I awoke with a yawn befitting a leviathan. I even tried to stretch my arms which accomplished nothing. There was a brief moment of confusion as I tried to sit up, only to find that I was now physically incapable of such a thing.

Reality quickly set in, and I opened my eyes. My body had drifted during my sleep, now no longer an ungainly mess of curls. Some parts of me were even touching against the slimy rotting wooden boards. I felt refreshed and ready to take on the next day in my new, inhuman life.

So I finally addressed what I had been putting off since my near-death; I reached out to the presence at the back of my mind of my own accord.

Status?

Instantly, I felt a tiny fraction of the consciousness turn its attention to me.

The entity is being analyzed, 54% complete.

I blinked my second pair of eyelids at the message; I'd discovered them yesterday. They were far easier to use than my outer eyelids.

The [Accords] reply to my request bewildered me. I had expected either no response or perhaps a floating blue menu that utterly defied reality before my eyes.

The last thing I had expected was to be denied.

After another few attempts to get a different response from the [Accords], I gave up. No matter what I did, it only told me that it wasn't finished 'analyzing' me. I suspected it had something to do with one of its first messages.

Helpfully, the presence in my mind had no issue replaying old messages. Truly a top of the line user interface.

Reconfiguring... New categorization was created...

Given everything that happened, I suspected that the category [Ancient Horror] was rather barren. After all, the directive for such creatures was immediate eradication upon identification. I suspected I was the first to ever reach the point of actually being analyzed under the system.

I wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing. After all, it had described it as me being 'bound.' What did that mean, exactly?

Well, with that out of the way, I turned my attention to leaving the shipwreck. The hunger had returned in earnest, and many fish-tastic eggs were waiting for me.

Without too much difficulty, I squeezed my head back through the gap I had widened previously. However, escaping took all of my concentration, so I overlooked the danger outside until it was too late.

I was no longer alone in the Egg Plains, as I'd elected to refer to them.

Roughly a hundred fish were swimming near the shipwreck, and before I was even halfway out, I'd been spotted. A dozen bizarre-looking creatures broke off from their organized swarm and swam toward me.

Staring at one, I attempted to use the General Skill [Identification], which I supposedly had.

[Cycloptic Wringer - Lvl. 4]

It had the rough shape of an eel, but that was where the comparison to anything I had seen on Earth ended. Where its head should have been, there was only one large eye. The creature's mouth was on the underside of its curved neck, full of sharp needle-like teeth.

I quickly identified a few more of the approaching swarm.

[Cycloptic Wringer - Lvl. 6]

[Cycloptic Wringer - Lvl. 9]

Out of all the dozen Wringers approaching me, the highest was at Level 9, the lowest being the first one I had identified. Not one of them had any individual characteristics and were virtually identical.

As the first of the cyclops fish approached me, I did my best to lash out at it and crush it between my teeth. It casually evaded me, arching through the water in an elegant dive that inspired envy within me.

I wasn't even half as graceful. Yet.

Still halfway inside the shipwreck, there was no way for me to dodge the next Wringer as it dived at me. I wasn't sure how it would attack since it approached eyeball first. So I was surprised when the creature tilted up slightly at the last second.

It slammed its curved neck against my side, sliding along until its lower jaw caught on my skin. Pain immediately radiated from the impact site as it bit down with needle-like teeth.

I roared in pain, but the Wringers were unbothered by my distress. Another three Wringers latched onto me in quick succession as I frantically fought to free myself of the wooden boards. That was when I discovered the meaning of 'wringer.'

Each creature began wrapping its eel-like body around me, constricting me like a snake. The fishes weren't all that strong. In fact, I barely felt the pressure, but that wasn't the point.

Knocking them off had just become a non-option, and eight more of the creatures were swimming around me. And that was ignoring the rest of the swarm only a few dozen flicks away.

I fought through the pain, focused on freeing the rest of my body with powerful but inefficient sways of my body. The wood of the shipwreck's hull cracked, and I burst free. My sudden movement agitated the remaining Wringers, and another three dived toward me.

One was aiming close to my neck, and I saw my chance. With my higher familiarity, I easily whipped my head around and bit down on the Wringer, crushing its eyestalk for a skull between my teeth.

A disgusting goop filled my mouth, but I swallowed it down without a second thought. I didn't think about it, but I once again noticed that something felt like it was missing in the taste.

For my troubles, I received a new message.

