"RUN!" Alvian shouted.

They sprinted back down the corridor, away from the elevator shaft. Behind them, the shaft exploded. A massive figure crashed down, landing with enough force to buckle the foundations of the prison.

It was Megalos. The King of the Whale Sharks. He was a leviathan in humanoid form, standing twenty feet tall, clad in armor made of black pearl and void-steel. He held a massive anchor-flail, swinging it with casual ease.

"YOU THINK YOU CAN STEAL MY TOYS?" Megalos roared. His voice was a physical force, a shockwave of sound.

He raised his free hand. The water in the corridor began to swirl.

"[Devouring Vortex]!"

A black hole formed in the center of the hallway. The water rushed toward it, dragging debris, metal, and Alvian's team backward.

"I can't... move!" Seraphina cried, digging her daggers into the floor, but she was sliding. The suction was irresistible.

"Shield Wall!" Valeria slammed her shield down, activating [Titan's Anchor], but even she was being dragged. The metal floor screeched as she slid toward the vortex.

"It's a singularity," Alvian analyzed quickly. "He's collapsing the space behind us. If we touch it, we're crushed."

Magnus, burdened by Rhett, was sliding the fastest. "Go! Leave us!"

"Inefficient," Alvian snapped.

He turned to face the vortex. The pull was immense. He could feel his own armor straining. He needed to break the suction. Or bypass it.

He looked at his team. They were all linked by the comms crystals.

"Group up! Grab onto Valeria!" Alvian ordered.

Seraphina and Magnus grabbed onto the Titan Knight. Alvian grabbed Valeria's shoulder.

"Alvian, you can't teleport us all!" Seraphina yelled. "[Void Step] is single target!"

"I learned a new trick from Kaelen," Alvian said. "It's not about moving the body. It's about moving the space."

He activated the [Thundergod Bracers]. He activated the [Vestments of the Void Monarch]. He poured his infinite mana into a fusion of skills.

"[Void Step] + [Abyssal Flicker] + [Flash Step]."

"OVERDRIVE."

He didn't just teleport. He turned the entire group into a bolt of void lightning.

"ZZZ-CRACK!"

They vanished.

They shot through the event horizon of the vortex. The sheer speed and intangible nature of the void state allowed them to bypass the physical pull of the singularity. They moved faster than the magic could grab them.

They reappeared a mile away, outside the prison, floating in the open ocean.

"HURK!" Arin (who wasn't there but would have) would have vomited. Seraphina dry-heaved. The spatial displacement was nauseating.

Below them, the Abyss Prison imploded. The [Devouring Vortex], denied its prey, consumed the structure instead. The massive stone fortress crumpled like a paper ball, sucked into the black hole before exploding outward in a shockwave of debris.

"He destroyed his own prison," Valeria gasped, watching the destruction.

"He missed," Alvian corrected, floating calmly, though his mana bar was flickering from the massive expenditure.

From the dust cloud, a roar echoed. Megalos rose from the ruins, unscathed. He looked up, spotting them.

"HUNT THEM!" Megalos bellowed. "UNLEASH THE KRAKENS! I WANT THEM DEAD!"

"We need to go," Magnus said, adjusting Rhett on his back. "He's calling the entire army."

"We have what we came for," Alvian said. "Let's go home."

They turned and swam toward Azureus. Behind them, the ocean churned as the Whale Shark army began to mobilize. The war had just escalated again. But they had struck a blow. They had rescued the hostage. And Alvian had learned the limits of a Sea King.

"Next time," Alvian whispered to himself as they sped toward the city lights, "I won't run."

--

The ocean floor a mile away from the Abyss Prison was a landscape of silence and silt. The water here was cold, pressing down with the weight of a thousand atmospheres, but to Alvian, it felt like nothing more than a light breeze.

He hovered in the water, his [Vestments of the Void Monarch] drifting around him like ink in water. Behind him, the shockwave of the imploding prison finally reached them—a dull, thudding vibration that shook the coral and stirred the sand.

The prison was gone. The fortress that had stood for centuries, a monument to the Whale Shark King's tyranny, had been crumpled like a piece of paper and swallowed by the void.

Magnus knelt on the seabed, his massive iron knees cracking the stone. He gently lowered Rhett to the ground. The rescued scout was a mess of scars and atrophy, his scales dull and grey, his remaining eye wide with the trauma of long-term confinement.

"We're out, brother," Magnus whispered, his voice thick with emotion usually hidden behind layers of stone and steel. "You're safe."

