Becoming a God Starts with Acting-Chapter 406: Turbulent Seas (13)

Even the queen could not help but pause at the sound of Athena’s voice.

Though the mask still concealed most of her upper face, one could almost clearly see the shock she could not hide.

"You..." the queen murmured, a trace of confusion in her voice.

At the same time, as if some command had been issued, the waters suddenly rippled, and the other princes and princesses appeared.

Nana saw them taking up positions around Aetherium Tower in a surrounding formation.

Each of them held a trident in hand, and the deep blue hue of their tail fins unmistakably marked their noble status.

The queen seemed to realize something. She raised her claws, ready to sweep everything away, but only then did she discover that she could not move even the slightest bit.

Her thoughts were clearly lucid, yet her body almost completely refused to obey her control.

Horrified, the queen looked upward. Her daughter now seemed somewhat unfamiliar to her.

She wanted to open her mouth to say something, but then realized she could not utter a single word.

Her body could not move at all.

High above, Athena did not lower her head. She merely cast her gaze down at the queen. Light spilled over her face, yet instead of making it look sinister or frightening, it only enhanced her pure and exquisite beauty.

She was still singing, yet her entire expression seemed to be smiling. The melodious, beautiful song did not stop for even a moment. It felt as though countless strands of sound were winding through the air, and it was these very threads that bound the queen in place.

Nicole also frowned as she looked up into the sky. In that instant, she felt that this eldest princess was even more dangerous than the queen. Clearly, when they had first met, Athena had done nothing more than sit there with a smile on her face.

At this moment, Athena’s body moved again, shattering Nicole’s thoughts like sea foam.

She spun once in midair, raising one hand. In the blink of an eye, a trident appeared in her grasp.

She landed on the ground, and the trident slammed down with tremendous force, almost immediately causing the area around the tower to shake violently.

One by one, the other tridents were driven into the ground as well.

Immediately after, light flared from the bodies of the tridents, enveloping all of them. A powerful surge of energy gathered at the sharp tips, as though they were greedily drawing in the immense power of countless generations of merfolk buried deep beneath the earth.

The surging energy wrapped around the entire tower. In the blink of an eye, the chains trembled violently, as if they could shatter at any moment. From the depths of the abyss, it seemed as though something was letting out a mournful lament.

The queen could speak again at this moment. She let out a fierce hiss, yet her voice remained dignified and gentle, completely unlike her near-maddened appearance.

"My children, are you betraying me, betraying the royal family of Aqualon?" Her tone was helpless, fragile, and filled with disbelief.

Athena lifted her eyes and smiled. "I only want you to make the right decisions."

"What is right, and what is wrong?! We are right, and those above, those who never truly touch the sea in their entire lives, are the ones who are wrong!" the queen said heavily.

Athena smiled. "Mother Queen, the peace of Aqualon’s people is what is right. That is what you have always pursued. The stench of darkness clinging to you has grown so strong that it makes me nauseous."

The queen froze, clearly not expecting Athena to say such words.

In the next moment, the corners of her lips suddenly curled upward, exaggerated to the extreme.

Her tone sank low, like a song about to rise from the depths of hell.

"Ah... so it’s been discovered," she said softly, without the slightest guilt or any intention of fleeing.

At the same time, the colossal energy had already gathered at the pinnacle of the towering structure, vanishing from their sight and leaving behind only waves of flickering light that illuminated the seafloor below.

A sound like wind howling through a deep chasm rang out. The ground began to quake in powerful waves, no longer a safe place to stand.

Heavy, oppressive sounds echoed again and again. Immediately after, the sound of water being cleaved apart rang out. Like a gigantic projectile, the attack plummeted from above at an unimaginable speed.

Condensed from countless streams of energy, it carried the hue of pure moonlight mingled with a mysterious pale blue, burying the queen’s figure completely.

In an instant, the area was flooded with light so intense that not a single trace of shadow could exist. Their figures were swallowed by the radiance, as though they themselves were about to dissolve into that blinding brilliance.

"Aaaaaa!" A scream echoed, tearing through space itself.

No further shockwaves erupted, yet powerful aftershocks spread out like a raging storm, threatening to sweep all of them away.

Nana heard Caesar snort, as if it had suddenly caught the scent of something strange in the air.

In this situation, Nana could not even open her eyes, but after such an attack, everything should have come to an end...

"Boom!"

Sure enough, immediately afterward came the heavy sound of a massive body crashing down. The light had not completely dissipated, yet it was still bright enough to illuminate a vast stretch of space.

Soon after, they saw the queen floating on the surface of the water. Her hair spread out around her, now reduced to a pure silver-white. It no longer glowed as it had before. Each strand looked coarse and distinct, drifting along with the large pieces of shimmer weave and the ivory-like gemstones, which seemed to be the only things still shining upon her body.

Cracks began to appear across her mask.

Then came faint cracking sounds. In the blink of an eye, her mask crumbled into dust, revealing sharp, well-defined facial features.

Yet beneath her large eyes was another, smaller pair of eyes, now tightly shut.

The silence was unsettling. In the next instant, both pairs of the queen’s eyes opened at the same time, pitch-black within, the pupils constantly shifting in different directions.

Her mouth curled upward in an exaggerated arc, tearing open all the way to her gills. She opened it wide like a python’s maw, dense fangs sprouting forth. In the next moment, her tail thrashed violently, the waters surging as if she were a creature that could never be killed.

"That’s impossible!" Nicole roared. She knew exactly how powerful that attack had been. Moreover, the queen had been relentlessly pressed by Aurellan’s Blade before this. Even if she had not been killed, there was no way she should have been able to rise so immediately.

More than that, what was this transformation?! A presence of darkness was clearly revealing itself. Nicole had never fully trusted Athena’s words, because the queen was not someone easily corrupted by darkness. But now, everything was practically unfolding right before their eyes.

The queen swam high above them, laughing loudly, her voice hoarse and broken. "I once thought it would be amusing to watch the two races tear each other apart. But who would have thought that within the Aqualon royal family, there were still those with such keen eyes."

Her two pairs of eyes fixed directly on Athena as she laughed. "Little fish, tell me, how did you discover it? I thought that a bunch as arrogant as you would only know how to fight when given orders by the highest existence of Aqualon."