Pioneer of the Abyss - Book 2 - Chapter 52

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Don't mind this. It's so that free readers can't see half the chapter when the chapter eventually becomes patron only.

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Table of Contents

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Click the following link for the 1452 word chapter 52:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IBbKfxH4BYI7OpdeQiK1pH5c7bzYsWJ3c4k7ist-HW8/edit?usp=sharing

Or you can read the unformatted version below:

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Monster Research Lab

“What… is that?” Aulta Vestro mutters while tilting her head at the sight of the boss monster at the bottom of the Dark Ocean floor. “I’ve seen armor spirits before, but I’ve never seen a fish armor spirit…”

Aulta personally is over level five thousand, so the monster isn’t particularly threatening to her. But she sees some of the other researchers in the lab tremble slightly at the sight of the monster. And she herself feels it’s overwhelming for a monster on a newly initialized planet.

Planets are always at their weakest when the initialization first begins. Simply because mana concentration in the planet is always largely stagnant before the planet is initialized and opened up to the rest of the universe.

So the planets don’t start increasing their natural mana until after they initialize. Which naturally leads to more powerful monsters as time goes on.

But this is one of the first times Aulta has ever seen a monster over level eight hundred right after the planet’s initialization.

Is it because the Dark Ocean has been left alone by the native denizens of the planet for so long? Giving the monster as much time as it needed to hunt whatever it pleased?

This is the only conclusion Aulta can think of. And it seems to fit, so she goes ahead and writes it down as Aqua begins to summon swarms of abyssal servants to fight off the monster’s own dark marauders.

Aulta narrows her eyes on the livestream as the monster creates more tentacles of darkness and sends them straight at Aqua. With all of its previous darkness tentacles moving to target her as well. Only for Aqua to summon numerous real tentacles to clash with the darkness tentacles alongside the tentacles of her transformed body.

Fortunately for Aqua, her tentacles seem to be more powerful than the monster’s darkness tentacles. But at the same time, the monster has more darkness tentacles than Aqua has physical tentacles. Making the clash perfectly even.

Whispers fill the lab as the people in it all show surprise at Aqua struggling for the first time in a while.

Of course, she used to struggle a lot when she was first sent over to be a Pioneer, but after gaining her abyssal servants, she hasn’t struggled much.

But this time is different.

This time her opponent has just as many subordinates as she has.

Aulta and the other researchers all write down as many details that they can find. And not just about the powerful monster, but its subordinates as well.

Making note of the dark marauders’ both magical and physical nature in particular. Like their blood, which has small elements of the boss’ magic in it but is still genuine blood.

“Servants? They have blood so they can’t be summons…”

“Did the boss use some sort of domination magic on them?”

“It could be mind control, or it could be a virus of sorts.”

“It could have something like Aqua’s venom…”

Aulta studies the dark marauders with interest. Since they show both signs of being subordinate to the dark lord while also being individual creatures. Proving they aren’t summons like the abyssal servants following Aqua.

On top of that, Aqua has been making her own servants out of the dark marauders she’s been killing. Further proving that they’re not summons in the process.

Because it’s already been shown on her broadcast that Aqua can’t make servants out of other creatures’ magical summons.

Maybe the dark marauders’ servitude is why their lord is so powerful? If they’re absolutely loyal to it, they could funnel the dark lord EXP to level up without any competition for growth in the entire ocean.

It’s a messed up ecosystem completely dominated by a single monster. But it wouldn’t be the first time Aulta’s seen ecosystems like that.

The myths telling of the Ancient Monsters describe them just like that as well.

And the Bloodbone Tree alone controls an entire planet, serving as the current highest profile existence like that.

Aulta and the other researchers all continue to study the monsters for a while, only for new monsters to appear and join the battle. With these monsters being different from the dark marauders.

They’re all different types of mounts that the dark marauders climb onto and ride. Including but not limited to seahorses made out of darkness and flesh, serpents made of darkness and flesh, and even large creatures that are half crab and half fish. Also made out of darkness and flesh.

And one thing they all share is that none of the mounts have eyes.

Some sort of mutation caused by living in an ocean without light? But then why do the dark marauders have eyes? Is it because they’re an invasion force meant to attack the other oceans?

That’s Aulta’s current theory. That the dark marauder species is an invader species born to invade other ecosystems.

There’s also the possibility that the dark lord somehow mutated the other dark marauders during whatever infection or subjugation it did to them. Turning them into a species meant for invasion.

After all, the monsters were flooding out from the Dark Ocean out of nowhere after being silent for years, based on the reactions of the natives.

Did the dark lord mutate them to give them eyes? And if so, what other changes did it cause? And how intelligent is this dark lord?

Aulta quickly begins to write every observation she finds down. But after several minutes of fighting, the dark marauders’ side begins to overwhelm Aqua’s side. Decreasing the number of abyssal servants with her bit by bit.

And right as Aulta begins to feel worried about what Aqua’s current plan is, since Aulta knows Aqua isn’t anywhere near running out of mana, Aqua suddenly activates her maw skill. Making an enormous maw appear out of nowhere that sucks in entire swarms of the dark marauders and their mounts.

Aulta feels a smile spread across her face as she continues writing down her observations.

Especially when the pull of the currents barely make the dark lord budge from its place, even as his subordinates are all being drawn into the maw and killed. Increasing Aqua’s level from time to time thanks to their sheer numbers.

Aulta briefly checks the recording devices for the umpteenth to make sure they’re recording this battle. Since this battle is incredibly important.

It’s the first time they’re finding such a powerful humanoid deep ocean monster in history after all.

And it needs to be documented.

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Aqua

I feel invigorated at the feeling of leveling up numerous times thanks to the maw devouring all the dark marauders and their mounts.

The mounts kind of came out of nowhere, but they help serve as more food for leveling up.

And with all of the monsters swarming me like this, Maw of the Abyssal Kraken and Pressure of the Abyss work incredibly well together. Pressure of the Abyss keeps the monsters unable to escape thanks to the monsters finding it difficult to push through the pressure, and Maw of the Abyssal Kraken is drawing the monsters inside of its own maw.

It’s turning this place into a sort of black hole, or a vacuum. Just drawing all the monsters into it and crushing them.

Although the dark lord still hasn’t moved even a single step despite our tentacles clashing all around us. And its own subordinates being slaughtered.

The boss is just sitting there staring at me, and it’s honestly kind of unnerving.

But more importantly, when my Maw of the Abyssal Kraken skill finishes its run, I summon my abyssal servants again to continue my offensive against the dark marauders.

To my surprise, though, even after shredding through the dark marauders, they still have slightly more forces than I can summon at once.

Or, to be more specific, they have fewer forces, but a lot of my forces include the weaker abyssal servants I extracted in my early days of using the skills. Making the dark marauders able to push through my numbers with their higher quality numbers. Even with me summoning a lot of dark marauder abyssal servants to fight.

So it ends up being relatively even in the end.

Which is better than before, considering they straight up were overwhelming my forces earlier. But it’s still rather terrifying to think about.

What with how many forces they had at the start of all this, including the vast number that left the Dark Ocean.

I narrow my eyes at the dark lord when it suddenly begins to move.

Finally planning to truly join the battle?

Let’s see what it can do then.