Elijah floated only a few dozen feet below the surface, but his attention remained fixed on the scene below. As Lamar had described, there was a city down there, but it looked nothing like what he might have expected on the surface. Constructed of coral and decorated with various sea plants, it was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Adding to that impression were the denizens, which the former linebacker had described as mermaids.

In the most basic sense, they lived up to that label. They were clearly hybrids between the planet’s native ta’alaki and fish, which gave them a reptilian cast that more resembled eels with arms than what Elijah had been led to expect by popular movies. Each one carried a trident, and on more than one occasion, Elijah had seen – from afar via Eyes of the Eagle – the creatures tearing into one another. That they’d managed to build a city at all, given their obviously warlike nature, was quite a surprise.

That was part of the scenario, according to Lamar. The aquatic humanoids were known as alaken, and they considered themselves the true natives of Ka’arith. As was the case with Earth, the planet was predominantly covered in water, and in the sea, alaken were the undisputed masters. What’s more, they had been hit even harder by Ka’arith’s excisement from the World Tree, and the vast majority of their civilization had fallen. Only their most prominent city, led by the most powerful among them, had survived.

However, with the fall of their entire society came a regression in their mindset. They’d always been warlike, but after many of their leaders had been slain – or in some cases, fled before the excisement was finalized – they became even more aggressive. Now, they had become at least as savage as orcs, and the only reason they hadn’t spread was because they were confined to the sea.

It was yet another cautionary tale, and one that seemed to have been repeated throughout Ka’arith. Excisement from the World Tree hadn’t simply cut them off from the rest of the multi-verse and set them adrift in the Abyss. It had brought out the worst of their natures, sending them back to more primitive times.

Yet, even as those thoughts skittered through Elijah’s mind, he found himself wondering why, if the world had indeed been cursed to existence in the Abyss, they hadn’t found any Voxx. Sure, there was corruption here and there – like in the fallen grove where Elijah had been confronted by the whispers of his own failures – but he’d yet to see a single Voxx. That didn’t make much sense.

Still, in the Shape of Venom, he looked down on the city and wondered how much had changed after Lamar and his team had managed the first clear. He’d long suspected that the first time through a challenge would be far and away the most difficult, but he’d never had the opportunity to experience the difference himself.

And he was eager to do so.

With that in mind, Elijah cloaked himself in Guise of the Unseen, then swam downward. After a few hundred feet, he started to feel the pressure of the depths, but because of his Iron Body and his attributes, he had no difficulty enduring it. Perhaps he could visit the Mariana Trench when he returned to Earth.

If it still existed, which was far from guaranteed.

Once Elijah came within a half mile of the city – which stretched at least five miles in every direction – he received the notification he had expected:

You have reached the City of Toh. In order to conquer the Challenge of the Niflara, slay the King and Queen.

Reward: Drop of the Ocean

His heart fell. Lamar and his group had been a bit cagey about the reward they’d received, but after they’d grown a little more comfortable, Helen the Explorer had let slip that it was a powerful staff they’d given to their Sorcerer, Kent. Elijah had hoped to receive the same reward, but clearly, his suspicions about being the forerunner was true. Being first meant getting better rewards.

Still, he hoped that the Drop of the Ocean would prove valuable in its own right. Besides, there was the Primacy Ranking to worry about. Even if he wasn’t the first to clear the challenge, it would still net him quite a few points that would hopefully allow him to maintain his lead. The rewards for the overall Trial far exceeded anything available from a single challenge.

So, with that in mind, he continued his descent, following the directions Lamar had given him. The hulking defender had looked at him like he was insane when he’d voiced his decision to attempt the challenge alone, and he’d spent more than an hour trying to talk Elijah out of it. His voice was only one of many, with everyone ganging up on him. However, he had one factor on his side – the others simply couldn’t survive underwater without their potions. And given that those were finite, it just didn’t make sense for them to go along.

Of course, there were workarounds. Elijah knew that as well as anyone. But he was self-aware enough to recognize his own nature, and that nature dictated that, of late, he’d felt a little stifled by constant companionship.

In any case, the others had eventually acquiesced, in no small part because the idea of spending days underwater left them all a little uneasy. People weren’t meant for that kind of existence, and it didn’t take much for Elijah to convince them to adhere to their own natures. For his part, he’d long since gotten over any uneasiness he might’ve felt with that particular environment, so he had few issues with enduring it. In fact, he quite enjoyed being underwater and exploring wondrous seascapes full of interesting life.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Lamar and the others had spent quite some time exploring Toh, and they’d been forced to fight for every inch they traveled. The alaken were extremely territorial, so they had more of an attack-first mentality when it came to visitors. Or each other. Or native wildlife.

Elijah, however, had the benefit of foreknowledge – as provided by Helen – so, he made straight for one of the larger palaces near the center of the city. At first, he’d wondered why someone like the King and Queen would be so difficult to find, but the moment he came into range of the appropriate district, he recognized the issue. The region was absolutely lousy with enormous palaces made of coral. There were hundreds of them, and it seemed that each one was larger and more elaborate than the last.

Thankfully, Helen’s description was more than adequate for the purpose of picking the royal palace out of the bunch. So, Elijah had no issues finding his destination. According to Lamar’s story, getting into the royal wing of the palace required a set of five keys, each one held by a different guard captain who presided over a different wing of the palace.

