The Lonestone Capital City's sprawling industrial docks were buzzing with the slow grind of commerce. Playing a symphony of creaking ropes and distant steam whistles.
Beyond the man-made shoreline, the Ourean Sea stretched. An endless expanse of dull-blue, restless water.
Jack was in his mysterious specter form. Not that he could be seen. As he was currently in his invisible stat.
He was hovering several meters above the sea surface. He had been exploring the sea for hours. A chilling, silent seeker against the fading light.
His senses were stretched taut across the rippling expanse. They had been sharpened by countless encounters and system upgrades. But they hadn't found anything.
He scanned. Not just with eyes. But also with an intrinsic awareness that transcended mere sight. The cool, salty air offered no immediate threats. Nor did the rhythmic sigh of the waves. And the distant cries of gulls.
The sun, a fiery orange orb in the sky, dipped towards the horizon. Painting the sky in reddish hues that bled into the deepening twilight. Still, nothing.
But Jack didn't give up. The cryptic warning from the Lingreen twins had been specific. Jack took such pronouncements seriously. They were usually right after all.
Then...
A tremor appeared. Not in the water. Nut in the ambient existence Jack could perceive as easily as others felt a breeze. It was a disturbance. A massive, sluggish presence. Moving below the surface.
He focused. Narrowing his spectral perception. It was deep and slow. Perhaps fifteen meters below the sea surface. But its trajectory was undeniable. Deliberate. Heading straight for Lonestone City.
As it drew closer, the abstract energy signature turned clearer. A creature. Large. Powerful. Its movements were too purposeful for a natural marine beast. It was something sent.
Jack descended slightly. Into the water. Further down. His spectral eyesight didn't seem to be affected much by water.
He saw it now. A monstrous outline against the gloom of the deep. A hammer-shark man. Another monstrous being. The second one after that blowfish man. This one seemed stronger.
Jack activated his [Eyes of Judgement]. The world around him was briefly overlayed with a grid of arcane runes and spectral pathways.
The hammer-shark man was still tens of meters away. It was suddenly rendered holographic in Jack's enhanced sight. Its internal structures and energetic signature laid bare. An information panel materialized in his field of view. Crisp and immediate.
[Creature: Hammershark Fishman]
[Species: Corrupted Fishman]
[Power Scale: High]
[Karma: Negative - Extremely Evil]
[Archetype: Fusion Abomination]
[Weakness: Illusion]
[Origin: A marine creature summoned by the Kraken Spirit and fused with a cultist from Circles of Wealth.]
[Objective: Killing and collecting human souls.]
[Skills: Water Control, Underwater Breathing, Soul Absorption, Crushing Blow, Sensory Deprivation (Sonar)]
Jack read the data. His spectral form vibrated with a barely contained irritation. Circles of Wealth again. He should have guessed that. These cultist guys were bad loser after all.
And 'Kraken Spirit'? That was a new one. He had heard of Kraken. Obviously. One of the strongest sea monsters. But Kraken Spirit? Ghost of a dead kraken?
Anyway, he had to stop it. Its objective, 'killing and collecting human souls'... It solidified his decision. This thing wasn't going to reach the docks. Not on his watch.
He considered his options. As Jack Mystery, his direct physical impact was limited. And some of his mystic spell would be awkward under the sea. Should he transform?
Judge Jack and simply crush it. Jack Night could blast it apart. Racer Jack could outrun it to death. But that would be the case on land. Not underwater.
The creature was still underwater. Moving with an excessive mass that suggested significant durability. It was better to deal with it in this form.
An idea solidified. The creature's weakness to illusion was interesting. It meant that it could be affected. By his supernatural trait...
Jack raised a spectral hand. He focused. Channeling his power. The air around him shimmered, Distorting like heat haze over asphalt. This was [Mysterious Anomaly]. One of his supernatural trait.
It didn't just create illusions. It could weave nightmares so real they could manifest physical effects. Bypassing the victim's own perception. And directly assaulting their mind and spirit.
The target this time was the Hammershark Fishman. The nightmare began.
Jack wasn't just showing it a scary image. He was ripping a hole in its reality. And dragging it into a personal hell. Calibrated precisely to its fears and primal instincts.
A creature of the sea. One that preyed on the weaker ones. It surely held a deep-seated fear of being overwhelmed. Of becoming the prey itself.
