I Die to Rise: Resurrection System-Chapter 81: Vacation: Neptune’s Rage!
Drink Water’s serve was brutal.
His fist connected with the ball, and it rocketed over the net with a sharp *crack* that echoed across the beach. Kurt tracked its trajectory, already moving, but Emma shouted from his left.
"I’ve got it!"
Cassandra’s voice came from the right, equally insistent. "Mine!"
They collided mid-dive, bodies slamming together in a tangle of limbs and sand. The ball dropped between them with a soft thud, and Paul updated the scoreboard immediately.
Tsunami Current: 1 | Raven’s Crow: 0
Drink Water and his guild erupted in laughter, slapping each other’s backs like they’d already won.
Emma pushed herself up onto her knees, spitting and brushing sand from her purple bikini. "I said I got it!"
While Cassandra wiped sand from her face, ice already forming on her fingertips. "And I said it was mine."
"Either Silver Tail were full of weaklings," Drink Water called out, grinning, "or you guys just got really lucky beating them."
Both women turned toward him in perfect unison, voices overlapping. "What did you just say?"
Without a care in the world, Drink Water did a chest bump with one of his teammates, smirking. "You heard me."
Kurt immediately stepped between Emma and Cassandra. "Do you think you ladies can put aside your differences for a wee bit and let’s win this thing? He’s calling us weak."
Cassandra’s fist tightened. "And lucky."
Emma wiped her nose with the back of her hand, stood up, then stretched out her hand to Cassandra. "I really wanna wipe that smug look off his face."
Cassandra took the hand and pulled herself up. "Same."
"That’s the spirit," Kurt said, grinning.
Drink Water grabbed the ball again, spinning it on one finger like a basketball. "Get ready for another ace, ladies."
He threw it up and spiked hard, the ball screaming over the net.
Already tracking the movement of the ball, Kurt dashed to the left.
His forearm glowed orange as Kinetic Overdrive activated, explosive energy flooding his muscles. The ball came down like a hammer, and Kurt’s enhanced arm met it mid-flight.
The impact detonated with a BOOM, and the ball rocketed back across the net so fast it cratered into the sand on Tsunami Current’s side before anyone could react.
Tsunami Current: 1 | Raven’s Crow: 1
Kurt landed and dusted off his hands, grinning. "I’m sure that was just luck."
That meant it was Raven’s Crow’s turn to serve. Rook grabbed the ball and served without hesitation, putting his full strength behind it.
The ball blurred through the air, and Drink Water reacted instantly, his arm motioned like he was pulling on something from a distance, and water from the ocean rose in a translucent limb that intercepted the ball mid-flight.
The ball spiraled in place, caught in the water’s grip, before the aquatic arm slapped it back toward Raven’s Crow.
The ball spun wildly, heading straight for Sam who placed both hands in front of her face and squeezed her eyes shut.
Emma moved like lightning, intercepting before it could hit. She twisted mid-air, catching the ball with her feet, spinning it around her body before launching it high into the air.
As though Cassandra knew where it was being directed to, she was already airborne, thanks to a pillar of ice that erupted beneath her feet, propelling her skyward.
She spun gracefully, hair whipping around her, and backhanded the ball with brutal force. It slammed down toward a Tsunami Current player who leaped, too slow and hit the sand face-first in the process.
Tsunami Current: 1 | Raven’s Crow: 2
Sam clenched her fists, panting hard from having her head nearly taken off. "How about Zaza takes my place? I don’t need my obituary to say ’got taken out by a volleyball.’"
Kurt glanced at Zaza, who sat under her umbrella, book still in hand. "What do you say, Zaza? You up for it?" 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚
Zaza adjusted her glasses, closed her book slowly, and stood. "I suppose I can participate."
Sam gratefully retreated to the sidelines, settling beside the other spectators with visible relief.
"Finally!" Drink Water groaned. "Stop wasting everyone’s time and serve already!"
On the other side of the net, Rook grinned, casually tossing the ball up. "Maybe you should chill out?"
In that moment, Kurt couldn’t resist. "Yeah. Maybe have a drink of water."
Even Drink Water’s own guild members snorted, though they quickly turned it into coughs and looked away, and Drink Water’s face turned crimson.
