A few minutes before Ran woke up:
After leaping into the cold waters, Ann searched high and low but couldn't find Ran anywhere. Her soul projection shed light across a hundred meters (over three hundred feet), almost like a person carrying a lantern as they traverse through a dark cave. Who knows what she might find.
Eventually, after five or so minutes of searching with no results, she came upon a gigantic skull that was similar to a human about a few hundred meters away from the ship. She peered inside and shined her light directly into it as well, but there was nothing inside.
Ann couldn't help but sigh in defeat once more; she didn't know how she was going to find them at this rate. She turned around, ready to take her leave and go somewhere else, when she felt a prickly sensation on the back of her neck. She soon noticed that her soul projection was still looking into the skull, so she turned around to look at it again.
This time, a pair of pearlescent blue eye-like orbs were staring at her nonchalantly; she had to do a double take, otherwise she wouldn't have noticed them because they seemed to blend into their environment.
And before she could even gasp in surprise and cause a bunch of water to fill her lungs, the eyes quickly grew outwards to form a person.
"Didn't I tell you that I would be back? Why are you here, now, in front of me?" It snickered while taking back its soul juice. Luckily, Granny had taught them that skill that the Stonefishes had come up with—he might not have been able to save Ran undisturbed otherwise.
He unfurled himself, stretched a little, even yawned, before floating away. It did not wait for Ann to answer its question as it was rhetorical anyway, though it wasn't in the mood to entertain her either. It just wanted to go back and finish its sandcastle, or even catch some sun rays on the beach; was that too much to ask?
"But… you didn't say you would be back, you just left. And I'm worried; what happened to Ran? Why are you here?"
It paused momentarily; indeed, it didn't really say anything of much substance and then just left with her relative's body into dangerous waters. That was its mistake.
Just as it was going to turn back and apologize, a loud rumble echoed across the ocean, causing the bones that were resting on the ocean floor to chatter.
It turned towards the source of the sound, an exasperated and tired look plastered on its face. It just wanted to go back and relax; why was all this happening to it now? It already felt its headache throb again.
From the source of the sound, within a big pile of bones, a figure shot towards the three of them like a torpedo, leaving a trail of bubbles in its wake.
Its lower-half strongly resembled a Black sea bass, while its top-half was similar to a human; it had a torso, two arms, a neck and a head. Its skin was mostly black with whitish-gray spots. It had no navel, nor mammary glands (for obvious reasons).
A gill slit covered both sides of the neck and its eyes were first-line. They had no hair, but instead, a spiny fin traveled along their forehead to their waist.
They wore clothes woven out of seaweed that were fortified by soul juice, even though it didn't seem to have its purpose fulfilled since most of what it was supposed to cover was not there. Yet, there was certain charm to it as well.
Its whole body, from head to tail, was about three meters (ten feet) in length.
This bass had been looking for cores this whole day, but alas, it seemed they were going through a dry spell.
But who would have thought that a rank-5 would be so stupid as to reveal its location by spreading its juice all over the place!? This whole part of the ocean now smelled of a citrusy lemon.
They were simply too dumb to realize what they had done, or… there was no other explanation. Ann was caught up in her emotions and stupidly decided to look for Ran with her soul projection spilling her juice everywhere. She wasn't necessarily dumb, but her action indeed was.
So, of course this fishy person would come a knockin'.
And indeed it was so; this bass did not even bother with small talk, and directly confronted all three of them.
Though it was only rank-5, same as Ann, it simply did not care. It did not give consideration to this rank-7 fish, so it was the same as fighting one-on-one, which was something it had to go through almost every day—it would be dead if couldn't handle it.
"Eh?" Ann turned towards the fish, excited the more she looked at them.
"Hey, why don't you go back first? I'll handle this one." Ann was eager to try her hand out on this attacker; she was confident it wouldn't it wouldn't take much anyway. Thus, she naturally took her role and confronted this lone fish.
However, she didn't expect it to respond so candidly:
"Or… why don't I handle it, and you head back first." It merely spat out the same words she had said to it, and then stretched its body while floating.