The Hammershark Fishman was still keeping its slow, purposeful swim. It was an unholy meld of hammerhead shark and thick human-like limbs. Its hammer-shaped head was angled forward.
Its mission was simple... find humans, kill them, consume their essence for the Kraken Spirit and the Circles of Wealth. A primal desire rippled through its crude consciousness at the thought.
But, suddenly, the water around it changed. It was no longer the familiar, comforting pressure of the deep. It became gradually and seamlessly... wrong.
The light, what little there was, pulsed erratically. Shifting from murky blue to blinding, sickly yellow. The faint echoes of its own sonar was usually a precise map of its surroundings. Now, it became a mixture of distorted voices. Screeches. Echoing, multiplying, overwhelming.
Then they appeared. Not just one or two. But hundreds. Thousands. Millions.
Millions of small, insignificant fish. At first. Sardines, anchovies... Tiny silver slivers of life that usually scattered at its approach. But these... they didn't scatter.
They swarmed. Their tiny eyes, usually blank, now glowed with an unnatural, malevolent light. Their numbers almost eclipsed the ocean itself. They were no longer prey. They were a living, breathing, swarming, hungry entity.
The Hammershark Fishman thrashed. Its powerful tail was churning the water. Its crude, fin-like hands lashed out. But the fish were everywhere.
They didn't just bite. They pierced. Their tiny teeth, in this warped reality, became razor-sharp needles. Tearing at the fishman's thick hide.
A thousand pinpricks. Then ten thousand. Then a hundred thousand. Each bite seemed very real. Stinging, drawing black ichor.
The fish swarmed into its gills. Choking its underwater breathing. They burrowed into its open wounds. Their collective forms were pressing in. Suffocating it.
The pressure was immense. Crushing. Far beyond anything the deep sea had ever exerted. It tried to swim. But the water had become impossibly thick. Like tar. For the monster, every movement was an agony. Every breath was a gulp of watery needles.
Panic seized its limited mind. A raw, base emotion the fishman rarely experienced. It struggled. A thrashing movements that was swallowed by the relentless swarm.
It was dying. Not from a mighty foe. But from the insignificant fish. The countless, the usually powerless animals.... The horror was in the sheer overwhelming multitude.
Its pride, its functional ego as a powerful apex predator, was shattered. It was being eaten alive by its own prey.
Jack floated upward and watched from above. A detached observer. The water below him began to churn violently. As the fishman's death struggle was intensified.
It was a localized maelstrom. A furious, desperate struggle against an unseen enemy. He could sense the creature's terror. Its final, terrified look, was permanently recorded in his spectral awareness.
Jack grinned. The illusion held. Reality was bent to his will. The common sea fishes, harmless in the true world, became instruments. Of absolute, agonizing execution in the fishman's mind.
The thrashing subsided. The water calmed. Jack focused his [Eyes of Judgement] again. The Hammershark Fishman was dead. Its physical body, was intact, unharmed. Still floating in the deep.
But its spirit. Its consciousness. Its will to live... They had all been utterly consumed by the manufactured terror. It had died of sheer, unadulterated fear. And sensory overload.
"Surprisingly successful." Jack mused. A phantom smile touching his masked face. "Possessing sentience and ego. Yet, low intelligence. Low willpower. Too easy."
The threat was neutralized. At least for now. But the implications lingered. Kraken Spirit. Circles of Wealth. These were not isolated incidents. They were connected.
Jack flew upward. Once he was above the sea surface, he looked to the west. The last streak of the sunset painted the sky in red. He could feel the air grew colder.
He turned to the direction the Hammershark Fishman came from. He needed to track down the source of this 'Kraken Spirit'. And the Circles of Wealth.
These cultists were proving to be a persistent, festering nuisance. He had crushed one of their emissaries. But they didn't seem to be afraid.
It seemed that he needed to investigate and eliminate them. This wasn't just about preventing chaos. It was about tearing out the roots of this corruption.
Jack flew forward. Leaving the now silent and still water behind him. He looked back once. The lights of Lonestone Capital City began to twinkle into life. Casting a golden glow against the dark sky.
He sighed. The true sources of the problems were still hidden. Beneath the waves, orchestrating their corruption.
But he would find them. And when he did, he would ensure their reality became a far deadlier nightmare. More than anything he had just inflicted.