Chapter 187: Kelp Me, I’m Trapped!?
Chapter 187: Kelp Me, I’m Trapped!?
Days earlier, along the jagged western borders of the Dwarven Kingdom, a bleak and unforgiving landscape tore through the earth. Known to locals as the Windswept Canyons, it was a labyrinth of dark, rocky chasms perpetually choked by roaring dust storms and oppressive heat.
Through the howling gale walked a tall, imposing figure. Dressed in a long black trenchcoat, his features were obscured by a deep hood, save for an eerie eyepatch covering his face. To any casual observer, he cut the perfect figure of a gritty, seasoned adventurer. This was King Owen Balder, operating deep in the shadows. He did not travel alone. Tracking beside him was a massive grey wolf, flanked by a pair of heavily armored, winged women whose celestial presence contrasted sharply with the bleak canyon walls.
Owen came to a sudden halt, facing a seemingly blank, solid rock face at the dead end of a narrow gorge. He raised a hand, tapping the edge of his eyepatch.
"My True Sight Cursed Eye can sense it," Owen muttered, a smirk tugging at his lips. "The residual outer ring of the Air Element portal is right here. Clever princess hid it behind a thin layer of stone."
He glanced back at his lupine companion. With a low growl, the grey wolf’s body began to expand, muscles swelling and fur bristling until he towered over the group as a massive, fifteen-foot-tall behemoth. Receiving Owen’s unspoken mental command, Fenrir channeled his energy into the high-tier Knight ability: Meteor Strike.
Like a grey missile launched from a siege engine, the giant wolf hurled himself at the dead end.
Boom! Crumble!
The thin rock facade shattered under the devastating impact, raining debris into the canyon floor and revealing the ancient secret hidden beneath.
Exposed to the air was a massive, ancient root of the World Tree. Its grey bark, patterned like dragon scales, pulsed rhythmically with faintly glowing green runes. But it was the shimmering, ten-foot-wide portal anchored firmly within the root's embrace that made King Balder smile wide.
"Eureka!" Owen laughed over the wind. "That’s the Air Secret Realm entrance my spy reported, alright. Good thing she sealed it up behind that rock wall, or someone else might have stumbled onto it. Haha."
Skogul, one of the twin Valkyries, stared uneasily at the rippling, translucent gateway. She turned her sharp eyes toward her Summoner. "Master, are you absolutely certain we should venture inside? I do not entirely trust the accuracy of that Dwarf woman's intelligence. Something about this place... it feels entirely wrong."
In response, Owen pulled a smooth Recording Stone from his pocket. He infused it with a drop of mana, projecting a phantom image into the dusty air.
The recording displayed a diminutive Dwarven woman cautiously stepping through this exact rift. The camera captured a violent swirl of air, offering a brief glimpse of the tempestuous world waiting on the other side. Visibly unnerved by the roaring vortex, the woman—an Earth Mage by trade—rapidly backed out of the portal, sealed the entrance with a quick spell, and hurried away to report her findings.
"That was Dwarven Princess Nut," Owen explained, his tone shifting into a self-satisfied, lecherous chuckle. "She’s been one of my secret lovers for a while now. She gifted me this coordinate data during her last passionate visit to my bed. The sweet little thing only asked that I bring her back a rare treasure from the realm as a token of my love. Hehe. I swear, Dwarven waifus are just too damn cute."
Gondul looked at her sister, shaking her head in silent, helpless resignation at their master's unyielding otaku nature. Yet, bound by absolute loyalty, the two formidable Valkyries fell into formation. Alongside Owen and Fenrir, the party of four stepped firmly into the shimmering light of the Secret Realm portal.
High above the cavern floor, perched dangerously on the rim of the canyon, two humanoids watched the entire sequence unfold.
The first was a woman barely reaching five feet tall. Her hair was woven into twin brown braids, and her face was stained with fresh, bitter tears. She looked up at the man beside her, her voice trembling. "Emperor... will you release my brother now? I did exactly as you demanded."
