NOVPUB
Chapter 305: 305
Deep below the ocean, in the world of Nana, deeper than where Tide and Flowus built their kingdom, a demon they believed they had purged still lingered in the depths.
At this very moment, the demon Aska was grappling with its own existential problems. During the last battle with Tide and Flowua, it had managed to secure the blessing of Jaws’ counterpart, which it believed would be useful in boosting its strength.
Aska’s research had mostly succeeded, largely due to its new body. The form of a leviathan was more suitable for receiving the blessing of a sea god, even if it was from a counterpart.
Aska coiled his massive form in the deepest trench of the ocean, his scales gleaming faintly in the abyssal dark. The pressure of the water was a familiar comfort, one of the few sensations that grounded him. The cold currents swirled lazily around his body as they always had, but now they felt different—tainted. The blessing that he had believed would make him invincible in the deep was slowly turning against him.
The whispers were louder here, far beneath the surface, where the boundary between the real world and the upside-down thinned. It was a place of power, where he once felt the pulse of the sea in his veins, commanding its flow and strength. But now, the gods from the upside-down had found him. His mind had become a battlefield, the voices worming their way into his thoughts.
He tried to close his eyes, to rest, but the moment he did, the whispers intensified. They filled his mind with half-formed words, promises of deeper knowledge, of ruling all seas—not just his own. At first, Aska had been intrigued. The power of a leviathan was vast, but the idea of unlocking even more secrets of the ocean had tempted him. When the whispers began, he had listened, straining to understand them, hoping to gain more control over his strength.
That was his mistake.
When he focused on the words, they seized him, yanking him from his watery throne and dragging him into the dark waters of the upside-down. It had been a terrifying experience—one moment, he had been surrounded by the familiar depths of his domain, and the next, he was sinking into the black sea of the upside-down, the waters corroding his powerful scales. The sting of that corrosive water had been unbearable, but it had saved him. It shocked him awake just before the massive jaws of Jaws’ counterpart could swallow him whole.
Since then, he had been haunted by the experience. Now, every time he heard the whispers, his body instinctively wanted to return to that cursed place. It was like a call he couldn’t ignore, an instinct imprinted on his very being. But he knew that going back meant certain death.
In the deepest trench, far away from the surface and the light of the sun, Aska lay coiled and sleepless. For most leviathans, sleep was a time of restoration, a crucial process that allowed their immense bodies to heal and grow stronger. But for Aska, sleep had become a dangerous proposition. Every time he let himself drift off, the whispers grew louder, more insistent, pulling him back to the upside-down. It was getting harder to resist.
His once-proud form was showing signs of strain. His scales, tougher than any armor, now seemed to pulse with an odd energy, a byproduct of the blessing’s integration into his being. The power that he had believed would make him invincible now carried the risk of consuming him from within.
"You belong to me," the gods’ voices hissed, cutting through the silence of the deep.
Aska’s eyes flared open, glowing faintly in the pitch-black. He could feel the pull growing stronger with every passing moment. But Aska was not a creature to be controlled easily.
His muscles tensed as he unfurled from his resting position, massive tendrils of his body curling and uncoiling with deliberate force. If the gods’ counterpart thought they could claim him, they were wrong.
But something had to be done. He couldn’t continue like this—caught between two worlds, unable to rest, his mind constantly under siege.
How could he sever the connection?
Aska growled softly, the sound reverberating through the water, sending ripples out from his massive form. He had to find a way to break free from the blessing’s influence.
"The sea," Aska’s deep voice rippled across the trench. His body shook as if struck by a revelation.
Aska’s mind raced as the revelation settled deep within him. The sea. His voice had echoed through the dark, still waters, and now his body trembled with the understanding that followed. The blessing, tied to the sea god’s counterpart, had been useful to him but now it was also the chain that bound him to the upside down. If the blessing had come from the sea, perhaps it was the very water around him that amplified its grip on his mind.
Aska considered the unthinkable—leaving the sea. Every fiber of his being resisted the idea. He was a leviathan, a creature of the deep, born and molded by the crushing pressure of the ocean’s abyss. His strength, his very identity, was tied to the vast expanse of water that surrounded him. Yet, now it felt like a cage.
"Could it be that simple?" Aska thought, his deep voice reverberating through the water. "The blessing, its whispers, all tied to this domain? To the god of the sea’s counterpart?"
He knew the answer already. The whispers grew louder when he was submerged in the deepest trenches, where the boundary between his world and the upside down was thin. The gods of the upside down reached for him through the currents, and the sea amplified their voices. If he could escape the water’s grasp, maybe he could break their influence—at least long enough to rest, long enough to think clearly once more.
The thought brought a bitter taste to his mind. It was humiliating to even consider abandoning his domain, but Aska was no fool. If staying meant losing himself, becoming a mindless puppet of the gods, then what choice did he have? Pride was worthless if it meant succumbing to their control.
He shook his massive form, sending a shockwave through the water as he resolved to act. There was one place where the sea could not follow him, a place where the ocean’s influence would fade—the surface. He had not been there in centuries. His kind rarely ventured to the world above, for it was a place of lesser beings, of chaos and weakness. But now, it was his only hope.
With a sudden surge, Aska propelled himself upward, his body cutting through the dark waters with effortless power. The pressure lessened as he ascended, and the familiar darkness of the trench began to give way to faint light filtering from the surface. His mind roared with anticipation and resistance, the voices in his head growing frantic as they sensed his intention.
"You cannot escape us, Aska," the whispers hissed. "The sea is ours. You belong to us."
But Aska only growled in defiance. His instincts screamed at him to stop, to turn back to the safety of the depths, but his mind was set. He would not be a pawn of the upside down. The sea no longer felt like home—it felt like a prison.
As he broke the surface of the water, the sudden rush of air stung his senses, the unfamiliar light of the sky overwhelming his sight for a moment. Aska hovered there, his massive form rippling with strength as he adjusted to the new environment. The world above felt different—alien and exposed—but for the first time in days, the whispers began to fade. The chaotic pressure in his mind lifted, if only slightly.
The relief was immediate. He could think clearly again, without the constant pull of the upside down. It was working. The connection to the sea had been severed, at least for now. But Aska knew this was only a temporary solution. The gods would find him again, and the whispers would return the moment he set foot back into the water.
Still, this was a start. But for now, he needed a place to sleep and close his eyes for rest. Aska’s huge body soared into the sky as he rode the wind, searching for the nearest land where he could lie down to rest.
The sight of a massive creature leaving the sea and taking to the sky was noticed by a ship not too far away. The humans aboard, unable to clearly discern what it was, began claiming that the dragons had returned from their long rest.
Meanwhile, Ikenga and Keles had been exploring the Ratman’s dream. This was their first time traversing the very mindspace of another conscious being.
They were unprepared for the surprises that came with it, such as time differences. To Ikenga and Keles, they had been wandering through the Ratman’s mindspace for days, but since they weren’t forced out, they realized the Ratman was still asleep.
