The water warped first.
A slow distortion—like the Abyss itself flinched away from whatever approached.
Kuro felt pressure ripple past him in waves, each one heavier than the last.
Then the light appeared.
A single lantern-glow.
Faint… trembling… impossibly deep in the trench where light should not exist.
No.
Not a lantern—
An eye.
A massive, oblong eye the color of molten amber, dragging itself through the dark with a dull, pulsing hatred. The glow didn't warm the water. It soured it, tinting the trench in sickly hues as if the creature's gaze was rotting the world around it.
Kuro's tentacles tightened.
His new shell vibrated in warning.
> [Predatory Presence Detected.]
[Designation: Abyssal Strider — Elder Variant.]
[Threat Level: Impossible.]
[Recommendation: Flee—or die.]
He didn't move.
The creature emerged fully.
A long, eel-like body—twisted, scarred, ripped open in places where the flesh refused to heal. Its jaw hung in a crooked, perpetual snarl, exposing rows of teeth like splintered bone shards. Parasites writhed in the gaps, feeding on its blood like loyal worshippers.
Its tail dragged behind it, shredded—
not from a fight.
From evolution that had gone wrong.
Whatever this monster was, it did not swim.
It endured the water.
When it inhaled, the trench seemed to pull toward it—rocks trembled, Kuro's mantle stiffened, every instinct begged him to flee.
The creature's single lantern-eye rotated—
slowly
slowly
slowly…
Then locked onto Kuro.
The Abyss spoke inside him:
"It smells your evolution."
"It hunts those who change."
"This is the price of growth."
Kuro whispered back internally:
"Fine."
"Let it come."
He shifted his posture, new shell plates aligning, tentacles spreading like a dark blossom. His bioluminescence dimmed to near invisibility.
The Strider reacted instantly.
Its lantern-eye flared—
—
and the creature vanished.
It didn't swim.
It didn't coil.
It blinked through the water, breaking fluid physics in a stuttering blur of motion.
Kuro felt the current explode behind him—instinct twisted his body, shell scraping against jagged stone as he dodged.
The Strider slammed into the rock wall where he had been floating.
The entire trench shook.
Sediment burst upward in a cloud. Shards of ancient rock scattered. Some fragments hit Kuro's shell—tink-tink-tink—deflected by the new plating.
The monster didn't turn.
It twisted, its spine bending at impossible angles as it fixed its crooked jaw toward him again. Muscles bulged. Parasites shrieked with it.
Kuro steadied himself.
> [Shell Integrity: Stable.]
[Hydro Jet Boost available.]
[Abyssal Cognition engaged.]
He focused—analyzing, dissecting, calculating.
The Strider's joints cracked with every movement.
Its body leaked mana like blood.
Its attacks were fast—but unstable.
A monster built to kill,
but too damaged to control its own strength.
He could win.
Not safely.
Not cleanly.
But he could win.
A tremor passed through the water—
the signal.
The Strider lunged again.
Kuro reacted.
Tentacles shot outward. Shell plates locked. Hydro Jet ignited, propelling him in a violent spiral around the creature's strike.
He felt the water split behind him as teeth snapped shut, missing by less than a scale's width.
Kuro countered instantly.
He launched a sonic pulse—
short, sharp, focused.
The wave hit the Strider's lantern-eye.
The creature roared, recoiling as black fluid spilled down its face, wriggling parasites scattering from the impact like shredded leeches.
It was blind on one side now.
Kuro pressed the advantage.
He darted upward, tentacles coiling around jagged rock for leverage, shell plates flaring as he gathered momentum.
Hydro Jet—
again.
He became a spear.
He shot downward.
Straight toward the monster's throat.
The Strider sensed him too late.
Its jaw opened, crooked bones shifting—
Kuro slammed into the soft, exposed membrane under its head, punching shell-hardened limbs deep into its flesh.
A shockwave rippled through the entire trench.
The Strider convulsed violently, flailing against the rock walls as dark clouds of blood churned through the water.
Kuro felt the creature's heartbeat falter—
once
twice
then break.
The monster slumped, its lantern-eye dimming to pitch black.
Kuro slowly withdrew his limbs and drifted backward.
He looked down at the corpse.
Then—
> [Predatory Assimilation Possible.]
[Warning: Mutated Core unstable. High risk of corruption.]
[Proceed?]
Kuro stared at the ruined monster.
Its blood still pulsed faintly in the water.
Its mana thrashed—unhinged, chaotic, dangerous.
He extended a single tentacle.
"Yes."
The Abyss shuddered in approval.