Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 172: Episode : Baiting the Landwalkers.

"So, let me get this straight," Roxy said, using a piece of coral to draw lines in the soft sand of the cave floor. "The strongest merman has to use their voice and strength to rule?"

Caspian sat on a rock ledge nearby, his long, pearlescent tail draped elegantly over the side. He looked amused by her scribbles.

"It is not merely ’singing,’ Sea Witch," Caspian corrected, his voice resonating with that strange, multi-layered echo. "The Deep Singers weave the currents. The one with the strongest song commands the tides. If your song is weak, the ocean ignores you."

"Sounds like a talent show," Roxy muttered, sketching a crude stick figure with a tail. "On the surface, the stories are different. The humans say Merpeople are cold-blooded killers. They say you have rows of teeth like sharks and you drag sailors down to eat their livers."

More like on earth, and inside movies. If this were living deep within the sea, no one would blindly explore.

But then again, this is 6,000 meters deep into the sea; except for deep divers on earth, I don’t think anyone has traveled this deep.

They would die.

Caspian blinked, looking genuinely offended. He ran his tongue over his teeth, which were sharp, yes, but certainly not monstrously jagged.

"Barbaric," he scoffed. "We do not eat livers. We eat the heart. It’s delicious."

Roxy recoiled.

That is definitely not something you should be saying in front of me, fish boy.

Roxy felt her hair stand on end.

Are you sure I was a pet? Or was I merely food he was marinating?

Apart from sleeping and waking up, Roxy has been finding it hard to use the bathroom, or even shower, she smelled she knew, she was able to use the backcaves thanks to the bubble to let out waste, but for how long can she keep doing this?

Every time she went there, she always felt like something was staring at her.

Stopping her digestive system from working properly.

Internally, I was losing my mind because it really felt like a prison where the toilet was right in front of you, but you were being watched by thousands of inmates.

Roxy paused, trying to think of something else, her coral stick hovering over the sand. "Okay, note to self: Keep heart inside chest. Got it."

She looked at him. Despite the terrifying confession, he was sitting there grooming his silver hair with his fingers, looking more like a bored prince than a monster.

If he were a king, why was he wasting his time with me instead of letting me go?

What the fuck does curiosity have to do with keeping me?

"And what about... love?" Roxy asked, testing the waters. "The stories say you lure people with sirens. You trick them."

Caspian shifted. His bioluminescent scales pulsed a soft, warm pink. He slithered closer to her, his movements fluid and predatory in a way that was meant to be charming.

"We do not trick," Caspian purred, leaning down until his face was inches from hers. "We Court. When a Trencher finds a mate worthy of his nest, he does not sing to the ocean. He sings only to her. He weaves a melody that vibrates her bones, binding her pulse to his."

He reached out, his cold finger tracing the line of her jaw.

Roxy shivered in disgust. But she tried her best not to let her expression show it.

"I have not sung for you yet," Caspian whispered, his golden-rimmed eyes darkening. "But the song is building. It starts low... a rumble in the deep..."

Roxy swallowed hard. The intensity in his gaze was suffocating. She wanted to pull away, but she needed to keep him talking. She needed to map his psychology if she was ever going to escape this fishbowl.

The only thing she was thankful for was that the system didn’t demand she sleep with a merman.

Gross...

Though he is hot. But.... he’s a fish!

"And does the mate have a choice?" Roxy asked breathlessly. "In this song?"

Caspian opened his mouth to answer. He was about to explain that once the song was sung, the choice was irrelevant because the souls were fused.

He stopped.

His hand froze on her jaw. The playful, possessive light in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a flat, terrifying void.

His gills, located along his ribs, flared wide, fluttering violently as they tasted the water. The fins on his arms stiffened, the spines erecting like switchblades.

A vibration passed through the water. Caspian pulled his hand back slowly, turning his head toward the water wall. His eyes narrowed into vertical slits.

He had sensed something.

A growl built in his throat. He could feel them. Three distinct signatures inside a shell of wood and iron.

Caspian clenched his fist in rage.

This was his Garden. This was the Abyssal Trench. Here, the pressure was his ally, and the darkness was his cloak.

I could crush them, Caspian analyzed coldly. I could summon the crushing wave. I could pierce their shell and watch them implode.

He looked back at Roxy.

She was watching him with wide, confused eyes, the piece of coral still in her hand. She looked fragile. Soft.

If he fought them here, the shockwaves would shatter the air bubble. Roxy would die.

And... he remembered the way she cried for them. He remembered the "salt water leaking" from her eyes when she whispered the name Zarek and her other mates.

His curious little landwalker had lovers on the surface, and they were coming for her.

