"Darkness is the ocean's oldest secret. Yet the things that swim within that darkness are far more than secrets."

  The Twin Megalodons that burst forth from the dimensional rifts Prince Nereus tore open with his own blood and life force were not mere flesh and bone. They were specters reborn from the ocean's heart and pure mana, echoes of ancient apex predators that had once ruled these waters thousands of years ago. Fallen coral towers looked like toothpicks beside their colossal bodies.

  Beneath the shadow of those two prehistoric engines of annihilation, Dagon, King of the Octopuses, appeared almost dwarfed. The open jaws of a single Megalodon were large enough to swallow him whole.

  Everyone on the battlefield forgot to breathe. This was not a war for mortals to interfere in. This was the battle of a man who sought to remain King of the new Atlantis against the primeval horrors of the deep.

  Yet there was not even a fragment of fear on Dagon's face. On the contrary, a sick, feverish gleam ignited within his pitch-black, soulless eyes. His thick lips, like slabs of volcanic stone, curled upward. Just like his daughter Octavia, he threw back his head and unleashed a mad laugh that shook the ocean floor.

  "This!" Dagon roared. "This is what makes my blood boil, little prince! Make me feel death!"

  The first Megalodon tore through the water at a velocity that split currents apart and lunged straight for him.

  Dagon did not evade.

  He extended both massive arms and the six thick tentacles sprouting from his back, bracing himself against the shark's catastrophic bite with his bare strength.

  BOOOOM.

  The shockwave flung dozens of soldiers away like scattered parchment. The ghostly teeth of the Megalodon, blazing with blue spectral fire, sank into Dagon's arms and tentacles. His supposedly impenetrable hide split open. Black blood burst into the water in violent clouds. The sheer pressure of the bite forced him backward, carving trenches into marble stone.

  Then the second Megalodon descended from above.

  Its jaws snapped shut and severed three of Dagon's left-side tentacles in a single, brutal crunch.

  "GOOD!" Dagon bellowed, his eyes shining with savage ecstasy instead of pain. "BITE HARDER!"

  Above them, Prince Nereus hovered in midwater, both hands clenched tightly around his golden spear as he controlled the forbidden spell. Blood continued to seep from the mortal wound in his left side. His face was pale as a corpse. Holding two primordial entities within this plane simultaneously was scorching his mana veins from the inside out.

  Faster, Nereus urged inwardly, teeth grinding together. Tear him apart. My time is running out.

  Dagon did not rely on brute force alone.

  He was King.

  The three severed tentacles lodged inside the second Megalodon's mouth suddenly pulsed with a crimson-black glow.

  Nereus' eyes widened in horror.

  "No… spit them out!" he commanded mentally.

  Too late.

  [KING'S DECREE: ABYSSAL INK BOMB]

  Dagon weaponized his own detached limbs, detonating the hyper-compressed black blood and mana within them like living explosives.

  Inside the Megalodon's stomach, an unimaginable eruption occurred.

  BOOOOOOOM.

  Black ink and blue spectral energy fused into a violent mushroom cloud beneath the sea. The internal blast shredded the Megalodon's spiritual form from within. The colossal predator released a silent, agonized scream before fracturing into thousands of blue light fragments and dissolving into nothing.

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  Dagon had turned self-mutilation into a weapon.

  But the first Megalodon still lived.

  It did not loosen its bite.

  Instead, it tore deeper.

  Dagon's right shoulder was obliterated. Cavities opened in his chest. Flesh was stripped. Bone cracked.

  And yet he laughed.

  With his remaining arm, he hammered his fist repeatedly into the shark's eye, each blow extinguishing fragments of blue fire.

  "Fall… fall already, you monstrosity!" Nereus snarled, blood now leaking from his nose and eyes. The spell was consuming him from within.

  Nereus was not a good man. He had rewritten history in blood, orchestrated genocide, tortured Octavia. But in this moment, within that trembling body, he was less dictator and more desperate guardian. If the beast below won, not a single child in Atlantis would survive.

  He would protect the kingdom his father left him. At any cost.

  Nereus pulled the final remnants of mana from his core, even tearing away a fragment of his own life force, and forced it into his spear.

  The remaining Megalodon grew even larger.

  It opened its jaws to their absolute limit and clamped down around Dagon's waist, attempting to bisect him.

