'Bleeding hell.'
Realizing now that I should've stocked up on weapons I hurriedly dodged the fist and brought out the stone blocks in my inventory as a shield.
Breaking apart into several pieces, I pulled out the cobblestone blocks and threw them forwards while kicking at the fragments.
Since literally all of my weapons save the leaf blade and the rapier in my inventories were safe, the moment I threw out the blocks, I used the Eye of Cthulhu and charged upwards.
Dodging the tentacle stabbing at my position, I ram runed downwards and slammed my legs at the tentacle.
But the moment that I did that, I felt a chill crawling up from the base of my legs as purple blood surrounded me in a near instant.
It seems just like the stinger at the ends of the tentacles, the blood was also poisonous.
Although I don't know exactly what type of poison it was to be so effective to eat away at my mana and malaise reserves.
Bicycle kicking the stump of a tentacle away, I hurriedly threw stones at the tentacle watching them expand and collide against the wound.
But when it did, I had an epipheny alongside a pain in the cranium.
Neck twisting around my body followed suit as I quickly used the vine rune to block the follow up.
Kicking at the fist that protruded the newfound foliage in the sea, I hurriedly swam upwards and made some distance between the two of us while simultaneously checking my condition.
And besides the obviously cracked neck of mine that hurt like hell, surprisingly everything looked fine since there were no noticeable changes...
Well if you don't count my skin becoming much more porcelain in nature then I guess it didn't change much.
Cracking my neck and fixing it in place, a sharp pain traveled down my back as the bones realigned and magic magically fixed my spine in place.
Whether there would be shortcomings to doing that we would see in the future, but I was fine with this since I was more preoccupied with killing Trumpet.
'What a dumb name, who in their right mind names their child Trumpet?'
Swimming upwards, I morphed the leaf blade in my hands into a hammer which slammed itself right into the side of the arm heading towards me.
And as a bonus since I could literally mold this sword however I liked, the handle extended like a whip to hit Trumpet's neck.
Breaking through the layers of ice, the whip wrapped around his neck sending fragments of ice flying around.
Yanking my arm back, we quickly closed the distance as I pulled out several stone blocks from my inventory and threw it at the fist that had transitioned into a swing.
Breaking through the rapidly expanding stones, I quickly put malaise into my arm and felt it harden.
Landing onto my arm, a shockwave traveled through the water as if buffeted everything else in a nearby vicinity.
And I was aware of the world more then ever,
Feeling something at the back of my head tingle as if I was missing one thing, as much as I wanted to scratch that strange itch, I didn't exactly have the time.
Quickly locking arms with Trumpets right arm, the leaf blade morphed with the help of the vine rune.
Green vine like sigils glowing on my arms from underneath the bandages the leaf blade quickly cut off the giant ball of vines and turned into a vine that I swung like a whip forming thorns on its surface as I did so.
Cracking in the water, my eyes sharpened as I caught sight of some blood.
It seemed that he didn't have the time to heal that portion of ice around his neck and I was grateful for that.
Letting go of the leaf blade with my left hand I pushed through the leafy mess and grabbed at Trumpet's neck just as he did the same to me.
And although he was most likely going to crack my skull in and render it into a paste soon, I could heal.
Whatever I was going to his blood would not.
So just as more pressure was being applied onto my skull, I reached for his neck and briefly activated the amulet of frozen flame.
Relishing in the thought that I would soon be able to burn my enemy from inside out, my eyes widened as I caught sight of a mocking eye staring at me from behind Trumpet.
[The Chorus Singer]
'Fuck...'
Flames crystallizing in the water as the frozen flames sunk into Trumpets newly opened wound, a gigantic tentacle stabbed at my head rendering my consciousness moot.
'...Wait, am I not dead?'
Opening my eyes, I widened them even more when I saw a gigantic wall in front of me.
Oh wait a minute, that was actually the ancient Guardian.
Blinking, I hurriedly spaced myself away from Trumpet as frozen fire crackled in his body causing a sublimation reaction to occur.
Belatedly trying to attack me, the remaining vines surrounding his body acted on my command and quickly bound him up making his attempt null.
Swimming away my eyes curled upwards like a smile as I watched an internal combustion reaction occur in his body
And if anyone knew the slightest bit of chemistry, then the transition to a solid to a gas and vice versa involved lots of energy.
Energy that it was currently taking from Trumpets blood and was now exploding inside his body.
'Good God that thing is effective.'
Watching Trumpet's wound flare up and explode as he hurriedly tried to freeze the open wound, I watched as his flesh seemed to expand like a balloon.
Twisting and turning in the water in agony, ice crackled and broke around his body as it constantly reformed and broke down.
Hell, some of the wounds appearing on his body even burst out violently causing foam to appear around Trumpet.
And since he was basically out of commission, I should really focus on the other enemy.
'Focus on the Chorus Singer'
Quickly focusing onto the ancient guardian which was currently impaled by a giant tentacle when I noted that Trumpet wouldn't be interrupting us anytime soon.
I watched the Ancient Guardian as it was fighting the Chorus Singer.
Something I noticed however was that the strange poison on the tips of the tentacles weren't affecting it in the slightest as all I see is sparks...
