As Adelasta and Eldrigan stepped out from the ship and onto the dense seabed surrounding the first pillar, an immediate hush seemed to fall over the ocean floor. The base of the pillar was wider than they'd expected, perhaps spanning hundreds of meters in radius. But what truly made both their blood still was what littered the entire area. Hundreds of skeletons were laid out almost peacefully with no sign of panic, scattered fractures or shattered ribs as if they'd simply given up and died right where they stood.
Adelasta crouched beside one, her eyes narrowing.
"No battle wounds. Not even defensive stances. They didn't even try to fight."
Eldrigan's hand twitched as he instinctively tried to summon a barrier but he stopped himself just in time. His jaw clenched.
"Right... no energy usage."
Instead, he pulled his morphing weapon from his back, letting it shift into a broad-hafted mallet.
"We do this the old-fashioned way."
Adelasta gave him a glance and summoned her twin daggers with sleek obsidian blades lined with subtle markings.
"Good call."
They continued cautiously forward, the bones crunching softly underfoot. The deeper they moved toward the pillar, the heavier the atmosphere became. The water felt thick like a pressure pushing against their souls. As they moved in silence, Adelasta spoke again.
"Eldrigan, what's your Divinity?"
"Dismemberment."
"Excuse me?"
He chuckled slightly, though it sounded hollow in the eerie silence. "It's exactly what it sounds like. I can dismember anything from attacks, barriers, even structures mostly by half. It doesn't use energy since it's a Divinity but it does tear at me when I push it too long."
Adelasta whistled softly, impressed. "Remind me not to spar with you."
"Noted."
Just then, her Mystic Eyes of Perception flared faintly. Her pupils sharpened into rings of light, analyzing the area with hyper-attuned clarity. Her hand shot out to stop him.
"Stop. Look ahead."
In the water directly ahead of them, hovering motionless in the dark, was a floating crystal. It was five meters tall and a deep crimson hue, faintly glowing and pulsing. It looked like it was breathing and each pulse carried an unseen pull.
Adelasta's fingers tingled. "It's absorbing Divine Energy."
Eldrigan swayed slightly, catching himself.
"Yeah... I feel it. My head's spinning."
"Use your Divinity. Now."
With a grunt, Eldrigan closed his eyes and activated his Divinity. A shimmering ripple burst through his form like a mirage and suddenly, the invisible pull halved.
Adelasta, on the other hand, stood entirely still.
"Mine's all gone."
He looked at her, confused.
"I've replaced my Divine Energy with Soul Energy. Since I'm not using it, the pull is barely noticeable. It's slower against Soul types."
"Smart."
But then Adelasta narrowed her eyes at the surrounding bones again.
"Something isn't right. Look at them. They weren't dragged. They weren't burned. There are no signs of combat, not even claw marks from beasts. They were-"
"Placed like trophies."
The two stood in silence for a second too long. Then something screeched from above. Adelasta barely had time to look up before Eldrigan moved. He raised his mallet in a sharp arc, and with all the force of a Divine, he slammed it upward. The water above them erupted in a soundless quake as his mallet met something hard, metallic and massive. The impact created rippling shockwaves, disturbing the bones around them and causing cracks to spider out from the stone beneath their feet.
A massive black shape was forced back by the hit, spinning through the water before regaining posture. It had a humanoid shape but was definitely not human. Dozens of glowing red eyes blinked across its hunched back and its arms were tipped with curved blades, longer than spears. Its skin looked like wet obsidian, pulsing with the same crimson light as the crystal.
"We're not alone."
Eldrigan stepped forward beside her, the veins on his arm glowing faintly with strain. "And it was waiting for us."
Above them, more shadows stirred. The crimson crystal pulsed harder. Something else was awakening. Adelasta's grip on her daggers tightened.
"We'll hold position. Don't use energy. If they want a war, they'll get one."
And with that, the first strike of the battle began with no Tethers.
Eldrigan charged forward with raw momentum, swinging his mallet like a thunderous comet with pure, unrelenting brute force. The obsidian-skinned creature leapt at him, curved blade-arms aiming to sever him from shoulder to hip but Eldrigan met it head-on, intercepting the blow with the haft of his mallet. The impact carved a pulse through the ocean, sending bones scattering like dust through the current. Adelasta darted beside him in a blur. She spun low, her twin daggers dancing in her hands. She struck the beast's ankle with a slashing feint, forcing it to reel backward and stumble into Eldrigan's path.
"Now!"
Eldrigan didn't hesitate. He pivoted, ducking beneath one of the creature's sweeping arms and ramming his mallet into its side with such ferocity that a shockwave trembled outward, bending the water around them in a distorted ripple. The sheer physical pressure cratered the floor beneath the monster and sent cracks rippling out through the bedrock. But the creature didn't stay down. It recovered frighteningly fast, jerking up again with renewed rage, swinging both bladed arms in a chaotic cyclone.
Adelasta's Mystic Eyes of Perception flared, calculating every twitch, every pressure ripple in the water, every minuscule shift in the monster's muscles. She slipped between the blades with less than a meter's grace, her daggers carving glowing trails of amber across its arms and neck. With a twirl, she flipped over its back, dragging her blades across its shoulders and severing two glowing red eyes in a clean arc.
It screamed just as Eldrigan tackled it from behind, slamming it to the ground with a violent crunch. In the distance, the crimson crystal pulsed again only this time, it cracked. Adelasta's Mystic Eyes widened.
"Eldrigan. Something's inside it. It's... a core. A parasitic siphon, not a power source!"
"What does that mean?"
"It's not just draining energy, it's feeding the creature with our power. That thing isn't the threat. The crystal is."
Without another word, Eldrigan grabbed his mallet, spun once to build momentum, then hurled it straight toward the crimson crystal. The mallet struck the crystal dead center and a blast wave erupted. Cracks appeared instantly as glowing veins of golden white light spreading through the ruby surface. The siphon groaned as its energy flux began to destabilize. The glowing lines within it throbbed wildly, chaotically. The creature staggered as well, its body convulsing and eyes dimming.
"Perfect."
Adelasta muttered under her breath. Her Mystic Eyes calculated thousands of possible outcomes instantly. She dashed forward, twin daggers flipping to reverse grip, and ascended the crumbling pillar's side in a graceful sprint. The creature swung one last time, blade aimed for her spine.
She pivoted mid-air, ducked the strike, landed on its shoulder then launched off it with a twist, using it as a springboard to launch toward the crystal. In one clean, acrobatic flip, she drove both daggers into the weakened fissure of the crystal and twisted. The crystal shattered in a glorious, blinding explosion. A burst of crimson and gold erupted from its core and the siphoning stopped instantly. The creature below howled and collapsed, its body crumbling like dried ash. Without its source of stolen energy, it couldn't even maintain shape.
Adelasta landed gracefully beside Eldrigan, panting only slightly, her daggers still humming.
"That's one down," she said calmly, brushing hair from her face.
Eldrigan exhaled. "You're terrifying."
Adelasta glanced at him and smirked, her eyes cooling.
"That's why Vastarael lets me talk first."
The pillar began to glow faintly as it accepted the destruction of the siphon, and they both knew it was time to move on.