The sensation was overwhelming, intrusive, and nerve-wracking. Something — a foreign entity? An unfathomable consciousness? — was pressing down on my very thoughts. Words spilled out from it, demanding an answer to its mystifying question

How do you wish to proceed?

Thought was almost impossible before the weight of the presence, and I struggled to even close my eyes in a futile attempt to concentrate. My mind was fraying at the edges, and I feared my fate if I didn't give an answer soon.

At least answering wasn't hard to puzzle out; I simply directed my thoughts at the alien consciousness.

What... what do you mean? I asked, my teeth grinding as I fought to withstand the strain.

Unknown entity is recognized as possessing both a [True Soul] and a [True Body], but [Deity] is not detected.

An anomaly has occurred. Conflicting directives per recognized designations. Unable to comply.

Analysis of unknown entity interrupted until the conflict has been resolved.

Defaulting to nearest divine authority... Communication blocked.

Defaulting to the nearest recognized sentient being...

How do you wish to proceed?

With every passing word that entered my mind, the strain grew incrementally stronger. It wasn't malicious, not in the least. I simply could not handle the sheer pressure of the full attention of this... thing.

Gritting my teeth hard enough to break my jaw, I forced out a response.

Options?

It wanted an answer, right? I needed to know what the choices were.

Please choose one of the following possible designations based on the current analysis to resolve the anomaly:

[True Soul] Designation Directives, Summarized: A recognized [True Soul] is to be brought under the veil of the [Accords] and limited as dictated by analysis of the subject's biology and the choices of their patron god. In accordance with the laws, any recognized [True Souls] are permitted into all realms beneath the [Accords] without exception; the [Sovereign God] will not be notified. No permanent harm to a [True Soul] is to be allowed under any circumstances.

[True Body] Designation Directives, Summarized: A recognized [True Body] is to be unbound by the [Accords] and immediately analyzed for divinity. Should divinity be detected, then the [Deity] Designation is to be assigned. Entities lacking divinity but possessing a [True Body] are to be eradicated immediately, or if such action should prove impossible, barred entry to [Accord]-governed realms.

For a brief, agonizing moment, I stared in disbelief at the 'choice' I was being presented with. Without much thought, it was clear I only had one real option. If I chose [True Body], I would seemingly be 'free' of this thing's control, only to be immediately eradicated.

Last time I checked, I wasn't a deity, and the [Accords] confirmed that. There was so much to question about what I was seeing, but thinking was all but impossible, and I knew another few moments of this strain would unravel my mind.

So I picked [True Soul].

The unknown entity's choice has been accepted: [True Soul] Designation.

The entity has been bound by the laws of the [Divine Accords], and the identification process will now resume.

A brief, blessed respite.

The entity's species has been identified: [Nascent Ancient Horror]

Subspecies: [Fledgling Leviathan]

An Ancient Horror has been detected...

Initiating eradication of Ancient Horror.

No! Wait! I cried out internally. The infernal pressure returned immediately, a hundred times stronger than before. My mind and body writhed, wracked with unimaginable pain as the incomprehensible consciousness strove to eliminate me.

Conflicting directives.

A [True Soul] cannot be eradicated under any circumstances.

Eradication of recognized [Ancient Horror] aborted.

In an instant, the unbearable pressure was gone as if it had never been, taking the pain with it. I gasped, desperately sucking in air as I floundered in the clear blue water.

I imagine that if an eel-like creature could sweat, I would have been pouring buckets.

Well, correction, a [Fledgling Leviathan]. At least I knew what I was now thanks to that horrifying experience. My mind shuddered at even the thought of the [Divine Accords] attention. I desperately cast about for something, anything else to focus on.

Peaceful waters met my gaze. Serene sunbeams streamed down from overhead, casting abstract patterns and illuminating the white sandy bottom. I simply stared for a few minutes, letting the placid scene calm the thudding of my heart.

What the hell was that?! I wondered after I finally regained my composure. I had lost my cool twice in recent memory, and I didn't enjoy it. Not at all.

It went without saying something had gone wrong. The presence — this [Divine Accords] — had clearly been confused by my existence. I didn't get the sense it was sentient, more that it was governed by some set of predetermined laws.

My status as a [True Soul], whatever that meant, was the only reason I survived the incomprehensible being. What would have happened if I had picked [True Body]?

Shaking my head to dispel that cheery thought — which was still the only movement I knew how to do — I focused on my immediate concern.

Moving my body.

I promised myself I would return to the conundrum of the mysterious presence in my mind, but for now, I simply ignored it. Even the idea of focusing on it made my heart beat faster and my muscles tense.

