Book 1: Chapter 82

Aqua I continue swimming through the sunken ship hunting one monster after another without much trouble. Even when the monsters get close to my own level, their difficulty with moving in the water makes them unable to do much to me. So I find myself leveling up a good amount here. Also getting quite a few new points in REGEN. I smile as I continue hunting monsters. All the way until I find my way to the captain’s quarters in the ship. Where the boss of the dungeon is. And, just as expected, he’s a sunken captain. [Sunken Captain – Level 75] The moment I step into the office, I see the sunken captain’s gaze locking onto me. And it actually feels a little intimidating. Unlike the drowned sailors, the sunken captain is a bit more monstrous in appearance. With some regular tentacles growing out of his back and other body parts including all of his hair, slightly less gray color to his skin, and bluish gray eyes instead of black. He’s also a lot larger, spanning about two meters in height and muscular instead of wrinkly like the others. Oh, his beard is also made out of little tentacles too. And he’s holding a scimitar. One with a rather wide curved blade. Wider than the other drowned sailors. The sunken captain is currently seated on the chair behind a ruined desk, but after I step into the room, he suddenly bursts straight out of the chair through the desk. Swinging his scimitar straight at me which I barely manage to dodge. Only for him to send his left fist flying at my collarbone. Slamming into me and sending me blasting straight through the hole in the ceiling of the sunken ship until I hit the remaining mast of the ship still attached to said ship while coughing out a mouthful of blood. And when I look down, I find my armor completely crushed around my collarbone. It’s not just my collarbone though as several of my bones there were broken and pushed inwards. Fucking hell, of course the boss would be able to move underwater... I knew that was probably a likelihood, but I didn’t expect the sunken captain to attack me without any hesitation the moment I entered the room. Nor did I expect him to destroy his own desk. Especially since broken dungeons normally can’t be damaged. Is it because a monster from the dungeon did it? Or because it was just a desk? Either way, I grit my teeth at the intense pain from my shattered bones. But at some point Rhett mentioned that my Bloodline seems to dull my pain as well. It was a hypothesis the Bloodline Research Center apparently made after seeing me moving around with bones sticking out of my stomach. Because, according to them, that’s supposed to hurt. A lot. I don’t really care either way so long as I push through it. Which is exactly what I do while I swim away from the ship’s mast. Just barely avoiding a scimitar that slams into the mast where I was just at. Right. Maybe it’s a bad idea to fight this guy. I glance at my status while moving back again to avoid another attack. [REQUESTING STATUS: USER AQUA AZURANTH] [STATUS RETRIEVED] [Name: Aqua Azuranth] [Level: 65] [Mana: 602/650] [Strength: 100(67)] Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. [Dexterity: 46] [Constitution: 40] [Magical Strength: 40] [REGEN: 811] [Free Points: 0] [Traits: Physique of the Abyssal Kraken, Apex Predator of the Depths, Lifeblood of the Abyssal Kraken, World First Ranker] [Skills] [END STATUS] My regeneration is eighty-one times the average regeneration speed of a normal human now. High enough that I should be healing from this wound in around fourteen or fifteen hours. With the bones rearranging themselves thanks to my trait. Not that it helps me at all in this battle. I grit my teeth as I continue dodging one attack after another from the sunken captain. Fortunately managing to avoid any other critical injuries like that one. Or at least, until he actually pulls a feint. Swinging his scimitar at me, only to pull back and spin around to kick me in my right side. Sending me flying into the ship’s deck with a broken arm. “Shit,” I grunt, but it doesn’t seem to hurt as badly as it used to. Whether that’s due to the supposed pain decrease my Bloodline gives increasing or because my mind is already focused on the pain of my collarbone, I’m not sure. The sunken captain lands on the ship in front of me and grins with a mocking expression on his face. Finally stopping for the first time this entire battle. Why the fuck is this guy so strong and fast?! Specifically fast. He is incredibly fast. Even with Pressure of the Abyss active. But pressure doesn’t seem to affect undead as much from what I’ve seen with the drowned sailors. I activate Abyssal Reversal as he’s standing there looking smugly down at me. While he’s not actually moving. In the hopes that he won’t notice it now as I set up for a bigger attack. Based on the way he’s looking at me, it looks like he assumes I’m pretty much unable to fight back with all my wounds. There aren’t any nearly dead monsters nearby that I can use Devourer of the Abyss on. And he’s too far for the tentacles grown from partial shift to reach him. So I’m left doing this. I continue gritting my teeth to the point that I hear grinding sounds coming from them as I activate three different skills back to back. First off, I activate Call of the Abyss, forcing me to open my mouth to make the sound before my mouth closes again while my four orcas appear. And while he’s turning his attention to the orcas, I fire off several blades of pressurized water at him along with dozens of bullets. Startling him enough that he stumbles backwards when they all begin slamming into him. Shredding the clothes on his torso in the process to reveal more fish parts underneath said clothes. Like random fins sticking out of his body and other tentacles. But I ignore all that as he focuses on swinging his blade to clash against my pressured attacks. Even as dull blue cuts appear all across his body without any blood coming out. My eyes narrow at the fact that he’s fast enough to block a lot of the water pressured blades with his scimitar. That’s all though as I focus on summoning numerous tentacles all around him while he’s dealing with that and the orcas I send after him. The most tentacles I’ve summoned at once. The sunken captain’s eyes finally widen as he cuts through multiple water blades, slams his fist into an orca sending it into another orca as the remaining two orcas latch their jaws onto his shoulders, and over twenty massive Abyssal Kraken tentacles appear from portals all around him. With each one rushing towards him and beginning to overwhelm him. Then, to finish it all off, I float to my feet while activating Maw of the Abyss right beneath the sunken captain. But not without having one of the orcas let go of him and rush to grab the sunken captain’s ring. Which is no doubt an item. And just like that, I watch everything push down the violently struggling sunken captain into the maw. And even though the monster is tearing apart the tentacles with his scimitar and crushing orcas, he fails to get out of in between them all. So in the end, the sunken captain is pulled down into the maw as it begins shredding him from the feet up. I hold my broken arm while feeling my eyes water from the wound on my collarbone. But despite the hateful glare the sunken captain is sending my way, I just focus on using mana to repair my armor as he finally is pushed down into the jaws of the maw. Literally. Following which I get the System Messages from the kill. [You have killed a level 75 Sunken Captain. EXP has been granted accordingly.] [You have killed a creature underwater. Apex Predator of the Depths has been activated, increasing your REGEN stat by one.] [Congratulations! You have now reached level 66! As the current First Ranker of Oceana, your total free points have increased by three, and your mana stat has increased by ten. Allocate the free points whenever you please.] [Congratulations! You have now reached level 67! Your total free points have increased by two, and your mana stat has increased by ten. Allocate the free points whenever you please.] [Congratulations! You have now reached level 68! As the current First Ranker of Oceana, your total free points have increased by three, and your mana stat has increased by ten. Allocate the free points whenever you please.] [Congratulations! You have now reached level 69! Your total free points have increased by two, and your mana stat has increased by ten. Allocate the free points whenever you please.] I look down at the deck of the ship as the maw disappears again, along with all the tentacles I summoned and the orcas. Then I glance down at my broken collarbone with a grimace before looking at my arm. And finally, I look at the ring that’s currently floating in the water a few meters away from me after being dropped by the orca when it disappeared. Four levels are worth this pain, but I hope the ring is too. I let out a sigh at that thought. That marks another broken dungeon cleared of monsters.