Chapter 1353: Far From the Waiting Throne

Namyanna held out her hand, and the trident flew back into her grasp. Stepping forward, she hurled it at the shark still sharpening its teeth.

The weapon skimmed over the shattered ice, its tip aimed straight at the shark.

The mantis shrimp was already prepared inside the cave.

It slammed its right arm against its left.

Bang!

A compressed blast erupted from its left arm and followed the trajectory it had lined up in advance. The trident happened to be directly in its path.

Namyanna wasn’t taking any chances.

She raised her other hand, and the broken slabs of ice scattered across the water lit up with an icy blue glow. They changed direction and closed in on the shark from all sides.

Just before the trident struck, the compressed blast arrived.

The high-speed air current collided head-on with the weapon’s tip.

The two forces canceled each other out, knocking the trident off course. It vanished from where it had been and reappeared embedded in the distant beach.

But the ice kept closing in.

The fragments struck the shark’s fins and body one after another, spreading an intense cold wherever they touched. The shark tried to swing its tail, but ice had already covered its entire body, trapping it in the middle of the sea.

Elowen glanced at Namyanna and raised her hand as well.

An orb of even colder energy gathered in her palm. She barely bothered to aim before casually tossing it at the shark.

Frozen solid, the shark couldn’t dodge.

The instant the orb touched it, the cold stored inside was fully released. Frost penetrated the outer shell of ice and seeped directly into the shark’s body.

It soon stopped struggling.

Its rigid body rolled over, white belly facing the sky as it drifted with the waves.

The group stared at the miserable sight and felt a little more sympathy for Vaelor’s father.

Losing one subordinate after another couldn’t be easy.

In the cave beneath the sea, the mantis shrimp saw the shark die and decided against firing again. It drew back its long arms, shifted its small legs, and turned toward the depths.

Inside the palace, Thalvyr held Vaelor’s soul between his fingers.

His grip slowly tightened, deforming the soul in his hand. For a moment, he truly wanted to crush his child out of existence.

The palace doors slowly opened.

The mantis shrimp paddled its little legs and swam through the gap. It stopped before the throne and met Thalvyr’s puzzled gaze, then raised both large claws and gestured rapidly.

A stream of unintelligible noises poured from its mouth.

Thalvyr listened in silence before giving a slight nod, dismissing it.

"How tragic."

He turned his attention back to Vaelor’s soul.

"How did that child manage to die so easily?"

Thalvyr toyed with the soul, then looked at the mantis shrimp, which had yet to make it through the palace doors.

"Your companions are all dead."

The mantis shrimp stopped and slowly turned around.

Thalvyr regarded it calmly.

"You might as well start over too. All your little friends died. It wouldn’t feel right if you didn’t die once to mark the occasion."

Blood-red light immediately spread through the mantis shrimp’s body.

The glow covered its shell, and a round soul floated out. Once the soul had completely separated from the body, Thalvyr finally loosened his grip and held Vaelor’s soul above his palm as well.

The mantis shrimp’s empty body collapsed to the floor.

Thalvyr tapped his fingers against the throne in a steady rhythm.

Before long, several "templates" appeared inside the hall. With one soul resting above each palm, he extended both hands.

Vaelor’s soul and the mantis shrimp’s soul entered two of the bodies.

The bodies slowly squirmed. Their fingers and legs began to move. They showed signs of waking, though their current state still wasn’t much different from death.

Watching them strain to get moving, Thalvyr felt his temper rising again.

He gave them a chance, and they still couldn’t do anything right!

"Stop rushing!"

His fingers stilled against the armrest.

"Go prepare yourselves and give the templates coming from afar a proper welcome—no, wait. Our guests!"

At his command, Vaelor rose in his new body. The mantis shrimp climbed onto his shoulder and settled into place, and the two left the palace together.

On the surface, Namyanna retrieved her trident from the distant beach.

She returned to the group and lightly tapped each person with its tip, skipping only Seraphina.

Seraphina was simply too large.

Maintaining the same power around her would multiply the energy cost.

Nysera didn’t need Namyanna’s help either, but to conserve Namyanna’s strength, she slipped inside Ethan’s body and hid there.

Namyanna then approached Seraphina.

The two launched into a heated discussion. Neither was willing to give in easily, and it took quite some time before they reluctantly reached an agreement.

Seraphina still looked somewhat dejected.

Namyanna, on the other hand, returned to the group with a smile. Gripping her trident in both hands, she drove it into the ice beneath them.

Crack!

The tip pierced the frozen surface.

Small bubbles appeared above everyone’s heads. Clear membranes of water slowly descended from them, covering each person’s head.

At the same time, the battle-damaged ice began splitting from where the trident had struck. The cracks widened as they spread across the entire sheet.

Boom!

The ice finally collapsed.

Everyone plunged into the sea along with the broken slabs. The bubbles around their heads kept the water out, allowing them to see normally.

But no matter where they looked, they couldn’t sense a single living creature.

The vast sea was unnaturally empty.

Could Vaelor have been telling the truth? Had all the fish really been protected—or rounded up and kept in captivity?

In the palace beneath the sea, Thalvyr sensed the disturbance traveling through the water. His fingers stopped tapping against the throne.

"Don’t keep me waiting too long."

The group now had a clear destination underwater.

Vaelor’s father.

With Namyanna guiding them, finding their way through the sea should have been easy. But as they descended, their route gradually veered away from Thalvyr’s palace and led them into deeper waters.

Namyanna focused on the speed of the current, the surrounding pressure, and the changes in the water as it flowed around the various structures.

An enormous silhouette appeared ahead.

The structure covered a far greater area than any underwater building she had sensed before.