Cold. That was the first thing I felt as the seawater hit my skin. Not an ordinary chill, but the kind of cold that seemed to forcibly suck the mana out of every pore. The water pressure increased rapidly as the slimy tentacle dragged me deeper into the darkness of Lumeria Bay.
I tried to invoke Mana Compression, but that Siren's song... it wasn't just a sound. It was a frequency that disrupted my mana resonance. Every time I tried to condense energy, the song shattered it back into useless particles.
Damn, is this the end? At the mercy of a giant eel after everything I've been through?
Suddenly, an ice explosion erupted right above my head. The seawater around me froze instantly, forming jagged crystals that sliced through the tentacle coiling around me. I felt the pull slacken.
"ALEX! GRAB MY HAND!"
Elara's voice echoed through the water, amplified by resonance magic. I looked up and saw her silhouette at the surface—she hadn't jumped in, but she was using her ice magic to create a frozen path that lunged downward like a massive spear. However, just as I reached for the ice, thousands of yellow eyes at the bottom of the bay blinked.
Then, the underwater current swirled violently. A black whirlpool formed, swallowing Elara's ice and pulling me down even faster. The light from the surface vanished, replaced by the sight of ancient city ruins glowing with a sickly turquoise light.
I jolted awake, coughing up saltwater from my lungs. My breathing was ragged, my chest burning. I was no longer in the water, but inside a massive air dome at the bottom of the sea. The walls of the dome were made of a transparent membrane that pulsed slowly, like the heart of a living creature.
"Are you awake, my Prince?"
The voice was soft, yet it made my skin crawl. I turned and saw a woman... or something resembling one. Her upper body was strikingly beautiful, with pale skin and fine scales on her shoulders, but her lower half was the coiled tail of a giant eel that filled the room. Her hair consisted of strands of sea algae that moved of their own accord.
"Who are you?" I asked, trying to stand while fighting off a wave of dizziness. I felt my pocket—my wooden sword was gone. I was completely unarmed.
"My name is Syrenne. And I am the guardian of the memories you discarded, Alex Grey," the woman approached, her face only inches from mine. Her eyes had no pupils, only deep swirls of gold. "You think this is the 89th iteration? How naive..."
I froze. "What do you mean?"
Syrenne laughed, a sound like bursting air bubbles. "You have died far more times than that. Elara von Heist didn't just rewind time; she tore it. There are iterations so dark that you yourself begged to forget them. Iterations where you weren't a 'Mob,' but the true destroyer of worlds."
She touched the mark on my neck with a webbed finger. The mark glowed dark purple, burning hot. "This mark isn't just Elara's claim. It's a seal to hold back your true power so the system doesn't erase you instantly. But now... the seal is beginning to crack."
Meanwhile, on the surface of Lumeria Bay...
Elara stood atop the frozen sea, her breath coming in gasps. Her silver hair was a mess, and her mana aura was exploding, creating a blizzard in the middle of the night. Beside her, Clarisse knelt, trying to maintain a protective magic circle so they wouldn't be swept away by the current.
"She took him... that monster took my Alex to the bottom!" Elara screamed, her eyes flashing with pure madness. "I will freeze this entire ocean! I will turn this bay into an icy grave if that's what it takes to find him!"
"Lady Elara, control yourself!" Clarisse stood up, tears streaming down her cheeks but her gaze firm. "If you freeze everything blindly, you'll kill Alex too! The pressure of the ice will crush the air dome down there!"
Elara turned, grabbing the collar of Clarisse's holy robe with a hand encased in ice. "Then what?! You want me to stay still while 'She' touches my Alex?!"
"Use your magic to create a stable entrance," Clarisse held Elara's hand, trying to channel her warm holy mana to soothe Elara's frozen rage. "I can feel Alex's position through his remaining mana. I will be your radar, and you will be the path. We must work together, or we both lose him forever."
Elara stared at Clarisse with deep hatred, but she knew the holy girl was right. She released her grip and growled. "Just this once, Holy Girl. If you make even one mistake that endangers Alex, I will ensure your soul never reaches your god's heaven."
"I understand," Clarisse whispered. She raised her staff high. "Holy Resonance: Deep Sea Vision!"
A bright white light shot from Clarisse's staff, piercing the dark seawater and creating a path of light toward the bottom.
"Found him," Clarisse said.
"Good," Elara spread her arms, and a massive amount of blue mana began to gather in her palms. "Let's show the inhabitants of this seafloor what it means to touch what belongs to a Heist."
Back at the Bottom of the Sea...
Syrenne began to coil her tail around my body, drawing me closer to her face. "Want to know the secret of the 90th, Alex? The reason this iteration is different? It's because this time, Elara isn't the only one who remembers. The 'System' is getting bored with your games. They sent me to retrieve the 'Core' from within you."
The monster-woman opened her mouth wide, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth. A ball of black light began to emerge from her throat—a data-erasure virus.
"Sleep, Forbidden Prince. Let's end this exhausting cycle—"
BOOM!
Suddenly, the membrane ceiling above us exploded. Not from water, but from a giant ice spear enveloped in holy light.
A girl with fluttering silver hair fell from the ceiling, landing right between me and Syrenne. Her mana explosion was so powerful it pushed back the Siren's massive tail.
"Get your filthy hands off my husband!"
Elara stood there, her mana armor glowing cold. Behind her, Clarisse descended slowly on wings of light, her eyes gazing at me with overwhelming relief.
"Alex!" Clarisse shouted, running straight toward me.
However, Syrenne did not give up. She roared, a sound that shook the entire floor of the bay. Thousands of undead soldiers began to rise from the ruins around us.
"You think you can fight the laws of the sea in my own kingdom?" Syrenne hissed, her body beginning to swell, transforming into an eel monster tens of meters tall. "Here, I am destiny!"
I stood up, looking at Elara and Clarisse. The pain in my head began to subside, replaced by a flow of new power—perhaps the remnants of memories from those "Lost Iterations."
"Elara, Clarisse," I called out. My voice sounded different now—heavier, more authoritative. "Stop fighting. If you want to get out of here alive, do exactly as I say."
Elara turned to me, her eyes trembling at the change in mine. "Alex... your eyes..."
"Explanations later," I held out both my hands. "Elara, give me all your ice mana for compression. Clarisse, reinforce my soul so the system can't detect this attack. We are going to erase this monster from history."
For the first time, the Villainess and the Heroine locked eyes, then nodded in unison. They both took my hands—one cold and one warm.
"Do it, Alex!" they cried together.
At the tips of my fingers, a tiny particle of black mana began to form. It was no longer a simple glitch, but a small black hole ready to swallow the darkness before us.
But behind Syrenne's shadow, I saw something even more terrifying. The gold-robed figure of a Fate Executor was watching us from a distance, holding an hourglass whose sand was almost gone.