Mera didn't have time to ponder the mysterious presence of gear shift lever in submarine.
Because at that precise moment, they had plunged headlong into the Dark Sea.
Upon witnessing this development, the pursuing patrol vessels immediately ceased their chase, staring at the terrifying obsidian waters with the horrified expressions of people watching a suicide attempt.
"They actually rushed into the Dark Sea," one pilot breathed in disbelief. "Has Princess Mera always been this recklessly brave?"
His friend shook his head grimly. "Brave? That's not bravery, that's a death wish!"
"Should we continue pursuit?" a junior officer asked uncertainly.
"Chase them? Chase them for what purpose? Do you have a death wish too?" The patrol captain rolled his eyes with dark humor. "For millions of years, no one exiled to the Trench Realm has ever emerged alive. Nothing survives in there, not individual warriors, not entire fleets from Atlantis. Those monsters tear everything into scraps of metal and organic matter."
He turned his vessel around with finality. "Return to base and report the truth to King Orm!"
Although they had failed to capture the criminal from the Fishermen Kingdom and retrieve Princess Mera, the practical result was identical. The Dark Sea would accomplish what their weapons could not.
The moment Ben's submarine pierced the abyssal boundary like a falling meteor, the black seawater rushed around them with the viscous weight of accumulated dread. Swarms of nightmarish creatures instantly filled their observation windows like a disturbed hive of demonic hornets.
The vessel shuddered violently as hordes of Trench dwellers poured from cracks in the rocky canyon walls, attacking the metal hull with the frenzied hunger of piranhas during a feeding frenzy. Ben felt as though they had plunged into a tide of animated corpses, with countless clawed hands suddenly pressing against the portholes, leaving smears of dried blood and other unidentifiable substances.
Zooming out the perspective would reveal that Ben and Mera's submarine had been completely engulfed by these abominations.
The monsters of the Trench Realm resembled malevolent spirits crawling back from the deepest circles of hell. Their desiccated blue-gray scales hung loosely on skeletal frames that had been twisted by millennia of evolutionary regression. Eyes that had once held intelligence now flickered with nothing but bloodthirsty hunger and primitive rage.
Mera was so startled by the horrific spectacle that she leaped up from her compromising position, her movement creating an unfortunate slapping impact against Ben's face.
Ben pushed the inadvertent facial assault away and slammed the acceleration controls to maximum. The submarine surged forward like an armored battering ram, crushing those putrid, zombie-like creatures in half. Fragments of bone and rotting flesh became lodged in the vessel's front sections and tangled in the propeller mechanisms.
Their vehicle's hull blocked most external sounds, but Ben could still perceive dense scraping and gnawing noises in his enhanced hearing, as if millions of termites were systematically devouring the submarine's structure.
Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of claws scraping against metal echoed through the passenger compartment.
"They're tearing through the hull!" Mera's face drained of color as terror overwhelmed her composure.
Her submarine was built to impressive engineering standards, but it couldn't withstand simultaneous assault from thousands of these creatures.
These exiles had surrendered wisdom and rationality in exchange for unparalleled, terrible physical power.
"We can't hold out much longer!" she gasped in despair.
Just as the words left her lips, a sharp crack echoed through the cabin as the forward viewport exploded into spider-web fractures. Both passengers jerked their heads toward the source, where a razor-sharp, desiccated claw had pierced through like an organic blade. The several-centimeter talon hovered mere inches from Mera's eyes, close enough that she could feel the displaced water currents against her corneas.
The creature's skin was covered with pustulent bioluminescent patches that pulsed with sickly light. Its eyes had degenerated into two writhing masses of phosphorescent tissue that resembled diseased jellyfish. Its mouth, split grotesquely wide to accommodate rows of barbed shark-like teeth, emitted subsonic vibrations that resonated through the water like a predator's hunting call.
They appeared to have been contaminated by some indescribable space influence, their forms twisted into configurations that violated natural evolutionary principles. The sight was extraordinarily terrifying, with malformed features that revealed the remnants of ancient intelligence now consumed by bestial fury.
And this was merely the beginning! With the appearance of the first breach, the entire submarine became catastrophically vulnerable.
The outer hull had been completely compromised, and massive maws resembling sea anemone feeding apparatus left circular bite marks around Ben's field of vision.
Mera pressed herself back against her seat, her body trembling with primal fear.
Ben, however, remained utterly calm.
"Get dressed!" he commanded as the submarine tilted with a tremendous crash.
The impact felt like collision with a massive object, followed by torrents of seawater rushing through the compromised hull. Mera desperately tried to block the largest breach with her hands, but Ben realized their vessel was beyond salvation. Remaining trapped inside would be tantamount to suicide.
"We're getting out!" he announced decisively.
"No! They'll devour us completely in seconds, leaving nothing but fragments!" Mera protested, her voice cracking with terror.
