"Move, people, move!" Shane's red writing appeared in front of them, causing Blue and Bonnie to stop thinking it was an attack. They huffed and continued going forward toward the docks.

"Stop using that thing. Everyone knows we need to run!" Alex's green letters appeared.

"Everyone shut up. Just follow my arrows," Hera was using her map to guide them back to the docks. Shane and Adriel could do the same, but she was in the lead of the pack, so the responsibility fell on her. At the same time, using the Illusory Script, she was making some pointers to where they would need to turn in order to get to their destination.

It didn't take long for them to find the Flying Slime Fish, and everyone jumped in. But before that, Helena felt the need to say something else.

"Remember to take out all the water in your lungs before taking out the choker. Actually, don't even take them out. We can still breathe air with them. Just keep them on until we reach the next room."

Everyone agreed as they jumped into the vehicles. Almost at the same time, all of them sprung to life and started to ascend. This time, even the protective bubbles were filled with water, making them a bit slower. Everyone was feeling tense, like being stuck in a traffic jam when they were late for something important. Hera kept replaying what she found out through the guide over and over in her head. Aside from the doorway that was protected by a supposedly extremely strong and smart monster, all others would only appear when it rained. They would be dragged by the current and eventually leave the room altogether. And this was their chance. Sure, maybe the doorway would take them to a very deep room, but if that was the case, they could just wait around for the next one. Especially now that they had the chokers, if they ended up going back to the Seven Islands, they would be able to swim through that massive hole and then finish the challenges before finally going back home.

Or, if they ended up in any other room, Hera hoped that it would, at least, stop with this kind of bullshit. Having to deal with conditional doorways was already getting on her nerves. Most of the MAZE didn't have those, so why the hell were they having to deal with so many of them at once?

Just as she was getting even more frustrated, the Flying Slime Fish slowed to a halt, and a word appeared around the protective bubble.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me!" Blue wrote angrily.

"This time makes more sense than the previous one. If we move too fast up, we could die due to the nitrogen in our bodies," Bonnie explained.

"Wouldn't the chokers fix that issue?" Shane asked.

"I don't know. Maybe, but there is no mention of that in the description. Either way, I like that we stopped here. It's better to be safe than sorry," Bonnie continued.

"I just hope this is not just a quick drizzle. If we get up there and the rain is over, I'll be pissed." Adriel put some drawings around his word, trying to mirror emojis, but his artistic talents were not the best.

The Flying Slime Fish started moving again, but soon they stopped one more time. Hera kept shaking her leg nervously.

'Hera… While we wait. I just want to apologize,' Lurize spoke up. He was still on her lap, together with all of the other court members.

'What? Why?' Hera looked down.

'For the temple. I wanted to get the armor, but I was reckless.'

'Oh. That's ok. I know you went after it because you wanted to get it for me, but that's fine. We can talk about this later, ok. I can't focus on that right now,' Hera took a deep breath to calm herself down, 'But don't worry. Everything is ok. And sorry for not talking too much with all of you down there. There was a lot going on. Especially you, Nimbus. You were out there in your humanoid form, and I don't think I ever asked your opinion about anything.'

'Don't worry, Empress. We were talking amongst ourselves, and everyone was on high alert. Besides, we depended on your senses to know where things were, so we needed to focus,' Nimbus said with a happy voice.

Hera couldn't help but smile. However, that lasted only a short time. She was still worried about the rain and if they would miss the doorway. Not being able to see where it was would mean that they would have to wait for the next time it rained. That could take a day, a month, a year, who knows. The worst part was that they would even need to figure out where it actually was, and now they didn't have Yarnball to help.

'If we don't find it, we might only have one option…' Hera thought to herself, but she felt like a hypocrite just thinking about it.

'You mean Alex?' Daskka asked.

'I mean her curse… I don't like saying that Alex and that are part of each other, even if that's technically true.'

Daskka just nodded, and they waited for a little more time before the Flying Slime Fish finally started moving again. Tense moments went by, but as they got closer to the surface, they could see some light breaking through as the raindrops reached the water. Looking up was like looking at a sky of scintillating stars. Beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

As the constructs reached the docks, the hatch under the raft opened again, and the group arrived back on dry land. However, instead of just opening the bubbles right away, the Flying Slime Fish opened a small hole under it to allow the water inside to go back to the ocean. During that time, no one could leave. The hole was too small, and even if it wasn't, they would fall back into the water before trying to get back up, which could be dangerous since the place was covered in slimes.

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Before the water level got low enough for them to start pushing the water out of their lungs, Alex wrote something for everyone to see.

"I used the curse to know where the doorway is. It's to the left of here, on the opposite side from where we arrived. We need to look for a giant fin, then swim and dive inside the mouth of the whale. The curse is being a bitch and not giving me more information about it, but it looks like this is all it can say for now.."

"A giant fin?" Helena asked.

"That's what it's telling me," Alex confirmed.

"Ok, try to take the water out of your lungs as soon as you have enough space. We need to be in good condition for whatever is going to happen," Shane reminded everyone just a moment before she managed to raise her head out of the water and push the water out of her lungs. It was a feeling very similar to throwing up, but somehow even worse. Still, it was something they all had to do.

As soon as the bubbles disappeared, Bonnie and Blue rushed to a cabinet in the corner where they had left their bags. In there, it was mostly clothes, potions, and other tools that they still could use, not to mention their water bottles. With that in hand, they all rushed out, running toward the edge of the raft as the rain continued to pour. They were getting close to the edge, and to the left, they could see a gigantic fin piercing the waters. It was still far away, but it seemed to be moving fast.

