novelraw Chapter 71: The Inky Lake
Chapter 71: The Inky Lake
The situation had spiraled completely out of control.
Verso was gritting his teeth so hard they felt like they might crack.
He was doing his absolute best to keep everyone alive, Xavier and Lua outside, and even the paranoid lunatic standing in front of him.
But Han had already made up his mind. Han wanted him dead, and the worst part was that Verso could not even fully fight back.
One wrong move, one over extended strike from the Sea Serpent, and Han would be a red smear on the cavern floor which was not something that he could explain to his team.
’I can’t kill him, but he sure as hell is trying to kill me!’
The Horned White Tiger, which had been a terrifying presence only moments ago, suddenly turned into a strange white and red blur. It started moving with a speed that defied logic for a creature of its size.
Flicking his wrist, Verso tapped into his soul space.
The third and final gargoyle of his arsenal that he had kept hidden for such a scenario, walked right out of a grey portal in front of him.
Verso did not wait for the summon to look around at what was going on as he lunged forward, grabbing onto the ridges of its neck with a death grip.
"UP NOW!" He screamed.
The gargoyle’s wings flapped with a violent, stony crackle as it propelling them high into the air.
They soared above the center of the cavern, hovering directly over the inky black lake where the Sea Serpent watched from the depths.
’It shouldn’t be able to reach me here.’ Verso thought, looking down.
The white blur stood on the ground below, exactly where he had been standing just a seconds ago.
But before he could even breathe a sigh of relief, the blur moved again.
It leaped directly at him. With its horns glowing a sharp ethereal white, the beast launched itself into the air with the power of a spring loaded trap, its claws outspread to shred both rider and mount.
Little did Verso know that this Tiger was called the Leaping White Tiger.
"Serpent, intercept it! Gargoyle, dive left!"
The gargoyle tucked its wings, entering a desperate tumble to the side to avoid the tiger’s trajectory.
At the same time, the Sea Serpent let out a deafening hiss, its massive body coiling beneath the surface.
Bang!
A flash of blue mana erupted from Han’s golden revolver.
The bullet streaked through the air with chilling precision, connecting squarely with the gargoyle’s left wing.
The stone shattered as the summon let out a silent, pained shriek as its flight path turned into a chaotic spin.
"Fuck-"
Verso felt his stomach drop as he lost his grip.
He was suspended in air, at the center of the cavern, looking straight into the open, blood stained maw of the Leaping White Tiger.
The creature was inches away from devouring him whole.
SPLASH.
The sound of the lake erupting was like a bomb going off.
The Sea Serpent’s tail surged out of the water, coiling with the speed of a whip as it hit the mid air tiger like a baseball bat.
The impact was so violent that the tiger was launched across the cavern, slamming into the far rocky wall with a sickening thud.
The entire roof of the cavern shook as jagged dripstone fell from the ceiling, shattering like glass on the floor.
’Did the Serpent kill it?!’
Verso couldn’t even check.
His gargoyle was a mess of broken stone, tumbling toward the ground. He looked down.
The land was a death trap. If he landed near Han, the scion would put a bullet in his brain. If he landed near the tiger, he was meat.
He looked at the inky black lake beneath him.
’Do I enter the water?’
It was a crazy thought. He had no clue if the lake was shallow, if it was toxic, or if he could even see in the dark water. But as he fell he remembered the name of his talent.
"Fuck it. Who better to enter an inky lake than the Son of the Sea?"
Verso let go of the gargoyle, pulling it back into his summoning space, as he held his Black Scythe tightly.
Just then two more mana bullets hissed past his ears, missing him completely.
"What?" Han’s voice was full of genuine shock.
The scion watched, his revolver still raised, as Verso purposefully dove into the dark, light consuming water.
The moment Verso hit the surface and submerged into the lake, he felt like he had just entered his home.
He opened his eyes and instead of the blinding darkness he expected, the the sonar effect of Water Manipulation kicked in.
Although he could not see in the water, he could feel everything around him as his mana extended and started acting like a sonar that mapped out the cavern floor.
He could see the massive, coiling body of his Sea Serpent circling him like a protective god.
A wide, cold smile spread across Verso’s face underwater.
’So what if you have the land? You have to come down here to get me.’
He knew Han was not stupid.
Putting a land predator like the White Tiger into a deep lake against a Sea Serpent was a tactical suicide.
Just then, three more bolts of mana shot into the water, the bubbles trailing behind them as they missed his head by inches.
Verso didn’t panic.
He began to swim, his body moving with an unnatural fluidity through the lake as he had just came up with a plan.
------
"What the fuck is he doing?" Han muttered, his eyes darting across the bubbling surface of the lake.
He looked back as the dust cleared from the far wall.
His Horned White Tiger was limping back toward him. It looked relatively fine, but blood was trickling from its eyes which was a sign of massive internal organ damage from the Serpent’s strike.
Han looked back at the lake.
The Sea Serpent’s head breached the surface for a second, letting out a low vibrating hiss before submerging again.
’Why hasn’t he attacked me directly?’ A small, nagging doubt began to creep into Han’s heart.
He had seen Verso’s power. With a beast like that, Verso could have commanded it to swallow Han whole while the tiger was away from him.
There had been dozens of openings, but the so called spy had only ever played defense this entire time.
’Is he really telling the truth?’
Before the thought could take root, Han felt a sudden shift in the air of the room.
Thrum.
A low vibration began through the water. Han’s instincts, honed by years of surviving his brother’s hitmen, screamed at him.
’Something’s coming!’