CHAPTER 467: CHAPTER 362: ABYSSAL CHILD, KICKING THE IRON PLATE IN ANGER

The Fishman pathogen, secretly introduced into the pool, took effect with incredible speed.

For a while, Byron truly couldn’t distinguish which fish was "Hawkeye" James Kent. However, thanks to the potent resistance of a Third Order Transcendent, he was naturally the first to recover.

His skin was bloated and ghastly pale, yet his eyes were a deep crimson, as if on the verge of weeping tears of blood.

A few days prior, he had led The Golden Deer into the cultists’ lair and, after "blindly eating fish," had become a large fish entirely at their mercy.

Then, during the "Fish-Eating Festival" that spanned several days, he watched helplessly as these deep-sea beings devoured nearly half his crew.

First Mate Claire, Navigator Bob, the elderly Sailor Chief Peter, Marica the "Gourmet" who cooked so exquisitely...

Many crewmates—friends, comrades-in-arms, and juniors who had fought alongside him since they first set sail—were skinned, deboned, and died horrifically before James’s very eyes, yet he was utterly powerless.

Moreover, the only reason he himself hadn’t been eaten was purely because these monsters wanted to use him as bait to lure out the "big fish" Byron, intending to devour them both.

If Byron’s grudge against the Divine Children was only indirect, with the Deep Dive Church’s key figures not even present, then annihilating Black Tide Town was merely a matter of convenience for them.

The grudge James bore, however, was the most direct, a blood debt of the deepest dye. It was the kind of hatred born from scorching blood splattering directly onto his face, into his eyes, searing his very soul.

The profoundly suppressed agony, helplessness, self-reproach, shame, and remorse from the past three days—all of it erupted the moment reinforcements arrived and the alien transformation was purged from his body, coalescing into a towering inferno of rage that threatened to consume everything.

As he neared his target, eyes bloodshot, he roared, "Monster, I’ll make your death an unforgettable horror!"

In truth, he hadn’t bothered to distinguish brother from sister; he simply targeted the nearest rump and ruthlessly pulled the trigger.

BOOM!

A tremendous burst of firelight erupted. A conical spearhead, trailing a spiraling airflow, spun at high speed. It tore through the mist rising from Black Tide Town—a chaotic mix of fire and water—and struck the Goddess on her scale-mottled, fish-tailed rump.

The flesh of carbon-based organisms has its limits.

The Double-faced Person Smith had been a Chimera, a fusion of "Gladiator" and "Pallbearer" traits. Even clad in the Armor of a Hundred Beasts, a direct hit from this attack would have sent him instantly rocketing skyward.

The Goddess had been entirely focused on fending off the pincer attack from The Golden Deer and the Ironclaw Vessel, paying no heed whatsoever to the "ingredients" beside her.

She had never imagined that a human, once transformed by the Black Sorcery documented in her people’s Spiral City Manual, could actually revert to normal.

This was a miraculous ability that not even her father, the Abyssal Horror Dagon, had mastered.

Consequently, the high-speed rotating spearhead viciously pierced through her body in an instant.

The savagely effective drill and explosive vortex encountered no resistance whatsoever from her groin to the crown of her head, incidentally twisting her entire body into a mangled, tattered sack.

The primary purpose of the "Cyclone Jet Armstrong Rotating Cannon" was whaling; using it on a person was egregious overkill, like using a butcher’s cleaver to swat a fly.

After such an attack, not even minced flesh and Bone Crusher could be pieced back together.

Yet, before "Hawkeye" James could even register the relief of having finally avenged himself, the "mangled corpse" before him suddenly liquefied and exploded.

It transformed into a shower of cold, fishy rain that PITTER-PATTERED down.

Yet, there wasn’t a trace of flesh or bone within it.

James, after all, was a veteran adventurer of considerable experience.

Though momentarily blinded by rage, the sight of this immediately told him something had gone terribly wrong.

He instantly activated the Fantasia Armory, constructed from his imagination and personal essence. A blue feathered cloak, much like one worn by an indigenous shaman, automatically enveloped him.

His feet lifted lightly from the ground. In a flash of lightning, he flickered twenty meters away, as if teleporting.

Third Order Holy Relic - Thunderbird Feather Cloak:

"The Thunderbird is another name for Storm Elves, but not all ephemeral Storm Elves are worthy of the title Thunderbird.

Only those that exist for extended periods in magically rich environments, slowly evolving into higher beings of lightning elements, are true Extraordinary Creatures: Thunderbirds.

This Holy Relic, in its true form, is a feathered cloak worshipped for many years by a native tribe in the Shattered Isles.

It is said to be woven from Thunderbird feathers, granting incomparable speed to whoever dons it.

There is also a matching bone Thunderbird mask and Thunderbird headdress. Wearing the full three-piece set allows one to transform into a Thunderbird, capable of battling a young Fourth Order dragon."

This was one of the most powerful treasures James could currently manifest, a relic obtained as a byproduct of a failed treasure heist among a native tribe.

The instant he made his decisive escape, the rain that had exploded across the sky behind him began to contract towards its center, coalescing into a translucent sphere of water.

Then, like a slime or a Shape-shifter, it rapidly twisted and contorted into a new form: a humanoid figure with an octopus head, and a pair of deformed bat wings sprouting from its back.

The Spiral City Manual, a Bloodline Codex said to grant passage directly to the Divine Domain, much like the Bloodthirsty Cult’s "Blood Source Pilgrimage," also featured various evolutionary paths for Mythical Creatures in its early stages.

At the Low Order stages, the most numerous of these were the half-human, half-fish, half-frog Deep Sea Clan, which was also the initial juvenile form for all members of the Deep Dive Church.