Caspian felt a twinge of jealousy so sharp it burned, but beneath it was a strange reluctance. If he killed her mates, the Sea Witch would break. He might lose her.

I will not kill them, Caspian decided, his lip curling in a sneer. But I will not let them take what is mine.

He stood up, his tail coiling tight.

"What is it?" Roxy asked, sensing the shift. "Caspian?"

Caspian turned to her. The lie formed instantly on his tongue, smooth and practiced.

"A Leviathan," he lied. "It must have smelled your scent in the water."

Roxy’s face paled. She scrambled up, dropping the coral. "A monster? Here?"

"I must distract it," Caspian said urgently. "Stay in the center of the bubble. Do not move. Do not make a sound."

"But—"

He didn’t wait. He didn’t offer comfort this time. He turned and shot through the water wall, vanishing into the blackness.

Roxy stood alone in the silence, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Be careful," she whispered to the empty doorway, unaware that the only monster approaching was her salvation.

Outside the cave, Caspian moved with terrifying speed. He went to a crevice near the entrance of the cave where he kept his refuse. He dug through the silt until he found it, the pile of seaweed bandages he had removed from Roxy’s ribs yesterday.

They were sodden, heavy, and stained with dried blood and the lingering, sweet scent of her milk and skin.

It was the perfect distraction.

Caspian snatched the bundle. He swam upwards, away from the cave, heading toward a rocky outcrop about a mile to the south.

Hovering in the shadow of the rock was a stingray.

It was a flat predator, spans wider than the Iron-Whale. It was blind, hunting by scent and vibration, its skin the color of black. It was currently sleeping, clinging to the rock face.

Caspian approached it carefully.

With quick, deft movements, he tied the bloody bandages around the Ray’s serrated tail-spine. The knot was tight.

Then, Caspian drew a small obsidian dagger from his belt.

"Fly, beast," he whispered.

He stabbed the Ray in the flank, not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to hurt.

The Ray woke with a silent scream of pain. It panicked. Smelling the blood attached to its own tail and feeling the sting of the wound, it did exactly what Caspian knew it would do.

It bolted.

It didn’t swim up. It swam down and away, fleeing the source of the pain, diving toward the only place where the heat might soothe its wound, the Volcanic Vents to the far South.

It moved like a missile, trailing Roxy’s scent behind it like a banner.

Caspian watched it go, a cruel smile touching his lips. He floated in the dark, "Your mate is down there, land walkers," Caspian mocked softly. "I hope you don’t die and be a feast for my belly."

***

Inside the Iron-Whale.

"She moved!!" Ren screamed, his eyes snapping open.

He lurched forward, grabbing Syris’s shoulder so hard his nails dug into the basilisk’s tunic.

"She’s moving!" Ren gasped, pointing frantically to the left. "The tether... it just jerked! She is moving fast! Incredibly fast!"

Zarek, who had been staring out the port window, roared.

"She is running!" the Dragon King bellowed. "She is running from something! Can you not feel it?"

Ren felt the panic of the Ray through the confused tether and mistook it for Roxy’s fear. "Yes! She is terrified! She is bolting South!"

"Syris!" Zarek barked. "Chase her!"

"Okay!" Syris yelled, slamming the heavy wooden levers to the side.

The Iron-Whale groaned violently. The entire sphere banked hard to the left, fighting the inertia of the descent. The sudden shift threw Ren across the cabin.

He pulled a red lever.

At the rear of the sphere, a mechanism released a compressed jet of air and water, a primitive propulsion system. The Iron-Whale surged forward, vibrating as it picked up speed.

In the distance, illuminated briefly by the sweep of their bioluminescent vines, he saw a shadow. A large, flat shape moving at breakneck speed, trailing something that looked like cloth.

"I see her!" Zarek lied to himself, his brain filling in the gaps with what he wanted to see. "I see a shape! It must be a vehicle! Or a beast carrying her!"

"Hold on!" Syris warned, his eyes glued to the pressure gauge. "We are leaving the drop zone. We are heading into a place unknown."

"I don’t care!" Zarek roared, the fire in his blood burning hotter than the cold ocean outside. "Do not lose her!"

The wooden sphere creaked ominously, a sound like a gunshot cracking through the cabin. But they didn’t slow down. They pushed the engines to the red line, diving deeper and faster into the abyss, chasing a ghost.

They thought they were racing toward a rescue.

They thought they were seconds away from holding their mate.

They would do anything, as long as they held their mate at the end.

But as the water temperature began to rise and the ominous red glow of the thermal vents appeared in the distance like the gates of hell, they didn’t know what they were heading to.