Defeated [Cycloptic Wringer - Lvl. 8]!

*Hey, where is my level up?* I thought in mock annoyance.

There wasn't any time to ruminate on the message, though. While I had managed to rather handily deal with one of my attackers, the other two had slipped by. I now had six of the damnable leeches wrapped around me.

Swimming was more challenging than ever before, and I fought to keep an eye on the Wringers that were still circling me and the swarm in the distance.

I truly was in a sea pickle. I wasn't sure how much danger I was in exactly, but I assumed allowing the Wringers to stay attached would have adverse effects sooner than later.

*It's probably poison,* I mused.

Curling my head backward, I tried to chomp down on the closest Wringer, but my strike was clumsy, and I missed by a considerable distance. I swear I saw mockery in the creature's one beady eye.

Another three Wringers crashed into me, their sharp teeth piercing my black leather-like skin with ease. I roared, the sound echoing through the water. I struck again, ripping a large chunk out of the creature's lower body.

However, it refused to let go, only glaring at me as its blood dispersed into the water. I glared in return as I swallowed the bloody flesh and lurched at it again.

However, it was too close to my head, and I was either physically incapable of bending that far or didn't know how. I curled as tightly as possible, straining to get closer, but it wasn't enough.

I roared in frustration at the fish mocking me with its eye.

A numbness had begun to spread from the multitude of bites across my body. The pain faded away with each passing moment. Not a good sign.

In desperation, I tried the last idea I had. I tried to suck the creature into my mouth. To my surprise, I felt something within me shift, and I began sucking down water in massive amounts.

Skill [Consuming Maw] learned!

I felt the [Accords] attention for a split second, and reading the message, I mentally activated the skill. Immediately, a vortex of water appeared in front of my maw.

I watched as the injured Wringer lost its grip on my body, its teeth slipping free as it was inexorably sucked into my mouth. I bit down gleefully, savoring the feel of the creature turning into bloody chunks.

Defeated [Cycloptic Wringer - Lvl. 5]!

Thrashing violently, I curled through the water, bearing down on the next closest Wringer attached to me. It stared at me fearlessly, almost challenging me to do something. Even when I opened my jaws wide, activating [Consuming Maw] yet again, there was never a hint of fear in its one eye.

It lost its grip on my body within seconds and was sucked into my mouth.

Defeated [Cycloptic Wringer - Lvl. 9]!

Killing that Wringer turned out to be a mistake. The swarm of a hundred or more of its fellows was no longer content to watch from the sidelines and began swimming toward me. The remaining six circling me all attacked at once, and I didn't manage to stop a single one.

All of them bit down, and I once again roared in anguish. I could feel myself slowing with every passing second and was at a loss as to what to do.

In desperation, I began pumping my body forward as quickly as possible, just trying to escape the approaching horde of murderous fish bearing down on me. I knew without a doubt it wouldn't take even half their number to kill me.

I finally understood the strategy of these bizarre, seemingly suicidal creatures. Assuming I was right, and the thousands of eggs below were more Wringers, then they didn't lack for disposable bodies.

An individual Cycloptic Wringer was weak, almost laughably so, but they would win in the end through sheer numbers alone. I suspected that protecting their unborn young was all that mattered to them.

Still, I was in a bad situation. Even if I was unencumbered, I couldn't have ever hoped to outswim these creatures. The near hundred fish were almost upon me, and I turned around.

Opening my mouth yet again, I activated the only skill I had.

A sucking vortex of water appeared a second before the foremost Wringers reached me, and in quick succession, I killed three of them.

Three out of almost a hundred.

I ignored the messages from the [Accords], glad that they weren't intrusive and overbearing. I had to focus. I didn't hold out any hope that I could scare these mad fish off.

No, I had to kill every single one of them.

The seemingly one sided battle raged on for half an hour as I slaughtered fish after fish, either biting down normally or sucking the ones just out of reach into my mouth. I didn't know if there was a limit to how many times I could use [Consuming Maw], but I had yet to find it.

I managed to kill roughly half their number, but I certainly wasn't winning. Sparing even a moment for killing the more than dozen Wringers wrapped around my body was impossible, as two more would replace every one I slew.

Most of my body was numb now, my lower half sluggish or entirely unresponsive. I continued to fight as hard as possible, but I was too inexperienced and too weak.

Another half dozen Wringers curled elegantly through the water, lining up for an attack dive on my mostly immobile form. I watched helplessly as they shot at me like bullets.

