Chapter 668: The secret of the black water lake (part 4)
While the one inside the sphere of chains was screaming due to pain, Daimon first and formal surfaced to take a breath, in his way upwards, he purposedly touched the pitch-black water with his left hand to see if it had any negative impact on the participants.
But the moment his skin made contact with the black water, an almost unnoticeable silver glow blocked it from being absorbed by Daimon’s hand.
"Hoh, that’s interesting, the lineage energy is blocking it by itself, but at the same time it’s being consumed, so this black water can indeed cause troubles to participants", said Daimon as he took a deep breath to then dive into the lake again.
At this point the scream coming from the sphere of chains had stopped, but the one inside was obviously not dead, since steam was still coming from the chains, it probably just lost consciousness.
’Having to maneuver in water without a lineage related to it, surely is a pain, the problem is that I don’t think I can take this guy out of it’, thought Daimon as he observed the chains that tied the sphere to the giant bone.
Unlike the corroded ones with which Daimon was attacked earlier, those were perfectly fine without any rust or anything, so when Daimon cladded his right hand with silver light and tried to pull on them to see if he could dissolve them like he did earlier, nothing happened.
Sure, he could try to use force to break them, but Daimon has seen how much did the one inside the sphere of chains struggled, just to be unable to make the bone budge even a bit, and with his current lack of offensive power, it’s clear that force wasn’t the way to go here.
Just as Daimon was about to try and see if he could maybe dissolve a part of the bone instead, he suddenly felt a little movement coming from his pocket, before his black sea emblem came out of it, the rune shark appeared right away, turning to see Daimon for a second before, as it conveyed its intention to him.
Only after receiving a nod of approval from Daimon, the rune shark made a few turns around the sphere of chains to then... chew on the bone to which it was tied to.
"Crack!", the rune shark easily munched the base area of the bone out of which the chains grew, separating it from the rest in a matter of seconds, and that wasn’t all, the runic shark grabbed the piece of the bone and swam upwards, using it to drag the sphere of chains out of the lake, landing on the shore to then wait for Daimon to come out.
’You sure are full of surprises’, thought Daimon while raising an eyebrow behind his mask at what just happened, he swam out of the lake to then look at the runic shark which had easily dragged a piece of a bone the size of a table, while also dragging the sphere of chains alongside it.
Speaking of which, now that the sphere of chains was outside of the water, the amount of steam that was coming from the chains practically doubled and the one inside of them, woke up on the spot.
"Agh it burns!", screamed the one inside of the sphere of chains with an angered voice, to then forget about the pain he was feeling as he noticed that he wasn’t underwater anymore.
"Hahaha, you crazy bastard, you actually destroyed the seal for me, you are dea...d", the voice went from arrogant to confused midway through the previous sentence, as it realized that he was unable to escape from his prison anyway.
"What the hell is this, the extensions of those damn chains shouldn’t have allowed the prison to go out of the lake, what did you do!", he demanded to know, to which Daimon smirked behind his mask.
"How interesting, it seems like while the chains keep you in place, the origin of the seal is the bone out of which they come out, so as long as the chains are still attached to the bone, you can’t go anywhere", said Daimon as he placed his hand on the piece of bone, to then walk towards the sphere of chains.
Silver light gathered around Daimon’s right hand as he approached the sphere of chains to then say.
"I have a few questions for you, are you going to answer properly or do we have to do this the hard way".
"Humph, who are you trying to scare, these damn chains might be restraining me, but they also block the interference from the outside, you can’t do anything to me", said the one inside the sphere of chains, which made Daimon shrug in response.
"Well, I bet you would speak after letting you fry under the red sun for a couple of hours, but I don’t have the time to play with you so, here, time to eat", he said to the rune shark whose eyes glowed on the spot.
"I don’t know what the hell is that thing, but it took me hundreds of years to even start corroding the extremes of the sealing chains so you can forget about...", the voice stopped midway as the sound of something shattering echoed through the vicinity.
