At the bottom of the dark, silent ocean—where no sunlight dares to reach—the water is thick, cold, and still.
Ancient pressure crushed all around, and the only sound is the faint groan of shifting currents and the eerie hum of deep-sea life.
The seafloor is a barren graveyard of forgotten bones, broken ships, and shattered relics cloaked in eternal shadow.
Amidst the gloom, a strange sight disturbs the silence: A perfectly spherical ball of ice, hovering unnaturally in the water—suspended like a frozen moon.
It glowed faintly over the seabed below.
Suddenly—
CRAAACCCK
CRAAAACKK
Cracks began to spread across its surface—delicate, like veins in a glass orb before...
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM
It splintered forth into chaos, mist rising as it opened.
And finally, the figure within was revealed.
An ordinary young man floating in the cold water, his mere existence bringing massive amounts of coldness into the water around him.
But his hands were outstretched, and in them, he held a piece of blue hair, wet and drifting softly.
The sight of a figure who possessed nothing but a head and neck, from below nothing but dark blood gushing out endlessly.
The figure's eyes still held shock and horror, mouth agape, coated in blood as it looked toward Ryuk's own dull eyes.
"You! You monster!" Grent said in horror as Ryuk rolled his eyes emptily.
"Monster!? Me, a monster?"
"Am I the one who ordered his beasts to swallow me up before I even saw them? Or the first to send a scythe ripping through my neck and then stood idly watching as it twisted within and drew blood?"
"But somehow, I'm the monster now?" Ryuk said with a distant, hollow eyeroll. But then, his gaze sharpened, and he continued:
"I'll keep it simple."
"With your body lost, you'll have about 10 seconds before you truly, fully die."
"But I'll preserve your life for an hour."
"Mainly because I'm an infinitely benevolent soul, and second, because I want you to lead me back to wherever you came from."
"Who knows, maybe when we get there, I won't mind throwing you to the mud. And if you're lucky, you might even find a way—some shaman or whatever—to make you survive?"
"Tch!" The aquatic man clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction.
"Or, of course, you can choose to refuse—and I'll just throw your head down and continue my search. It took me three days to find you. I bet it won't take much more to find where your true home is. I'd rather save that time, though."
"So what do you think? Die unnoticed, or risk a chance at hope?" Ryuk offered as the man's eyes flashed.
But then he noticed a blue aura surrounding his neck, and after ten seconds had passed and he was still not dead, a bit of joy coated his heart.
He had already lost his heart and no doubt should have been dead in under ten seconds—and yet, he was still alive.
It was just as Ryuk promised.
Perhaps—maybe, just perhaps—there was a chance of surviving.
'And if he follows me back… he will be met with arrays of warriors that will take him down, bringing an end to him…'
"Okay! Okay, fine! Fine!" the figure screamed out loud as he felt his head slowly flipped from Ryuk's fingers whose eyebrows creased.
He had thought he would be stubborn still—and just as he was about to leave him to his death, he surprisingly agreed.
"Oh, good then."
"Where to head?" he asked, as he slowly turned his eyes to the side and Ryuk swam forward toward the place.
Time passed as he kept moving diagonally and randomly through the sea under the guidance of Grent.
After swimming around awkwardly and aimlessly, passing areas where Ryuk felt they had already been, they finally came before a ground that was shining with remnants of blue light as Ryuk's eyes flashed.
On the ground, there was the image of a strange creature—a creature that looked humanoid except with a fish tail beneath, inscribed onto the ground.
"That is the portal to the Lantis Kingdom. Splash my blood on the tails and it'll open up..." Grent said as Ryuk stretched out his hand holding its head and wriggled it, sending splashes of blood over the tail on the image.
And in the next instant—
PUULLLSEEEE
A strange pulse undulated from the source of the tail image, and Ryuk stepped back as he watched the tail shimmer with a blue aura that slowly opened a portal on the ground.
"There it is. The entrance..." he said as Ryuk's eyes flashed.
If Ryuk had been searching, it most likely would have taken him more than three days to find this.
And even if he did, he would have needed Grent's body to activate the portal—which he definitely wouldn't have.
In the end, holding Grent hostage was the right thing.
"Hmmm," Ryuk hummed as he activated the Void Vortex skill before he jumped above the vortex, and he and Grent were instantly dragged into it, the blue portal soon closing up and the image returning to normal.
_____
The world seemed to halt for a few seconds before once more Ryuk felt the ground beneath his feet—but the second he did—
The air on his hands rose up as he looked around him and found that the sky had been bloated.
Bloated by the bodies of hundreds of aquatic men that absolutely hovered everywhere, sitting on gigantic sharks and with powerful Tridents radiating blue energy in their grasps.
His eyes scanned them as he saw them completely block off all of his route and any chance to run.
They were all at the Cataclysm stage and the sharks they were riding were Grade B level.
But then Ryuk truly froze as he found a figure who wasn't riding on a shark.
Instead, he was floating before the army, and surprisingly enough—
He was a Merman with bulging muscles, scars torn over his chest and shoulders, and a humanoid golden scythe in his hands.
Silence reigned over the entire area as Ryuk exchanged gazes with the merman who held a fiery expression, as he slowly turned his Trident's forked edge toward Ryuk.
"This is as far as you reach, intruder!"