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Unable to offer up a resistance, my body recoiled at every hit, forcing me down toward the sandy ocean floor below.

I could do nothing as I hit the ground. Darkness began to creep into my vision, the Wringer's poison permeating my immobile form.

That was the second death in my life.

Hah! I am only toying with you. I didn't die, but I admit, I came dangerously close. No, I was saved that day by the most unlikely of heroes, the most fabled of saviors, my own personal knight in shining armor!

It was a damn pelican.

Well, technically, it was a *lot* of pelicans. But I will always remember that one bird who plunged through the water like a knife, the water parting before its beak in a manner defying physics. It snapped up a Wringer before my very eyes and then reversed course almost immediately, defying the laws of gravity.

It was followed by many of its fellows, each diving down and snatching up a Wringer before shooting up toward the surface.

I was dumbstruck when, only a few minutes later, all of the Wringers aside from those still wrapped around me were gone. One of the birds had dived for me, but upon realizing I was several times too large, it had turned around.

Shaking off my shock, I dispatched the rest of the fish quickly and looked around at the bloody water. I hadn't made it very far from the shipwreck despite my best efforts, so I began making my way back.

I was exhausted, and it hadn't even been all that long since I had woken up. Out of curiosity, I attempted to open my status once again.

The entity is being analyzed, 73% complete.

Wonderful. I'd just wanted to know whether my status would show my health or not. That was assuming a 'status' was even a thing. How similar to the systems from fiction would the [Accords] be?

For that matter, why was there a damn system at all?! Did the gods read fiction from Earth and say, 'Damn, that sounds like a great idea! Let's do it!'

I shuddered. There were so many implications based on that thought I didn't want to even begin to consider.

It took far longer than it should have for me to reach the shipwreck, but slipping inside the now gaping hole in the side was faster. The instant I was inside, I closed my eyes, releasing the iron grip I'd held over my body since the beginning of the fight.

I needed to rest and wait for the poison in my system to circulate out. The bleeding from the bite wounds of the Wringers had already subsided somewhat. In reality, I wasn't too terribly harmed. My hide was punctured in innumerable places, but that was all they were, small teeth-sized puncture wounds.

Taking a moment to relax, I didn't notice myself slipping into unconsciousness.

--- ✦ ✧ ✦ ---

Two days passed in the blink of an eye. I never roamed far from the relative safety of the shipwreck, always keeping it in sight. I saw a few more swarms of Wringers in the distance, but they didn't notice me and continued on to wherever they were going.

I furiously practiced swimming, only stopping to eat more eggs and sleep. I assure you I had grown quite disgusted with the taste, but they were all I had. I never saw another creature, aside from the Wringers, and I already knew from experience they didn't taste any better.

The fight had only further impressed upon me the importance of improving my mobility and control over my new body. For this, the shipwreck proved immensely useful. Using the various wooden beams, I scraped parts of my body against them.

What purpose did this serve, you ask? It allowed me to finally mentally connect to various parts of my lengthy form I just couldn't figure out. I had finally managed to cast aside the comparisons to a human body and fully embrace my new leviathan form.

I wasn't nearly as graceful as those damnable Wringers, but I had made progress and was understandably proud of myself. I was also getting bored. The Egg Plains were dull and lifeless once you got used to them. The only movement was the dancing light reflecting through the ocean's surface high overhead.

Sometime yesterday, I'd swum up to the surface and poked my head out, but there was only ocean in every direction. I don't know why I was disappointed; it was only to be expected, really. There weren't even any ships.

I was beyond ready to move on, so I did without preamble. Leaving the shipwreck behind with gratifying speed, I weaved through the water in various patterns, striving to push my dexterity whenever possible.

In addition to the usual eel-like swaying of side-to-side movements, I also cork-screwed through the water in a spring-like shape. Sometimes I even swayed up and down like the waves overhead.

While gravity and the concept of up and down were still quite ingrained in my mind, I was actively working to discard them. Such concepts don't matter underwater, after all.

I had decided to continue in my original direction, not seeing a reason to go anywhere else. I was hoping to find the edge of this plain soon, and thankfully, it only took a few hours of travel.

The Egg Plains ended rather abruptly. The ocean seafloor changed from smooth white sand, empty aside from bits of plant life and the eggs, to chockfull of everything imaginable under the sea.

