Chapter 89: The Mermaid Kingdom
"Woo..."
A bit of a surprised sound escaped my lips as the ground under my feet vanished. The sudden drop caught me off guard for a fraction of a second, and the dark water rushed up as we were pulled straight down into the depths.
Up on the surface, the group of Hunters watched our sudden disappearance and froze for a brief moment. The speed at which we vanished was enough to startle them.
"No!" Hana instinctively shouted, and in response Seok spoke up, "Let’s go!"
He didn’t hesitate. His reflexes kicked in, and he jumped right after us into the deep water while holding his floating spear tight.
Seeing him dive in, the rest of the Hunters exchanged quick, tense glances before following suit.
One by one, they jumped in, creating loud splashes that broke the silence of the surface.
The annoying archer was the last one left standing. He stared at the bubbling spot where everyone had disappeared, and after clenching his fist, he cursed under his breath.
"Damn it all," he muttered before taking a deep breath and diving into the water to join the rest of us.
Both Vera and I were leading the way.
Thanks to Hana’s spell, a faint red layer of mana coated my skin, which acted like a thin film that kept the water away from my eyes and mouth while allowing me to filter oxygen.
Over that, the blue glow of my own breathing potion provided a reassuring secondary layer of protection.
I looked back and saw that everyone was finally in the water. Once I was sure, I turned around and began swimming ahead, with Vera also moving right beside me.
As we descended, the underwater environment began to change drastically. It wasn’t a normal swamp at all.
At first, the water was thick and muddy. But as we went deeper, the murkiness began to fade.
The dark green tint cleared up completely and soon turned into crystalline deep blue. Unlike the surface, where the fog blocked everything, down here we could see clearly for dozens of meters in every direction.
The scene became absolutely mesmerizing. Unlike anything found in the human world, giant underwater plants swayed gently on the ground.
They looked like massive willows, but their leaves were glowing with purple and blue light.
Instead of standard seaweed, long ribbons of silver flora drifted through the water and reflected a faint glow from the surroundings.
Strangely shaped corals jutted out from the trench walls that looked exactly like castles made of bone and sapphire. It was so beautiful and ethereal.
Even the other Hunters couldn’t keep their mouths shut as they looked around through the glowing films of Hana’s magic.
Since the spell allowed them to speak in a low tone, their awe-filled voices drifted through the water.
"Whoa... is this really a C-Rank Gate?" one of the Hunters muttered while his eyes widened as he looked at a cluster of glowing plants. "It looks like an entirely different world."
"Look at the water," the shield user from the couple whispered. "It’s so clear. I can see the bottom clearly from here. It’s beautiful..."
"Don’t lower your guard," Seok’s voice cut through all of their amazement, and his voice was as serious as always. He was swimming near the middle. "The prettier a Gate looks, the deadlier its hidden traps usually are."
He wasn’t wrong. As beautiful as it was, it was also incredibly dangerous. This wasn’t a tourist destination; it was a monster domain.
After swimming a little further along the path, we noticed a sudden shift in the water. The gentle swaying of the silver flora was violently disrupted, and a shadow began to block the neon light of the plants ahead.
A massive group of fish was swimming directly toward us.
Well, calling them fish was an understatement.
They were about the size of a man’s upper body, with jagged scales and jaws filled with sharp teeth, just like the behemoth we had encountered earlier.
Their eyes were blood red and locked onto our group with pure hunger. They weren’t just swimming; they were charging at us.
And the sight of the approaching swarm instantly triggered panic among the group.
"Monsters! Up ahead!" the archer yelled, his face twisting in fear as he frantically tried to steady his bow underwater. But the resistance of the liquid made his movements sluggish and clumsy. "Damn it, my bow won’t draw properly under this pressure! I can’t aim!"
"There are too many of them!" another Hunter added.
Even Seok gripped his spear tightly as he prepared to launch it forward, though fighting a swarm of hundreds of fast-moving targets underwater wasn’t possible even for all of us together.
However, before the panic could completely take over the group, the woman from the couple reacted as fast as she could.
She swam to the front of the group and extended her hands forward as she closed her eyes. Soon, her fingers crackled with holy light as she cast a blinding golden-white light that cut through the deep blue water.
"Divine Light Shield!" her voice echoed through everyone’s ears.
