CH-42 Marry me, fox progenitor!

"Hahahahaha! I will kill them all!" Shonu rushed into the palace entrance, laughing maniacally. Ben punches against the impenetrable barrier, but it has no effect on it.

"What should we do, Principal? How can we stop him?" One of the teachers was sweating anxiously.

Ben looked at them, his expression grim. They could only watch helplessly as Shonu disappeared into the ancient halls.

"Find any kind of tincture to shatter this barrier… before that we can do nothing but wait and hope the ones Paradox spoke of can mitigate."

"The student council president Ely is trapped inside with Gwen and Dr. Luna. Probably, they can defeat this madman and deactivate his foul artifacts. We shouldn't be late for antidotes for this trouble."

"... As per your wish!" All of them apprehend the flowers of innocent lives rested in the bonds of three youths against a power-mad sorcerer. Ben could only pray they were ready for such a challenge.

***

Haas… I'm a real aquatic beast, swimming through the gigantic ocean like a boss! Thanks to my trusty Se, my heart's pumping like a well-oiled machine, And other organs and systems as well.

As long as I've got energy in my body, who needs oxygen? I can just use Se to stockpile my body rocking or whip up some fresh O2 on the fly.

Yeah, It's like having a personal oxygen factory, but way cooler... But hold up, what's that thing… sprinting towards me?

'Holy mackerel! It's a baby whale trying to steal my spotlight!' I glanced to the side as this massive mamma jamma opened her mouth wide enough to swallow a whole school of fish. Plus my body truly was on the menu!

'… Time to bust out my secret weapon!' With a flick of my wrist, a dark ball of pure elemental badassery formed in my right hand.

A hint of flame flickered within(It had a small protection by black element from water), igniting the pressure and heating up the gas I'd cooked up by storing a dash of Se with a pinch of fire.

It was like a tiny, portable explosion waiting to eventuate.

'Chew on this, Whaley!' I threw that sucker straight into the gaping maw of the leviathan and kicked my swimming into overdrive.

With all my might, I propelled myself out of harm's way before the whale went down for the count of death…

—Ka-boom!

My elemental explosive detonated inside the whale's cavernous mouth, blasting that behemoth from the inside out. It was like somebody lit the fuse on a massive underwater firecracker, and the whale was the international victim of this killer prank.

Chunks of blubber and flesh spout outwards in a gruesome display, painting the surrounding water a sickly shade of crimson.

The once-pristine ocean transformed into a macabre soup of whale bits and blood, like some twisted marinara sauce from hell's kitchen.

Globs of viscera and mangled blubber bobbed along the surface, while smaller morsels drifted lazily through the crimson clouds.

'Rookie mistake, Whaley. Maybe next time, you'll think twice instead of trying to make a snack out of yours truly.' A stray chunk of whale meat floated past me.

I saw a yellowfin tuna take an experimental nibble before recoiling in disgust.

It was a real-life scene straight out of those over-the-top shark movies, except this time, the star of the drama was a humongous whale who had seriously underestimated the power of my elemental arsenal.

'Ahhh!' I moaned in pleasure. I mean, Would you look at that? After blasting that oversized sushi roll back to the Stone Age, I leveled up harder than a hardcore gamer on a Red Bull binge.

Yep, yours truly dear Iris just hit the 9th cultivation stage, fans! I'm basically a walking, talking, underwater badass now.

There I was, minding my own business, doing a little deeper ocean dip because I viewed a light, when who should show up but a whole entourage of great white sharks!

That's when I remembered - sharks can smell blood from, like, a million miles away.

'Silly me, I had a tiny paper cut on my thumb.' Now, I like to think of myself as a pretty chill guy, you know? Live and let live and all that. These fin-tastic fellas seemed a bit too eager to get up close and personal.

I tried playing it cool at first, sending a voice transmission into their brain. {Hey buddies, how's it hanging? Lovely day for a swim, eh?}

But these dudes were not having it. They started circling me like I was a big, juicy seal steak! Yeah, not my brightest move.

As they closed in, I had a brilliant idea. Seeing a tattoo on their head, perhaps, They are mages(Magically Shark) we could find some common ground.

These sharks looked pretty evolved, right? So I stuck out my hand and said, {Enchante, fin-fellas! Allow me to introduce myself - I'm a cultivator too!}

I swung my arms around like I was doing some sort of crazy underwater kung-fu routine! Well, either my martial arts skills were on point, or those sharks just had a good sense of amusement, because they backed right off!

"Thou… You… Who? you?" A merman, who swam towards me, have fantastic crown on head, did not seem to have the lingo down pat.

His pronunciation was all off - like he just crammed for the 'Merspeak' exam by eating a dictionary. Why is he speaking in human language? He probably was one of those uppity royal types who never had to learn the common tongue?

The last thing I wanted was to escalate through more verbal hoops with Mr. Crowning Achievement over here.

{I'm Iris Hope!} Just to eliminate any 'who, me?' confusion. I busted out my true piscine tongue prowess with a delightfully introduced intro in their native lingo.

Smooth as a sailfish's belly, am I right? Now, I probably should've prefaced with the fact that I'm something of a linguistic savant.

Being alive in a previous life as an all-knowing goddess, dontcha know? I had learned all 2,869 languages of every realm, heaven, like it was a Sunday night snuggled up reading webcomics.

You name it, I can speak it - from Mertonian to Clam Whisperer to Eel Shrillian.

"Eh!" Abruptly, That son of a bitch was clutching my right hand and sliding a ring on it faster preparatory to you can say shotgun wedding!

"Marry me, fox progenitor!"