Besides, I wanted to stop slowly rising toward the surface of the sea overhead. At least, I assumed I was in an ocean. It would be rather awkward if I was trapped in a lake or something.

Despite how near to death I had come only minutes ago, my excitement and curiosity could not be dampened for long. This new world called to me, and I was eager to answer it.

In what felt like the blink of an eye, several hours passed as I continued to experiment. It was the most challenging thing I had ever done in my life. There was no comparison.

I had made a little bit of progress, but it was frankly embarrassing. Through much trial and error, I had narrowed my movements down to imagining myself underwater, with my arms at my side and legs out straight. Operating from that assumption, I had experimented with attempting to move my whole body as if it was a fish, side to side.

It worked... sorta. I looked downright ridiculous, though.

Unsurprisingly, the signals to many parts of my body did not translate correctly to my new form. More often than not, I got no response from anything.

My body was nothing like my old human one, to make matters worse. I was far, far more flexible for a start. How can I explain?

It is all but impossible for a human to lift their feet behind their back, over their head, and hold them in front of their face. Well, maybe some highly flexible gymnasts could have managed the feat. I certainly never could.

However, such action was trivially easy for me now. I had accidentally caused my body to contort like that as I experimented more times than I could count, and I can say the experience was utterly bizarre.

Human spines weren't meant to bend in such a way. Of course, I didn't have a human spine anymore. There seemed to be little limit to how I could contort my body. Purely unintentionally, of course.

Obviously, any signals to what would have been my hands and feet provided no response. I was reduced to only my spine for the most part. Trying to move my hips and shoulders had some effect, but I couldn't understand why.

In summary, over several hours, I had figured out how to move in a way that vaguely resembled the movements of an eel. However, it was incredibly inefficient, moronic-looking, and felt indescribably weird.

I was moving, though, and had managed to pick up enough momentum to drift over the egg-covered ocean floor with little effort.

I hadn't paid them much attention yet, but now I did, and there were indeed thousands of them. I wondered what was inside them. Certainly not more [Fledgling Leviathans].

All of the eggs looked nearly identical, with only slight variation in the patterns on the shell and the size. My egg stood out like a barnacle on a ship's hull now that I was looking at it.

It was at least several orders of magnitude larger than the rest, but it was buried further in the sand until it was of a similar height. Where the thousands of other eggs had a smooth white, almost transparent shell, mine was a swarthy grey color, with scale-like patterning.

Why had my egg been placed here? Why was there an egg at all? I remembered Death said it had kept a piece of an Ancient Horror. Had it miraculously turned into an egg? Did Death place the egg here?

Why here, I wondered.

I shook my head and continued practicing. I was determined to improve my mobility. I felt like I was performing the fish-eel-thing equivalent of shuffling with my pants around my ankles.

Since no direction seemed better than any other, there were no landmarks, I simply continued moving in my earlier direction.

With every passing minute, I worked to throw off my past conceptions. It was painfully apparent that the bottleneck was me trying to control something that wasn't a human spine like it was one. Thankfully, my new 270-degree vision helped me observe my experiments and refine them.

I'm sure that anyone watching me right then would have thought I was having a seizure.

Still, I wasn't only practicing. I had scrutinized myself more closely over the past few hours and discovered several fascinating things. Aside from the six nubs fanning the base of my skull, there were several similar but smaller nubs further down the length of my body.

I guessed they were undeveloped fins or at least leviathan versions of them. I was thankful they hadn't grown in yet. I had more than enough things to learn how to control already.

For what I assure you was not the first time I found myself wishing I had hands. Everything would have been significantly more straightforward in that case. I could have used them to touch parts of my body and move them manually to understand how they felt.

Instead, I was reduced to sending out signals blindly and praying that something would react. Oh, hey, I got my tail to flick. Nice.

Time was difficult to measure underwater, but what felt like hours passed by almost unnoticed.

I hadn't felt confident enough to move closer to the surface. My current location seemed safe enough, and I suspected I had Death to thank for that.

After all, I would have died if something attacked me right after breaking out of my egg. In fact, I would probably still die if something attacked me right now.

I had three centuries of service to the Death God to pay off. That would be rather difficult if I was dead. What a strange statement.

Of course, I couldn't imagine what my patron would desire of me with a body like this. I imagined I was going to grow larger eventually.

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Maybe I would be used to bring down fleets of ships, like a Kraken of olden mythology. I rather liked the sound of that.

