SUPREME ARCH-MAGUS

Chapter 979: Run in Fear!

The battle had ended, but the echoes remained.

After returning behind the protective veil of the Sea Ancestral Temple, the Naga army collapsed into the narrow, blood-streaked trenches around the sanctuary. Thousands of exhausted warriors now lay or sat upon the ground, wounded, panting, or weeping in silence. Their breath fogged the salt-heavy waters, mingling with the reverberations of the divine barrier still humming from its recent activation.

The sacred coral chambers were quickly transformed into makeshift infirmaries. Healers moved among the injured like ghosts of mercy, casting rejuvenation spells, binding flesh with liquid mana threads, and whispering prayers of oceanic gods to calm the screams of the dying.

But one place stood unnaturally still.

Princess Neela’s chamber.

She lay unconscious upon a floating bed of spirit ice within the royal sanctum, her body pale and still radiating a forbidden chill. Her hair, once lustrous and flowing, now rested in frozen strands, brittle like crystal. Her breath was shallow. Her skin flickered between blue and black.

The royal healers stood helpless outside her chamber.

“We can’t touch her,” one whispered. “The Eternal Night Witch Transformation has fused into her meridians. Any attempt to channel healing energy may trigger collapse.”

The other nodded grimly. “We can only wait… and pray she wakes on her own.”

Nyara, second princess, stood near the entrance, fists clenched. Her robes still stained from battle, her eyes never left her elder sister.

“Idiot,” she muttered under her breath. “You gave everything… again.”

A silent tear slid down her cheek.

—

Meanwhile…

In the Forbidden Abyss.

Kent was falling.

Not like a man, but like a broken star.

His body tumbled through layers of darkness where water ceased to feel like water. Light became a memory. Sound twisted. The abyss rejected the laws of nature.

Wind should not exist here. Yet it howled.

The walls of the passage flared with flickers of forgotten gods—scenes etched in glowing hieroglyphs across abyssal stone. A trident striking down a beast of void. A golden-scaled deity rising from coral mountains. A sacrifice—a scaled child sinking into blood-stained tides.

Kent’s bow pulsed in his soul space.

The divine quivers at his side radiated, trying to stabilize his descent.

His breath quickened. The air was thin. The pressure crushed his lungs. His limbs spasmed as the abyss rejected his mortal form.

But he did not scream.

He closed his eyes and focused.

He had walked through storms, swallowed lightning, survived the wrath of gods. He had forged his spirit under the hammer of a mad smith and the compassion of a dying father. He had carved his own path when destiny spat in his face.

This fall?

It was nothing.

And so he fell.

Fell past sunken temples and whale carcasses fossilized into sea mountains. Past eternal flames flickering beneath the ocean floor. Past cages built of divine bone, rattling with the moans of imprisoned sea spirits.

Until the fall slowed.

A soft, bluish light emerged below. A lake? No… a sea within a sea.

A realm carved in silence.

Kent landed hard, but on his feet. The divine bow materialized in his hand. The quivers settled into place.

He breathed in the strange, holy air.

“…So this is where it begins.”

Behind him, the tunnel sealed shut with a pulse of ancient magic.

But hell greeted him as a welcome gift. Millions of beasts stared at him with deathly stares.

Without another thought, Kent ran like a beast.

The abyss was no longer silent.

Kent’s lungs burned with every breath. His robe was torn at the edges, his arms smeared with cuts from coral rocks and venomous tails. All around him, the dark waters vibrated with the monstrous presence of hundreds of sea beasts—each larger than a house, each hungering for blood.

The Forbidden Abyss lived up to its name.

From above, bioluminescent jelly-maws lit the water with an eerie blue; below, worm-lizards snapped their triple jaws. Giant crustaceans—each claw heavier than a war chariot—scuttled with unnatural speed. Whales with cracked spines, sharks with bone armor, even mythical beasts forgotten by the surface world… all had converged.

And all were chasing him.

Kent darted between shattered sea pillars, his body gliding and pushing with every ounce of remaining strength. He had no direction, no time to think.

“How many are there?!” he growled to himself, gripping his divine bow tightly as if it could speak comfort.

His spirit sense stretched. No escape above. No safety below.

And then—a flash.

A sharp pain screamed across his left leg. Something had bitten him.

Kent twisted and turned, drawing his bow mid-motion—but the attacker was gone.

It wasn’t like the others. It had been small, almost delicate. But it had teeth like glass and a bite of lightning. A drop of his blood floated up into the dark water, crimson and pure.

And everything changed.

The first beast that had been roaring stopped mid-growl. Its massive eyes dilated as though struck by revelation. One by one, the sea beasts froze in place, their movements suddenly gentle, as if a great storm had been calmed by a whisper.

Then—bowed.

From all directions, monsters lowered their massive bodies, kneeling in the water like ancient servants paying homage to a returning sovereign. The water stilled. Not a single creature attacked.

Kent, panting, floating in disbelief, looked around.

“What… what is this?” he whispered.

From the shadows came a faint glimmer. A tiny creature—like a silver eel with butterfly wings—floated toward him, staring with eyes that shimmered like stars. It was the one who had bitten him.

It floated up, touched his chest with its tiny snout, then turned and swam ahead slowly, almost as if beckoning him.

Kent followed.

Then something unbelievable happened. Every single beast moved—but not to attack. Instead, they reorganized their positions, forming a vast spiral corridor with perfect symmetry. A path carved out of monstrous reverence.

They opened a road through the sea.

Kent floated in the center of this formation, feeling as if the ocean itself had bowed to him. Even his divine bow trembled slightly in his hand—as if recognizing something profound had been unlocked.

“This…” he muttered, “…this path wasn’t meant to be walked by force.”

The tiny creature paused, waiting for him at the edge of an ancient trench that glowed with lost glyphs.

Suddenly, from the depths of his soul, a voice echoed—soft, feminine, filled with both sorrow and awe.

“Your blood… it sings of the fated scaled human.”

Kent’s heart jumped. “What do you mean?” he asked aloud.

But no answer came. Just silence. And the path ahead.

Still trembling, Kent floated forward. The beasts parted even further, allowing him deeper access into the trench toward whatever awaited beyond.

Behind him, a colossal jojo serpent coiled protectively, watching his every movement like a bodyguard. Below, crab titans knelt. Even the previously hostile abyssal eels held back their fangs.

This was no longer a hunt.

It was a coronation march.

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