Emperor Nuo Fu stood completely still, his hands clasped calmly behind his back. His icy blue eyes remained locked on the shimmering portal below, never blinking. "Your brother is currently held in a secure cell inside," he replied smoothly. "Here is the key to unlock his cage. When you cross paths with King Owen Balder down there, pass him a final message for me."
The Emperor extended his hand, presenting a glowing, golf-ball-sized crystal orb to the distressed Dwarven princess. She took it with trembling fingers, desperate to save her kin.
The wind whipped violently, tossing the Emperor’s long, silky blue hair across his shoulders as he continued in a cold, merciless tone. "Tell him that this Secret Realm possesses only a single exit. And when he finally realizes he is trapped, his son Vali will already be crowned the new King. Now, go."
Desperate and out of options, the 9th Circle Earth Mage summoned a mass of floating rock beneath her feet. Using her magic, she descended rapidly into the abyss, plunging headfirst into the Secret Realm after Owen.
Nuo Fu watched her disappear, a dark, sinister sneer breaking across his flawless features. "Stupid Dwarf woman. Your beloved brother made a separate deal with me hours ago—he specifically asked me to bury you right alongside Owen. Mortals truly are treacherous creatures, always willing to betray their own blood for a bit of greed."
Rumble~!
Suddenly, the canyon floor trembled violently. The "key" Nuo Fu had handed the princess was no key at all. It was a highly specialized, catastrophic artifact designed for portal shattering—a relic Nuo Fu had plundered from a completely different Air Secret Realm. By forcing a secondary spatial gateway to violently manifest directly on top of an existing portal, the fabric of reality began to fracture. The calm, shimmering rift cracked like a mirror struck by a hammer. A deafening, metallic screech of tearing space echoed through the canyon as the gateway warped, distorted, and imploded into a chaotic, unusable maelstrom of raw, destructive energy.
"This Secret Realm is certainly unique," Nuo Fu murmured, his voice laced with arrogance. "But removing you from my grand Go board is far more appealing to me. And just to ensure you never crawl back out, old adversary, let me send you off with a proper display of my true power."
Slowly, the Emperor’s body drifted off the cliffside, rising nearly two hundred feet into the air directly above the collapsing, chaotic rift.
Unclasping his hands, Nuo Fu extended both arms out to his sides. Instantly, two massive, separate blue magical circles materialized around his forearms, casting two entirely different spells at the exact same moment.
The air distorted as two distinct voices emerged from the Water Mage, overlapping in perfect harmony. It was a terrifying secret that no other mage on the continent of Myst could boast: the legendary ability to Dual Cast, an arcane feat mirroring a high-Circle Knight's ability to dual-wield aura skills.
The first voice boomed from deep within his chest, echoing with an unnatural, primordial demonic resonance—much like the way Baihu spoke when channeling her Kyuubi form...
[Daemon Arts: Void Shaking Water Palm!]
Simultaneously, the Emperor’s natural, crisp voice spoke the second incantation...
"Heavenly Arts: Heaven Shaking Water Palm!"
From the left and right sides of Nuo Fu's levitating figure, two catastrophic spells manifested. Normally, a 7th Circle Water Mage’s area-of-effect spell spans a diameter of sixty feet. But under the Emperor’s meticulous, terrifying control, every single attribute of the magic was instantly doubled. Two mega-huge, pressurized watery palms—each stretching a massive hundred and twenty feet across—slammed down in unison.
The impact was cataclysmic. Driven by nearly ten times the power a standard Water Mage could ever hope to produce, the twin palms crushed the canyon, ripping the earth asunder. Rock walls collapsed, mountains crumbled, and the chaotic spatial rift was utterly obliterated beneath millions of tons of stone and compressed water.
When the dust and roaring torrents finally settled, Nuo Fu remained suspended in the air, his hands neatly clasped behind his back once more. Below him, the canyon had been completely reshaped into a deeply buried mass grave. The gate was gone, sealed under a mountain of ruin that no ordinary magic could ever hope to excavate.
With a rare, satisfied smile, Nuo Fu waved his hand. A six-foot-tall, polished stone headstone materialized and dropped heavily into the center of the debris. Carved deep into the rock were the words: [Here lies King Balder III, sent off by The Emperor.]