Anyway, I had improved again, and my movements were noticeably smoother now. It was still terrible, but it was better. The entire experience was not unlike physical therapy, something I'd had the pleasure of undergoing in my past life after a childhood injury, except this was a thousand times worse.

Imagine physical therapy without pause or a frame of reference like another leg or years of using the appendage, and you can begin to understand what I was going through.

But I endured because I had to. The inability to do anything else led to great strides in my goal toward basic mobility. However, I could feel my razor-sharp focus beginning to waver.

I was hungry; I could feel it, and I looked around in search of nourishment. I didn't have to look far to find a fin-tastic solution.

No, I won't apologize for that.

The eggs! Just a dozen feet below me was an all I could eat buffet, assuming I could eat them, of course. I didn't see why I couldn't, and haphazardly wiggling my way down, I approached one.

That was when I learned that I could open my jaw to a truly ridiculous extent, larger than my own head even. The egg fit easily into my maw, and I bit down hard.

Instantly, the egg's smooth white shell cracked, and something warm and thick exploded in my mouth. I gulped it down greedily, only now realizing just how hungry I really was.

It didn't really taste like anything. In fact, it tasted almost... wrong. Something was missing, something indescribable.

Despite that, I quickly chomped down another dozen eggs in quick succession. I could feel my hunger ebbing slightly, but I felt unsatisfied. I would have to try other things.

I didn't think I could take a diet of purely eggs for long.

Idly, I wondered what these eggs would eventually hatch into. There were thousands I could see and maybe hundreds of thousands covering the entire sandy seafloor. I hadn't noticed it earlier, but the bottom was ever so slightly slanted, and I had been moving 'uphill' over the past few hours.

Still, there was little to no difference in the monotony. I had seen hundreds of different plant life, but they were small and generally unmentionable. The only mildly-exciting development was some large patches of seagrass interspersed between the eggs.

Now that I wasn't so hungry, I continued toward what I assumed to be the coast. It seemed like the best decision. Oceans had a tried and tested rule. The deeper you went, the bigger the predators.

Yes, I had improved, but I was far from confident in my ability to fight or even flee effectively. My movements looked more similar to an eel now. Not that I had ever seen an eel myself, but the idea wasn't difficult to intuit.

My body swayed back and forth from behind my head, sending ripple-like movements cascading from top to bottom and propelling me forward. I knew I was overdoing it, but only continued practice would make the motions smoother and more subtle.

I looked like a ribbon someone was violently shaking up and down from one end.

As I continued on, I basked in the warm sunlight, admiring my surroundings and the clarity of the water. Looking up, I could just barely make out the indistinct shape of the sun and clouds.

Unlike in some worlds, the sky was still blue. I was curious to see if there would be more than one moon, as was often the case in fiction.

Another hour of inelegant swaying passed before there was finally a new development. The complete lack of other life beyond the flora had begun to concern me.

There had to be a reason there was nothing other than myself. Maybe they had all fled from whatever laid all these eggs or been eaten?

Would the mothers of these eggs return?

But, finally, I was no longer alone. However, I had found humans instead of another aquatic life form as I had expected.

High above, on the ocean surface, I could plainly see the underside of a wooden ship. Making out details through the surface was difficult, but it had at least one mast of white fabric. If you have ever tried to look up through water, you understand the difficulty I was having. My new inhuman eyes gave me no advantage in this department.

My curiosity was piqued, and I couldn't resist as I swayed toward the humans. I tried to stay close to the seafloor, where I hopefully wouldn't be as noticeable, but it was a rather pointless effort.

I was, after all, black against the white sand, and don’t forget, I looked like I was having a violent seizure.

After another hundred flicks — my new term for steps — I stopped moving and allowed myself to sink to the floor.

I stared intently at the humans, watching them sink quickly with the help of large rocks in their hands. After hurridly tossing as many eggs as they could reach into a cloth sack, they kicked off hard and swam for the surface.

As I watched the third human to plummet since I'd arrived, I once again felt the ethereal gaze of the [Accords]. I froze, my body and mind overcome by unbridled terror and fear.

[Human - Level: ??]

You have obtained the general skill: [Identification]

I 'sat' on the ocean floor in stunned silence for several minutes, disbelief coursing through every vein in my body. And if I'd known how, I might've laughed hysterically.

You might be confused, but you have to consider the fact that there was no such thing as the [System] in the world I came from. I know it now as the [Divine Accords], for that is what the [System] really is, but I will explain later.

Anyway, for a few moments, I questioned my existence and my surroundings. Was it all a game, an illusion? How could it be real? General skills, levels?

What is this, a goddamn video game? I thought.