Ann only let out a disappointed sigh and watched as it slowly floated towards the rocketing fish; it did not even occur to her to refute what he was going to do. In the end, it was like she forgot that it was merely rank-7 and it was going to fight a rank-5. In fact, she even left! Just like it had told her to…
"Oh, and don't forget to take back that projection of yours; it will keep attracting them if you leave it on for too long."
Ann looked at her ruined soul projection and suddenly realized the error she had committed. She only smiled embarrassedly and returned her soul projection as she left dejected about not being able to fight after breaking through.
"Good. Now that she left, this'll be a lot easier." It smiled at the fish that stopped a few dozen meters from them. The ship was to their backs since they turned around to face the enemy, so the bass would have to go through it to reach Ann. This made the fish confused however; why was the strong one leaving and the weak one staying? The bass was absolutely baffled, but it would find out why soon enough.
It, on the other hand, only grinned grew wider and wider the more it looked at the bass. Its teeth seemed to get sharper and sharper, gluttony filling its eyes.
The next moment, blue soul juice filled its body before condensing around its left arm. The gauntlet that formed was simple; it was smooth with scale-like notches running across the surface in rows. A ray-fin, about a foot (third of a meter) long, grew from the wrist. In the middle of its palm was a small bump.
With the infusion of more of its will, the bump wiggled a little before it stretched, turning into a beautiful butterfly koi fish no more than an inch (two and half centimeters) long.
Once the juice extended past its limit, another koi fish sprouted underneath the first ones long tail. It moved swiftly, quickly consuming the first one in one gulp and becoming twice the size of its predecessor. Then a third one popped from underneath the second one—thus the cycle repeats.
Only after the Koi was about two feet (two-thirds of a meter) long did the cycle stop. Once the Koi extended past its palm, it revolved around itself faster and faster.
It caught its tail before it started to consume itself, revolving as fast as a saw spins. When it completely ate itself, the now ball of soul juice shone with a dark light, becoming almost completely black. The dark sphere lost most of its momentum, only rotating at about two rotations in a minute, but it was simply tyrannical. This was because it was simply growing bigger and more terrifying with each second as it consumed everything that touched it—the water.
Of course, it was really slow; only growing at about a hundredth of a centimeter every second.
The forming process merely took a few seconds, and throughout the whole thing, the fish was completely stunned, and who wouldn't be. It shivered feeling the aura it exuded, and it almost cried seeing it eat all the water that it came upon. Now, it really wanted to go home to its mother's warm embrace. But it wouldn't get that chance anymore.
With the flick of its finger, the sphere slowly made its way towards the fish. Though the pacing of the sphere was merely that of a person walking, it was resolute in its path of destruction. Once the sphere caught a whiff of the fish's aura, it instantly locked on like a predator and changed its course accordingly; all the while it continued to slowly grow in size.
Honestly, by this point, the bass knew it could no longer run for it wouldn't be able to shake off the threat that is this sphere of gluttony. No matter how far it swam, soon or later, it would catch up; by then, who knew how big and terrifying it would be.
So, it could only do what it could do. And that was to summon its soul projection. After all, everything you could accomplish normally would be twofold stronger at least with the projection, though there was at least one major drawback.
Much like its name, a soul projection was a projection of the soul. There are only two things that constitute a soul; one being the soul juice and the second being the source. The source of the consciousness to be more specific. So the reason the projection was just that, a projection, is because it lacks the source. But the reason it was a projection in the first place is because it still holds a vast percentage of the consciousness; of course, it still lacked the most important part.
But putting that much of your consciousness into a single projection of the soul, while having its advantages, ultimately leads it vulnerable to attacks.
Basically, if you hurt the soul projection enough, the consciousness can be hurt just as much; it can potentially lead to extreme fatigue, comatose, and even permanent death. Not to mention the healing process will take time.
