Wizard of the Abyss – Ch. 174

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 174 - Resident (10)

You can’t defeat an opponent you can’t see.

However, now that its body was finally caught within my sight—in my Tide Sense did I scan it properly.

And immediately, something about it felt off.

'...It’s smaller than I thought.'

Click, click. 

The sharp claws were still deadly even while coated in viscous mucus. They were thick enough to crush my skull with ease.

But when I spread my Tide Sense around it, the actual size felt smaller than what it appeared to be.

Was it just my imagination? Before I could dwell on it, the sight of the Slow Fish frothing in rage snapped me back to reality.

There were only two ways to counter my Tide Sense that was close to omnipotent. Either hide, or….

-Woosh!

"Kgh!"

...be so fast that even seeing you wouldn’t help.

Perhaps angry at having fallen into a trap, the Slow Fish unleashed a far more violent assault. Even reacting purely on what my Tide Sense reported back, it was still too slow. 

Like knowing exactly when someone would pull a trigger didn’t mean one could survive the gunshot, I shouldn’t have been able to survive the Slow Fish’s attacks.

Yes, I really shouldn’t have.

[???]

Seeing me dodge its claws far more cleanly than before, the Slow Fish flailed its legs irritably.

A monster like that couldn’t possibly fail to realize how slow I was compared to it.

Using currents to push and pull myself just to evade was a skill that bordered on impossibility. From its perspective, this should’ve ended already.

And yet, even after ten minutes, I was still dodging every single attack.

Not only that.

[...!!]

-Krrrk

Suddenly, it frantically crouched down.

It had felt a wound in its abdomen.

"So it really is there.”

I lowered my right hand, unable to hide a trace of disappointment.

The only part not protected by its carapace. The stomach.

I’d tried to pierce and destroy it in one strike, but even unarmored flesh wasn’t that easy to break. It would take at least three stabs to rupture it completely.

[...]

The moment its stomach was wounded, the Slow Fish reacted completely differently from before.

It curled up like an armadillo, quietly sweeping me with its Tide Sense without making any of the frantic clacking sounds it emitted before.

It was trying to figure out how I was dodging its attacks and what trick I used to pull this off.

A duel in the Abyssal might actually be closer to poker, where both sides know the cards in play.

Except every time I laid down a hand, it turned out to be something entirely different from what it expected. It probably wanted to know what kind of cheat I was using.

"Go ahead. Look as much as you want."

I spread my arms slightly and let it observe me to its heart’s content.

Finding the secret was impossible for it after all.

Because from the moment it entered the range of my Tide Sense, every single one of its attacks was preceded by bubbles.

'I never thought I’d have a reason to thank that thing…’

An ability that ran ahead of my Tide Sense that manifested during my battle with the Lump.

Even if an attack was too fast for me to react to, as long as it moved through the Abyssal Sea, it would inevitably leave behind a current. That was the consequence.

Every time the Slow Fish swung its claws, a faint membrane of water appeared in front of it. The tiny bubbles announcing its attacks revealed exactly where the strike would come from.

You couldn’t dodge a bullet that had already been fired, but if you could read its trajectory, you could prepare sufficiently.

It was still dangerous, but I’d already accepted that the moment I chose to fight this thing.

[...]

Unable to find anything more from me, the Slow Fish finally lowered its claws.

It wouldn’t be able to kill me through close combat, and its weakness had already been exposed.

So, what would it do next? I held my breath and waited for its next move.

[-.-.-..--...]

"Ugh."

My entire body suddenly froze in place.

'So it’s here.’

I gritted my teeth and locked my gaze with the Slow Fish that didn’t seem to have any eyes. Well, maybe it had some. Who knows?

Having realized its hunting style was ineffective, it only had one other option left.

Making use of the power that every deep-sea creature obviously possessed.

Control over currents, Tide Sense.

—and pressure.

The Slow Fish intended to crush me with its own water pressure.

I had assumed as much from the start. Most deep-sea creatures barely used pressure as a weapon, but the whale that lived in the same depths as the Slow Fish relied on overwhelming pressure as its primary means of killing. It would've been stranger if the Slow Fish couldn’t do the same.

The problem was, pressure wasn’t something one could dodge just because one expected it.

