Henry didn’t want to teleport to the new target, opting to swim toward it and approach it slowly with his mana signature camouflaged, considering it had already shot out his clones as soon as he tried to talk to it. Much like a weaker specimen he’d encountered in the past, it was smaller than the creatures they usually hunted, though everything it had lost in weight and size it made up for in the piss and vinegar that seemed to circulate its wispy and wiry body.

  The slow swim had some consequences though. Especially on a certain someone’s patience, and once more, Henry was being tempted to drop the Maurice in the depth and let him swim by his own damn self if it meant he’d stop pestering him. Henry had wanted to make it a surprise, especially how much a pest the weaker cousin of the creature had been, but the crab woke up and decided to be annoying today.

  “[Are we there yet? Are we there yet? It’s annoying, isn’t it? Just like refusing to tell me. Just tell me what it is and I’ll stop. It’s easy, see? So? What is it?]”

  He kept poking Henry with a claw as they made their way around the edge of the Current.

  “[What you’re doing is called blackmail, you little shit,]” Henry grumbled without sparing the crab a look. “[And if you don’t stop it I’m chucking you in my Maw and you’re not getting to fight.]”

  The seabed had been rising pretty aggressively for the last few minutes, and there was a little taste of sulfur about which told him there was some pretty active volcanic formation below. So it was no surprise that the area was chock-full of life that had adapted to what otherwise might have been a hostile environment for most. Between the small critters, the algae, and the coral, it was a pretty busy reef and by now, as he neared the territory of the wispy creature, they were around a third of a mile from the surface.

  It was high enough for the light of day to reach them. Giving the crab a sidelong glance after having ignored his shenanigans for the last couple of minutes, Henry slowed down and approached a particularly tall peak covered with pale curly strands of seaweed and came to a stop.

  “[You’re about to see it. That way,]” Henry said, pointing at a little, barely visible elongated form drifting along the sparse columns of seaweed. It was slightly taller than the average man—excluding the flowing appendages. It had the body shape of leafy seadragon, with algae-like appendages that would have made it difficult to see if it wasn’t for the fact that it was literally glowing, as if daring anything or anyone to come into its territory.

  “[I already Identified it with a clone. Which pissed it off. Level 17 Stinglance, just like that bastard from a couple months back. With the venoms.]”

  The creature had shown up as [Wyrdkelp Stinglance Tyrant (A) - Level 17], and the ‘Stinglance’ part had been familiar, with this creature most likely sharing the same species as the seahorse they had fought before the duel with Tevarius. So they should be expecting plenty of painful venoms, and an extremely aggressive demeanor. Which would work for Henry, as he wanted to study his own venom production and get some data for his own work on the custom Toxic Ray project.

  “[I’m ready!]” said Maurice, though he could sense some hesitation under the bravado. And a second later, Henry’s guess was proven right. “[But… are you sure we can deal with this one? It feels… dangerous.]”

  Henry eyed the creature from afar. The high Perception allowed him to see it from a safe enough distance without risking the monster seeing through his stealth. Oh, he bet it wasn’t going to be easy. This thing was about to show them hell and in fact, he was going to give Velistraine a heads-up so they wouldn’t get too far away, just in case the encounter lasted longer than expected. But this fight won’t be easy. There was no cheat-code to this fight. No way to hide on its body and slowly damage it over minutes or hours. It was nimble and small enough to throw all of that out of the window.

  “[It won’t be easy. But if it gets bad, we bail.]”

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  With one last deep breath and one last adjustment—mainly making himself a little smaller so that his tricks didn’t get turned against him—Henry slipped past the rocks, shedding his stealth as he swam toward the seahorse

  It wasn’t as if he’d be able to get much close with it without the monster noticing it anyway.

  The change was immediate. The water and stalks of pale algae grew agitated as the eerily still seahorse slowly turned to face their approach and a beat later, the first projectile shot out of its snout without preambles or warning, a little, sickly-yellow needle that promised an unimaginable amount of pain.

  ***

  After two minutes in the fight, Henry was already having second thoughts.

  The seahorse was relentless, zipping from one spot to the next like some sort of dragonfly hopped up on caffeine. It was bouncing all over the place, never giving them a chance to rest or get a hit in lest they’d be pin-cushioned. The only way Henry was keeping it off of him was thanks to a generous use of his dashing and teleporting abilities. Its venoms—while mainly the same as the version he’d encountered before aside from the soporific element—was leaps and bounds beyond anything he’d felt at B-rank. It wasn’t just burning into his body. He could feel it gnawing and biting on his soul, trying to spread into his spirit and dissolve him from the inside out, so a decent chunk of his mana was being continuously burned by Trickster’s Fortitude, while his analysis Octominds got the task of figuring out a way to break down foreign venoms faster.

  “[I’m not going to have any Aspect essence in five minutes at most!]” Maurice shouted in his head as he barely managed to clip the seahorse with his pinpoint bubbles, but that only managed to twist the leaf-like appendage, not even rip it, and Henry cursed. They’d already tried holding it still with Telekinesis—even while empowering it with Aspects—and it was almost like trying to imprison an enraged rat a in paper-thin cardboard box. The damn monster literally punched through the restraint and Henry was still nursing the backlash in the back of his head. But he hadn’t used everything he had. He believed he could lock it for a second, but they’d have to make it count.

  “[Whatever happens, this is going to be—” Henry cut himself off, teleporting away as the seahorse shotgun-blasted the whole space where he’d been a moment ago, shredding four of his clones all at once. “[— a short fight anyway. I can’t keep going like this for long either. Especially when I can’t get an arm on it to steal its mana. Taking it from the environment is nowhere fast enough. I can try to lock it and we wail on it for however long that lasts.]”

  “[Okay! I’ll start changing. Tell me when!]” shouted Maurice as they once more teleported away, though not before two more darts sunk in the back of Henry’s head. They punctured through the skin easily enough, but they didn’t punch further in. Not that that was the goal. Getting through the skin’s enough to deliver their payload, and it made the back of his head go numb as well as flare up in pain all at once before the green Octomind who’d forgone taking form worked on stopping the venom.

  It was a mess. It was hectic as hell. But Henry would be lying if he said it wasn’t fun.

  Still, even if he managed to lock the A-rank for a few seconds, he frankly doubted it’d be that easy to kill. It being wispy and flimsy-looking didn’t mean it wasn’t tough. Maybe not as tough as himself considering it seemed it had put all of its efforts in mobility and offense, but it wouldn’t have survived if it had just offense in its arsenal.

  Well, no time to waste, Henry told himself as he pulled on his Octominds, stopping anything that wasn’t keeping him alive from taking any of the bandwidth. His research and tests would have to wait. For now, they were making one big attempt and if that didn’t pan out, they were skedaddling.

  Letting all of his Octominds dig into Thaumaturgy, 7 minds—one had to stay on healing—activated their Telekinesis while Henry channeled everything he had in a Lightning Discharge to crisp the seahorse ten-times over. He’d considered using his envenomed mana for a second, but it really wouldn’t surprise him if this thing was immune.

  With everything ready, Henry let out a slow breath as he dodged one last time, then he shouted as purple lights bloomed out of his skin. “[Now!]”

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