Trafalgar was being dragged deeper into the sea.

The pull on his leg did not loosen even a little. Whatever had wrapped itself around him kept hauling him down with ugly strength, fast enough that the bright surface above had already begun to blur into a pale, broken stain.

He reacted at once.

The Leviathan Fang Pendant appeared around his neck.

[Leviathan Fang Pendant – Legendary Rank]

[Effects:

Greatly increases underwater endurance, including breathing, pressure resistance, and stamina

+20% physical damage while submerged

Passive: Ocean-Born Resilience – Reduces movement penalties underwater]

[Description:

A necklace bearing the fang of a Leviathan. It carries the weight of deep waters and grants its wearer a body far better suited to survive beneath the sea.]

The change came immediately.

The water stopped feeling like a weight pressing against every part of him. His chest opened. The pressure around his body became manageable. His limbs, which should have felt slower and heavier this far under, answered with far more freedom.

The rings had never left his fingers in the first place.

Maledicta appeared in his hand a heartbeat later.

Something still had him by the leg and kept dragging him down through the dark. The grip was slick and fleshy, clinging to him with a wet pressure that made his face tighten in disgust. Trafalgar forced his eyes open beneath the water, pushed mana into Maledicta, and cut straight toward his own leg without wasting time on anything more elegant.

The blade flashed.

The thing wrapped around him split apart.

A tentacle.

Blackish blood rushed from the wound at once and spread through the water in a thick cloud. Trafalgar kicked hard and drove himself out of its reach, swimming upward and to the side so he could see properly instead of staying trapped inside that dark mess.

The blood shifted with the current and opened just enough.

That was when he saw the creature.

Several thick tentacles spread out from what looked more like a monstrous head than a proper body. Four eyes were set along the sides, two on each, giving it a broad, ugly awareness that made it hard to tell where its attention truly settled. Beneath that, on the lower part of its mass, sat a mouth built wide and low, meant less for biting and more for swallowing.

’It really tried to eat me.’

The thing looked furious now that its first attempt had failed.

It was also large enough that the deeper water around it seemed smaller by comparison, a dark shape coiling through the sea with the confidence of something that had never needed to fear what lived near it.

Two tentacles lashed toward him.

Trafalgar did not waste time. The Leviathan Fang Pendant helped, yes, but it did not change the basic truth of the fight. This was still the creature’s domain. The sea favored it in every way, and if he let it dictate the pace, he would be the one dragged apart.

He steadied himself in the water, legs and core working together to hold his line while Maledicta pointed forward. As he shifted, he caught sight of the tentacle he had severed earlier.

It was already recovering.

The flesh around the cut had begun knitting together with unnatural speed.

His expression hardened.

So that was how it wanted to play this.

Mana surged into the sword.

[Morgain’s Last Dusk]

The strike split upward through the water in a clean, brutal diagonal. The sea itself seemed to shiver around it as the technique carved through both incoming tentacles at once. Flesh gave way. Dark blood burst out again in thick streams, drifting upward in black coils.

This time the severed ends did not move.

The technique had done exactly what it was made to do.

Above the surface, the result was impossible to miss.

A violent column of water burst upward hard enough to crash back down over the others like sudden rain. Xavier jerked his head up immediately, wiping water from his face while staring at the spot where Trafalgar had vanished.

"He is taking way too long."

Cynthia had already stopped caring about the game. "Something happened."

Bartholomew swallowed and tried to focus on the churning patch of sea. "That was not just splashing, right?"

"No," Zafira said.

She was already moving.

The others followed her at once, all four swimming toward the disturbance. None of them spoke again after that. The water ahead kept twisting in unnatural bursts, as if something large was shifting just beneath the surface.

Back below, Trafalgar held his position and watched the creature.

It had stopped attacking blindly.

The thing had understood. The tentacles cut by Morgain’s Last Dusk were not growing back, and that single fact had altered its rhythm. Those four eyes no longer carried the same mindless aggression from before. There was caution in it now. A new awareness.

Anything that could hesitate could be exploited.

Trafalgar moved first.

He used [Morgain’s Final Crescent], drawing mana into Maledicta until the blade released an inverted crescent through the water. The current split around the attack as it tore toward the creature.

The monster reacted fast and met it with the front of its head. The impact shook the sea around them and pushed it backward, but Trafalgar understood it at once.

Its head was far tougher than the rest of its body.

He stayed where he was for a brief instant, and in that pause he felt something far more important than the creature’s defense. His mana core was at the edge.

Flow Core had reached the point where it could break.

The pressure in his chest had changed. It was no longer distant, no longer something he had to imagine. Prime was right there.

A smile pulled faintly at his mouth.

After being stuck in this core for so long, after all the fights, all the waiting, all the frustration, the chance had finally appeared in front of him.

The creature did not let him enjoy that thought for long.

It had learned from the last exchange. This time it did not send the tentacles ahead first. It lowered that armored head and rushed him through the water, using the hardest part of its body to attack.

The remaining tentacles spread behind it, shifting with a clear purpose now.

Trafalgar moved aside just before it reached him. Maledicta carved across the side of its head as the monster passed, but the cut did not go as deep as he wanted.

Hard flesh. Thick resistance.

He turned with the motion instead of fighting against it and struck again lower, where the head gave way to the base of the tentacles. That cut bit in properly.

Black blood spilled into the water.

The creature twisted at once. One tentacle snapped toward his ribs while another came from below, trying to wrap around his legs again.

Trafalgar kicked upward and slipped between them. Maledicta came down through the first tentacle and severed it cleanly, and he twisted his body just enough to avoid the second before it could catch him.

The severed limb drifted away, dark blood spreading from it in ugly clouds.

Its regeneration was no longer helping it there.

One by one, he could cut its options down.

Mana ran hotter through his body now. Each movement made the pressure inside his core heavier, tighter, more demanding. It no longer felt like a distant wall.

It felt like something that wanted to break.

The sea was no longer crushing him the way it had at the start. With the Leviathan Fang Pendant around his neck, the water had become something he could actually fight inside.

Without it, this would have turned ugly much sooner.

Above him, distorted through the shifting surface, he caught the shapes of the others moving farther out than he liked. He could not see them properly from here, but he knew they were getting closer.

That annoyed him.

He needed to finish this before one of them did something reckless.

The creature turned again, and whatever doubt had entered it before had already vanished. It came forward with more intent this time, its head leading the charge while the remaining tentacles spread wide to close the space around him.

Trafalgar tightened his grip around Maledicta.

The pressure at the center of his chest rose again.

The edge of Prime was right there, and the creature was still coming. All he had to do now was keep pushing.