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    Below the waves, it was cold and dark. Even with my Leviathan domain, warmed by the fire of life and shielded by the Promethean Fire, I was still frozen, lost and afraid. I could sense the creatures in the water around me, watching, waiting. Beneath me, I felt Callie being dragged down, and I pushed forward, exploding through the depths in bursts of black fire.


    My Perception stretched out into the surrounding water, I’d shut Murmur down before diving in, but I could still sense what was around me. The ocean here was awful. It yawned around me, so empty that it seemed ready to consume me whole, yet at the same time full of horrors.


    I had the sensation of being inside the mouth of a horrible beast, plummeting down its throat, but wary of being snagged on sharp, gnashing teeth. But I ignored that, pushing on.


    The deeper I went, the more pressure I felt, not just on my body, but on my soul. I blocked it all out, swimming, waltzing, pushing further. My wife was just below me, and she needed me. She was terrified, almost as scared as I was, and she was screaming in my head for help. I had to get to her.


    My hand finally caught hers, and I started to get dragged down. I felt the absurd power of the sea, of the creature that had caught her, a C-ranked being, dragging us both down.


    I reached out with Agares, desperately searching for the land, for earth. The ocean was suffocating and horrible. I needed land. Needed hard stone and dirt. I found it, and I shaped the dirt into dust, packing it densely into stone, glowing with the heat of Afterburner, and the land reached down to grab us. A colossal hand wrapped around my body, grabbing me like a can of soda, squeezing me so tightly my armor groaned.


    The descent stopped. I pulled, increasing the pressure, and Callie screamed. The hand trembled, stone cracking, and I snarled, reaching into myself for something else. Anything. I found what I needed. Mornax.


    Rather than use it on myself, I imbued it into the hand. Into the earth itself. The giant fist gripping me BECAME Mornax, and the two abilities merged in my head to create a brand new domain. A domain of the earth, shaping indestructible rock into massive weapons of war and immutable forms. I called it, Behemoth.


    As soon as it snapped into place, I felt the hand firm, and the grip became more intense. My armor groaned again, and I groaned with it, but I ignored that. Or rather, I used it. Gluttony followed Behemoth, three different domains all weighing me down at once, but I ignored that. Annihilation Engine absorbed the power of Gluttony, feeding me raw power, strengthening my body.


    The tighter the fist squeezed, the more stable I became, and the stronger I was. Sammael was boosting everything, and for a moment, those three domains were enough, holding the C-ranked monster at bay.


    And then, something changed. A hand, a humongous limb of condensed blood, breached the surface of the sea and plunged down to wrap around my own. No, not just wrap around, MERGE with. It took me a second to figure it out, but as soon as I did, I opened myself up to Abel’s help, and the hands blended into a single cooperative technique.


    I understood Abel’s Ragam Blood Body well. I’d helped him adjust the Promethean Fire Soul Body to merge with it. It was a snap to shift my Behemoth hand to integrate it, and when I did, I felt POWER flood me.


    My armor buckled, and I worried it might break. It didn’t, but the sheer force of the hand was pouring power into me to the point of near collapse. I ignored that. My hand clutched Callie’s, and my other one shot through the water, grabbing her shoulder. I pulled, with all the power of all my various enhancements, and she screamed again, breaking my heart.


    I focused on the hand, on its connection to the earth, and on Callie’s connection to me. I PULLED, shoving Mornax through the bond, and Callie’s body became denser, stronger.


    With her body reinforced, I was finally free to really start pulling. The hand around me squeezed mightily, and I screamed but focused on my arms, hauling with every ounce of power I could muster. Above me, I felt a new source of power pour into the hand. Something unfathomable and deep.


    I realized it must be Bethy. As a Vampire, she could easily integrate into the Ragam Blood Body, and I had that reinforcing me. Slowly, ever so slowly, we began to rise. The combined strength of all three of us hauled on my body, and through me, my wife’s form.


    The tentacle resisted, hauling mightily, desperately trying to pull us down deeper…and that’s when Callie struck. An explosion of condensed dark power erupted from her boot where it was aimed down at the horror in the depths of the sea. The anti nova, the inverted star, exploded outward with the force of the opposite of a thousand suns.


    I felt as much as heard the scream from the monster below us as the technique roared out into the ocean, and the release of the pressure FLUNG us upward out of the ocean like a slingshot, hurling Callie and I up into the air like rockets as we broke the plane of the sea.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Which was probably a good thing, because Callie’s anti nova…was a bit more effective than expected. Apparently some kind of synergy happened between the terrible energy in the depths of the ocean and the anti nova, because the attack lit the water up like oil, as we erupted from the ocean, a roar of cold and force accompanied us as the water was cavitated by a massive explosion, hurling us up even higher.


