The Abyssal Trenches (666)

"Holy shit"

Staring at the gigantic guardian that floated above me, I had all the reason in the world to stare in awe.

Unlike all of the other bosses so far that were basically elephant sized beings or smaller save for the incredibly long ones like Mama Tick and Eater of worlds.

This guy in particular was the size of a whale.

And not one of the small ones, no.

It was the size of the largest animal in the world, the blue whale.

Granted I didn't know exactly how large a blue whale was but I would guess that it was pretty fucking close to the size of this Guardian.

'Oh my God.'

Manually closing my dropped jaw with my hand, the large guardian had thick red scales with spikes of black covering its body.

Protruding outwards, the spikes were as thick as my torso and most likely could penetrate as well as my sword.

Long thick fish tail connected to it's back side, its cyclops like one eye with a white sclera glared at the enemies surrounding us both.

Gold pupil staring at the big burly man, the man violently trembled.

Whether that be from fear or anger I didn't know.

But what I did know was that the man was directing their emotions towards me.

"...Do you know what you have done?"

Whispering in a harsh and deep voice, the man tensed his muscles as red eyes glared at me from underneath the mask.

"No...? I'll be honest, I really don't care."

Grinning, I rested my broken spear on my shoulder as the man violently trembled once again.

Pointing their finger at me, the man growled at me.

"You have stopped our lord's holy chorus, and for that you shall pay."

Red eyes flickering blue, the sound of crackling ice reached my ears as the temperature suddenly dropped around them.

Crouching down, ice formed underneath their feet as they got into a combat ready stance with their arms and legs equally spread.

"By the holy name Trumpet, I shall grant you the blessing of witnessing my Orchestral form.

Blue energy gathered around their body just like mana.

'No, that's not mana.'

Furrowing my brows, I stared at the blue energy that seemed incredibly unnatural to me who already found mana and malaise unnatural to my modern self.

Well not that I hadn't already adapted, but even then.

The blue energy wrapping itself around the man named Trumpet's body gave off an incredibly corrupt and bad vibe.

As if it wanted to erase the reality I stood upon and turn it into one that it fitted the most.

It was beyond disgusting.

Feeling goosebumps rise on my arms, I discarded the weapons in my hands and drew out the twin daggers while keeping my inventory open for my other weapons.

Holding the daggers vertically and horizontally, I prepared my blades as I stared at Trumpet.

Covering themselves in frost armor, they appeared reminiscent to Medieval knights from the armor they were wearing save for the mask that just grew to be more pronounced.

Blue lights flickering around their body like lightning, the blue energy also manifested like snow flakes around their body.

Creating blades from the tips of their fists, I stared at Trumpet all the while the Ancient Guardian glared at him.

Perhaps the big guy felt the same thing and wanted to kill Trumpet just as badly as I wanted to.

And although I didn't know why I wanted to kill him so badly, I really wasn't against it.

Crouching, my eyes narrowed as the Ancient Guardian prepared to attack first.

Mana gathering around their eye to create an orb of energy that was visible to the naked eye even without mana sight, the Ancient Guardian concentrated the energy before blasting it at Trumpet.

Breaking through the ground, the blade of energy cut through it like a hot knife through butter.

And just as it was about to make contact with Trumpet, he acted in unison with a third party.

Groaning in surprise, a series of large tentacles appeared out of nowhere as they wrapped around the ancient guardian.

Ground shifting from beneath me, I hurriedly swam upwards while tentacles burst out of the ground to swallow me up whole.

Turning around, I felt a sudden pain strike my skull from an unknown source.

Grunting in pain, I hurriedly infused mana into my head as a whole before I quickly distanced myself from anymore of those psychic attacks.

*RRRRR

A loud growl rumbled throughout the sea as I glanced at the Ancient Guardian which was now in combat with the unknown being.

Unleashing several quick tail strikes with agility inconsistent with its size, blood floated in the water as it was all sucked up by a nautilus like being.

Large snail shell covering the majority of it's body, red stripes ran across its shell as several tentacles whipped outwards at the body of the ancient guardian quickly dodging the spikes its body was covered with.

