A quick stream of a blue-white bubbles flew toward the black-striped kraken and Henry watched carefully. When the bubbles were about to hit the shimmer of his Telekinesis, he dropped the skill.

  The kraken’s arms spread wide as it prepared to propel itself away, spitting out a cloud of orange-tinged ink that made the bubbles pop on contact. A few of Maurice’s bubbles flew through, untouched by the strange ink cloud, and hit their target.

  The kraken jerked and recoiled as chunks of its flesh were torn out of its arms and stomach. After a few tentative movements, it managed to drift away from the path of the remaining bubbles.

  Henry braced, telling Maurice to wait, and they both watched the kraken.

  The monster stared down at them, its limbs shuddering with pain and leaking blue blood. Henry didn’t need Telepathic Sense to guess the mood of the kraken.

  Its skin was turning pitch black. The stripes took on an ominous yellow hue that seemed to dance along with the large yellow eyes glaring down at them. It floated above them. Not swimming. Not attacking. And when Henry met the kraken’s eyes, his stomach clenched.

  This thing was a bit more intelligent than he expected and through Telepathic Sense, he felt something that shouldn’t be possible for something running on instinct.

  Anger. Hostility. And as he stared up at the glaring creature, he felt something else.

  Outrage? No. That makes no sense…

  This wasn’t the behavior of a simple monster, and that unnerved him.

  The yellow eyes turned black. The color spread from the eyes to take over all of its body and then… it dissolved.

  Henry watched, eyes wide, as the cloud of ink slowly dispersed, carried away by the ocean current, leaving nothing behind.

  “[Maurice, keep an eye out. I don’t think it’s over.]”

  Henry swam closer to the hermit crab, and they both furtively squinted and peered around. The waters were quiet. The sparse stalks of kelp gently swayed along with the waves. Henry could hear some faint seal calls, but nothing else moved.

  All the while, one thought kept repeating in his head, and he didn’t want it to be right.

  The kraken had dissolved. Like it had been made of ink.

  It may have been an Ink Clone.

  ***

  After a few minutes passed with nothing jumping on them, Henry picked up Maurice and moved further toward the island.

  The water tasted like sulfur and the seabed rose, while the kelp grew thicker. It grew up to spread along the water surface, making the water dark and green.

  Henry kept sending Ink Clones in random directions, taking sharp turns every few minutes, hoping they weren’t being followed.

  His mind whispered to him he was, so he continued swimming. He knew he ought to stay close and hunt some krakens. There were cores and powers to gain, but the last encounter had unnerved him. He wanted to find some place to collect himself, recover, prepare, then try to face the Trickster kraken.

  If it really had been the one that’d been stalking him for a few days, then either it was tracking him, somehow, or it had a way of finding him. He didn’t like either of those options.

  Before Henry could continue his train of thought, Maurice lifted both pincers and Henry tensed.

  “[What’s going on? Do you see it?]”

  Henry was ready to lash out at anything that moved, but Maurice lifted a left pincer. Then, with its right, it pointed downward and to the left.

  ...What is that?

  Henry swam low, closer to the odd stony perch, and looked down.

  It was as if they were hovering above some sort of underwater canyon.

  Luminescent spires filled his vision, stretching forward into the deep, dark waters. Every hundred feet or so there was a spire, and something seemed to move within them.

  Peering over the ledge from which they watched this odd place, Henry first felt the water warm up, then noticed the repeating marks on the rocky bed. It was everywhere. As if something had–with endless patience–carved out the stone and rocks to create this trench.

  “[Do you know what did this?]”

  Maurice was staring at the spires. It lifted a left pincer for no, without looking away, and Henry felt wonder from the crab.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Henry glanced behind, then let himself drift down to approach one of the spires.

  The water warmed up even more. The spires were large. Easily around 50 feet high and 10 feet wide at their base. They looked like they had been made of molten glass that’d been spat out one layer at a time, causing the structure to have an oddly dovetailed pattern.

  As he got close, he noticed tunnels running up and down the glass-like spires. A liquid, red-hot, was flowing up along the construct, cooling off, then flowing back down as grey-tinted metallic liquid. Henry used Identify.

  [Glass Cooling Tower]

  “[What in the–]”

  The words caught in his mind when a red hue approached from behind an even larger spire. Henry braced, ready to run, and pointed Maurice in its direction. A blue light began to collect around the hermit crab’s mandibles.

  They both held their breath. Waiting. And then…

  An ant stepped out.

  Henry lowered Maurice as he took in the nonsensical vision.

