A second crab lunged from the left.
Its three pairs of walking legs stepped over the debris of its companion, scraping fine scratches onto the volcanic rock floor.
Its pincers opened to their widest angle, aiming straight for Ethan's knee.
A wood thorn shot out.
The second crab exploded into debris.
A third.
A fourth.
A fifth.
The swarm of crabs lunged from all directions simultaneously.
They had no tactics, no cooperation, only pure overwhelming numbers.
The crabs in front were blown to pieces by the wood thorns, while the ones behind trampled over the debris and continued to charge forward.
Explosions rang out one after another across the arena.
It was not a continuous roar, but a series of muffled thuds so dense they practically overlapped.
Dark red debris surged in the seawater, spreading outward from the center of the arena like a dark red flower blooming in the deep sea.
Meanwhile, in the deep-sea Dragon Palace.
Boulder leaned back on his coral throne, holding a coral cup in his left hand and a piece of golden-brown roasted deep-sea clam meat in his right.
The surface of the clam meat was brushed with a layer of seaweed sauce, glistening greasily under the light of the luminous pearls.
He took a bite, washed it down with a gulp of Coral Brew, his Adam's apple bobbing. “Enlarge the screen.”
The guard below the throne immediately adjusted the crystal ball.
The circular projection screen floating in the middle of the hall stretched outward, doubling the size of the image.
On the screen, Ethan was being swallowed by the swarm. The dark red tide of crabs surged from all directions, almost completely obscuring his figure.
Another crab exploded into debris at Ethan's feet.
Boulder chewed on the clam meat, a faint smile playing on the corners of his lips.
One point one three million.
He had been waiting for this day for quite some time.
He would return those humiliations tenfold.
Eight Second-Tier wizardry models.
The complete diagram of the Spirit-Deceiving Array.
Those repeated calls of “soulmate.”
And the crisp sound of his bones shattering when he was whipped away by vines at the Horn Mountain altar.
He was waiting to see that wizard torn to shreds by the crabs.
Waiting to see the expression he had long anticipated on that face.
Just then.
The dome exploded.
The dome of the entire hall blasted outward from the center.
The giant luminous pearl, over ten meters in diameter, was sent flying by a single punch. It tumbled through the air and crashed into the side wall of the hall, gouging out a crater several meters deep.
Shattered basalt stone slabs fell from the dome.
Each slab was the size of a carriage, the runes carved onto their surfaces rapidly dimming as they fell.
The slabs crashed onto the stone floor, smashing deep craters into it.
Debris sprayed in all directions, striking the runes on the walls and sending ripples of pale gold outward.
The seawater inside the hall was thrown into utter chaos by the shockwave.
The barrier on the dome that kept the seawater out shattered in an instant, and freezing seawater poured in through the rupture.
The coral cup in Boulder's hand shattered into pieces.
Deep blue liquor and coral fragments slipped through his fingers.
Before he could even stand up, a hand covered in pale gold scales reached down from the rupture in the dome, its five fingers splayed as it clawed toward him.
The hand was not large, with slender fingers and pale gold scales that shimmered with a dark gold luster along their edges.
Each scale was the size of a fingernail, tightly embedded into the surface of the skin.
The moment the fingers clenched, the surrounding air exploded with a muffled sonic boom.
Boulder's body flew off his throne, completely out of his control.
Then, the hand clamped around his throat.
As the five fingers tightened, the knuckles sank into the gaps between the scales on both sides of his neck.
The pale gold scales clashed against the deep blue scales on Boulder's neck, producing the harsh, grating sound of metal grinding on metal.
Boulder was lifted from his throne by that hand. His feet left the ground, leaving him suspended in midair.
He grabbed the wrist of that hand with both of his own, trying to pry the five fingers open.
But the moment his fingers touched the pale gold scales on the wrist, a heavy, crushing pressure emanated from the hand.
Boulder's fingers froze.
His arms fell limp, swaying slightly at his sides.
His legs also lost all strength. His knees buckled, and his entire weight hung from that single hand.
The seawater inside the hall continued to surge.
Shattered stone slabs and fragments of the luminous pearl tumbled through the murky water, while the runes on the four walls flashed frantically.
A figure descended from the rupture in the dome.
She wore a suit of dark gold scale armor, its surface rippling with water-like patterns.
A mass of long, deep blue hair drifted in the seawater, the ends of the strands shimmering with a faint pale gold light.
On either side of her forehead was a fully grown golden dragon horn, the spiral patterns on them complex and ancient.
Her facial structure bore a thirty percent resemblance to Boulder's, but her cheekbones were higher, her jawline sharper, and her pale gold vertical pupils seethed with a suppressed, violent rage.
She was Elisa, the Eighteenth Princess of the Sea Dragon tribe, and Boulder's older sister of the same mother and father.
Her right hand gripped Boulder's neck, holding him aloft in midair.
The churning seawater in the hall came to an abrupt halt the moment she touched down.
The entire hall fell into a suffocating silence.
The guards knelt on the floor, pressing their heads even lower.
Hanging from her hand, Boulder's lips twitched.
“E-Eighteenth Sister, I, I...”
Elisa looked down at him.
The violent rage seething in her pale gold vertical pupils had not faded in the slightest; instead, it grew even more intense.
“Three-Thousand, have you lost your mind?”
Boulder's fingers twitched.
He wanted to speak, but could only squeeze a few incoherent syllables from his throat.
Elisa released her grip.
Boulder crashed onto the stone floor. Propping himself up with both hands, he coughed violently.
Elisa stood before him, looking down at him.
“Father conceded so many benefits to make you see reality,” her voice was not loud, yet every word carried the weight of a mountain. “Not to make you defiant.”
Boulder's fingers tightened against the stone floor.
His knuckles sank into the crevices of the stone slabs, his fingertips turning white from the sheer force.
He raised his head.
“I will not accept this.”
Elisa's vertical pupils contracted slightly.
“You won't accept this?” She took a step forward. “Do you have any idea of the humiliation I felt when I had to bow my head and sign that treaty at the Wizard Council?”
Boulder's lips trembled.
Elisa's voice finally rose.
“Well?!”
The word exploded through the hall.
The sound waves caused the remaining stone slabs on the dome to shudder, forcing the kneeling guards to press their heads even lower.
Boulder's body was trembling as well.
After trembling for a moment, he suddenly whipped his head up, his pale blue pupils swirling with something bordering on madness.
“By what right?”
Elisa stared at him.
“What did you say?”
“By what right?!” Boulder stood up from the floor.
His legs were still weak and his knees shook, but he kept his spine perfectly straight. “By what right can those weak humans oppress us, the Sea Race, like this? In what way are we inferior to humans? Father is an esteemed Eighth-Tier Eternal existence! Why must our Sea Race still be so heavily oppressed by the Wizard Council?!”
As he roared the final word, the young horns on either side of his forehead lit up once more.
A pale gold light flowed over the horns, and the surrounding seawater began to churn from the energy fluctuations.
Elisa looked at him.
In those pale gold vertical pupils, the violent rage receded inch by inch.
Replacing it was something deeper and colder.
She remained silent for a long time.
The only sound in the hall was the heavy, muffled churning of the seawater.
Then, she spoke.
Her voice was extremely soft, so soft it was almost drowned out by the sound of the water.
“It seems you are beyond saving.”
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