It was unfathomable to me, and it took some time as I laid on the sand to wrap my mind around the concept. Eventually, I chose to just accept it as reality and move on.

I ignored the nagging theory in the back of my mind, as it would require testing and I couldn't bring myself to willingly interact with the [Accords]. Not yet. The pain and terror were too fresh.

Instead, I focused on the humans, but not too closely. I didn't want to feel the attention of the presence at the edge of my mind again, even if it was a fraction of a fraction of its power.

The humans fascinated me. They looked similar to those from home but they were more rugged and muscled. There was more hair on their bodies, and their skin was a golden tan.

I briefly entertained attempting to communicate with them somehow but quickly discarded the idea. I was a creature of the sea. It was unlikely I would ever have much interaction with surface-dwellers.

Besides, while I couldn't see my face, I knew I had a snout. Talking would be difficult, I imagined, if not impossible.

Heh. Maybe I would develop telepathy or something similar.

Speaking of my snout, I had noticed earlier that I had yet another four nubs, two at the tips of my nose and two further back.

These protrusions were different from the rest of my body, smaller and even more undeveloped. I could make out white-ish tips, but nothing more.

Shaking my head, I finally decided to start moving again. I imagined it would get dark soon, and I didn't want to sleep anywhere near the humans.

It wasn't that I thought the humans could catch me or even harm me, but I didn't see a need to recklessly tempt fate.

Hmm. Was there a God of Fate? What an intriguing thought.

Keeping low to the ground, I wormed my way through the many eggs, enjoying the sensation of the smooth sand against the hide of my underbelly. I didn't feel like 'skin' was an apt word. My body looked like soft black leather, so 'hide' felt more appropriate.

After another hour or so of aimless travel, I finally came upon another break in the monotonous underwater expanse. I had tuned out the eggs now; there truly was an incomprehensible number of them.

My new discovery was actually rather intriguing. A shipwreck, or at least the front half of one. Either the other half had drifted off or was buried beneath the sand.

The sun had begun to set, and the seafloor was plunged into darkness. A quick glance revealed there was still daylight in the sky, but it was no longer strong enough to penetrate this deep into the water.

As I approached the ship cautiously, I made another discovery about myself. The white tips of the nubs on my snout glowed, if only faintly. I had immediately worried they would prevent me from being able to effectively hide.

Low and behold, the little lights had immediately winked out. A simple desire for them was enough to bring them back in all their barely-there glory.

They reminded me of a type of fish from back home. It used a tentacle-like protrusion with a luminescent organ on the end to attract prey. What was its name? Anglerfish? I think that was it.

Why did I have four of them? They would assuredly get longer with time. Well, something to worry about later.

I could feel exhaustion setting in. Aside from the many stressful experiences I had undergone in a short time, I had spent numerous hours doing nothing but wildly throwing my body around.

So, seeking some sort of shelter, I moved toward the shipwreck. As the light faded, I had learned earlier that I, very conveniently, had night vision of a sort.

Everything untouched by the sun's rays glowed with a new, indescribable hue. I guessed this was what a new color looked like, and wisely chose to not name it.

Another few hard ribbon-whacking-like movements, and I was close enough to make out finer details. The wood was covered in sea growth, barnacles, and bits of seaweed. Unsurprisingly, there were many holes and cracks in the wood.

There were still no other creatures in sight anywhere, and I was now more confident of my earlier theory that they had all been scared off or eaten by whatever had laid the eggs.

Because of that, I was thankful for the appearance of this wreck. I didn't want to risk sleeping out in the open water.

With my exhaustion urging me onward, I slowly swayed around the shipwreck, searching for a gap large enough to fit my body. It took several minutes, but I finally found one hidden behind a clump of seagrass.

Of course, actually getting myself through was a challenge. My current technique only worked because I had so much space to wildly throw my body from side to side. The smooth, subtle actions required to fit through such a space were beyond me.

So, embarrassingly, I was forced to resort to brute force methods. I more or less slammed my head as close to the gap as I could get it.

Those few moments where my head was squashed against the wood as I wildly tried to move into that damnable gap will forever be one of my most mortifying memories.

Nevertheless, after a great deal of struggle, I finally got my head in the gap. I then proceeded to widen it considerably as I flailed, slowly pushing my lengthy form into the ship's decrepit innards.

There was more than enough space within the compartment. I didn't try to curl up in any particular way. I just let my body to float listlessly.

I was too exhausted to care about a comfortable position. Closing my eyes and wishing out the lights on my snout, I promptly fell into a deep slumber.