"Hold onto me!" Ben grasped her hand, noting how her skin felt like smooth ice despite the warm water temperature.
But Mera suddenly became quiet, her panic subsiding into something approaching wonder.
She turned to study Ben's transformed features. He had become Ripjaws again, his previously human lips had become blue-tinged and cracked at the corners, revealing rows of terrifying predatory teeth that had grown dramatically. His facial structure had shifted into something genuinely frightening.
At this moment, Ben actually resembled the Trench dwellers more than they resembled their own ancestral forms.
Yet for inexplicable reasons, when Mera observed Ripjaws this time, she felt significantly more reassured and protected, as if his powerful form could shield her from any conceivable threat.
Ben had no time for self-observation. He shattered the remaining viewport glass with a single devastating punch. Water pressure instantly brought a circle of monsters rushing into their cabin, and he could actually smell the fetid breath emanating from their decomposing mouths.
"You've been eating garbage!" Ben declared with disgusted authority.
He thrust the salvaged trident forward, penetrating the nearest creature's mouth to scrape its teeth while simultaneously extracting its brain matter, allowing the seawater to wash away the organic debris.
One problem solved, but thousands more remained.
Ben wielded the trident like a conductor's baton, spinning it to create a whirlpool that transformed the water before him into a liquid chainsaw, tearing dozens of enemies into constituent pieces.
Simultaneously, the entire submarine was being systematically dismantled.
Ben grabbed Mera and launched them both into the crushing depths of the abyss.
Countless bioluminescent patches immediately converged from all directions, resembling the Milky Way galaxy flowing in reverse. Mera seemed to remember something crucial, fumbling around her equipment belt before igniting an underwater torch that erupted with roaring flames even in the aquatic environment.
Ben witnessed the full scope of the abyssal nightmare illuminated by the fire.
Every creature of the Trench Clan demonstrated powerful attraction to light sources. As the flames spread outward, they pursued the illumination like moths drawn to destruction, creating a writhing hive of death constructed from humanoid forms.
"Fire can't burn for long in high-pressure seawater!" Mera's scream was distorted by the water currents and pressure differentials.
Ben's eyes brightened with tactical inspiration.
Wouldn't fire be the perfect solution?
Although Ripjaws possessed formidable capabilities in his enhanced form, confronting hundreds of millions of enemies simultaneously was beyond even his upgraded parameters.
He wasn't yet powerful enough to single-handedly reshape entire ocean regions.
But other alien heroes offered different possibilities.
"We need to move quickly!" Mera observed the distant flames becoming progressively dimmer, like a candle flickering in a hurricane or barely detectable spark in absolute darkness.
She became increasingly anxious as she realized the bioluminescent patches on Ben's head also served as deadly bait for the creatures.
At this moment, the Trench monsters had begun their return migration.
They moved like schools of predatory fish, drawing spectacular arcs through the dark water as they rode the terrible deep-sea currents directly toward the two intruders.
Mera frantically attempted to pull Ben away from the area, but he refused to move.
"Don't worry, we can use fire to deal with them," he said with calm confidence.
"Fire? I told you, those torches won't burn long enough in this environment," Mera replied with desperate frustration.
Besides, she had no additional torch supplies.
But Ben's refusal to retreat filled her with mounting despair. Is this how everything ends? Will my final fate be to become nutrients for these abominations, dissolved in the digestive systems of monsters?
Even so, she would fight until her last breath! Mera forgot entirely that she could abandon Ben and attempt solo escape. Instead, she desperately activated her hydrokinetic abilities, trying to redirect the ocean currents with every ounce of her strength.
At least I can send Ben to safety!
As this thought filled her mind, she suddenly felt the water temperature around them rising rapidly.
The seawater began to boil with increasing intensity.
Brilliant red light shone against Mera's face through the black bubbles of superheated water, painting her features with hellish illumination.
The monsters became absolutely frenzied. These creatures that had lived, twisted, and crawled in dark trenches for geological ages seemed to be witnessing the sun itself for the first time in their existence.
Mera turned her head and felt as though she was observing a volcano erupting on the ocean floor.
Torches can't burn underwater, but volcanoes certainly can!
"This is..." she began, forced backward by the violently boiling water that prevented closer approach. Through the roaring turbulence, she heard a deep, resonant voice emerging from the inferno.
"Meet Ultimate Heatblast," Ben's transformed voice carried through the flames.
Ultimate Heatblast feared no water. In fact, with his current energy output levels, the slightest effort could evaporate every drop of moisture in all seven seas instantaneously, reducing even polar ice caps to atmospheric vapor.
Such an action would transform all marine life into desiccated husks.
Ben moved forward carefully and positioned himself protectively in front of Mera, who had fallen into stunned amazement. His temperature control was extraordinarily precise, the boiling steam formed a thin protective barrier in the water, insulating Mera from the lethal heat while maintaining her safety.