There were hundreds of different plants, nearly blocking out the sight of the sand underneath. Kelp, algae, rocks of various sizes and textures, and coral-like plants of myriad colors.

Innumerable fish of hundreds of different types and sizes darted through the plants. I saw creatures vaguely resembling lobsters, starfish, stingrays, crabs, and even an octopus here and there.

Of course, none of them looked like any sea creature from Earth I had seen or even heard of. Beyond some similarities in shape, they were all totally alien to me.

However, I didn't observe the mesmerizing scene for long. My attention was on the many, many patrolling swarms of Wringers.

This was where the hundreds of thousands of creatures that had laid all these eggs were. They patrolled the edge of this gigantic plain, assumably created on purpose by killing or fending off everything there originally.

Thousands of them swum by constantly, forming a wall of flesh with their bodies and keeping out all the other sea creatures.

Occasionally, a brave octopus or fool-hardy gigantic crab would attempt to break through the wall, clearly desiring the delicious eggs harbored within. When this happened, hundreds of Wringers would immediately descend upon the interloper with a fury and either fend it off or kill it in short order.

I slid across the seafloor for several minutes, trying to hide between the eggs before finally coming to a stop several hundred flicks from the wall. Any closer, and I feared the Wringers would notice me.

I couldn't rely on a timely save again, and there were far more than the mere hundred of these one-eyed monsters I'd fought previously.

Motionless, I waited patiently for my chance. From my observations, the Wringers didn't care to pursue intruders if they got too far from the plains. The issue was that I wasn't confident I could make it through the wall and get far enough away before I'd be unable to move.

Less than thirty bites had nearly been enough to incapacitate me entirely before, and that had been over half an hour. The instant I was spotted, at least that many would instantly dive-bomb me, with hundreds more piling on shortly after.

I needed a distraction, but the attempts to intrude by the creatures on the other side were few and far between; and most importantly, they were short.

The hungry sea creatures weren't willing to commit to an assault and would give up after being bitten a few times. So I was forced to wait for an opportunity to present itself.

Time passed as I waited before finally the moment I'd been waiting for arrived. I tightened my curls as I saw a formidable creature approach through the mess of aquatic flora. The myriad sea creatures scattered before it, but it paid them no mind.

Squinting my eyes, I mentally triggered [Identification].

[Garadus Tyon - Lvl. ??]

It was my second time seeing a creature at a level I couldn't discern. I couldn't tell whether it was stronger than the human diver, but it certainly looked like it was.

At first glance, the [Garadus Tyon] reminded me of a shark, but with legs resembling a dog adapted for swimming. Its skin was a turquoise color, and its front shoulders were wider than the rest of its body, giving it a hulking-muscled look. Unlike a shark, its tail was elongated like a snake, with a long upper and lower fin running down it.

It moved through the water with powerful strokes of its tail, dog-paddle-like movements of its feet, and occasional 'leaps' off the ocean floor.

The Wringers saw it coming from a mile away, and thousands of them began congregating in front of the monstrosity's path. I wasn't sure what the Wringers hoped to accomplish. The Tyon's speed alone would be enough to breach the lines, and its skin looked much too tough for their thin teeth.

Regardless, it wasn't any of my concern, and I began making my way off to the side toward the thinner sections of the Wringer barricade. I couldn't keep myself from watching the battle with one eye as it commenced.

I could clearly hear the Tyon's roar as it met the hundreds of Wringers diving toward it head-on. The very water seemed to vibrate at the sound.

I half expected the Wringers to comically bounce off or be squashed in the face of the monster, so I was shocked by what actually happened. The [Garadus Tyon] didn't even open its titanic maw to bite down on its impudent enemies.

Instead, a cyclone formed in the water around it, and invisible blades sliced through the dive-bombing Wringers with impunity. Within moments, the crystal clear water was distorted with the blood and guts of the dying fish.

In awe, I watched what could only be magic pierce through the water, scattering the thousands of Cycloptic Wringers in the Tyon's path. It crouched on top of a particularly large coral-like growth and 'leaped' through the water.

Not wanting to waste this perfect chance at escape, I shot forward, leaving the ocean floor as I kicked up sand behind me. I was a streak of black in the ocean, and the Wringers that noticed me didn't have time to react as I shot past them.

Weaving through the aquatic plant life in many vibrant and more diluted colors, I left the Egg Plains behind, never to return.

Analysis of entity is complete.

Full functionality instated.

And then my mind was overwhelmed by numerous messages.