The world slowed as jaws closed in on him, and Henry barely had the time for one thought as he triggered his abilities.

  This is gonna suck so bad.

  A torrent of mana rushed out of him, and Henry disappeared out of reality for a fraction of a second before he popped back in on top of one of his blood clones, barely a handful of yards away, right as the shark zipped through the screen of disorienting ink. Henry’s hook arms went taught as the shark tried—and failed—to circle around a pillar of stone.

  All in all, the Blink had not been as terribly expensive as he’d expected. Most likely because he’d used his blood clone as an anchor, but considering how much this had cost, he might not be able to Blink again at this size. Not if he wanted to be able to use any other skill for a while.

  “[You carried me with you! I didn’t think we could do that,]” said Maurice, but Henry couldn’t respond just yet.

  He had to capitalize on the shark’s distraction. Between the magical effect of the ink and the myriad of venoms Henry had just dumped into its mouth, he needed to get a grip on it and start wailing.

  With an arm reaching forward, Henry propelled himself at the flailing shark. With one more migraine-inducing telekinetic grip, he immobilized for a quick instant, just enough to wrap his arm around its tail.

  The water grew agitated once more and suddenly, it was as if Henry was trying to hold on to a vibrating, slick eel with his bare human hands, even though he had rolled his arm quite a few times around the tail. While still keeping Maurice as far back as possible, he channeled a sizable portion of Fury into Lightning Discharge and pushed it through the arm holding on to the tail.

  Water boiled as a red-white arc of electricity crackled down Henry’s arm before it poured over and into the shark, killing its movement skill before it could even try to run. The shark laid still for a moment, spasming, but not even a couple of seconds passed before it shook itself awake and began thrashing once more. But Henry had already wrapped his many arms around and all over the monster, and he was in position.

  “[Start shooting, Maurice,]” he said as he lined up the crab just above where the shark’s brain would be.

  Henry had been feeling like these were the olden days, when he’d fought and struggled against Riptides and Whipcrack sharks. After all, the difference in size between him and the shark wasn’t that stark. But when he held Maurice above the head of the creature, he realized how off the scale was.

  Maurice was barely visible in his arm, and compared to the shark, the crab was, well… like a regular hermit crab you’d find on the beach, hanging above a great white shark. The difference in size was that wide, but that didn’t discourage the crustacean.

  “[On it!]” Maurice shouted in his head, and the first dark bubble shot out and made landfall against the green and blue hued magic surrounding the shark. There was a violent pulse that made the shark buckle, but as the water cleared, Henry could only see a patch of bruised, red skin, with a little bit of blood seeping out that was soon swept away as the green-tinged magic accelerated.

  “[Hold on before you shoot the next one. I’ll try to dispel the skill first.]”

  The shark surged into the open waters, bucking and thrashing as Henry dug into its gill. Blood bloomed, leaving a long trail behind them, but the shark was not slowing, and the kraken had to call on his shadows to follow and keep an eye out on the surroundings. He didn’t need another shark to pop up.

  Henry tested with a normal Dispelling Pulse, but his regular skill failed against the higher-rank creature, just as he expected. With that in mind, he pulled on Hunger and channeled it into his core, then triggered Dispelling Pulse once more.

  “[Now, Maurice!]”

  The pulse of dispelling magic spread out like a wave of hunger, ravenously disintegrating the aura of storm and water. Then the purple and blue imploding bubble hit the white-scaled skin.

  Blood and flesh violently erupted upward as the shark kept swimming deeper into the fissures and under the crags, trailing even more blood as Henry managed to tear more of its gills with Fury-empowered slices. The defensive aura began forming once more, but Henry cut it off with another Aspect-empowered Dispelling Pulse, gritting his beak at the costly skill while his tranquilizing venoms continued pouring into the shark, barely doing anything to behemoth.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “[Again! Use your Aspects!]”

  “[I’m already using them!]”

  Another ball hit the still-bleeding crater at the top of the shark’s head, sending more flesh and viscera into the rocky environment. This time, the implosion made the shark spasm for a couple of seconds as it struggled to stay balanced. It drifted to the side, tail stuttering, mouth gaping for oxygen as its gills continued to be ravaged by Henry’s bladed arms while he dragged on its mana using both Draining Bite and Draining Touch from every purchase he had.

  “[Are we winning?]” asked Maurice from his perch.

  “[I don’t think we’re done. It still has plenty of mana. Keep going. We only stop when—]”

  Henry’s surveillance Octomind triggered the alarm, and he looked through the blood clone’s feed. Like a bloodhound who’d sniffed a scent, another Otodus shark was circling fast, tilting and twitching its head left and right as it narrowed down the location of the tantalizing meal.

  His gut churned, and Henry began using his Aspects even more liberally.

  “[Another one showed up. We got to hurry,]” he said while at the same time, two of his blood clones shed their invisibility and cut into their own arms to bait and distract the newcomer.

  [Otodus Giant Shark (B) - Lvl ??]

  Shit. It’s just as strong as this one.

  Thankfully, the shark under him had not been able to resummon its aura again. It was powerful, lethal, even, but even though it was extremely resistant, it was nothing as bad as the Goliath kraken or even any other kraken, really. It didn’t seem like Otodus sharks had a fallback when their brain matter was being blown out into the open waters.

  But it wasn’t dead either, which was a biological impossibility Henry was moving right past. This was a world of magic. Different rules and whatnot.

  Die already, for fuck’s sake.

  Henry was sweating bullets. The newcomer did not care at all about his clones, and it was locked into the scent of the dying shark wrapped in his arms.

  Or maybe it’s locked onto me?

  Henry hesitated for a moment, then used Arcane Regeneration to heal all of his own wounds. He even took the hook-arm from the shark’s mouth, just in case it woke up and chewed on him once more. He had enough blades and suckers sticking to the creature for it to not be able to get away.

  With another close clone, Henry attacked the shark, tracking it, whipping with a bladed arm and causing an implosion on the impact site. The shark twisted and blurred in response, and Henry lost contact with the clone.

  It was only seconds away, but the much awaited for notification just arrived, and Henry instantly shoved the shark into his storage. With a generous portion of Misdirection and Shiftiness, he turned himself invisible.

  The shark came around the corner of a particularly large crag. It swam up and down, always circling, and Henry could see the white of its eyes almost shine as it looked for its target, but it could not find anything. After nearly a full minute of heart-hammering anxiety, it turned and swam back the way it came, as if it was retracing its steps to find its much desired prey.

  Holy crap that was close.

  “[We… won?]”

  “[Yup,]” said Henry, arms still shaking. He didn’t dare dismiss the camouflage just yet, and with his lagging scouts, he began scouting the area. “[It was close… but we’ve had harder fights, I think.]”

  “[It didn’t heal very well. But it was tough.]”

  Henry hummed in response, but he was growing more and more distracted by what he was seeing through his clones. “[This was definitely a dangerous fight… but we’ve had longer fights, yeah… Wait. I think we need to get out of here.]”

  Maurice stilled, and his pleasantly shocked emotions quickly turned to curious anxiety.“[Why?]”

  Henry watched from his clone, already redoubling the effort to scout out their retreat as he stared at the school of fish ahead. At the dozens, maybe hundreds of truck-sized specimens swimming in the open sea, not too far above him. And they were swimming closer and closer to them.

  “[This place’s a bit too dangerous.]”

  [Sparkfin Great Thunnus (B) - Lvl ??]

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