Rhett coughed, a cloud of dark blood misting the water. "Magnus… the prison… it's just… gone?"

"He deleted it," Magnus said, looking up at Alvian. The Iron Guardian's gaze held a mixture of fear and profound gratitude. "He didn't just break the walls. He broke the physics holding them together."

Alvian checked his mana bar. It was refilling rapidly thanks to the [Tear of the Infinite].

"Inefficient structure," Alvian stated, turning to face them. "It relied too heavily on external mana supports. Once the core was destabilized by the singularity, gravity did the rest."

Valeria swam over to Alvian. She reached out, her gauntleted hand resting briefly on his arm. It was a small gesture, but it carried the weight of their shared battles.

"You pushed it close," she murmured, her voice tight. "That teleportation... if you had miscalculated the coordinates by an inch, we would have fused with the rock."

Alvian looked at her. He saw the worry in her eyes, masked by the visor of her helmet.

"I don't miscalculate," Alvian replied softly. "And I calculated that you would hold on."

Valeria let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. A faint flush rose to her cheeks, hidden by the water.

Magnus stood up. He walked over to Alvian, his heavy boots settling into the sand. He reached into his chest plate, bypassing the layers of physical armor to reach a hidden compartment near his heart.

He pulled out a heavy, dark-grey sphere. It wasn't metal, and it wasn't stone. It looked like a solidified whirlpool, swirling with trapped kinetic energy.

"I promised you the offensive counterpart to my barrier," Magnus rumbled. "The [Tidal Barrier] stops force. This… this redirects it. It creates a vacuum that nature abhors and fills with violence."

He handed the sphere to Alvian.

"This is the essence of the [Abyssal Vortex]. It was Rhett's technique. He was the one who found it in the Deepest Trench, before… before they took him."

Rhett nodded weakly from the ground. "Take it… Godslayer. Use it to pull their empire down."

Alvian took the sphere. It was heavy, pulling at his hand with its own gravity.

[System Notification: Skill Book Detected: [Abyssal Vortex] (Legendary).]

[Type: Crowd Control / AOE Damage.]

[Description: Creates a localized singularity that pulls all enemies within a 50-meter radius toward the center, dealing crushing Hydro damage over time.]

[Requirement: High Mana Density.]

"Accepted," Alvian said.

"Learn."

The sphere shattered in his grip. The grey mist swirled up his arm, sinking into his mana channels. It felt different from the [Frost Descent] or the [Runic Aegis]. It felt hungry. It felt like a hole in his soul that wanted to be filled.

[Skill Learned: Abyssal Vortex (Level 1).]

Alvian closed his eyes. He analyzed the mana structure. It was powerful, yes. It could control the battlefield. But it lacked… bite. It dealt Hydro damage, which was resisted by many deep-sea creatures. And while it pulled enemies in, it didn't strip their defenses.

"Inefficient," Alvian muttered.

He checked his daily charges. The battle with the prison guards and the infiltration had happened just before the server reset time. The clock in his HUD ticked over to 00:00.

Two fresh charges of the [Super Upgrade System] were available.

"System," Alvian commanded internally. "Target: [Abyssal Vortex]. Upgrade."

[Ding!]

[SSS-Rank Talent Authority Invoked.]

[Consuming One (1) Daily Charge...]

The knowledge in his mind twisted. The blue, watery nature of the vortex turned darker. The mana formula was rewritten, infused with the properties of the Void he had mastered.

[Upgrade Successful!]

[Skill Evolved: [Abyssal Vortex +1] -> [Void Vortex] (Mythical).]

[New Effect: [Armor Shred]. Enemies pulled into the vortex suffer a 50% reduction in Physical and Magical Defense.]

[New Effect: [Singularity]. The center of the vortex deals True Damage based on the number of enemies trapped.]

Alvian's eyes glowed with a predatory violet light. Armor shred. True damage scaling. It was no longer just a crowd control tool. It was a meat grinder.

"Perfect," Alvian whispered.

He looked at Magnus. "We need to move. Megalos won't take the loss of his prison lightly. He will send hunting parties."

"Let them come," Magnus growled, his fists clenching. "I have a lot of anger to work out."

"No," Alvian said, turning toward the open ocean. "We aren't fighting a defensive war. We're going to test the new hardware."

He pointed his [Lance of the Void Winter] into the darkness.

"There's a patrol coming. Twelve o'clock. Fast movers."

Seraphina checked her scanner. "I don't see anything."

"You will," Alvian said. "In three... two... one.".

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