Chapter 233: Sea demon god
Gurgle, gurgle!
Deep in the ocean trench, the dark-blue water churned endlessly. Murky bubbles rose from the depths, while muddy debris from the undersea battle swirled in every direction. Visibility had fallen to almost nothing. In this place, even telling up from down, left from right, or forward from backward became difficult.
The sea demons were everywhere.
They moved through the trench in dense waves, some rushing upward toward the battlefield, others circling the Merfolk stronghold like hungry sharks. From above, the entire Sea of Merfolk would have looked as though it were boiling, with wave after wave crashing down and great masses of water rolling violently.
Demon limbs, broken scales, shattered shells, and torn fins drifted through the water. Faint red spread through the currents, quickly diluted, then stained again by another wave of slaughter.
The sea demons showed no mercy in their attack on the Merfolk. Seven or eight lesser demons often surrounded a single Merfolk warrior, biting, clawing, and dragging it apart through sheer numbers.
A jagged green demon suddenly saw an opening. Its frog-like body shot forward with explosive force, triangular ripples spreading behind it as it bit down on a Merfolk warrior’s arm and tore it away.
The Merfolk warrior howled in pain, but its body was partly elemental, composed of dense water energy. There was no blood, and losing an arm did not immediately kill it.
Unfortunately, before it could recover, more sea demons swarmed over it.
In an instant, the Merfolk warrior vanished beneath claws and teeth.
Scenes like this played out across the entire battlefield. Countless small skirmishes formed and collapsed in the dark water, like bait being thrown into a fish pond and attracting endless hungry mouths.
The Merfolk were outnumbered.
Even worse, panic began spreading from the deepest nest.
Shrill cries echoed from the Merfolk’s sacred den. Those who had gone to report to their king discovered that their king was nowhere to be found.
A race with several leaders and tens of thousands of members had guarded this place desperately, yet at the most critical moment, the one they protected had fled.
The Merfolk who had been fighting fiercely suddenly lost much of their will to continue.
Even the three Commander-level Merfolk guarding the depths became unsettled.
The surrounding sea demons immediately seized the opportunity. A group of powerful creatures overwhelmed one of the Merfolk commanders, their attacks crashing into it one after another until its massive body was forced back into the stone wall.
The entire Merfolk line was on the verge of collapse.
Then, deep in the underwater rift, two thousand meters below the surface, a tremendous force suddenly erupted from the largest encircled battle zone.
Boom!
The densely packed sea demon formation exploded outward.
A spatial shockwave tore through the water, forcing hundreds of demons back at once. The sea pressure around the center was pushed away, forming a temporary vacuum zone with a radius of nearly a hundred meters.
Mo Fan stood in the middle of the deep sea.
Zhao Manyan was behind him, protected inside the last layer of his Water-Light barrier. His face was pale, but he was still conscious, both hands pressed forward as he desperately maintained what remained of his defense.
Around Mo Fan, silver light surged.
Space Magic formed a transparent shield, pushing the surrounding water and demons away. Lightning arcs flickered along the edge of the vacuum zone, while dark shadows clung beneath his feet like ink.
Screech!
The Sea Fiend Divine let out a strange cry.
Its body was struck by the spatial shockwave and forced back several hundred meters. The grotesque creature twisted its tentacles in the dark water, clearly startled by the human’s sudden eruption of power.
It had expected prey.
Instead, it had exposed a monster.
The Sea Fiend Divine’s eyes gleamed with multicolored light. It hid behind the densely packed demon swarm, trying to command its subordinates to charge recklessly while retreating deeper into the battlefield.
Buzz! Buzz!
Mo Fan’s expression suddenly changed.
The dark trench around him disappeared.
In its place appeared a brilliant garden filled with brightly colored flowers. Lush trees hung overhead, their leaves fluttering gently in a warm breeze. Sunlight passed through the branches, creating a dreamlike scene completely different from the suffocating deep sea.
The sight was beautiful.
But Mo Fan was not enchanted.
Instead, a wave of dizziness and nausea rose in his mind.