In an instant, a massive semi-transparent dome of holy light materialized around our entire group like a protective barrier just as the swarm reached us.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The carnivorous fish collided heavily with the shield. Dozens of them slammed their hard, scaly heads right against the glowing white walls. Even though the force of their impact created ripples across the barrier, the shield held firm.
Realizing that they couldn’t pierce the barrier and somewhat shocked by the divine magic, the swarm rapidly changed direction.
They veered off to the sides and swarmed around the dome like a spinning vortex before disappearing into the darker sections of the trench.
"Whew..." the woman from the couple let out a heavy breath, and her shoulders relaxed slightly as she maintained the glow of the barrier. "That was close."
"Great job," Seok praised and nodded at her before shifting his gaze back to the front.
Everyone took a moment to catch their breath since their hearts were pounding against their chests.
The brief encounter was a reminder that we could get wiped out by a single mistake from a companion, and that we had to rely on each other to survive in a world where we didn’t belong.
Beneath my paper bag mask, a small smirk formed on my face. The Hunters were handling the minor obstacles well enough, but they were still entirely oblivious to what lay further down.
I looked at Vera. Throughout the entire fish attack, she had stayed perfectly level in the water, and her small hand was still gently holding onto my sleeve.
She didn’t care about the surroundings, and she certainly wasn’t afraid of a few sharp-toothed fish. Her only focus was making sure nothing came within a meter of me.
What was up ahead was something even I wasn’t sure she would be able to defeat without trouble, but that was the lone reason why I was here; to help her when she couldn’t help herself.
I kicked my legs and continued swimming down, which soon led to the majestic outer gates of the mermaid kingdom.
’I have that thing prepared just in case Vera is ever in danger.’
As the kingdom gates came fully into view, every Hunter stopped swimming.
Because the gates weren’t open; they were broken.
And hundreds of corpses were floating in the water.
"What happened here?" Seok let out subconsciously.
He swam a few inches forward, and his blue spear lowered as his eyes scanned the destruction.
There weren’t just the fierce warrior mermen we had fought on the surface. These were civilians. Mermaids with lighter scales, old ones, and even children. Even after dying, their bodies weren’t floating up to the surface and were just staying here.
"This is a complete mess," Hana added and pulled her arms tight against her chest as she felt a sudden chill run through her body.
As we moved deeper into the ruins, I felt a sudden shift beside me.
Vera let go of the edge of my sleeve. Before I could even turn my head, her small fingers slid down and tightly gripped my wrist instead.
Underneath her mask, her head was tilted slightly downward, and her focus seemed to be fixed on a small merman child floating near a shattered coral pillar.
She was clearly bothered by the massacre. Her posture wasn’t relaxed anymore; it was tense with suppressed emotion that I hadn’t felt from her before.
But I wasn’t bothered at all.
Beneath my own mask, my expression remained completely neutral. I didn’t feel a shred of panic or disgust because I already knew it would be like this.
This was just an alternate world. But instead of humans, it was inhabited by mermaids. There had never once lived a human here.
However, something had happened which led to its demise. The world was big, but its inhabitants were really small in number.
But now even they were no more.
’Stay focused,’ I thought to myself, and gently tapped Vera’s hand to let her know I was right there.
We pushed past every small building and finally reached the royal palace. The grand white doors had been blasted inward, leaving a wide opening.
We went inside, and the magic layer covering us cast long shadows against the walls of the palace.
At the far end of the grand hall, resting on a throne made of pure sapphire, was the mermaid queen.
Or at least, what was left of her.
Her body, covered in glittering silver and gold scales, was slumped sideways over the armrest.
But the most jarring detail was that her head wasn’t even attached to her body anymore.
It floated a few feet above the throne and was surrounded by a thick dark-purple cloud of mana.
All around her throne, the bodies of her guards floated lifelessly, and most of their weapons were broken in half.
"Oh my god..." the woman from the couple gasped, and her holy barrier flickered as her concentration wavered. "The boss... it’s already dead?"
"No," I said, and my deep voice destroyed their false hope instantly. "There is something else."
Soon the water grew freezing cold, and the dark-purple mana cloud hovering over the queen’s throne began to expand as it spun like an underwater vortex.
The true boss of the Gate was finally going to show itself.
I felt Vera’s grip on my wrist tighten as her killing intent rose in an instant, which made a sharp, knowing grin spread across my face.
’Perfect,’ I thought as my fingers rested on the dagger at my waist. ’Let’s see how much this hidden boss likes facing a real monster.’
