'Aika snap out of it!'~

I immediately reached out to Ino, who was still swimming toward the voice while dragging Dion with her.

Grabbing her hand, I yanked her hard, stopping her forward momentum. I immediately spun around and began swimming frantically back toward the shore, dragging both of them with me.

"Huh? Aren't we checking out the voice again?" Ino asked, her tone confused and eerily calm. She clearly still seemed to be under the compulsion.

I couldn't reply to her. My arms were burning from the effort: Celeste's dead weight on one arm and Ino and Dion on the other. I began to groan as I struggled to push all of us forward through the water. The only small mercy was that Ino didn't struggle and just confusingly allowed me to drag her and Dion.

Then, all of a sudden, the angelic, beautiful voice singing behind us instantly shattered, turning into the most horrific scream I had ever heard in my entire life. Immediately after, the water in the far distance erupted, as if something enormous was suddenly lunging toward us.

'Fuck!'

I took a quick glance back, then my gaze shifted to the three people I was dragging with me. And then I suddenly began to question why the hell I was carrying this many burdens.

'Why am I doing this? I would be faster if I tried to escape on my own…'

I thought about it, and in that brief moment, I found an answer.

The harsh truth was, if I abandoned them now, they would all die. But I couldn't do it. I wasn't a monster who would let people die if I had even the slightest chance of helping them.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed faster.

Then, right at that moment, Celeste woke up. Her eyes fluttered open, and a confused expression quickly formed on her face. "Big brother?"

I looked at her, then blurted out before I could stop myself. "Finally!"

Then I looked back ahead and quickly added. "Can you swim fine on your own?!"

She had already begun thrashing her legs and eased the strain on my arm by swimming alongside me.

"Yes I can, but… what is happening?"

"There's no time to explain, just swim as fast as you can."

She immediately looked ahead and tried to move faster through the cold water.

With every passing second, I could feel the siren getting closer.

I quickly looked at the map. The Siren was now just a few meters behind us. At this rate, it would catch up to us in less than a minute, before we could reach the shore, which was now tantalizingly close.

"Take them and get to the shore!" I yelled as I suddenly released my hold on Ino and Dion.

Celeste's eyes widened in fear. "What?!"

"At this rate, we'd all be killed by that monster. Take them and move! I'll try to slow it down."

"No!" Celeste shook her head and began to cry. "I'm not leaving you, Brother…"

'Huh? What do you mean, you are not leaving me? Where was this loyalty when Cedric was being maltreated and sold off to die?!' The bitter thought flashed through my mind, quickly smothered by the urgency of survival.

I gritted my teeth, then yelled, "Go!"

When she still hesitated, I swam closer to her and gripped her shoulders, shaking her slightly. I lowered my voice, adding, "Please... go..."

I then quickly swam away from her, directly toward the approaching creature.

Hesitantly, and crying, she reached out and grabbed Ino by the hand, then began swimming as fast as she could toward the shore.

She had barely gone a few meters when a terrifying monster suddenly lunged out of the water right in front of me.

I froze in terror because it was the most appalling thing I had ever seen. It had the lower body of a fish with the upper body of a woman. Its blue skin was rotten and peeled in places and decorated with scales.

Its face was the most horrifying part. Its eyes and nose were sealed shut with its skin, and its wide mouth revealed rows of enormous, needle-like teeth.

Seeing the monster turning in the air to descend on me, I quickly reached out my hand and yelled, "Come, Aika!"

But...

Aika did not come.

Instead she began to mutter in confusion: 'Uh… uh… huh?'~~

At her response, my eyes widened in a sickening realization: This woman was still under the Siren's enthrallment.

'Shit!'

I raised my left hand to activate my exclusive skill, but before I could even complete the gesture, the Siren descended with terrifying speed. Its two massive claws gripped tightly onto my sides, and it dragged me into the water below with such force and speed that the air was violently knocked out of my lungs.

I began to thrash and twist violently to free myself as its iron-hard grip tightened on me. I couldn't breathe, and dark spots immediately began to dance before my eyes as we plunged into the crushing blackness of the deep.

'Aika! Aika!'~ I screamed internally, a desperate, silent plea, but got no response.

Then, right above me, the creature's jaw suddenly dropped horrifyingly wide, as if the sides of its mouth were tearing to reveal even more jagged teeth. It raised its head to bite mine off.

Panicked, I yelled, and my mind instantly went into hyper-mode. Since my hands were held tightly to my sides by its iron grip, I instinctively activated my exclusive skill through my mouth. Like breathing fire, an eerie, cold black flame burst out, instantly engulfing the creature's head.

It immediately let go of me and began to writhe violently, its horrifying scream muffled by the water as the black flames consumed its face.

Seeing that, I was momentarily shocked. I hadn't even known my flames could burn underwater, let alone be activated through my mouth.

The creature began to swing its claws desperately and wildly, and then… with a burst of furious motion, it lunged at me in a violent, lethal sweep aimed to tear me apart.

I kicked as hard as I could in the water, simultaneously pivoting, and barely managed to avoid being beheaded. Its claws still swept across my arm, leaving deep, ragged cuts and a sickening crunch of broken bone. The water around me immediately turned a hazy, bloody red.

Excruciating pain exploded through my limb, and coupled with the fact that I couldn't breathe, my lungs felt like they were on actual fire.

The creature, momentarily abandoning its attack, resumed clutching its burning head while letting out a high-pitched scream of agony. The black flames had already burned the skin clean off its face, leaving behind a grotesque, skeletal skull that was now horribly on fire underwater.

At this point, I felt my vision slowly fading. I was losing consciousness rapidly from the lack of air and the shock of the broken limb, and I began to sink helplessly deeper under the water.

I could hear the creature shriek again, but I could no longer see it. I could no longer see anything.

But just before my consciousness completely faded, I felt a soft hand wrap around my waist from behind and a body leaned against me. Then everything went black.

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