Blue eyes peaking through the shell, more and more tentacles that seemed to go on forever slipped out of the shell as they grappled at the ancient Guardian which was unleashing blast after blast of mana lasers at the shell.

But it only left behind glancing marks that suggested the shell was much harder than I had once thought.

Glancing at the gigantic being that had earlier just been underneath the platform we were on, it grabbed the still connected chain and forcefully ripped it out of the Ancient Guardian's body creating a spurt of green blood.

That was all I could see however as I had to hurriedly dash backwards as an incredibly fast fist whizzed past my previous position.

"Stop paying attention to the divine beast! Your opponent is me!"

Infusing malaise into my weapons, the steel blade shifted as if alive for a few moments before all of the energy was spent blocking the 

Staring in surprise at the weapon that blocked their attack, Trumpet hurriedly backed off in the same moment just as I was about to cut at their flesh.

Raising their hand up, they stared at the frost covered fist in wonder before punching at a nearby corpse.

Turning it into...

I would like to say bloody mist since that was literally all I've seen done to the corpses, but this time it was different.

Merman body warping and twisting, the sounds of bones cracking filled the water as multiple eyes protruded of its skull.

Tentacles coming out of their various wounds, the merman turned into a tentacle monstrosity with several slit eyes pupils staring at me.

And this just reminded me.

'Isn't that just like the malaise?'

"You... What are you?"

"A human being obviously."

Licking my lips, my muscles tensed as I loosened my rather inhuman porcelain like arms and infused more malaise into my weapons making them tremble.

Gaining serrated barbs on their ends, Trumpet stared at me as the monstrosity swam towards me.

Splitting it in half, Trumpet suddenly appeared behind the body while thrusting their fist at my face.

And as my vision was suddenly filled with the sight of a fist, I hurriedly raised one of the twin daggers halting the weapons transformation.

Widening my eyes, I twisted my body allowing the force to glide off to the side where the man created a platform made out of ice and stomped onto it.

Kicking at me, I blocked the kick with my arms and felt my bones crack from the resultant force.

Gritting my teeth, pain wracked my arms as I forcefully swung my arms and manifested frosty spikes from my spilt blood.

Making them fly towards Trumpet.

I glanced at the daggers in my hands which were in the midst of transforming into something alive before covering them with malaise.

Since they were good enough with serrated edges and small eyes appearing on the hilt, I didn't feel like monsterizing my weapons even more.

My body on the other hand...

Since I could get stronger that way, then why not?

Forming a frozen platform underneath my feet, I adjusted my grip on the daggers before dashing at Trumpet who created jets of water which blasted at me.

---

"Risa!"

"Got it!"

Firing an arrow from the enchanted cross bow, several metal bolts whistled through the water as they carved holes through the bodies of the sea creatures they were fighting.

Using a nearby Fishes body as a platform, Amanda twisted in the water before unleashing a flurry of blade strikes which let loose a series of electrical arcs which flowed through the water easily.

Since the sea was filled with salt water, the electricity could flow much easier then it would in pure water.

A bit to well in fact.

"Amanda!"

Katarina shouted in surprise as she hurriedly used magic to manipulate the healing potions stored in the large glass bottle behind her.

Manipulating the red liquid it quickly flowed to Amanda who was covered in scorch marks from the electrical energies flowing in the water.

Healing her wounds, Amanda nodded to Katarina as she quickly spread her fingers sending several interconnected flowing streams of healing potion to the other mercenaries fighting on the front lines.

Roars of rage and pain filled the sea as sea creatures of all shapes and size faced against the equally as variable human beings that although didn't differ much in shape and size.

They varied in the amount of tactics that they could output.

Calling out several ethereal beings from the void, a summoner clashed against a large sea creature that was covered in a series of grey skin that also shot out poisonous barbs.

Biting her lip, Katarina grimly thought.

'All this pain... all for what?'

Blood leaking out of her mouth from biting her lip to hard, despite her misgivings, Katarina continuously supplied healing potions to the front lines using the power of her newly acquired class.

The Pharmaceutical Saint.

+++

Tree that still has more in store but needs to sleep