Reaching into his sleeve, he unrolled a long, shimmering magic scroll containing an extensive list of names. He tapped a glowing finger against a specific entry: [Prince Vali Balder].
With a flash of magical light, a Communication Jade materialized in his palm. Channeling a thread of blue mana through his fingertip, he carved his message across the stone:
[King Owen Balder has been eliminated. You may now begin your ascension to the throne.]
A few tense moments passed before the jade pulsed, flashing with an urgent reply from Vali Balder:
[Impossible! My father went to the Mermaid Kingdom. I personally saw him leave on the SDF-One!]
The Emperor’s finger danced across the jade, his brow furrowing slightly as he replied:
[No. I personally verified Owen's unique mana signature here, and I felt Fenrir's physical might with my own senses. Investigate the vessel immediately and report back when you have concrete news.]
Vali’s response came back almost instantly, laced with anxiety:
[Emperor sir, my father isn't due to return to the capital for another three weeks for the upcoming Summer Council meeting. If he is dead, I need time to secure the guards.]
Looking down at the ruined canyon, Nuo Fu remained entirely certain of what he had sensed. That mana signature belonged to Owen. He typed his final directive:
[I will send Lin Feng to assist you in ascertaining the authenticity of those reports. He will arrive precisely during the Summer Council meeting to aid and instruct you in your coup.]
[Understood.]
The Communication Jade dissolved back into the floating magic scroll. The parchment folded itself neatly, sliding silently back into the Emperor's sweeping sleeves.
"Even if you somehow manage to survive the internal collapse of that Secret Realm," Nuo Fu whispered to the empty wind, "only a true Demi-God like myself could ever possess the spatial artifact required to find the gateway and escape."
With a casual wave of his hand, he activated one of his many high-tier magical tools. A vibrant Gate Portal tore open in front of him, the shimmering window revealing the familiar architecture of the far eastern lands. Stepping through the threshold, the portal snapped shut behind him, leaving the ruined, silent graveyard completely isolated in the howling dark.
And back in the present, I had just finished fertilizing Mermaid eggs...
The thick, intoxicating warmth of the ceremonial wine still thrummed through my veins, carrying with it the lingering, sweet aftertaste of a successful royal coupling. I chuckled a bit guiltily, tightening my right arm around May West’s waist as we stepped back onto the main deck.
Opal, Ariel, and even Frigg turned toward us, their eyes widening in sheer bewilderment.
"Sorry about the delay, ladies," I said, offering a rakish grin. "That mermaid vintage certainly does wonders for the mood. I kind of made May my lover while we were away."
Ariel and Opal blinked, their voices ringing out in a perfectly synchronized, sharp chorus:
""Impossible!""
Mwah~!
To utterly shatter their disbelief, May leaned in and pressed a lingering, affectionate kiss against my cheek. She flashed a highly uncharacteristic, cheeky smile directly at Princess Ariel. With that single, triumphant look, the normally reserved maiden had effectively skewered two royal mermaids with one imaginary harpoon.
Before either princess could find her tongue, May West delivered the final blow that froze them completely in their tracks.
"King Owen is our legendary Neptune," she declared softly, her eyes sparkling with pure devotion. "He proved it beyond any shadow of a doubt."
A flush of sudden embarrassment hit me. It didn’t exactly help that while she was praising me to the heavens, her hands were playfully drifting downward, rubbing against my groin with a teasing, sultry friction.
Damnit, woman, not right in front of my wives!
As our colossal transport drew closer to the mythical capital, May took it upon herself to explain the finer details of our little encounter to the two princesses. By the time she finished her tale, Opal and Ariel were staring at me as if I weren’t a man at all, but some sort of mythical, ravenous sea monster capable of altering the very tides.
Around us, the heavy, silent depths of the tropical Inner Sea pressed relentlessly against the boundaries of our pocket bubble. Inside this localized sphere of displaced Gravity element pressure, however, the air remained perfectly calm and undisturbed.
I stepped onto the second-floor balcony of the massive pagoda built directly onto the back of Bubbles, our loyal Demonic Beast Whale. Gripping the smooth, white stone railing with my right hand, I pulled my nominal wife, Ariel, firmly against my left side. Together, we looked out into the abyss.
