As Alypos plunged from the cliff's edge, the chill of the wind whipped against his face, cutting through him in an exhilarating rush. It was a rare moment, fleeting but potent, the cold searing his skin but somehow bringing him a sense of release. He felt the weight of his recent battles and lingering predators loosen, if only for an instant. The air felt cleaner, sharper, brimming with the promise of freedom that he had sought ever since reawakening in this world.
This wasn't the reckless dive of someone desperate but the calculated descent of a strategist. Alypos had mapped out each step of this escape long before he reached this cliffside. When he gained the ability {Child of Water}, he saw the opportunity to twist his fate from the clutches of the relentless hunters who had pursued him. Each player—the Alpha, the Goblin King, the Wolf Mother, and Marina—had their place, pieces arranged on a board in a precise design that could offer him a path to liberation, albeit with only a 50 percent chance of success.
The plan was meticulous, honed by countless adjustments once he realized the Alpha's full strength. Redirecting the beast toward the Goblin King had been one such adjustment, a gamble that tipped his odds just enough to make the risk worthwhile. Marina, however, was a curiosity. She had been nothing more than a convenient tool from the outset. Her loyalty puzzled him, and despite her intelligence, he couldn't understand her motive. Perhaps she trusted him blindly, or perhaps there was a layer to her motives he had yet to uncover. It didn't matter anymore; as of this moment, her role in his plan was finished.
Below, the water stretched out in an endless blue-gray expanse, vast and indifferent. It awaited him like a silent accomplice, ready to enfold him in its depths. Alypos hit the surface, and the ocean greeted him with a force that softened the instant his body submerged. Cold washed over him in a soothing cascade, a salve for his exhaustion, as his energy was restored at an extraordinary rate. His mana, too, replenished as if the sea itself willed him back to strength. He felt a quiet warmth suffusing him, a gentle and steady pulse beneath the waves.
Then he noticed Marina, floating nearby, her form bathed in the same restoring energy, though her recovery was sluggish in comparison. She wasn't drowning; the water seemed to cradle her as though honoring the role she had played in his plan. Alypos watched her, faintly curious, but felt no remorse. To him, Marina had been a pawn, nothing more. A fleeting thought crossed his mind as he regarded her still form—had she suspected the extent of his plan, or did she merely follow out of some instinctive trust?
Before he could ponder further, a new presence disrupted the water around him, sending ripples outward. He glanced through the murky depths, recognizing the dark forms descending: the Alpha, the Wolf Mother, and the Goblin King. Their eyes gleamed with rage and vengeance, intent on finishing what they had begun.
With calm resolve, Alypos closed his eyes, a whisper of a smile playing at his lips as he directed his mana into the core nestled deep within him. The core, a dull red, thrummed with restrained power, humming in anticipation. It was the result of his recent growth, a crystallization of his evolving strength since reaching G rank. He summoned the power into his mind, feeling it surge through him like a force of nature, and then, with the respect born from a life spent in reverence of the elements, he addressed the sea itself.
"Oh, mighty sea," he murmured, voice barely audible even in the silence of his mind. "Can you vanquish my foes?"
The words were simple, but they carried the weight of his desperation, his longing for freedom, and the cold acknowledgment of the sacrifice it required. As the last of his mana drained, he felt it instantly replenished as the ocean responded to his call, awakening in quiet fury.
From the depths, two colossal hands began to rise, fashioned entirely of seawater but dense and solid with an immense, crushing weight. They loomed, manifesting with silent power, and Alypos felt a faint shiver of awe and respect for the vast entity he had invoked. The hands, glistening with latent strength, turned their open palms toward the intruders, sweeping downward with purpose.
The ocean's grasp was merciless. Each hand surged forward, meeting the Alpha, the Wolf Mother, and the Goblin King with devastating force, pushing them to the very bottom of the sea. Alypos watched from above as the pressure bore down on his enemies, a force as ancient as time and as unfeeling as death. The weight of the ocean was relentless, pressing against the creatures' forms, fracturing bones, and tearing flesh. Even the strongest among them—the Goblin King and the Alpha—were visibly straining, their expressions of defiance slipping into grimaces of pain.
But they did not yield easily.
Their gazes met the sea's wrath with fierce defiance, eyes blazing with an unwillingness to surrender. In the face of nature itself, they refused to be cowed, clawing and thrashing against the inexorable pull of the ocean's depths. But Alypos knew what they could not accept: that nature, for all the human narratives of kindness or cruelty projected onto it, was ultimately indifferent, neither a savior nor a destroyer. Nature simply was. And today, it had decided that these creatures, despite their defiance, would be silenced.
The sea squeezed them again, harder than before, a crushing embrace that shattered bones and brought an end to the last embers of their resistance. Alypos allowed himself a small nod of satisfaction. The kings of this forest were no more, vanquished by the will of the sea and the cunning of a 12-year-old child with no name.
Yet the ocean wasn't finished.
With ponderous, deadly purpose, the massive hands of water turned and swept upward, toward the forest's edge where the goblins awaited. Drawn by the commotion, more goblins gathered, curiosity and loyalty urging them to the cliff's edge. They didn't know it, but they were walking toward their end. The sea reached out, pulling them in, dragging them down to join their rulers in the silent depths.
The waves grew red as goblin after goblin met the same fate, bodies pulled under by the relentless hands of the ocean, smothered and drowned beneath its crushing weight. The sound of the goblins' screams was muffled by the water, a chorus of despair that was snuffed out as quickly as it had arisen. Alypos watched dispassionately as the goblins were snatched, wave after wave of them, each swept into the abyss.
For thirty long minutes, the slaughter continued. The sea, in its cold efficiency, painted itself in the blood of Alypos's enemies, staining its surface a dark, sinister red. The tides lapped at the shore, carrying the last remnants of his foes, erasing each one until the water began to clear, the evidence of his victory slowly dissipating into the vastness. Bit by bit, the blood faded, the sea returning to its placid, innocent blue, as if it had never been touched by violence.
And as the last of the bloodstains vanished, Alypos floated in silence, feeling the weight of solitude settle over him. This was the price he had paid, the price he would continue to pay for freedom—the annihilation of anyone and anything that stood in his way. Yet, as he drifted in the quiet that followed, he felt a pang of something deeper, something nameless.
It was the whisper of a question: what was freedom if he was bound to destroy everything in his path to attain it?
But he shoved the thought aside, letting the quiet ocean cradle him in its embrace. There would be other battles, other enemies, and perhaps one day he might find an answer to the question that haunted him. But for now, in the aftermath of his victory, he had found what he needed—a fleeting moment of peace.