Rook served casually this time, almost lazy, and a Tsunami Current member reacted instantly. His arm stretched like rubber, transforming into an octopus tentacle that wrapped around the ball.
Multiple tentacles coiled, building tension, then unleashed the ball so fast it broke the sound barrier with a thunderous CRACK.
Kurt was able to perceive the incoming ball, and he lifted his arm in front of Zaza.
A portal ripped open in the air, directly in the ball’s path, and another portal materialized inches in front of Zaza’s face. The ball shot through the first portal and emerged from the second, its momentum killed by the shortened distance.
This allowed Zaza to catch it easily and slammed it back with surprising force.
The ball rocketed across the net and drilled into a Tsunami Current member’s chest, sending him skidding backward across the sand until he tumbled into the ocean with a massive splash.
Tsunami Current: 1 | Raven’s Crow: 3
The match exploded into chaos after that. Rallies blurred together, points trading back and forth as both teams found their rhythm.
A Tsunami Current player grew a thick, muscular, scaled tail, and whipped it into an incoming rally. Emma backflipped mid-air, executing a perfect bicycle kick that sent the ball spinning.
Drink Water formed a hammer from compressed water and slammed it down. Kurt activated Predator, his senses sharpening, and combined it with Kinetic Overdrive, both hands clasped together as he spiked the ball with enough force to leave a crater.
Lizzie dropped into a full split, hitting a low shot that came too close to the net and nearly touched the ground. The tentacle guy rolled all eight appendages together into one massive limb and pounded the ball back.
As the scores climbed and the game intensified, Zaza’s glasses fell off.
She froze, blinking rapidly as she got on her knees, hands patting the sand. "I can’t see."
The ball slammed directly into her chest. Her breasts absorbed the impact, jiggling violently, and the ball bounced back over the net for an accidental score.
Zaza dropped lower on her hands, searching blindly for her glasses in the sand, completely oblivious to the stares. "This is inconvenient."
Kurt scooped up her glasses, struck by the absurd contrast that this helpless woman searching for her glasses was the same psycho killer who’d carved him open with a scythe weeks ago. "Here," he handed the glasses to her.
"Thank you." She adjusted them, stood, and returned to position without further comment.
As they played, the scores kept climbing.
3-5... 6-8... 10-12...
Both teams were sweating now, muscles burning, essence flaring. The crowd had gathered—other guilds, resort staff, random beachgoers, all watching with rapt attention.
14-17... 16-19... 17-20...
It was Tsunami Current’s serve.
Drink Water walked toward the ocean, and Kurt’s instincts screamed danger. The guild leader stopped at the water’s edge, dropped to one knee, and began drinking.
Slurping. Gulping. Gallons of seawater pouring down his throat.
Blue energy began glowing around his body, crackling like electricity.
"Bloody hell," Kurt muttered. "He really does drink water."
Drink Water’s muscles bulged, swelling grotesquely as essence flooded his system. He grabbed the volleyball, and a hairline crack spiderwebbed across its reinforced surface from his grip alone.
"Hope you’re ready, Raven’s Crow." He tossed the ball straight up and it disappeared into the sky... past the clouds, past the point where Kurt could track it. All he could see was the sun.
Then Drink Water launched himself upward.
The beach trembled. Water exploded outward from where he’d been standing. His body blurred through the air, breaking the cloud layer, disappearing into the stratosphere.
"Is he allowed to do that?" Lizzie asked, shielding her eyes.
"Apparently," Rook said grimly.
High above, somewhere beyond the clouds, Drink Water smacked the ball so hard, it boomed like thunder.
<Neptune’s Rage!>
The ball reappeared, and it was on fire.
Plummeting like a meteor, trailing flames and smoke, the reinforced volleyball descended with the force of divine retribution. The air itself screamed as it fell, heat radiating outward in waves.
"He’s insane," Sam breathed, backing up instinctively.
Lizzie’s eyes went wide. "That’s gonna leave a mark."
Kurt stared at the incoming projectile and felt his enhanced senses catalog the impossible speed, the devastating force, the fact that catching this might legitimately kill someone.
The ball roared downward, a comet of destruction aimed directly at Raven’s Crow’s side of the court.
"Alright then," Kurt said with a widened grin, stepping forward, but was stopped by the outstretched arm of Cassandra.
The ball descended and she had an unhinged smile on her face. "Mine."