When the space one occupied suddenly became similar to the inside of a hydraulic press, how exactly was one supposed to escape?

There was only one way to deal with pressure.

Endure it.

"..."

[...]

Watching the Slow Fish hesitate while holding me in place, I casually waved my arm.

At this level of pressure, I could still escape if I wanted to. I was openly showing that even if it closed in further, I could break free.

My silent provocation seemed to have worked like a charm, seeing that the Slow Fish chose to use more force.

"Hmm..."

As my entire body felt like it was about to be crushed, I smiled.

'From here on, I've got the advantage.'

Why didn’t deep-sea creatures use such overwhelming abilities all the time?

Why didn’t they use this power that could instantly kill their opponent?

The answer was simple.

Using pressure applied the same force to yourself.

It was a double-edged sword. Even the deep-sea creatures couldn’t escape that rule.

The reason the whale could exert such absurd pressure was likely because its massive body was already enduring immense pressure at all times. So even adding just 10% more meant subjecting other creatures to several times the pressure it normally endured.

Considering where the Slow Fish lives and its carapace, even if it wasn’t quite on the whale’s level, it must still be wielding pressure that a human body could never endure.

Right, a human body.

I didn’t have overwhelming armor like the Slow Fish, nor did I have a massive body like that whale. My body was frail and immature, so I would die if crushed under a normal wagon, let alone withstand tens of thousands of tons of water pressure.

And yet, I was standing in the same space as the Slow Fish with that body.

-Crunch!

I chewed through every last World-Sealing Elixir I had and glared at it.

-Gulp

The bastard was still carefully adjusting its pressure.

It was afraid of getting hurt.

[...]

"Why don’t you try a bit harder, huh?”

The moment it realized I was still breathing just fine, it immediately cranked things up.

My chest felt like it was tightening, like I wouldn’t be able to draw another breath.

That was fine. This body wasn’t one that needed to breathe in the first place.

[........]

"Harder."

My robes themselves reduced pressure.

The First Mage, a title that sounded very different to my ears now, wore this, making it a sacred relic. The pressure applied to me was already reduced to one tenth of the normal.

Add to that, my Water Partition was still working overtime around me, reducing the pressure that actually reached my body further.

Even these filtered grains of sand were painful enough to me, but how much pressure was that thing enduring, shouldering not grains but an entire desert on its back?

"Come on, try harder. You’re still a long way off!”

-Crack!

The moment I shouted that, a crack appeared on the Slow Fish’s carapace.

Watching its claws tremble, I could roughly estimate how much pressure it was enduring.

The crack widened, growing to a far bigger size than when it had endured the whale’s pressure.

And through that gap, I saw something.

—Another carapace.

"?"

Even as I endured this pressure that felt like it was about to shatter my bones, I tilted my head in confusion.

A carapace beneath a carapace? Was it molting or something?

Either way, it was clear this was how it endured pressure, so I looked closer.

Only then did I understand what this was.

"No, wait…this bastard…?”

I stared in disbelief as the gap slowly closed again.

That wasn’t a carapace.

Well, technically it was, but if that counted as a carapace, then I could say I had one too.

...The Slow Fish’s outer shell was like my Water Partition.

"Why the hell are you using that?”

I spoke out loud, even knowing it couldn’t answer.

It was absurdly thick, dense, and even had color.

A Water Partition evolved to withstand far greater pressure. Exactly the same method I was using to survive. A diving suit optimized for the Abyssal Sea.

Why? The Water Partition was a world. A human world. Jern’s world.

It wasn’t something some deep-sea creature should be able to use.

But I quickly shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to drown in stray thoughts.

'...So that was why it looked small.'

The Water Partition didn’t block physical impact but only blocked the Abyssal Sea itself.

When I sensed it wrapped in jellyfish mucus, I was only feeling the core body, not the Water Partition, so of course it looked smaller.

In a way, I’d met a comrade, but it didn’t make me happy in the slightest.

If anything, this was really, really bad.

"Could it be…”

I frowned as I watched its Water Partition steadily regenerate, while the pressure itself continued to intensify.

Sure, I had the robe, but my modest Water Partition couldn’t even be compared to that monster’s massive one.