"Ok, so we need to be in front of that. To go on its mouth, but that thing is not alive. It's kind of like that shark with a big mouth. Hang on. I have a picture on my… Our tablets!" Alex was talking when it suddenly dawned on her. They forgot to get their tablets.

"Shit, Nimbus. Griffon, docks, now!" Hera barely finished yelling orders, and the Sentinel was already under her in his griffon form, sprinting back to the docks. The Empress also sent most of her court away, keeping only Armory, Scythe, Lurize as a beetle, and Daskka out.

"Hera, we can get new ones!" Helena tried to make her stop, but the explorer had a reason for doing this.

"If we are close to a doorway that leads to civilization, they can connect to the internet!" Hera yelled as she was getting out of earshot. Even if they had Bonnie's spyglass, being able to connect to the internet, especially if it was a recently discovered room or one that only had the connection tower on the other side, would be a massive help to the group.

At least it was a straight line until the docks, even if it would have them going across almost half of the raft. Luckily, Nimbus was faster than he used to be. Right now, his top running speed was close to 50 km/h. However, at the moment, he couldn't move that fast since the ground was wet.

It took them about five minutes to reach the docks, and Hera quickly found the tablets in the glass case. She grabbed the entire thing and jumped back on Nimbus with Lurize's help before the Royal Tutor returned to this beetle form, and they were once more running towards the end of the raft. Now, she could already see the fin, which was massive. Easily bigger than any of the buildings in the raft, and it wasn't even that close yet. Whatever they were going to enter would be a true sea monster, the type that could swallow a ship whole.

'Empress, in front of us,' Armory called, and Hera focused on the road. There was a trail of glowing petals going to the water, leaving a trail for the rest of the group swimming right in the path of the giant fin.

"Hera!" Helena called. The Empress just waved and told Nimbus to continue moving. When he left the raft, he flew for another hundred meters or so before halting to be just above the rest.

"Hera, here," Adriel pointed to his drone. It already had a partial barrier that protected anything on top of it from water, and it would be a perfect place for the case filled with tablets.

The Empress nodded and told Nimbus to get closer to the water. They struggled a bit and finally were able to place the glass case on top of the drone. As soon as she did that, Adriel closed the barrier, and Hera jumped into the water, followed by Nimbus.

"Do we know what that thing is?" Hera asked.

"All that I know is that it's not a monster. Like it may be shaped as one, but it's not. It's like a massive golem with some moving parts inside.

"Moving parts? It has moving parts?" Bonnie asked.

"Sort of. But we don't have to worry about anything," Alex started speaking, but her voice became somewhat gargled, and the veins on her face were visibly growing, forming a crescent moon on her cheeks and getting closer to her mouth. She then turned to Hera and spoke in a way that sounded like two voices were talking at once, "Let's dive. We need to get deeper to be safe. Can you use that flashbang continuously or a light that is always that strong? Make it behind us, so we see where we need to go."

The Empress considered mentioning the curse, but she stopped herself, "I think I can. Let's go."

Everyone dove and started swimming deeper into the ocean. Despite the danger of alerting the slimes or any other creature that lurked in the depths, Hera made a floodlight behind them. The water here was crystal clear, and thanks to the spell, they could see for the first time the thousands of slimes under the raft. It wasn't enough to see the bottom of the ocean, but it did reveal the owner of the coming towards them.

That thing looked like a mix of a basking shark and a manta ray, with extremely wide fins and a wide body with a long tail behind it but a massive mouth spanning a 50-meter radius. Hera could see several segments inside the mouth, almost as if they were ribs, and that the ocean's water was being sucked inside. However, it wasn't doing anything aside from going forward. It had no eyes, no movement on the fins, and by all accounts, it should not be something alive.

"Everyone, swim for the mouth. Let the current take you in," Alex wrote in front of the entire group using the Illusory Script, but even her writing seemed a bit off. The letters were almost dripping and twisting at the edges.

They did as the assassin told them and continued moving towards the mouth of that gigantic structure. Some of the slimes detached from the raft and started swimming toward them, but they were extremely slow underwater. It didn't take long for the giant manta shark to get close enough to start sucking them in. Everyone just leaned in the current and was pulled inside the construct's mouth. They passed a tunnel that was just 10 meters wide and 8 meters tall and were spat out inside the belly of the structure, and to everyone's surprise, they were no longer underwater.

Hera took a moment to gather her bearings and push the water out of her lungs. They were inside what someone would put in a children's book as the stomach of a whale. There was water on the ground and some pieces of random rocks here and there. Glowing cubes everywhere illuminated the area quite well, and on the far corner of this place, there was a single pure white doorway.

But there was a problem. Between them and the doorway, there was a massive slime with the shape of a moray. A large toothy maw with five rows of teeth and tentacles were coming from the sockets instead of eyes. The creature had a black color with some silver strands floating inside it and it could easily reach the top of this stomach-cave even when half of its body was coiled in the ground.

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Anemoray - Monster of the deep - Level 36

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Anemoray finally had a chance to catch this prey. It saw them moving around the old city, and it knew that if they were running away, they would come here, just like that one prey that it had lost a long time ago. Anemoray was tired of living off other slimes and the fruits in the ocean. Now that it had meat in front of it, it wouldn't let them get away.