The world was blue, cold, and smelled of salt and iron.
Ren coughed, his lungs burning as he dragged himself onto the jagged surface of the "raft"—a chunk of concrete debris no larger than a car, floating aimlessly in the endless Omni-Ocean.
Above him, the sky was a bruised purple, illuminated by the distant glow of a Bioluminescent Nebula. Below him... was the Deep. The infinite, terrifying drop where light dared not go.
'I'm alive,' Ren thought, though he didn't know why. His scavenger fleet had been swallowed whole by a Trench-Class Kraken just hours ago. He was the only trash left floating.
**[WARNING]**
**[Aether Pressure Increasing.]**
**[Predator Detected.]**
A blue text box flickered in his vision. Ren blinked. He had never seen a System Interface before. Only the High Lords of the Bubble Cities had access to such magic.
The water ten meters away rippled. A fin, sharp as a razor and black as oil, sliced through the surface. A Needle-Tooth Shark. Low tier, but enough to tear a starving human to shreds in seconds.
Ren scrambled backward, his hand closing around a rusted iron pipe sticking out of the concrete.
"Is this it? I survive the fleet destruction just to be fish food?"
**[System Awakened.]**
**[Trait: Absolute Synthesis Online.]**
**[Instruction: Touch two targets to Fuse.]**
The shark lunged. It didn't swim; it torpedoed, its mouth unhinging to reveal rows of serrated bone.
Time seemed to slow. Ren didn't think. It was pure instinct.
His left hand gripped the Rusted Iron Pipe.
His right hand slammed onto the Concrete Raft.
"FUSE!" he screamed.
**[Target A: Iron Pipe (Common)] + [Target B: Reinforced Concrete (Common)]**
**[Synthesizing...]**
**[Result: Heavy Iron-Stone Spear (Uncommon)]**
CRACK.
The concrete beneath him liquified and surged upward, twisting and merging with the iron pipe in his hand. In a millisecond, the trash disappeared. In his grip now sat a heavy, dark-grey spear. The shaft was cold stone, the tip was sharpened, condensed iron.
Ren thrust it forward blindly.
SHUCK.
The shark's momentum impaled it directly onto the spear. The iron tip punched through its skull, exiting the back of its head. The beast thrashed once, twice, and then went limp, its blood dissolving into the blue water like smoke.
Ren gasped, his chest heaving. He looked at the weapon in his hand—perfectly balanced, heavier than it should be, and vibrating with a faint hum.
**[Kill Confirmed.]**
**[Experience Gained.]**
**[Synthesis Materials Available: Shark Corpse.]**
Ren stared at the dead shark. A twisted, hungry grin formed on his face.
"Debris... and a corpse?"
He grabbed the shark's dead body.
**[Target A: Heavy Iron-Stone Spear] + [Target B: Needle-Tooth Shark Corpse]**
**[Synthesize?]**
"Yes."
The spear glowed. The shark's flesh melted, its bones snapping and fusing into the weapon. The stone shaft turned black. The iron tip grew serrated teeth.
**[Success.]**
**[New Weapon: Fang of the Deep (Rare)]**
**[Passive Effect: Bleed (Wounds caused by this weapon do not heal in water).]**
Ren stood up, gripping his new jagged spear. The ocean was endless. The monsters were infinite.
But for the first time in his life... he was hungry.