He quickly realized what was happening.
“A mental realm illusion, huh?”
Mo Fan sneered.
The Sea Fiend Divine was trying to drag his consciousness away from the battlefield.
If he were an ordinary mage, even a brief moment of confusion would be enough for the surrounding sea demons to tear through his defenses. Unfortunately for it, Mo Fan’s mind was not easy to shake.
The Concentration Necklace on his chest released a faint glow.
At the same time, Light radiance spread through his spiritual world, while Shadow Magic gathered like black ink and tore into the false garden from below. Deep within him, the primal Demon Element stirred faintly, cold and violent, as if offended that something dared to invade its territory.
Mo Fan suppressed it before it fully awakened.
He did not need to use the Demon Element here.
Not yet.
Boom!
The illusion shattered.
The beautiful garden broke apart like glass, revealing the true scene again.
Mo Fan found himself face-to-face with a grotesque sea face. The Sea Fiend Divine had used the illusion to approach him silently, its narrow head and strange facial features almost touching the edge of his Space shield.
Even Mo Fan was startled for a brief instant.
At that moment, the surrounding sea demons closed in again.
The Sea Fiend Divine vanished into the demon swarm, trying to hide behind layers of cannon fodder.
“Zhao!” Mo Fan shouted.
“I know!” Zhao Manyan gritted his teeth.
He had almost no magic energy left, but he still forced his Water Element to respond. Dark-blue water surged from the remaining barrier around him, spreading outward under Mo Fan’s Space guidance.
Mo Fan’s eyes flashed silver.
The water around them suddenly changed direction.
Countless high-pressure water lines formed a massive web several hundred meters wide. It did not rely purely on Zhao Manyan’s power. Mo Fan used Space Magic to tighten and fold the currents, turning ordinary seawater into cutting lines under extreme pressure.
The black-blue water net expanded.
Pfft! Pfft!
The sea demons that tried to force their way through suddenly stiffened. Their charging bodies slid uncontrollably along the invisible pressure lines, and before they could reach Mo Fan, the force of the water web tore through their formations and scattered them into pieces.
In an instant, the nearby demons were nearly cleared.
Zhao Manyan’s face turned even paler. “Damn… you’re really squeezing me dry.”
“Good job,” Mo Fan said.
“Good job my ass, I can barely stand!”
Mo Fan ignored his complaint.
His spiritual will had already locked onto the Sea Fiend Divine hiding behind the demon swarm.
Silver light flashed beneath his feet.
His body vanished, leaving drifting fragments of light in his original position.
In the next moment, Mo Fan appeared above the Sea Fiend Divine.
Two fingers drew together.
Space trembled.
Purple-black lightning gathered along the invisible edge, and Little Lightning Belle’s power surged through Mo Fan’s Lightning Star River. A long, sharp line of destruction formed before his fingertips, half spatial blade and half calamity lightning.
The Sea Fiend Divine reacted quickly.
Its tentacles spread in every direction, and its body twisted through the water with eerie flexibility, narrowly avoiding the center of the slash.
But it could not avoid everything.
Zzzzt!
The edge of the blade grazed its body.
Several thick tentacles were sliced cleanly apart, and purple-black lightning crawled over the severed ends, causing the creature to shriek in agony. The wound did not simply bleed; the lightning drilled into the tissue and numbed its movement, making the remaining tentacles spasm uncontrollably.
Immediately after, the massive slash continued downward.
Boom!
The blade struck the ocean floor.
A deep trench was cleaved open across the seabed, extending several kilometers through the battlefield. The seawater split for an instant, forming a narrow vacuum corridor along the path of the attack. Every lesser sea demon caught in the line was erased from the battlefield before the surrounding water crashed back in.
The Sea Fiend Divine panicked.
Its specialty was Psychic Magic. It could interfere with minds, command demons, devour memories, and manipulate weaker creatures. But against Mo Fan, its mental attacks were repeatedly blocked. Worse, this human’s destructive power was far beyond what it had expected from a young mage.
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
Mo Fan’s magic energy burned rapidly.