Holy hell there was literal sparks coming off the ancient Guardian's skin, and we were UNDERWATER.
Shaking my head, I quickly refocused onto the task at hand and kicked at the sea as I quickly made my way to the Chorus Singer.
And as I neared the gargantuan being that was the roughly the size of a building if the tentacles weren't counted, I swung my blade as bubbles frothed around me.
Elongating the blade, it whipped towards the tentacles slicing a few of them right as they stopped at the seventh.
*SCREEE!
Screeching in pain, I forced the vine rune to wrap the rest of the leaf blade around the final uncut tentacle and yanked my arm backwards.
Feeling my body fly forwards, the water whipped at my face as an incredible pressure rested on my shoulders.
Twisting my body around, I squeezed through the ssmall gaps left behind by the Chorus Singer and ripped my leaf blade right into its shell.
Sadly though, it was incredibly tough as I felt a strong resistance in my hands.
Rebounding backwards, I swung the leaf blade around cutting the network of tentacles spared from their onslaught on the ancient Guardian before snapping the leaf right back into my inventory and pulled out the rapier.
Since I have concluded that the leaf blade had an insufficient amount of combat power, it was time to bring out the big guns when it wasn't as occupied with the Ancient Guardian.
Stabbing the tip into the shell and only cutting a small chink off of it's shell, I bit my lips and drew blood right as I swiftly focused.
A blue path.
Glttering like the night in my eyes, I pulled back my body and kicked against the water treating the liquid substance the same as a solid one right as I brought my blade down.
Infusing my mana into the blade to the utmost extremes, blue light condensed at its edges creating an incredible tearing force that cut apart even the water turning it into a somewhat jelly like substance.
But if that was the extent of the cutting force, then I would've been ashamed to have been called the Queen's Inheritor.
Forcing my muscles to move and adapt in a situation where I was supposed to borrow the earth's power, I infused more and more mana into my blade.
Forming a glowing blue light, I brought the blade down and watched a small tear in space form easily slicing through the shell.
However, the Chorus Bringer had much more then one shell.
Black and blue light exploded from the exposed shell part as it pushed me backwards, sending my organs into disarray as I flew straight into the Ancient Guardian.
Slamming into the being, the Chorus Bringer screeched before retreating and grabbing Trumpet.
'Wait a fucking minute.'
Eyes widening, I hurriedly kicked off of the Ancient Guardian and used all of my abilities in sync (I'm sorry ancient Guardian.)
Shield of Cthulhu charging forwards, I kicked at the sea, used the leaf blade to propel myself forwards and even cut my feet to use the amulet of Frozen fire to blast forwards like a rocket.
But I guess there are biological barriers in life that no one could overcome as the Chorus Bringer.
Watching the tentacles turn around its end like a set of turbines all the while it stared at me, it was a wonder that it didn't hit- ah.
Feeling a force push me from behind just as the Chorus Singer collided against something, I turned to look at the force pushing me.
*Flinch
'Oh hi big guy.'
Seeing the gigantic eye just staring directly into my soul, the red skinned ancient Guardian continually swam forwards as we soon enough made our way into the fight happening above our heads.
'Prepare yourself Trumpet, we're coming for you.'
Storing my Rapier, I pulled out the leaf blade as I checked my inventory for anything else that I can use.
'I guess I can do this...'
Rummaging through my inventory, the Ancient Guardian stared at the escaping Chorus Bringer with a burning vengeance burning in its eyes.
---
This world, much like any other world that had created some form of life was ancient with roughly trillions of years of history.
And Axia was no exception to that fact.
Of course, just as a world of an absurdly long history had incredibly durable lifeforms that would continue to find a way to survive no matter how harsh the conditions there was also a disaster.
One that threatened to wipe out all of life.
That threat was an outer God that was now sealed on the moon and the Ancient guardian was a being from before that disaster.
The oldest of its living kind, the ancient Guardian, also known as the billion year old fish was functionally and biologically immortal.
Once a species of fish that had formed a contract to protect the cities of the Atlanteans after being saved by their king, the Guardians continued to protect them even after their inhabitants disappeared into the rivers of time.
But now that several generations had passed and the underwater kingdom of Atlantis was rumored to be nothing more then myth, the Guardians found no enemies to hunt save for the odd shark swimming into their territory.
And nowadays, besides protecting the broken monuments that belonged to their former saviors.
The Ancient Guardian spent a majority of the time sleeping as the rich mana that used to fill the atmosphere disappeared in light of the moon lords destruction and sealing.
It was this sleeping period that mermen, the bastard successors of the Atlanteans and fervent believers of the destroyer took advantage of and bound the Ancient Guardian to an altar.
One that it was now freed from by the work of a strange smooth skinned shiny being that looked just like the Atlanteans that had contracted its progenitors.
'...'
Countless memories flitting through its head as it recalled a past when it was rode into battle, the Ancient Guardian felt its time flicker as it greedily swallowed mana.
'...'
But before it went into the river of time, joining its brothers and sisters.
It would make sure to take the damned spawn of the destroyer with it.
Swinging its tail, the magic organ located in its eye sparked quietly as it waited for the perfect moment to activate its racial magic unique to the Guardians.
+++
Tree