"Crack!", that was the rune shark munching on the chains that composed the sphere, breaking them on the spot, it actually took it more time to break through the bone, than the chains.
Earlier, the rune shark actually asked Daimon to allow it to eat the chains, but Daimon told it to break the bone instead, because he didn’t want to screw up the seal and end up with a problem at hand.
But now that he had confirmed that the seal remained so long as the chains were still tied to the bone, then Daimon didn’t see anything wrong with letting the rune shark have its meal, also while the silver light didn’t affect the chains that weren’t corroded, the origin of the corrosion is the guy inside of it, and so, the silver light should be effective on him.
Clinking sounds could be heard as the sphere of chains lost its integrity, due to the rune shark eating a part of it, resulting in a bunch of chains spreading all over the place, revealing the one that was trapped inside of it.
"No way!", the figure of a slim haggard man wearing rags, out of which chains could be seen coming out, appeared for Daimon and the little tiger girl who had just returned after making the blood specters which she had lured away, lose track of her.
"Who the hell are y...aghh!", the man who appeared to be in his late twenties, nearly went off again, but he was stopped by Daimon who grabbed him by his neck, to then start gathering silver light around it.
As Daimon expected, the silver light did cause a reaction with the guy that was trapped inside of it, whom Daimon could already confirm is a nethereal, even if he hasn’t seen him use any nether, his instincts reacted in a similar way as when he was facing the Lords after all, by inciting him to be aggressive towards them.
It’s worth mentioning, that this impulse wasn’t in Daimon’s instincts originally, it was added after he obtained the Black Armored Shark lineage, but it couldn’t influence Daimon in the slightest, and the effect was completely neutralized when he obtained the Dracolevia lineage.
Nowadays, Daimon only used it alongside his mana sense or the infinity eyes to detect nethereals in a more accurate way.
"You’ll only speak to answer my questions, understood?", asked Daimon, as he increased the amount of silver light cladding his right hand, which made the nethereal shout in response.
"Yes!!!", only then did Daimon stop pouring out more of the silver light on his right hand, this was a good interrogation method because there was no visible wound, so it wasn’t messy, Daimon isn’t a fan of gory stuff after all.
Seeing the fear in the eyes of the nethereal, Daimo inwardly nodded, that should be enough to obtain the answers he wants, so he proceeded with the interrogation while the rune shark actually ate all the chains which were spread on the ground, leaving only the ones that were connected to the body of the nethereal, which originate from the piece of giant bone.
Anyway, the story of the nethereal goes like this, as Daimon expected, that guy has basically no memories about what happened in the final battle, but he does know why no nethereal so far has them either.
The Lords and the highest ranked members of the Northern Sea’s army, fought in a different field from the others, because the aftermath of even a single of their attacks was enough to kill thousands of their subordinates.
Which means that the only ones that would know what happened back then, are the Lords and the ones that personally participated in the last battle against them, also this nethereal, called Dean, happens to come from one of the families subordinated to Agrak’s one, and he mentioned having seen a giant stream composed of dark and royal blue mana soaring into the sky after Agrak’s spaceship was destroyed by it, bypassing the clouds before everything went dark for him.
’That means Ophelia must have gone to the final battlefield after destroying those two, and there happened something that made her lose her memories of it, I thought she might have died due to the after effects of the spell she used to prevent those two from escaping her grasp... she sure is quite a tough one’, thought Daimon as he looked at the seemingly plain and simple ring which rested on his left hand, to then look at the nethereal before saying.
"And what happened after that?", feeling the glare behind that mask, and the burning sensation around his neck which he could still feel made the nethereal grit his teeth to then say.
"I don’t know how many time passed, but when I woke up, I was already trapped inside that sphere of chains, surrounded by water in an underground enclosed space...", seeing the nethereal doubting whether to continue or not, Daimon coldly snorted, silver light shone gathered on his right hand which was wrapped around the neck of the nethereal.
"Aghhhh, I’ll talk, I’ll talk!!!", he screamed, Daimon stopped the silver light, and the nethereal immediately spilled the beans this time.