  The ant was glowing red. Water rippled around it, boiling away and drifting up. When it walked, its feet never left the stony seabed. Its large head swivelled and flattened, and short antennas twitched. It looked like a soldier-ant, around four feet long, and it froze when it saw them.

  [Lava Soldier Ant (E) - Lvl ???]

  The ant lifted its head and let out a series of clicks. A second later, more clicks sounded from the other spires, and red lights began appearing all around them.

  “[Time to go, Maurice.]”

  Henry picked up the crab, beginning to swim up, and came face to face with a large black beak at the center of eight arms.

  Shit–

  Henry pushed against the kraken with Telekinesis and threw himself back, whipping with a bladed arm as he did.

  His arm cut fully through one of the kraken’s limbs, but one of his got bit right as Maurice spat out his imploding bubbles.

  A searing pain pulsed in Henry’s arm and he grimaced. Meanwhile the kraken got pelted by the bubbles before it dissolved into ink again, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

  Shards of glowing objects were flying up and around them, and Henry didn’t want to get hit by any of the lava ants’ projectiles as he carried Maurice above the ledge and went back to the kelp area. A minute later, both flopped down to the sandy bed. Henry grunted at the venom pulsing in his limb, but it wasn’t too dangerous so he refrained from using Regenerate or from severing the limb, and instead, he left it as a workout for Toxin Resistance.

  Henry looked down at the concerned crab. “[We’re not going to be left alone for a bit, I think. We’ll need to start sleeping and resting in turns.]”

  Maurice shuffled in place, looking around, then raised both pincers hesitantly.

  “[Hmm… Not sure what you mean. You don’t understand what resting in turns mean?]”

  Maurice raised both pincers, expressing doubt, so Henry explained the concept, after which the crab agreed to the decision.

  “[First, we need to work on communication, so I’m going to try making you something with shapeshift. Hopefully, we can transfer Telepathy to you.]”

  With Maurice posted up to keep watch, Henry brought the tip of an intact limb in front of him and began considering how he should go about it. It wasn’t guaranteed that he'd be able to shape and compose the arm like he wanted to, but if this Shapeshifting Arm allowed him to play with organic matter, then he should aim for bone, or keratin. He hoped the skill didn’t need his control on the molecular level because, if so, he was screwed.

  Henry exhaled, then activated the ability.

  A world of possibilities exploded in Henry’s mind. It was as if he just plugged into an encyclopedia of knowledge, but it wasn’t any information he could use. An endless amount of options, of organic compositions and customization flashed through his mind in a fraction of a second, and he couldn’t even remember what he’d been planning on doing. He was bombarded with the possibilities that Shapeshifting Arm allowed him, and then–

  He was kicked out.

  Henry found himself panting, with his limb still held in front of him. He tried to put it down, but his limbs weren’t obeying him like they should. He was woozy and it was as if there was a gaping hole in the middle of his chest.

  He was out of mana. Or nearly out.

  Henry blinked dumbly for a few seconds, trying to breath, then turned to Maurice.

  “[Was I quiet for long? Has been long since I got started?]”

  Henry felt a burst of surprise from Telepathic Sense. Maurice slowly turned to him, then lifted a left pincer for no.

  Henry stared back, then rubbed his head with an arm. “[The skill’s difficult to use. It used up most of my mana just to access it. I guess I froze up, and I ended up wasting it. We’ll try again once I recover my mana. Are you okay with keeping watch?]”

  Maurice was quick to agree, so he tried to meditate. He couldn’t allow himself to get too low, not when they were being stalked.

  Henry eyed the crab, and then the calm dark green waters around him.

  Should I start working on the next level 100? I already maxed the stats I can afford. I probably could still get some achievements for more Evolutionary Points. But…

  The stalking kraken was worrying him. He was happy with the serpent achievement. He would totally have gone back for the Goliath kraken, but the more he thought of the Trickster, the more worried he was getting.

  Henry was 99% sure they’d now been attacked twice by Ink Clones. In contrast, his own skill, at E-Rank, could only summon clones with the consistency of smoke that could only distract. If this was, in fact, the Ink Clone skill that was summoning D-Rank copies that could fight and use skills… Henry had to tread lightly and he had to prepare.

  Sooner or later, the original kraken was going to show up. And that didn’t feel like a fight he could win just yet.

  Drayce, Poly, EaterOfTheDead

  If you want to fuel me with a cup of coffee, there's . I use the new subscription model, so you will not get double billed on the first of the month.