Zheus was pretty hopeful: he had a feeling that he could make it move after insisting on the order several times. However, he was absolutely wrong in that regard. He didn't have to try to force the raging sea to attack. He just needed to give it the authorization to do so.
The very instant he willed it to begin an assault on the hand, the countless of violet rivers broke out from the shadows and reversed themselves towards the beaming hand.
Zheus had felt the seething sea before, but this was the first time that he actually had a good look at it. As he had expected, it wasn't a nice spectacle at all. However never in his life, he would have thought it would have been so incredibly terrifying.
Sea of Horrors.
This name came immediately to Zheus while he watched the mighty power pour out from the darkness. He was shaken to the core by it, especially when he realized that it lived inside him.
- This thing lives inside me?
It was truly something that belonged in some creepy horror novel: the waters had a dark violet hue and were bubbling and churning without end. They formed turbulent waves that advanced with thundering sounds towards the radiant hand. When observed more attentively, numerous battered violet figures appeared between the twisting waters, seemingly trapped. Some of them were old and decrepit, others looked young and strong. There were women, men, and creatures with bestial features. All had wailing and screaming expressions, almost as if they were in perpetual agony. Even so, they didn't scream, instead, the only sound that emerged from their distorted jaws was an indistinct disturbing whispering.
The sea gave off the impression that it wanted to devour the entire cosmos, to consume it and make a part of itself. It emanated a strong sense of grief and anger, so much that even Zheus felt his skin get goosebumps.
Rapidly, the Sea of Horrors consumed the distance between the cracks on the dark from which it emerged and the hand of light.
Zheus wanted to command it to stop, just to see if he maintained control over it, but at the same time he was scared to incite it against himself. In the end, he did nothing and continued to observe tensely.
Meanwhile, the glowing hand finally seemed to take notice of the change in its surroundings. It stopped hitting the stoic-faced radiant giant and turned towards the advancing violet sea.
On the palm of the hand, there was a face: Zheus immediately recognized the Sunian that attacked him before without any apparent reason. There was a conflicted expression on that face: he wasn't happy of being forced to stop torturing the giant.
They way he looked over at the sea, without any fear, surprised Zheus at first. He thought of himself as a very fearless person, but even he felt strong unease observing the Sea of Horrors.
However, when he thought that the red-headed youth tried to kill him for no reason, anger began to build up inside of him. He launched a hateful look towards the hand.
That thing tried to kill him: he wanted it dead in return.
Almost as feeling his hate, the sea suddenly exploded with astonishing speed towards the hand.
The Sunian, was until now, only annoyed by the counterattack.
He wasn't preoccupied with the violet water's appearance at first because it looked harmless. Yet now that it suddenly came near him, he felt a horrifying quantity of killing intent coming from it. The face stamped on the radiant hazy palm gasped in shock at the unforeseen change. Immediately the hand turned into a beam of light, trying to flee from the sea.
The radiance of the hand became stronger and the Sunian's face started to emerge from the palm. An expression of urgency could be seen on his grim countenance.
However, the speed of the hand seemed to be way slower than that of its pursuer. Before long, it was captured by the waves.
It was when he came in contact with it that the Sand shinobi saw his shock rapidly become utter horror and dismay. When the first splashes of water touched him, the waves seemed to transform. Like a wolf abandoning his sheep clothing, countless hellish figures started to appear between waves.
The radiant limb was attacked by the waters and the legions of ghoulish figures in anguish that inhabited them. Violet shades of grown men, women, and children, thin and obese alike begun gnawing at the horrified screaming red-headed youth.
Zheus looked at it in silence. He didn't feel any pity for the red-haired man. He tried to kill him and now he was facing the same destiny that he envisioned for him.
He was surprised by the fact that only when the sea came near to him he seemed to start growing weary of it. Almost as he wasn't completely able to see the horror it brought until it was much too late.
Another thing that was surprising was that even when he was in complete and absolute pain, the shinobi didn't beg for mercy even once. He screamed and howled but never tried to ask Zheus to stop or menaced him of possible retaliation if he was killed.
Although Zheus still hated him for attempting to take his life, he also had some degree of respect for him. Dying without humiliating himself was a commendable act.
He watched with a complex look in his eyes, as the hand was rapidly brought deep inside the Sea of Horrors, dragged down by the water's violet servants. Then, the churning sea began to slowly flow in the reverse direction. It split itself into many different streams and crept inside the cracks from which it came.
When the last violet river disappeared, the cracks themselves evaporated in the surrounding darkness.
Only silence remained in the dark world. Zheus could feel the churning sea starting to calm down, in some place hidden deep inside him. He also felt that the connection to the giant of light was becoming more feeble as the horrifying power that saved him from disaster calmed down.
After some seconds his consciousness abruptly lost access to the dark world.
Zheus confusedly looked around only to see that he was again on the wooden wagon.
He stood up with difficulty. His body was stilling feeling the effect of the muscle spasms that the spiritual battle caused him. He felt as somebody had battered him while he was asleep and he also had a terrible headache.
Pressing his back on one of the many tall stacks of wooden boxes lying around, Zheus's sight roamed freely around. From his position, he couldn't see the red-headed Sunian's body, but he was sure that he was dead.
Zheus eyes stopped moving when they noted some writing on a couple of boxes that seemed smaller than the rest.
" Move with caution".
- Uh?