Henry cursed profusely as he threw caution to the wind and started dumping all his arsenal of venoms into the open wound he’d dug up, which broke the squid out of its panicked state.

  The timing was infuriating. But at least his mana was back to full thanks to the squid’s prodigious reserves.

  The whole shoal shuddered as their conductor finally moved, roused from their click-induced trance. But even though the giant under Henry half-heartedly swatted at him a couple of times, its concern was more aimed at their known predator which had decimated two-thirds of their population barely days ago.

  The clicks were getting louder and more frequent, and Henry would be sweating buckets right now if he hadn’t been underwater.

  Would he manage to kill this thing before the cachalots appeared? He’d hate to leave empty-handed. A B-rank core would speed up his progress tremendously and, with enough power, he could take all the time needed to study and experiment with concepts and constructs.

  He was so damn close.

  With his beak, he bit deeper into the soft innards of the squid and applied his Bite skill with an infusion of Hunger. The squid’s flesh parted like butter under a hot knife as his beak tore through its tissues and injected concept-empowered venoms into its bloodstream.

  The squid flailed violently and shot through the water. It activated its speeding abilities, but Henry was grabbing on tight and there was no scenario where the squid would be able shake him off. Especially now that it was becoming clear the squid’s strength was in their numbers, not necessarily in their individuals.

  True, it was still a B-rank, but it wasn’t as powerful on its own as Henry or Sunspots were.

  With a quick strike, Henry hammered at the edge of the hole he dug. With the first cavitational impact, the hole’s edge showed thin hairline cracks, but with the second and third, shell debris broke out and flew off, revealing an off-white, almost translucent flesh beneath. Henry slipped one of his two larger arms within, shaping a few joints as he did. With great effort, he started tearing into the squid’s innards with the leviathan’s fang.

  One of the other conductors took over control of the squids as the one under Henry jerked and twitched as it began taking the threat on top of its back seriously. But it was already too late.

  Henry had injected a lot of venom, and any C-rank would have already been severely crippled by such toxins, but the B-rank was tough. Still, if it dropped to the seabed fast enough, he might be able to slip away.

  The squid drove itself into the dark reddish stone of the giant embankment that made up the Current’s border, but Henry was small and tough enough to endure the attempt.

  Come on. Die, you giant slug.

  The water tasted of dust and iron as the squid dragged itself out of the stone wall while Henry continued carving into its insides. It was slowing, thankfully, and Henry kept his eyes on his surroundings. He noticed a couple of interesting notifications, but he couldn’t react to them as, out of the murk and bright lights of the Current, the first of the giant shapes came through and began swimming toward the shoal.

  Fuuuck me.

  Henry went all out and began striking with his arm inside the squid’s body. With every implosion the squid shuddered, but Henry couldn’t keep his attention on his victim.

  He couldn’t look away from the giant shapes that had begun surrounding the shoal of squids. They were still a bit of a distance away, but Henry couldn’t tell if his situation was much better. Clearly, he preferred staying as far away as possible from the large predators, but he also didn’t like how conspicuous he was. A large, B-rank squid twitching and flailing to the side was a recipe for disaster. As soon as one of the cachalots even began thinking of coming near him, he’d have to skedaddle.

  Henry didn’t care if they were intelligent. Those things were too damn powerful and smart for him. If they decided he was lunch, there was little he could do about it. But thankfully, things might not need to get that far.

  Below him, the squid was spasming and twitching less. A few more seconds—or a minute at worst—and he’d be able to get the hell out.

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  One of the whales clicked, and Henry shuddered at the uncomfortable pain that flashed through his body. The shoal—much closer to the sonic attack—lost their cohesiveness for a second, flailing in place and losing their momentum. They recovered fast, but that wasn’t enough.

  The whales tore into the shoal. Their large jaws snapped on the largest specimens, instantly crushing the black and white shells. A trail of blood, ink, and viscera trailed after the dying prey as Henry beat on his victim, urging it to die fast. He didn’t stop his efforts to hollow out the squid’s inside, and just as one of the three whales began swimming lower, Henry got the notification.

  1x [Orthoceras Conductor Squid (B) - Level 3] Core was collected.

  Henry wrenched his arm out of the squid’s innards. A spray of viscera, blood, and partially digested matter geysered out along with his arm as the kraken detached himself from the shell and then—

  Henry disappeared.

  The cloud of organic matter parted as he shot out and away after activating Invisibility. The ability was still in his ephemerals and he was happy to get it, but he couldn’t celebrate anything.

  Henry wanted to scream, because as he swam away from the carcass of the squid that he left for the whale, the giant twisted and followed him. Then it clicked.

  The sound was like a shockwave that delivered a small electric shock to everything it touched.

  It was incredibly painful, especially considering he was the direct target of the attack. To make matters worse, Henry could feel the monster’s thoughts.

  It was curious, and it was hungry.

  The clicks were almost unbearable, but it didn’t stop his movement so Henry continued pumping his arms and shoving water out of his siphon as swam upward as fast as possible. The cachalot followed and, worst of all, it was gaining on him.

  How is it tracking me?

  Was it echolocation? Was it some other weird sense? Henry wished he could swap places with his clones. At least only one was following him. A B-rank, still, but he had a good chance of getting out of this.

  Henry pulled whatever remained in Shiftiness and Misdirection and shoved them into Invisibility. To his alarm, he wasn’t able to push everything into the skill. He couldn’t focus on the sensation much, but it felt like he just tried to pour a full coffee pot into a teacup.

  As an ephemeral skill, the construct was probably not capable of handling aspected mana very well. It still used some, which allowed Henry to gain some distance, only for a reddish-purple pulse to wash over him and completely shred his invisibility. Even Trickster’s Fortitude got disrupted.

  Motherfucker!

  From his clones, Henry saw the cachalot beat its tail a couple of times and briskly speed up. Before he could react, another click slammed into him, much more forceful this time. Henry tasted blood gushing into his mouth while one of his eyes went blind, just as the cachalot opened its large and narrow jaw to bite down on him.

  Henry used Blink and popped right behind the cachalot as it slammed its jaw on empty waters.

  The kraken activated Riptide Rush, pushing Swiftness-aspected mana into it. Henry zipped through the water like a bullet. The world blurred around him, and as he neared the seabed, he adjusted his angle and flew across the sea floor. He activated Invisibility once more and ordered his blood clones to follow, as he was quickly nearing the limit of their range.

  Behind him, there was no cachalot, but Henry didn’t dare stop. He didn’t know for how long he swam, but he didn’t dare stop for nearly two or three minutes of high-speed swimming. When the first safe-looking cave appeared, he dove into it.

  Henry found himself in yet another cave. This one’s entrance was a bit on the smaller side, though it was spacious enough within. His hearts were beating loudly. His arms shook as he peered out of the cave, but nothing followed him.

  Henry stayed still for nearly ten minutes. The blood clones had caught up and found new perches to watch his surroundings from, but that strategy might not be effective.

  The algae was a lot thicker in this area, and Henry could barely see a hundred yards away through the screen of greenery.

  Twenty minutes later, when no clicks could be heard, when no giant reddish shapes appeared out of the golden murky waters, Henry felt safe enough to bring out Maurice and Stormsong. The two popped out of his Maw, and Maurice immediately began talking as the two took in the cave for a second before their eyes landed on him.

  “[We won! We showed that stupid squid. Where are we, by the way? What–what…]”

  Maurice’s shock grew with every word, and by the time he quieted down, it was a palpable thing. Even Stormsong was dumbstruck. He couldn’t sense her inner life, but her body language was clear enough. Both of his companions finally broke the silence at the same time.

  “[What happened?]”

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