The recovery resources he had prepared dimmed one after another inside his storage space. His Shadow and Space Elements had already been heavily consumed during the infiltration, and now Lightning and Fire were being pushed to their limit.
There was no time to waste.
Mo Fan raised his palm toward the Sea Fiend Divine below and clenched it tightly.
Purple-black lightning surged upward.
Silver Space light locked the surrounding water.
Fire patterns spread across Mo Fan’s arm as Little Flame Belle’s calamity fire reinforced his destructive aura. In the dark trench, Fire, Lightning, and Space intertwined, forcing even the seawater itself to tremble.
The surrounding demons suddenly found their bodies slowing.
Space pressure pinned them in place.
Lightning spread through the conductive seawater, crawling across their scales and muscles. The paralysis lasted only a moment, but in a battlefield like this, one moment was enough.
Mo Fan’s eyes turned cold.
“Calamity Lightning.”
Little Lightning Belle’s aura erupted.
A purple-black spear formed above Mo Fan’s palm. It was not large at first, but as lightning gathered from the surrounding water, the spear rapidly expanded, its surface covered in violent arcs. Space Magic compressed its shape, making the weapon sharper, denser, and far more terrifying.
“Heavenly Tribulation Spear.”
The spear descended.
For an instant, the entire trench lit up purple-black.
The Sea Fiend Divine screamed and tried to flee. It ordered every nearby demon to block in front of it, but Mo Fan had already locked onto its spiritual aura. The Heavenly Tribulation Spear pierced through the first wave of sea demons, then the second, then the third. Each creature it passed through stiffened and burst apart from the internal lightning surge.
The spear reached the Sea Fiend Divine.
Boom!
Purple-black lightning exploded across its body.
Its tentacles thrashed wildly, but Space pressure held it in place for that fatal instant. The lightning did not simply strike the surface. It drilled inward, disrupting its nerves, spiritual channels, and demonic core. Cracks of purple light spread across its grotesque body like a broken shell.
The Sea Fiend Divine let out one last shrill cry.
Then its massive body collapsed, riddled with smoking holes from the lightning eruption. The surrounding water rushed in, swallowing the remaining arcs as the creature sank toward the broken seabed.
A Commander-level creature in the advancement phase, one with terrifying Psychic ability, had fallen.
Just like that.
Mo Fan took a deep breath.
The fire patterns on his body gradually faded. The lightning around him weakened, and the silver glow in his eyes dimmed slightly. His face was calm, but his breathing had become heavier.
The Demon Element inside his spiritual world slowly quieted again.
He had not used it.
But it had been close.
If the Sea Fiend Divine had been any stronger, or if Zhao Manyan had failed to hold the defensive line for even a few seconds, Mo Fan might have had no choice but to open that forbidden door.
Zhao Manyan stared at the fallen Sea Fiend Divine, then looked at Mo Fan.
For a long time, he could not speak.
Finally, he muttered, “Brother… when did you become this ridiculous?”
Mo Fan glanced at him. “I’ve always been ridiculous. You just noticed late.”
Zhao Manyan wanted to curse, but he was too tired.
The Sea of Merfolk had been dyed crimson. In the deep ocean rift and trench, corpses floated and sank, scattered across different depths of the seabed.
The remaining sea demons lost their command and fled in disorder, unlikely to return for some time.
As for the Merfolk race, they had nearly been annihilated. The few survivors gathered among the broken stone walls, sobbing in sorrow and confusion, unable to understand why the king they had defended had abandoned them.
Mo Fan looked toward the deepest part of the den.
His expression remained serious.
The Sea Fiend Divine had appeared too early.
The Merfolk king had fled too strangely.
And whatever was hidden in this trench was clearly more complicated than a simple Water Elemental Spirit clue.
“Let’s go,” Mo Fan said.
Zhao Manyan looked at him weakly. “Go where?”
Mo Fan’s gaze fixed on the depths.
“Inside.”
Zhao Manyan’s face stiffened. “Can we not?”
“No.”
“Damn it, I knew you’d say that.”