"I tried to get rid of the chains but they actually come out of my body and end in that damn bone, so no matter what I did, I wan unable to free myself at all, until one day I heard the voice of Lord Balax telling me to fight as hard as I was able to".
"The seal felt surprisingly weaker that day, I remember that everything was trembling as if giant objects were emerging from the ground, I was able to shake the underground space I was confined into, destroying the roof above me, which created this lake".
"However, I was unable to get rid of that damn bone, luckily those red magic beasts started appearing and... Lord Asmadian’s voice appeared in my head, accompanied by a black rain, the water from that rain all gathered into the lake, but it was all absorbed by the chains, which finally made the seal loosen up".
"Then, Lord Asmadian told me to hunt those red magic beasts, inject the energy that I obtained from the black rain of back then and then kill them until I was able to completely free myself, that process is what created the black lake of today", concluded the nethereal, to which Daimon asked.
"How many years has it been since the day you were able to emerge from that underground closed space?".
"I don’t know, a few dozens of thousands maybe, time in this place doesn’t flow at the same time as Neptune from which you should have come from anyway", said the nethereal thinking Daimon came from Neptune, because of the rune shark which has the shape of an aquatic magic beast.
’The only thing I can think could have weakened the seal made by the Megalodon, would be him having to deal with Ereth who two-timed with the Lords, the Megalodon not only retrieved what he had granted to that guy, but he also cursed him as a punishment, that must have taken quite a lot of effort, considering Ereth wasn’t a trash tier hero type system user unlike Adam’, thought Daimon to then say.
"One last question, you seemed surprised to see the rune shark eat the chains, didn’t you think I was sent by the Megalodon?", he casually asked, to which the nethereal snorted in response.
"Nonsense, I was a middle ranked officer, so I have felt the aura of the Black Prison Megalodon general and that thing doesn’t feel like it, I will give you points for shaping it in the form of a shark, it certainly gave me an scare but a lowly mortal like you couldn’t have been sent by that monstrous old bastard", he said, which made Daimon smirk behind his mask, to then smack the nethereal against the ground.
"Crack!", even with the lack of offensive power he had, the sound of bones shattering could be heard coming from the body of the nethereal.
"Y-You crazy bastard, why... bleegh!", Dean didn’t die due to that, but blood was forced out of his mouth, and more importantly the attack he has been preparing in secret was interrupted, further damaging his body.
"I don’t remember saying I was going to let you live if you answered, however I was going to send you off without any pain in exchange for the information you provided, if you didn’t try anything funny of course", said Daimon as he took a couple of steps back to then point his right hand at the nethereal.
"W-Wait, I can help you fight against the others aghhhhh!", the words of the nethereal fell on deaf ears as Daimon threw a stream of silver light on his body, which made a few dozens of black strands to come out of him, before he exploded in red flames.
Apparently just like how the silver light protected Daimon from the influence of the pitch black water, those black strands of energy protected the nethereal from the red sun, preventing him from dying due to the exposition to it, but the less of that energy was contained in that guy’s body, the lower was the protection and Daimon’s silver light forced them out of him, so he ended up turning into ashes in a matter of seconds.
The black chains that used to be attached to his body remained though and the rune shark immediately proposed itself to happily snack on them, but it stopped in cold due to Daimon saying.
"I hate to ruin your meal, but you owe me an explanation you little thing", he said not to the shark, but to his black sea emblem which was inside of the shark.
"I originally thought you were created by the Megalodon, everything matched, the design the way you reacted to my Black Armored shark lineage and gave me those visions of the past, not to mention how you were able to suppress those three, but turns out that isn’t the case, what’s more, your power was able to go against the one of the Megalodon, so... convince me that you aren’t an enemy trying to pull a fast one on me", said Daimon as he took out Disaster from the inventory and pointed it at the rune shark.
To be honest, he didn’t think the black sea emblem was an enemy, it had helped him and his friends too many times at this point, but even if it’s an ally, that doesn’t mean it’s trustworthy, just look at the Lords, they were screwed over by the incompetent Agrak who was on their side.