  Dagon braced both hands against those jaws, trying to force them apart. Bones splintered. Muscles tore. Death pressed against the back of his neck.

  And then—

  The blue flames flickered.

  The pressure eased.

  Dagon glanced upward.

  The white glow in Prince Nereus' eyes vanished. The radiance of the golden spear dimmed.

  His mana had fallen to zero.

  The ancient spell shattered.

  Before it could finish its final bite, the Megalodon dissolved into dark currents and faded into the abyss.

  "No…" Nereus whispered.

  Gravity reclaimed him.

  He fell from the air like a broken marionette and slammed into the ruined battlefield.

  CRASH.

  Several bones fractured on impact. His body had collapsed entirely. Around him lay the corpses of elite guards and soldiers.

  The war was lost.

  But a prince does not kneel.

  With trembling, blood-slick hands, Nereus grasped his golden spear. Using it like a cane, he forced himself upright. His knees shook. Blood dripped from his mouth.

  He would die standing.

  From within the settling dust, Dagon emerged.

  His right arm was gone. His chest was shredded. Half his tentacles were severed. Black blood painted the battlefield.

  He was grievously wounded.

  Yet he stood stronger than a mage emptied of mana.

  Dagon stopped before the barely standing prince and looked down at him.

  "A fine attempt, little prince," he said, voice rumbling like distant tectonic plates. "But insufficient."

  He lifted his massive foot and drove it into Nereus' chest.

  Cracks echoed through broken ribs as the prince was launched backward.

  Before Nereus could recover, Dagon delivered another merciless kick, sending him flying through the water until he smashed into a shattered coral wall and collapsed.

  Dagon turned his gaze toward the golden, single-headed spear lying abandoned.

  "One of your father's toys," he muttered.

  He grasped the shaft.

  "CZZZZZZZT!"

  The spear flared like a miniature sun. Dagon's thick hide burned instantly. The scent of scorched flesh spread through the water.

  He withdrew his hand, palm charred black.

  Instead of anger, laughter erupted from him.

  "Hahaha! Royal blood warding!" he sneered. "Designed so only your lineage can wield it. That treacherous old man… he was clever."

  He left the spear where it lay and walked toward Nereus, who was barely conscious against the wall.

  The hunger in Dagon's eyes contained the entire darkness of the sea.

  He would snap the prince's neck with his own hand.

  From a distance, Hope watched.

  Doubt tore at him. Dagon was about to kill Nereus, and perhaps the prince deserved it. Yet Nereus had still stood to protect his people.

  Dagon extended his massive hand toward the prince's throat.

  It never reached him.

  "THAT IS ENOUGH!"

  The voice that rang across the battlefield was crystal-clear, yet heavy as the ocean trench. The water itself seemed to freeze.

  Dagon's hand stopped midair.

  He turned.

  Standing between him and Prince Nereus was not a frightened, impulsive girl.

  She stood straight-backed, chin raised.

  Princess Elara.

  No weapon in her hands. Her elegant dress stained with blood and dust. Yet there was an unyielding sovereignty in her posture that challenged Dagon's colossal form.

  Dagon looked down at her with open mockery.

  "And what will happen if I refuse, little girl?" he asked, venom thick in his voice. "Will those frail hands stop me? Will you succeed where your brother failed?"

  Elara did not retreat.

  She knew her father's lies. She knew her brother's massacres. She knew the sins of her blood.

  But this was her home.

  And even if the man behind her was a monster, he was still her blood.

  A Princess of Atlantis does not surrender her people to another monster.

  Elara slowly lifted her head.

  "Would you…" she began softly.

  The frequency of her voice shifted, deepening, vibrating through the water itself.

  "…like to find out, Dagon?"

  Her eyes changed.

  Her irises expanded. Her pupils narrowed into a predatory form unlike any siren's.

  Within them burned a blinding, ancient gold-and-abyssal blue.

  Those were not the eyes of a princess.

  They were the eyes of Leviathan.

  The mockery vanished from Dagon's face.

  Ancient instincts screamed through every cell in his body. For a single heartbeat, the primordial terror radiating from that fragile-looking girl froze him in place.

  Even a king of monsters remembered what it meant to fear.

  The game had only just begun.