Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 173: Episode : We have been tricked.

They continued to pursue the sting ray, still thinking Roxy was attached to it.

None of them paused to think of how Roxy would be able to breathe if she were attached to the animal.

The ocean had changed here, and they could feel it in their bones.

It was no longer an endless, freezing black void. Ahead of them, the abyss began to glow with a red light.

They had chased the sting ray deep into a jagged canyon of stone where the very floor of the world had cracked open. Towering chimneys of rock spewed thick, black smoke and streams of boiling water directly into the freezing deep.

"The warmth here is deadly," Syris said, his voice tight. He wiped sweat from his eyes, staring through the thick crystal porthole. "The currents here are too violent. Nothing had told us about a fire under the sea."

"Keep going," Zarek growled. His golden eyes reflected the violent red glow of the thermal vents. He was gripping the wooden dashboard so hard his claws were sinking into the ironwood. "She is just ahead. Whatever beast took her, it is trying to hide in the smoke!"

Through the murk, the bioluminescent vines on the prow illuminated the fleeing shadow, a massive, flat creature banking sharply between the smoking rock pillars.

"Zarek..." Ren gasped from the floor, clutching his chest. "Something is wrong."

Why did it feel so close, yet so far?

The Fox King was hyperventilating, his violet eyes wide with pain and confusion.

"The connection," Ren choked out. "It is stretching, yes. The scent of her blood is ahead. But...why do I feel so empty?"

"That doesn’t matter right now!" Zarek roared, his panic blinding him to Fox’s intuition. "The beast has her! Syris, push the wind-makers to the limit!"

Syris obeyed, slamming the thruster levers forward. The Iron-Whale surged into the canyon of fire.

The temperature inside the sphere spiked instantly. The air, already thin and stale, became a suffocating blanket of humid heat. It was like being blanketed in fire.

But the heat was not the worst part. It was the weight.

They were diving deeper than any land beast was ever meant to go. The ocean pressed against the sphere with the weight of a falling mountain.

The sound was deafening. The massive, ancient Iron-Wood trunk that formed their hull began to weep. The wood didn’t just creak; it compressed, shrinking inward.

The heat began to burst inside the Iron-wood.

"The shell can’t take anymore!" Syris shouted over the roar of the vents.

"Hold it together!" Zarek barked.

Syris hissed, his basilisk instincts screaming at him that this was a dead end. "The wood is turning to dust under the pressure! If we go past this rock pillar, we will be crushed like an egg under a mammoth’s foot!"

Zarek lunged for the controls, his dragon pride and desperation warring with logic. "I will not turn back! She is right there!"

It wasn’t the wood this time, or the rushing water that was enveloping the interior. It was the glass.

A jagged white line appeared on the thick crystal viewing port right in front of Zarek’s face.

For a fraction of a second, there was silence.

Then the pressure outside was so immense that the water didn’t pour in; it shot in like a spear of solid ice. A needle-thin jet of high-pressure water erupted from the crack.

It moved faster than an arrow. It struck Zarek’s outstretched arm.

"Gah!"

Zarek recoiled, slamming into the back wall of the sphere.

The jet of water had sliced through Zarek’s hardened skin like a razor through silk, carving a deep, bloody furrow across his bicep. If it had hit his throat, the Dragon King would have been decapitated.

The stream of water hit the opposite wall of the sphere, carving a groove into the ironwood.

Zarek clutched his bleeding arm, his eyes wild. The pain was shocking, but the sight of the shadow disappearing into the red smoke was worse. "No! I can reach her! Syris, don’t stop!"

Syris looked at the crack. It was spreading like a spiderweb. In five seconds, the glass would shatter, and the ocean would enter the cabin with enough force to liquefy their bones instantly.

The Basilisk King made the choice. If Zarek couldn’t even make a reason, then he was going to be the reason.

"If we die, she dies!" Syris roared, his voice cutting through Zarek’s madness.