This was simply a case of putting all your eggs in one basket; don't drop it, or you won't be able to have dinner tonight. Or the next day…
In fact, believe or not, this was the very reason it had told Ann off - so as to not endanger her anymore than she has endangered herself. Well, that and it really wanted to fight… but it seemed like it wouldn't have to get serious this time. Well, that was it thought.
The scent of grilled bass flooded the area around them as the Black sea bass summoned its soul projection. Like always, the soul projection almost completely resembled the fish. The only difference being its nakedness and the fact it was completely blue in color, which was because of its affinity to water (though water doesn't have a color normally).
The bass wasted no time as it immediately crafted a bow out of its water-attributed juice. It remembered all the intricacies of its skill before projecting them into the soul projection. After all, the whole point of the soul projection was to enhance its actions, so this was a natural course to take. Plus, it wasn't that hard to copy the skill and all the associated body models, so the result was pretty good.
The soul projections temperature quickly cooled down to the point frost covered its surface and the bow in its hand was completely frozen over.
The bass quickly formed an ice arrow, and pulled taut the ice bow, before firing.
The arrow was so cold, in fact, that it was nearly double in size (though that was the most it could do) from collecting more and more frost by the time it struck the dark sphere.
Frost quickly covered the surface of the sphere before being consumed. The arrow, originally about half a meter (one and a half feet) in length, managed to slow down the sphere to half its velocity (of about a meter a second).
Its original size of about a human head (fifty seven centimeters or twenty three inches) suddenly shrunk to two-thirds that size from the impact as the juice evaporated and was absorbed by the world.
However, like a dog with a bone, it ravenously tore apart the arrow into little pieces before eating them. Now, not only did it regain its original size, it even grew by a good ten centimeters (four inches) in circumference!
It might not seem like a lot, but the bass wore a solemn look as it inwardly cursed. After all, it had fed what would
inevitably bite its hand! Previously, while powerful, the sphere actually did not have rank-5 power. At most, it could wear down a defense of that level if sufficient time was given, though that would never realistically happen as no one would willing wait for it to chip apart their defense. But now, it has finally crossed that threshold to rank-5 attack power after consuming rank-5 soul juice.
Seeing the dark sphere come out of the plume unscathed and stronger than before, moving towards it at its recovered velocity, the bass no longer held back. A new ice arrow formed on the icy string, this one being one and half meters (about five feet) in length—three times longer than the first one!
With the release of her fingers, the string was able to release the tension and the spear-like arrow zoomed across the ocean.
With a loud crash and rumble, which sent plumes of juice everywhere, the arrow pierced itself all the way through the sphere, making it shudder. The impact was so forceful that ripples had appeared on the surface and the bones below were clattering non-stop.
With arrow stuck all the way through, frost quickly covered the sphere from the inside. But that wasn't the end of the bass' assault; after breaching the sphere's defense, she quickly flicked her tail and appeared next to the sphere as it swung it's now sharpened ice bow at it.
It was planning to use the hole it created to serve as the weak point to completely shatter this sphere like an egg hitting a rock. And because it was using the soul projection, its power was twice that of its normal strength. Foribly moving through the water made the grow in length and girth as more and more frost covered it, though it kept its sharpened edge.
However, while it was indeed feasible to break the sphere, considering it was being frozen and struck at the same time, it would never get that chance.
"Tsk… you're not as helpless as I thought. Welp, now I'm more disappointed in myself than anything else." It sighed helplessly while shaking its head in disappointment; clearly, it had expectations for itself during its debut. It thought that it would completely dominate its opponent within one move, showing the world its prowess, but from the looks of it…
It could not help but sigh again. It would have to get a little more serious. But just a little.
Just as the sharpened ice bow struck the sphere with unrelenting force, it snapped its juice-covered fingers and commanded what it called "first move".
All of sudden, the dark sphere that was silent, like a predator laying in wait for its prey, started humming - no it wasn't rhythmic, though it did sound melodic in a twisted and seemingly cruel way. Rather, the humming was from how fast it was rotating.
Out of nowhere, once the command took effect, the sphere raised its rpm from two to two hundred! That was an increase of one hundred times!