The scorching sun remains unapproachable.
But those monsters were driven into absolute madness by Ben's radiance. In areas swept by his light, the Trench dwellers began cannibalizing their own kind with frenzied hunger, creating a self-devouring feast of flesh and bone.
Even so, they never forgot their primary target. They continued rushing toward Ben with suicidal determination.
The closer they approached, the more the searing heat charred their corrupted flesh. The flames spreading through the water reduced them to ash and memory! Yet still they came.
Those hideous, terrifying faces revealed something unexpected in their final moments, not agony, but redemption.
It was as if millions of years of accumulated sin were finally being completely washed away in this ultimate moment.
Think about it carefully.
Even these twisted abominations had once lived under sunlight millions of years ago.
They had fallen into the abyss only due to Atlantis's sin of greed, never again seeing natural light.
Millions of years had passed since the Trench dwellers began their existence in absolute darkness, devolving into pathetic beasts. However, somewhere in the genetic memory inherited from their ancestral time, an instinctual desire for light and solar warmth still persisted.
"A pathetic race that failed in their evolutionary journey," Ben observed with genuine compassion in his triangular, skull-like eye sockets.
In his assessment, the monsters of the Trench Clan were actually very similar to the evolved humans he'd seen in the Ben 10 Universe. They had once possessed glorious civilizations, but had tragically embarked on the wrong evolutionary path.
The difference was that the evolved humans had encountered Ben Tennyson when their species was on the brink of extinction, offering them a chance at redemption. These Trench dwellers were already beyond any possibility of salvation.
The Omnitrix would not accept genetic material from non-intelligent species.
Elimination by natural selection was also a form of space justice.
The only mercy Ben could offer was ending their suffering with purifying fire.
Observing the vast army arrayed before him, he calmly raised his superheated palm. In the next instant, it was as if a supernova billions of light-years distant had detonated in the abyss, igniting brilliant radiance that challenged the darkness itself.
Mera turned away from the intensity.
The sea continued boiling with supernatural fire.
Unknown flames burned within the black water like an eternal sun that refused to be extinguished.
The two of them moved between the wall of fire and the dark sea as muffled sounds of organic matter exploding echoed behind them. The flowers of flame reflected thousands of light points in the fractured water, creating a funeral procession from the depths of the abyss.
The monsters of the Trench Realm were completely eradicated.
Ben shifted from his terrifying fire demon appearance back to the more familiar Ripjaws configuration.
"You look much better this way," Mera sighed with relief.
Compared to Heatblast's overwhelming presence, she immediately found Ripjaws to be handsome and charming by contrast.
Ben glanced at her with amusement. "You're really not picky, are you?"
"Not picky? I'm a little hungry," Mera touched her flat stomach and nodded seriously.
After such an intense battle, she was genuinely starving.
"I'll treat you to some web shooters later," Ben said enthusiastically, patting her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm also a Spider-Man, and the web fluid I produce is pure protein!"
Mera stared at him blankly. I don't understand what you're talking about.
But as long as food was involved, she was interested. She blushed and nodded sweetly.
"Next, we have to navigate through that whirlpool, right?" she said, regaining her composure as she observed the massive underwater vortex in the distance.
This represented a true force of nature, a geological disaster. The enormous whirlpool swept up the entire dark sea region and could tear anything into molecular components.
Although she possessed hydrokinetic abilities, Mera's power was insignificant compared to this phenomenon. Even Ben couldn't simply overpower it through brute force.
He had attempted to alter the ocean currents to calm the vortex, but discovered a powerful energy within the whirlpool that actively resisted his abilities, making it difficult for Ben to exert his influence.
After careful consideration, he suspected this was the power of Poseidon's Trident creating the disturbance.
Before they could even approach the vortex, both felt the tremendous suction forces beginning to affect them.
The gathering water pulled at their bodies as if attempting to dismember them both.
"We need something with much greater mass!" Mera shouted over the roaring current.
"Can that magical device of yours help?"
Ben nodded and activated his watch, transforming into an alien hero unlike any he'd previously displayed.
"Tentaklaws!" he announced, though the name seemed oddly translated.
A tall, tentacled form immediately replaced Ripjaws' streamlined shape.
This was an alien transformation derived from genetic material originally belonging to Vilgax's species. Theoretically, this race wasn't particularly powerful in its base form, but like other aquatic heroes, it could integrate enhanced capabilities from various Atlantean subspecies.
More importantly, its mass was substantial enough to resist the vortex!
Tentaklaws, activate super transformation mode! Ben's consciousness expanded as his flower-like head enlarged dramatically and his tentacles spread outward. In moments, he had become a massive deep-sea entity.
"You can also transform into a cephalopod?" Mera shouted in amazed delight.
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