Syris didn’t wait for permission. He slammed his fist down onto the large, red wooden peg in the center of the floor, the emergency release.

Outside, the heavy iron chains holding the massive anchor weights snapped. Tons of iron fell away into the blackness.

Freed from its anchors, the buoyancy of the hollow wooden sphere took over. The Iron-Whale shot upward like a cork released from the bottom of a pond.

"NO!" Zarek bellowed, slamming his good fist against the hull. "NO! TURN BACK!"

The g-force of the sudden ascent slammed all three Kings to the floor. The red glow of the thermal vents vanished, swallowed by the crushing blackness of the midnight zone. The high-pressure jet from the cracked window weakened to a spray, then a trickle, as the pressure dropped rapidly.

They ascended in silence, save for the heavy, ragged breathing of three defeated males.

Minutes passed. And finally, the sphere breached the surface of the Great River with a massive splash, bobbing violently in the moonlight.

Inside, the cabin was a disaster. Soaked in icy water, smelling of blood, and filled with the bitter taste of failure.

Syris sat against the controls, his head bowed between his knees, shaking from the adrenaline crash.

Zarek sat on the floor, ignoring the blood dripping from his arm. He stared at the cracked crystal. His golden eyes were dull, hollow.

"We lost her," Zarek whispered, the words tearing at his throat. "She was right there... and we ran away."

"No."

Ren’s voice was soft, but it held a strange, resonating calm.

The Fox King was sitting in the pool of water at the bottom of the sphere. He wasn’t crying anymore. He was staring at his hands, his tail twitching slowly.

"What do you mean, no?" Zarek snarled, his grief threatening to turn to rage. "We abandoned her to the fire!"

"That was not her," Ren said, looking up. His violet eyes were sharp, analytical.

"What?" Syris lifted his head. His own anger was bubbling up, thinking they had just wasted their time, risking their lives.

"What we chased," Ren explained, pointing to the floor. "When the window cracked... the water sprayed in. I smelled it. I smelled the scent on the current. It was her blood. Fresh blood. And her milk."

Zarek’s chest heaved. "Then she was there!" 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"The blood was there," Ren corrected, his voice hardening. "But Zarek... She was not there. We were distracted!"

Zarek frowned. And Ren continued.

"The creature we chased went South, into the vents," Ren said, standing up. "But the connection never went South. It is still pointing straight down. Into the dark. Steady. Calm."

Syris’s eyes widened as the realization hit him. The Basilisk’s brain pieced the puzzle together. "It was a decoy."

Ren said, awe and terror mixing in his voice. "Something tied her blood to a beast and sent it into the fire to blind us."

Zarek stood up, the roof of the sphere forcing him to stoop. The hollow look in his eyes vanished, replaced by a terrifying, cold fire.

"Something tricked us," Zarek realized, rage roared in his blood, but he didn’t know who to point it at.

"And whatever it is," Syris added, his voice chilling, "it is intelligent. It knows how to use the terrain. It knows we hunt by scent."

"But Zarek," Ren stepped forward, grabbing the Dragon’s uninjured arm. "Think about what this means. If it was a decoy... She is not in the fire. And the blood was fresh."

Ren smiled, a fierce, predatory grin. "She is alive. She bled, yes. But she is breathing. And she is waiting below us."

The silence in the cabin shifted again.

They had been outsmarted. Yes. They had been nearly crushed. Definitely. Their ship was broken, and Zarek was bleeding.

But the only thing that mattered right now was that Roxy was alive.

Zarek looked down at the wound on his arm. The water of the deep had cut a Dragon. He still wanted to know this creature that dared to deceive him and turn it into fish soup.

He closed his eyes for only a fraction of a second before deciding on something.

"Syris," Zarek commanded, his voice a low, earth-shaking rumble. "Build a stronger shell. If we have to triple the iron-wood, we will! Find metal that does not bend."

He looked out the cracked glass, down into the black water that held his Queen.

"We will try again," the Dragon King vowed. "And keep trying until we have her in our arms again."