The black sea emblem might have been sent by a third party, given how it appears to be able to go against both the Lords and the power of the Megalodon, and Daimon didn’t want any wild variables getting in the way of his mission, so if he deemed the black sea emblem not trustable, he would cut it down right here, or at least imprison it inside the inventory.
The rune shark seemed to hesitate for a second, but ultimately it swam towards Daimon and lowered its head in submission to then push it against Daimon’s right hand which still had some of the silver light left on it.
And after making clear that it wasn’t on the nethereal’s side, since there was no reaction from the silver light, the rune shark was absorbed back into the black sea emblem, which then calmly landed on Daimon’s free palm, it was completely surrendering to Daimon’s will.
’I... don’t think I want to slash it down, Daimon’, mumbled Nasha from within Disaster, in a voice that only Daimon could hear.
"Fine, you’ll have to reveal yourself anytime soon when I destroy those three anyway, so I’ll give you the benefit of doubt for now, go and eat the leftover chains already", said Daimon as he pointed the black sea emblem towards the ground.
The rune shark manifested the next second, and enthusiastically started munching on the remaining chains, only after it finished them, the battle was deemed as over by the challenge, and a red strand the size of an arm appeared in front of Daimon.
’So that guy wasn’t considered dead until the chains that were attached to him, also disappeared... well he did say that they came out of his body and tied him to the giant bone’, thought Daimon.
This surely improved the reputation of the black sea emblem in Daimon’s mind, speaking of which, having finished its meal, the rune shark returned to the black sea emblem, which flew back inside Daimon’s pocket the next second, not without asking Daimon to find more of those "delicious" chains.
’Oh well, if it was something really bad, I bet a certain someone wouldn’t have kept quiet about it, restrictions or not, right Eve’, jokingly said Daimon which made a certain administrator girl blush a bit.
’Humph’, she softly snorted, but didn’t say otherwise.
Leaving that aside, Daimon and the little tiger girl saw two interesting things happen, first, the unusually big red strand which was the result of that nethereal dying, started letting out black smoke, shrinking in size until it was around three times the size of a mutated strand.
Only then it was absorbed into Daimon’s body, which resulted in him being cladded in silver light that then gathered on the lower half of his face and continued all the way to the base of his neck and his right shoulder.
And that wasn’t all, the remaining part of the lake which was still pitch-black colored, cleared up on the spot, then black strands also started to come out of some of the nearby blood specters.
"Heh, so it is way more efficient to kill the nethereals that had corrupted the blood specters instead", said Daimon.
That being said, there were some Lord ranked blood specters, which didn’t release a black strand a moment ago, and after quickly hunting one, there was a black strand coming out of it, meaning that blood specter must have been corrupted after drinking from a different water body.
"Big brother Daimon, is it fine if I... swim a bit?", asked the little tiger girl as she saw the crystal-clear lake in front of her.
Tigers like water, and while Dana indeed enjoyed swimming, her main reason to want to take a dip, isn’t for fun, she wanted to take a quick bath, since it has been a while since she had one, there was a bathroom at the underwater temple, but it’s been many weeks since that, and while she didn’t smell or anything, now that the opportunity has appeared, she couldn’t help it.
Seeing the eyes of the little tiger girl, which were begging him to agree, Daimon chuckled behind his mask, he handed a wood plate with food to Dana and then sat down on the ground.
"Thirty minutes, eat and refresh yourself a bit, we’ll leave after that", he said as he also took a bite of a sandwich, he had no access to an energy that worked for everything, so he couldn’t dry himself up with it unlike Dana, who could use the lightning tiger even for that.
And he didn’t bother to try and change clothes, because he was going to dive into other water bodies if he ran into them during the rest of the say, so he will only change clothes once they had reached their next resting point before night came.
"Thanks", with a smile on her pretty face, Dana grabbed the wood plate and entered the lake, she looked funny swimming here and there while she returned to the shore from time to time to grab a bite of the food on the wood plate which was floating there.