The moment they stepped through the hull of the Forbidden Vessel, reality shifted. Instead of finding themselves inside the ancient ship, Talia and Keahi stood on a massive piece of driftwood floating in an endless expanse of dark water. Other wooden platforms of various sizes dotted the seascape, creating a maze-like pattern that stretched as far as the eye could see.
"This is..." Keahi trailed off, looking around with evident confusion.
"A dimensional dungeon," Talia finished, activating [Eyes of the Abyss]. The Mana patterns here were unlike anything she'd seen before. Instead of the usual flow, the energy seemed to pulse with the gentle waves, as if the entire ocean was breathing.
The piece of driftwood they stood on was easily thirty feet across, worn smooth by countless years in the water. Similar platforms bobbed nearby, connected by floating debris and partially submerged logs that formed precarious paths between them.
Talia caught movement in the depths below. Dark shapes glided beneath the surface, and she saw the Mana ripple around them. Whatever this dimensional dungeon was, the waters were so rich in Mana that she could barely make out those forms. Not even the murky waters of the Abyssal Jaw Dungeon had been such an impediment to her vision.
Kehai went to the edge of the driftwood and peered into the water. "I don't suppose you can tell how deep that goes?"
Talia looked into the dark water, so dark it was almost black, and shook her head.
A distant explosion made them both turn. A giant tail had smashed apart a piece of driftwood. It had moved so fast that neither had time to identify what Abyssal Creature had caused that.
Talia could have dived into the water immediately, like she had done in the other dimensional dungeons she had visited. But she thought that doing that without knowing what creatures rested below could be too dangerous. She briefly also considered activating the Cursed Form, but then she looked at Kehai beside her. She hadn't had the time to look for Keanu since the Ko'a, her grandmother, would have probably soon stationed people all around the Forbidden Vessel. It was only Kehai's Skill and the fact that they had made a beeline for the Forbidden Vessel that allowed them to climb into it undisturbed.
Talia saw a gigantic shape circle closer and closer. "They can feel us. They can feel our presence," she said, gripping her glaive tighter. She had gotten it back thanks to [Recall] on her way out of the barracks.
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Before Talia could answer, something massive rammed their platform from below. The impact sent tremors through the wood, nearly throwing them both off balance. Water sprayed up through the cracks, and Talia caught her first clear glimpse of what hunted them—a gray fin the size of a sail, cutting through the water with terrifying speed.
The water around their platform suddenly began to churn once again, and Talia shouted toward Kehai, "Dodge!"
A gigantic shark, thirty feet long, exploded from the bottom of the driftwood. It had four wicked red eyes, one pair larger than the others. Defying any logic, the creature actually roared so strongly that Talia felt a shockwave pushing her away from the driftwood and into the waters below.
Before fully plunging into the black expanse, she caught a glimpse of the creature's level.
[Titanic Shark Level 41]
Talia felt her blood grow cold, almost freezing her veins in fear. She'd leveled up after killing Maleko, but this creature had almost ten levels over her.
Kehai landed on a piece of driftwood gracefully, twisting his muscular body in the air with his dark hair whipping around his face as he somersaulted and landed with his feet together.
Knowing that he could probably take care of himself, Talia activated [Crimson Wisdom] and [Eyes of the Abyss] once again. She saw the Titanic Shark slowly turn and make its way toward her. It was incredibly fast for its size, but more importantly, it was suddenly enveloped in raw Mana, which shot forward from the creature into a massive crashing wave aimed right at her.
Talia used [Missile Swimming], covering her own body with Mana and torpedoing away from the attack. But more and more came from the gigantic shark. She would have pegged the monster as a Constitution-based creature, but it seemed like it also had massive reserves of Mana.
Talia wondered what attributes she would be able to absorb from such a creature. That question kept her from using the Cursed Form. Instead, summoning her Hemomancy, she slashed a massive crescent of Blood Water as big as the humongous attack the creature had unleashed. The attack traveled toward the monster, but moments after it had been conjured, the monster summoned two more crescents that destroyed Talia's attack.
She looked at the creature and barreled toward its side, dodging attack after attack and slashing underwater with all the strength she had. The Star Glaive bit into the skin of the shark, but it only left a superficial wound. Talia immediately followed up by using [Ravenous Wounds], but she could feel the vitality of the massive beast—an entire lake of vitality as she had never felt before from an Abyssal Creature—resisting her.
She clamped her teeth underwater, feeling only rivulets of Stamina and Mana coming her way from the giant creature and thinking to herself, This is never going to end this way.
[Ika Toto - Blood Tide] empowered her, but nowhere near enough to deal the damage necessary to kill the creature. And so Talia had only one card other than the Cursed Form to play. She summoned the new Skill that she had gotten from Maleko, which the Chosen from the Kanaloa family had called a one-in-a-thousand-year Skill.
[Soul Domain]