And on top of that, it had regeneration—meaning if this turned into a pure contest of endurance, I’d be the one losing.

Of course, for now it was still easier for me to hold on while the World-Sealing Elixir was in effect.

'This is way more troublesome than I thought.'

At the same time, that just showed how valuable it was.

The Abyssal Sea was vast, but how many beings were surviving using the same method I was?

That thing before me started to look more and more like a wild ginseng.

'If I could catch it…’

I might gain something incomparable to anything so far.

Of course, it probably felt the same way about me. Whether it was hostility or instinct, its fixation on me was just as great, if not greater, than mine on it.

Still, there was one decisive difference between us—

I wasn’t afraid of being crushed.

"Well then, let’s see this through…”

[...?!]

Even while being crushed by pressure, I expanded my own pressure outward, pressing back against it.

The sudden doubling of the pressure, both mine and this, sent blood surging up my throat.

This wasn't about breathing anymore. I could feel my living body being converted into a lump of flesh.

I’d shoved myself into an inescapable hell.

[...!]

The Slow Fish writhed in pain as well.

The ambient pressure of this depth, the pressure it was exerting on me, and my pressure on top of it. I wasn’t the only one being crushed threefold.

Of course, if someone shattered here, it wouldn’t be both of us.

It would be me who’d die here.

It would just be immobilized.

"Ugh, cough...!"

My vision turned pure white.

The liquid running from my eyes was far too hot and thick to be tears.

Even so, I endured the sensation of my fingers twisting out of shape and reached forward.

It was the finger wrapped in thread.

[?]

Unlike the Slow Fish, which simply couldn’t understand my movement, I was confident.

'For some reason, Puppet’s power doesn’t really require consent in the Abyssal Sea.’

Normally, Puppet’s power required the target’s agreement.

Without it, all you would get was a crude puppet moved by force, and with the amount of thread I had, that shouldn’t even be possible.

However, strangely, I was able to command every deep-sea creature without their consent at all.

As if every deep-sea creature had already consented to that act.

'There’s no way that’s true, though. …'

But until now, it had worked every time.

Would the Slow Fish be any different?

[...]

It flinched, cautiously watching the thread as it crept toward its head.

If it wanted to, it could have released the pressure and cut it, but instead—it swept my slowly breaking body with its Tide Sense.

In the end, that was all it did about it.

Its judgement was reasonable. Rather than wasting its attention on a mere thread extended by a dying thing, it chose to finish things decisively with pressure.

A final dagger is, at best, just a dagger. It probably thought it could endure something as pathetic as that…

Coughing up blood, I muttered through clenched teeth.

"...You really haven’t learned anything.”

Slow fish.

A fish that was slow.

Maybe that name didn’t refer to its movement, but to its learning speed.

[!?]

The thread made contact, coiling around the Slow Fish’s head.

At the same moment, my strength finally gave out. Grabbing my spinning head as I collapsed, I forced out a single word.

"...Release.”

A word with no object nor explanation.

It only contained meaning.

And that meaning was cleanly conveyed to it.

-Sssssrrrk...

[...??!!!!!!!]

The Slow Fish gaped as it watched its Water Partition vanish from its body like smoke.

Even though it just dispelled it itself, it clearly didn’t understand why it was doing so.

"Khg, kugh…”

The pressure disappeared the instant the Slow Fish’s Water Partition vanished. Freed at last, I slumped to the canyon floor.

My bones were thoroughly shattered. Every single movement sent pain through me, but I forced myself upright using the currents.

'It’s not over yet.'

Even without a Water Partition, that didn’t automatically mean its death. This was phase two. A fight against the Slow Fish without pressure.

The ideal outcome would be ordering it to kill itself, but who knew if it would obey? I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stand properly.

"...Huh?”

My resolve fell flat as I saw the Slow Fish fleeing.

More precisely, now visible to the naked eye, the red-bodied Slow Fish turned away and was struggling desperately to put distance between us.

But that didn’t matter. I stared, dumbfounded, at its much smaller retreating form.

"So that’s why you’re called Slow Fish…”

It was still really sturdy.

But…

Watching it take a full 30 seconds just to move a single foreleg, I finally let out a breath of relief.

Slow learner, my ass.

...It was actually just slow.

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