Of course, this was the first move and honestly, it was fairly easy to accomplish this. It took no effort to have an rpm of two, so while two hundred might seem like a big jump, it's merely only scratching the surface. It's like starting with the number zero and then having the number. Sure, the difference between zero and five is big, but the number five itself wasn't particularly big.
And it was not for nothing either.
With the sudden introduction of that much torque, the arrow directly shattered into pieces before being absorbed at an enhanced rate. The frost that had built up on its surface and interior was eaten as well.
As for the strike from the bow? It was simply deflected and flung to the side along with the projection—nothing less, nothing more.
While the bass lost its chance to finish the sphere, the same could not be said for the sphere. Seeing its chance, and before the bass recovered, it flung itself towards it at speeds comparable to its ice arrow with an almost unpredictable pattern (likely stemming from its spinning).
"What!?" The bass was truly terrified this time around, so much so that it finally spoke, though it was only one word.
Wait, why did its voice sound… feminine? Come to think of it, its face was pretty much that of a woman too; huh, guess I forgot to mention it.
All of that didn't stop the dark sphere of gluttony from heading toward her projection.
Likewise, while terrified, the fear of death dug out some surprises. The skill circulating in her projection spat out one last trick.
The frost covering her soul projection from head to toe began growing at an exponential rate. Ice spikes over a foot (a third of a meter) long covered her entirely and each spike had smaller spikes that branch out from it, and so on and so forth, like fractals.
It was her so-called "icy maiden" modification to her skill that produced the chilling effect.
Her projection then violently hugged the sphere and tightly coiled around it like a python around its prey. The special spikes were easily able to penetrate the sphere fully; the only stopping it from bursting into a bunch of gas was the tension it pressed against the spikes as it tried to spin.
Seeing the stalemate, the girl finally breathed out a sigh of relief. No, it cant be called a stalemate because the frost that corroded the sphere would eventually (pretty soon too) cause it to freeze. Once that happened, it wouldn't be able to control it anymore and the whole thing would collapse.
Of course… hehe, that wasn't going to happen.
And as if to mock her, she felt the sphere's tension grow as it tried to twist it's way around the spikes but was unable to do so. It was at that moment that she knew… she fucked up. She shouldn't have served her projection, and by extension part of her consciousness, to the sphere on a silver platter like that.
Then again, she didn't know it was capable of that, so the phrase ignorance is bliss clearly doesn't work here. Welp, not that any of that matters anymore.
Three hundred rotations per minute.
"No…"
Four hundred rotations per minute.
"Wait!"
Five hundred rotations per minute.
"I'm begging you, please…"
Crack.
Six hundred rotations per minute.
The dark sphere appeared as though it was going to rip itself apart as the spikes tried to hold it back, but they ultimately couldn't. Instead, once the tension was released, the soul projection was directly shattered to dust.
"Hehe… very well…" it's toothy grin of sharp teeth spread from ear to ear, blood leaking from it's mouth and diffusing into the water. It stopped controlling the sphere, allowing it to collapse and be absorbed by the world.
It then floated towards the fleshy bass, cockiness simply oozing from its body in an almost tangible form.
"I'm sorry about that, hun, I truly am. But this was my first real battle you see. Don't worry though, I'll make sure the rest of the process is painless."
The bass, at this point, was almost completely brain-dead, only being relative to the soul of course. Actually the only thing keeping her alive and in this realm was her bodies instinctive response to danger and impending death. She couldn't even control her body, leaving her with only the ability to move her eyeballs.
Therefore, the last thing this Black sea bass saw was the horrifying smile of this unknown fish that was worse than those sharks always wore.
Squelch. The girl's eyes crossed immediately as a couple of juice-covered fingers pierced her skull and grabbed its core along with some gray matter.
It put the bloody core (it was rank-5 after all) in the pendant hanging around its neck with one quick motion before looking at the limp body, saliva floated away from his mouth.
"Oh… oh, I'm definitely going to enjoy this one."
"Hehe…"