Becoming a God Starts with Acting-Chapter 411: Turbulent Seas (18)

Everything happened too fast. The instant Thalassa became aware of Nerio’s existence, Nerio’s trident had already transformed into a streak of lightning, piercing straight through Thalassa’s chest.

"Boom! Crash!"

Sand and dust exploded outward, obscuring all vision. Only a pale blue radiance remained, flooding the area and illuminating the beautifully curving tail fin as it twisted in the light.

Nana stared at the scene in shock, her gaze fixed in a daze on the unfamiliar merfolk.

She was certain she had never seen this merfolk within the royal palace of Aqualon. Moreover, judging from everything that had happened before, the so-called Eldest Princess Athena had in fact always been this merfolk. Then where was the real Eldest Princess?

No one could answer that question at this moment.

A powerful surge of black smoke suddenly rose from below, spreading outward and morphing into the shapes of countless distorted faces, all wailing and screaming endlessly.

Thalassa’s body gradually disintegrated as if it had never existed at all. Yet before that, she still had enough strength left to roar, "I will not die. I will return. Let Aqualon and the land be buried together!"

That shrill scream made the entire earth tremble. Thalassa’s body erupted into a massive explosion, then completely vanished into the depths of the sea.

"Crash!"

"Zigggg—!"

Immediately after came a violent seismic shock that shook the entire seabed. The ocean churned wildly, transforming into a tsunami poised to sweep the land away!

Sharp cracking sounds rang out as metal collided ceaselessly, forming a deafening, chaotic cacophony. Nana could not help turning her head, only to see that the chains tightly binding the Aetherium Tower were now violently trembling, fractures beginning to spread across them.

At this moment, Nicole struggled to force her eyes open. Upon seeing this scene, all that remained in her gaze was despair.

"The seal beneath Aetherium was destroyed long ago... that thing, Thalassa..."

That was the existence sealed in this place. No one knew what the Aqualon royal family had used to bind it, yet it had still managed to break free and wreak havoc on such a scale.

Aetherium was the tower regarded as the stabilizing pillar of the seas, the very foundation of Aqualon and countless generations of merfolk civilization.

Once Aetherium collapsed, it would not be just the sea that fell. Countless consequences would follow. The land would never know peace if the ocean were to rage and boil forever, wave after towering wave.

The current situation was no different from the Land of Light standing on the brink of a great deluge.

And humans, no matter how powerful they might be, were still as small as ants before the might of nature, utterly helpless.

What should they do? What needed to be done? What could they possibly do?

On land, the human mage barriers bore witness to the first wave, towering over ten meters high, instantly sweeping away all coastal regions. The surge did not stop there. It continued to force its way deeper inland, passing through mountainous terrain.

From the mountain peaks, Nathan and the people gathered there could see the raging seawater rushing along the mountainsides.

From the capital, the sky itself could be seen roiling with dark clouds, rolling layer upon layer like waves upon the sea.

The Pope opened his eyes from meditation, his gaze fixed straight toward the ocean. The light in his eyes was deep and unreadable.

A cardinal hurried in to report, despair written plainly across his face.

As the shields they had erected were instantly shattered by the furious sea, the number of injured and fallen mages began to rise.

The nobles could not accept this reality. They frantically prayed to the gods above to hear their pleas, begging the vast ocean to forgive their foolish decisions. Chaos erupted in an instant. Before the great deluge even arrived, disputes had already begun tearing through their ranks.

In the end, the spearhead of blame turned toward the Aurellan and Lumina families when it became known that Nicole was leading outstanding students into Aqualon.

They needed the headmaster to step forward and take charge. At the very least, they needed a chance to speak with the sovereign of the seas before one-sided annihilation descended upon them. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

But the headmaster only said, "Even the merfolk themselves are screaming. This is not a declaration of war from Aqualon. This is a harbinger of annihilation for both races."

"What?!"

"That’s impossible!"

The crowd erupted in uproar.

Vermillion spoke slowly. "Right now, what is needed is someone to re-anchor it, to prevent Aetherium from collapsing."

The room fell silent. Just as they thought the headmaster might propose some concrete solution, he merely smiled at them.

"To find the Aetherium Tower, you will have to wait until at least one great flood has passed."

Someone shouted in anger. There was no way they could wait. At this moment, all they could think about was how to save themselves.

Mages always had ways to survive, or at the very least, escape. They still had magic. Ordinary people were the ones truly struggling on the brink of apocalypse.

When all they could do was cling to one another and weep. Run—but where could they run? The land they had known all their lives was no bigger than their village. Where could they possibly flee to?

Perhaps the most despairing were the coastal villages. They clung to one another and wept, like a torrential downpour, as if they had already accepted their fate, fully aware that no one could save them.

Nathan stared heavily toward the vast sea and murmured, "Nicole..."

Nicole could not hear Nathan’s plea. They themselves had already been swallowed by the ocean’s vortex.

The moment between life and death seemed to slow to a crawl. Water droplets hung suspended in midair, dark clouds pressed low and heavy, and waves crashed one after another with crushing force.

Every cry and scream was painfully clear, as if distant, yet as if right before one’s eyes.

Nana seemed to hear something. She heard it... a melodious sound, distant and unfamiliar, like a whisper from another world. It felt both near and far, steady and calm, carrying a decisive command that no one could possibly doubt.

"O holy deity of water and life, I command you and your power. Obey the will within my heart. Hear my call. Come to me, Nerio!"

"——!"

"Crash! Crash! Boom!"

The endless whirlpool suddenly surged with unprecedented violence, sweeping away everything in its path, drowning the wretched creatures of the sea.

Aetherium toppled to one side, dragging with it waves that blotted out the sky and covered the land, surging upward until they reached the heavens. They formed a colossal wall, so tall its end could not be seen, blocking out what little dim light filtered through the cloud-filled sky, nearly plunging all human sight into darkness.

Humans looked up at the sky in despair, at the place where the towering waves vanished into the clouds, churning into massive, spiraling tempests.

They knew that even the great mountains would be buried, and that they themselves would be buried beneath the wrath of nature...