It was a silly and overcomplicated system, which meant that it was probably set up by the challenge itself – not unlike the entirely manufactured towers with which Elijah was very familiar. Even so, it was nice to have a clear goal and a means of accomplishing it, so he wasted no time before making his way to the first guard captain.

Elijah was eager to test his new skill, so he’d already used Stormborn – along with all of his other buffs – before even descending into the city. The lightning coursing through him tingled, but it didn’t really behave like natural electricity. Probably a good thing, considering he was entirely submerged in water. Regardless, he’d chosen his first target so he could test Stormbind.

After progressing through the wing – the interior of the structure seemed more organic than constructed, with rough walls made of red coral and lit by glowing bubbles – Elijah found himself in a room with his target. Up close, the alaken looked even more alien than before, with ridged fins, slimy-looking skin, and a face that resembled a catfish. In most cases, Elijah would have had difficulty telling the creatures apart, but thankfully, he had One with Nature on his side, and the difference between the one hovering over a crystal in the center of the room was obviously different than all the rest.

Not only was it more powerful, but it was also slightly larger. It carried a staff tipped with flowing seaweed rather than the typical tridents he’d seen. That was all Elijah needed to see in order to mark the creature as the first guard – a powerful mage that had very nearly killed Lamar with its first attack. Considering the man was in his low-eighties, and with a powerful defender class to boot, that was quite a feat. So, Elijah had no intention of taking the alaken’s defeat for granted.

He stalked forward, embracing the full suite of his abilities. Predator Strike. Venom Strike. Envenom. And finally, Stormbind. The creature never saw him coming, and when Elijah sank his fangs into the thing’s slimy flesh, lightning flowed through him and into the creature. It froze as even more lightning lashed out, binding its tail.

Elijah slithered away, grateful that the blight dragon was just as at home in the water as it was on land. Normally, he would have bitten the thing again, but he wanted to test his new ability and see how much weaker the creatures in the second clear would be. So, he focused on the mage, and he felt the thing attempt to cast a spell. However, the moment its ethera gathered, a shock tore through it, and the magical energy dissipated.

If it was possible in his blight dragon shape, Elijah would have grinned. And that expression would have widened when, only a second later, the thing started to convulse. Black veins pulsed beneath its grey-green skin as it was rocked by a powerful seizure. Even when the effects of Stormbind faded, the alaken couldn’t muster the strength to cast a spell. It died within five more seconds, practically dissolving beneath Elijah’s potent venom.

When it was all said and done, barely more than fifteen seconds had passed, and in that time, Elijah’s venom had eaten through the thing’s flesh to the point where it had become unrecognizable. That, he’d expected. Maybe not as quickly as it had happened, but he’d seen his venom at work often enough to know what it could do when augmented by Predator Strike. However, what he’d really wanted to test was Stormbind, and Elijah was more pleased than he’d expected to be concerning the ability’s performance. The mage had been entirely incapable of casting, which was precisely what the description had promised. Still, he’d been a bit skeptical about its viability, so he was very happy with the results.

After gathering the key – it looked like an ordinary key, though it was made from a seashell – Elijah headed to his next destination, where he decided to test Thunderclap. And he was just as happy with the results as he had been with Stormbind. When he activated the ability, dozens of lightning tendrils lashed out, burning the alaken fighter that was his second target. More importantly, the ability also stunned the creature long enough for Elijah to rip its arms off before tearing it in half.

Being on the other end of that kind of an attack felt surprisingly cathartic.

One word that could not be used to describe the fight was challenging, though. Against Lamar and his party, the guard in question had been the reason Derrick had ended up without one of his arms. But against Elijah in his guardian form? The thing was weaker than most of the hunters he’d encountered in the wild. That was just further confirmation that there was a sharp decline in difficulty that came with coming in second.

The third and fourth guard captains fell just as easily as the first two, and Elijah collected the keys. However, the fifth was the one he was really looking forward to tackling, largely because the captain had an entire squad accompanying it. So, Elijah chose to use the third ability that had come along with Stormborn.

He planted himself in the center of the room, dropped Shape of the Predator, and cast Lightning Domain. Whips of electricity exploded from his body, lashing all five opponents with potent magic. Immediately, Elijah understood that this ability had a different flavor than the others. Thunderclap and Stormbind were both powerful in their own right, but any damage they inflicted was a secondary effect. Instead, they were intended to help him control the battlefield, stunning and silencing opponents rather than killing them outright.

Lightning Domain had the opposite focus. Certainly, it stunned the guard captain and its retainers, but that was just a side effect. The primary impact was far deadlier, with each whip of lightning severely burning the alaken fighters. Two died on first contact, but the others managed to survive. However, all but the guard captain itself were so injured that they posed no more threat.

And the primary target?

It was wounded, but it still attempted to fight back. Elijah ended that with a furious burst of staff strikes that crushed its bones and sent even more lightning to lash its injured flesh.

When the slaughter concluded, it left Elijah feeling a bit like a bully. The alaken had stood no chance against him, and his new abilities were far too much for them to handle.

As he collected the final key, he could only hope that the King and Queen would prove more challenging. Otherwise, it would start to feel like pointless slaughter.