    An earthshaking ROAR split the night, the beast from under the sea screeching in agony as it retreated. I spread my wings (a little rumpled at this point) and beat them once, swooping across the intervening distance to catch Callie gently. Once I had her, I glided smoothly down the ground, landing on the giant hand that had risen from the water and lowering us to the ground with it.


    As I stepped off, I dispersed the stone, allowing it to blow away in the now whipping sea wind as it returned to dust. Callie lay in my arms, staring at the steaming water where the explosion had occurred with a dazed expression. I couldn’t blame her, that explosion had been pretty jarring.


    Based on my calculations, Callie couldn’t possibly have managed an attack that powerful. Hell, I didn’t think Abel could have managed an attack that powerful, and his instantaneous burst attacks were probably the strongest of our group. Rather, when Callie had used her anti nova, it had reacted with the energy in the water, amplifying the attack.


    I waited for her to come out of it, but quickly realized that she seemed to have drifted into a special state. An epiphany. I grinned, setting her down. Closing my eyes and sitting beside her, I pulled her with me into the library, being careful not to disturb her. Once I was there, I passed her a book, and then sat down beside her to wait.


    Before long, she started to write. The strokes were vague and insubstantial, like she was only half aware, but as she wrote, they deepened. She scrawled out her ability, then the Dance of the Abyssal Fairy, then the anti nova. Since she wasn’t the owner of the library, she didn’t have the same ability to reference other works that I did, at least not to the same extent. She had to write in all the important stuff as she went.


    I wanted to let her resonate with the Ten Demons Tree, but my staff categorically refused to react to her enlightenment or even my prodding. Apparently the tree didn’t connect with other people.


    Still, I gave her access to Dantalion at least, hoping anything that gave her a boost might put her over the top. I was almost sure I knew what was happening, and I couldn’t have been more excited. She continued to write, sketching out patterns from stats, not just writing out the details, but inscribing a detailed story. I wasn’t sure whether it was Bethy’s hypnosis or whatever she’d experienced down in the ocean that had triggered it, but the more I watched, the more certain I became.


    Callie was forming her Solid Path. She had the accumulation. Plenty of technique research and experience, plenty of stats. She’d just needed to find something to trigger that last bit of inspiration.


    When her power had reacted like that with the water, I’d known. That wasn’t just a natural similarity. She’d connected to the Abyss, fundamentally changed by the energy down there, and her own Path had shifted to mirror that change. I’d have been worried about that if she wasn’t in here, but I was able to help, gently correcting a few passages and removing some hidden dangers in her Path imagery as it was written.


    She wrote for what felt like hours, and then, finally, she finished. But when she did, I realized that it didn’t MATTER. She couldn’t take the book back. Couldn’t integrate a technique from the Library or directly use its power. I was a little disappointed, but she could still reference it if needed. It would provide some serious support when she was ready to form the Solid Path Herself.


    Except, as I watched, she closed the book and it just vanished. The light of the tome shot forward, sinking into her head, and as it integrated, I felt something I hadn’t before. The reason for this new ability.


    Master Paired Duelling. I knew Callie would have the same Skill now. Our bond had been upgraded. As her face cleared, she turned to beam at me, the smile on her face radiant as she leaned forward to kiss me sweetly. My mask wasn’t on at the moment, having been removed during the wait.


    When she pulled back, I smiled down at her dopily. “Hey,” I said dumbly.


    She giggled, then leaned against me. “I formed my Solid Path,” she told me proudly. “I mean, you knew that. But it’s just amazing being able to see it in my stats. Path of the Abyssal Priestess. I don’t…really know how to react to that.”


    “Something changed in the ocean,” I nodded. “I don’t know what, but you had some kind of breakthrough I think. Your Path changed to align with the energy down there.”


    “Which is great,” she said slowly, her face clouding. “Except I don’t know WHAT exactly I’m on the path to be a priestess of. Not that…thing, I’m sure of it. But something else is down there. Something horrible and dark and vast. I could see it in my mind, staring into me. It WAS the Abyss, Shane, like empty nothingness made manifest. A yawning chasm in reality whose hunger never fades.”


    She was shaking, and I pulled her against me tightly. “It’s fine, you’re safe,” I told her firmly. “You’re on land, and you are absolutely NOT going near the shores again. But just to be safe, no entering the shadows here. It doesn’t seem…wise.”


    I didn’t like this new development, not at all. Something was in here with us. Something that wasn’t a god. And it wanted my wife. In the Shoals, where the gods were locked out and couldn’t help, we were defenseless against whatever it was. At least, in the water. Something about the candles held it at bay, kept us safe, and I was damned sure going to use that to my advantage.


    As for Callie’s new power…I wasn’t sure what to make of it. We couldn’t afford to throw away the strength she might be able to access now, but actively indulging it might be worse. I would call my grandmother in the morning to see what she thought. Until then, we retreated from the library, and I pulled my wife into my arms. She was with me, and she was safe, and that was all that mattered for now.