start to trickle out of my eyes as the pain got worse and worse. Luckily, the acid on my face wasn’t spreading any further.

Then, suddenly, we were suddenly above water. Gasping and coughing water out of my lungs, I used what mana I had left to create a giant shower of water. Felix, finally able to see again, used the broken wood rope he still had attached to his wrist to wave his cord of wood above the ocean’s surface, and with my remaining good eye, I saw a wooden boat in the distance quickly start flying towards us. At the same time, I felt the burning pain on the left side of my body begin to fade, and heaved a sigh of relief. Whatever power had stuck to my body and seared my flesh away, it was reliant on water to function.

Against all odds, we had managed to escape the ocean with a black pearl.