Down here, at the absolute bottom of the ocean floor, the world should have been a pitch-black, lifeless void. Instead, it was a breathtaking kingdom of blinding, ethereal light.
I marveled at the staggering architectural feat passing beneath us. The whale-pagoda wasn't constructed from mere timber; like the sprawling city below, it was a stunning fusion of styles. The foundation boasted the stark, grand aesthetic of a white Olympian temple, featuring immaculate fluted pillars and pristine stone that gleamed beneath the water. Yet, as the structure rose, it gracefully culminated in double-layered, sweeping pagoda roofs tiled in shimmering jade sea-glass.
"Unbelievable," I murmured, my voice echoing clearly in the pressure-free zone. "And beautiful... just like all of you here."
Directly ahead lay a monumental, translucent dome—a titanic magical barrier stretching across the sea floor, completely pushing away the ocean to create an air-breathing paradise. Safe from the relentless conflicts of the surface world, the legendary city of Atlantis unfolded like a pristine gemstone nestled in the deep.
I looked up, my breath catching in my throat. Arching over the entire metropolis like the spine of a sleeping primordial god was a colossal, ancient root of the World Tree. It was both majestic and terrifying, its dark, textured bark laced with glowing veins of pure, pulsing mana. Embedded directly into the underside of the massive root was a titanic, swirling magical gateway. The three-hundred-foot portal peered straight into a sun-drenched Secret Realm, casting a brilliant, eternal afternoon glow over the city below.
From the edges of that inverted celestial gateway, infinite tons of water plummeted into the heart of the capital. I watched in absolute awe as a roaring, crystalline river of freshwater and a separate, shimmering torrent of saltwater cascaded hand-in-hand from the portal. They fell like twin silver ribbons, kicking up a perpetual mist that painted brilliant, fractured rainbows across the pristine white stone skyline.
As Bubbles angled his massive flukes, gliding downward toward the defensive barrier, the full layout of the mermaid metropolis came into view.
Massive, fluted white marble complexes—reminiscent of grand, sacred temples—formed the sturdy foundations of the city. But as the structures rose toward the light, they blossomed into multi-layered pagoda roofs, their elegant, sweeping upturned eaves glistening under the portal's artificial sun.
Surrounding the urban core, the city's lifelines stretched out in concentric rings. To our left, multi-tiered, terraced clam farms glowed with a soft, bioluminescent azure. Massive clams the size of carriages lay open in their crystal pools, filter-feeding and cultivating basketball-sized pearls that illuminated the fields. To our right, vast groves of uniquely adapted coconut palms swayed in the artificial currents, their fronds a vibrant, healthy green.
"Three times the charm," I whispered, bracing my feet against the stone deck. "I'm back, babies."
Crack!
With a deafening, glass-like resonance, Bubbles’ pocket bubble merged seamlessly with the city’s grand magical barrier. The massive snout of the leviathan-like beast pierced the boundary, and the heavy, crushing presence of the Inner Sea vanished in an instant.
The sudden transition shattered the underwater silence, slamming a symphony of sound into my ears. The thundering, majestic roar of the twin waterfalls echoed through the open air, mingled with the rustling of the palm groves and the distant, echoing murmurs of a thriving civilization.
In a single heartbeat, the atmosphere flipped from stagnant pressure to a warm, tropical breeze.
I let go of the white stone railing and took a deep, clear breath. The air inside the barrier was incredibly crisp, smelling intensely of fresh rain, the rich, ancient soil of the World Tree root, and the sweet fragrance of wild island lilies.
Looking down from our towering vantage point on the temple-pagoda, I saw the flashing colors of thousands of mermaid tails and graceful white legs.
The citizens were swarming onto the balconies and stone plazas, pointing up at the sky in absolute astonishment. The legendary male Summoner, King Owen, had arrived, riding on the back of a mythic whale into their heavens.
May West leaned in close, her warm breath tickling my ear as she whispered, "Welcome back, King Owen... Or perhaps I should say, King Neptune?"
I looked down at the gathering crowd of Mermaids, a slow grin spreading across my face. Oh boy... things are about to get wild.