Owner of the Primeval Sea
The First Sea. For all its tremendous title as the birthplace of the Water Spirit King Nuru, this ocean was dying. No—by now it was all but dead. Ever since I had fallen into these waters, I had scarcely seen a single healthy marine creature. The reason was obvious: the whale pod. Their indiscriminate tyranny and slaughter had made any proper ecosystem impossible. Even the few that survived were somehow forced into their ranks by methods I could not fathom, until the only living things that still moved through these waters were myself and that murderous pod.
This sea was by no means small. If left unchecked, their evil would inevitably spread to other oceans. I had asked Jonon three questions before. The first was the name of this sea. His answer had been “the First Sea, or the Primeval Sea.” The words had stirred memories of Earth’s own oceans—the East, West, and South Seas that embraced Korea, named simply by direction. The Black Sea. The Mediterranean—literally “sea in the middle of the land.” Most names, it seemed, were born from geography or distinctive traits.
So what meaning lay behind the title First Sea, or Primeval Sea? Jonon’s second answer had revealed it. This was the ocean born alongside the Water Spirit King himself. In other words, it was truly the first sea created in this world. Like so many things, being first carried profound significance.
Yet that same sea was now dying, its death brought by a pod of red-eyed whales. When I asked my third question—seeking information on those crimson eyes—Jonon could only shake his head. “All the nearby land is forest,” he had said. “It may simply never have reached us because no humans ever set foot there.” But I considered another possibility. What if it was knowledge lost only to Jonon’s generation? Fantasy and science-fiction stories often featured ancient civilizations that spanned eons. Even on Earth we had the Seven Wonders and Atlantis. Could the red-eyed pod be some remnant of a forgotten age?
Nothing was certain. The one thing I knew without doubt was that their advance had to be stopped. After hearing Jonon’s tale, I made a silent vow: no more small-scale skirmishes. The one-horned whale seemed to have sensed that resolve as well.
Not long after, from the lightless depths, multiple red glares drew near.
Rumble……
The sound was so deep it felt as though the very seabed were quaking—an illusion strong enough to suggest an undersea earthquake. Yet I knew at once the noise did not come from the earth. It was the sound of an army on the march. Countless crustaceans clad in rock-like armor scraped their legs across the ocean floor as they crawled upward from the abyss, their advance a grim funeral dirge.
Shwaaaaa—
Next came a sound like a whirlpool tearing itself apart. That, too, was the cadence of marching feet—thousands of enormous finned fish slicing through the water.
Rumble……
Finally, a roar as if the sea itself were being shaken. Their leader, the narwhal, was rising.
From fish no larger than compact cars to whales the size of cruise ships, the legion that ruled these waters had left its territory and was coming for me. I waited for them calmly. No—I was not merely waiting. They were an army. I stood alone. I possessed the Azure Dragon’s power known as Water Resonance, yet my enemies were creatures of the sea. Using water against beings that lived and breathed it was far from wise.
So I changed my approach. I would change the battlefield itself—make it favor me.
Earlier, when I had gone to rescue Jonon at Rachel’s request, rain had begun to fall in the forest. Rain was water; therefore it answered my power. While gliding through those drops, I had discovered that the rain itself acted as an invisible platform. What I was doing now was calling that same rain into being.
Unfortunately, the sky today was painfully clear.
It would not stay that way. I would change it.
I was not simply waiting with leisure. Just as I had done when first awakening Water Resonance, I began sealing my senses one by one. A dark world unfolded before me—the landscape I had come to call the Mental World.
The Mental World had changed slightly since my last visit. Countless ripples of water filled every direction, each one a body of water I could command. I focused my will and sent it flowing into those waves.
Create clouds. Bring rain.
But the waters did not obey at once. They wavered, sending back hesitant, uncertain ripples. For a moment I was puzzled—until I felt the emotion behind the hesitation.
Doubt.
I realized what I had truly commanded. Perform the providence of nature. That had been my order. As I had said before, rain was water. At least one among these waters had become rain in the past. Yet it had not done so through conscious effort. It had happened naturally, like instinct or cosmic law.
A similar example would be asking a small child to throw a tantrum. A hungry baby or one needing a diaper change will cry on its own. I had demanded tears without first creating the conditions that would make them natural. I needed to satisfy those conditions—show the desired toy, offer the tickle that would provoke laughter or frustration.
In that case… Yes. Let’s recall what I learned in science class.
The principle of weather. The one nearly everyone knows.
Water vapor gathers, forms clouds, and when those clouds grow heavy, they fall as rain.
This time I gave the waters a far more specific command than before.
Divide your bodies until you become light. Raise your own temperature. Then meet one another in the sky. Continue until you grow heavy enough to fall naturally.
The waters began to respond. Lighter and hotter, they transformed into vapor and rose. The change happened so violently that the air near the surface grew hot and humid in moments. Soon, where there had been no clouds at all, small white clusters appeared. Those clusters darkened, swelled, and became massive thunderheads of deep gray.
Kurrrr……
Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance as the storm clouds formed. The wind strengthened, churning the sea into violent waves.
Shwaaaaa……
And then the rain began to fall.
At the same moment, they revealed themselves.
On the right, the dorsal fin of a shark the size of a house. On the left, a giant hermit crab large as a small island. In the center, the narwhal itself rose, its colossal body filling my vision and shaking the ocean.
This is the first time I’ve faced it directly.
Seen up close, its face was even more overwhelming. The enormous horn that had been visible from afar still thrust skyward like a spear aimed at heaven. Its hide was covered in countless scars, the mark of a veteran who had survived endless battles long before I arrived. Dozens of jagged teeth glinted like crudely forged blades. And those crimson eyes—those eyes made the whale look every inch an overlord, a conqueror.
Its gaze refused defeat. Power overflowed from every inch of its body, craving victory. The creature might possess reason, but it was a being that had waged countless wars in this world. It wielded a frame easily twice the length of my own eighty meters with casual grace.
Every part of that body must be steeped in experience.
Even so, I did not believe I would lose. Even as I met those hostile stares, not a single ripple disturbed my mind. Was this yet another ability of the Azure Dragon?
No.
This was simply my own resolve. In a short time I had grown tremendously. I had begun to cultivate power no human could imagine, and I had trained both mind and spirit to match it. I did not yet seek to become a god. For now, I was satisfied with who I had become—and that satisfaction would become my strength.
Shwaaaaa!!
The waters that had answered my call drenched my scales as rain. Each droplet seemed to carry their encouragement.
Yes. I was not alone. These droplets, this rain, this sea itself stood with me.
I would defeat them and become the new master of these waters.
And so the battle began.