Pioneer of the Abyss - Intermission 1

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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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For those of you who are reading this on a website that is not Patreon, please stop. You're reading a pirated version. Instead, if you would be so kind, please click on the table of contents link below and go to my Patreon instead. Or even read it off of Royal Road, which is free.

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Table of Contents

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This is the only chapter for today as I've been feeling sick all day, and I couldn't get to sleep last night due to overheating. Which makes me feel thankful that I wrote both of today's other story chapters before I started feeling sick.

Although I will post a Q&A for Pioneer of the Abyss after this. So look forward to that.

Oh, and this is the first intermission chapter and it is a much shorter chapter because it's an intermission.

One set place in the Abyss.

Click the following link for intermission:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IXuUBsKr0C7SeTw2gndzU9byRFdK30yvmPligXVhZ78/edit?usp=sharing

Or you can read the unformatted version below:

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Somewhere within the Abyss

Rithral Azuranth narrows his eyes at a map in his hands as he slowly swims through the nearly pitch black water around him. With his eyes barely being able to see in the water for only a few meters around him.

The only reason he can tell where he’s going at all is thanks to the special sensory organs that all Kraken Bloodliners have. Organs allowing them to sense their vague surroundings through tiny vibrations in the water.

But despite that, he continues to search the depths of the Abyss for his brother.

His only baby brother.

Ever since Rithral heard Orvyn was lost in the Abyss, he hasn’t been able to think of anything else. So he hasn’t left the Abyss since.

It’s to the point that he’s grown used to the darkness down in it.

And yet, not once has he even found a hint of his brother’s existence down in the Abyss throughout the past two decades.

Until today.

Rithral grits his teeth as he glances between the map and the object in his other hand. A necklace that his brother never left anywhere no matter what.

One that was given to him by his wife. Rithral’s sister-in-law.

Personally, Rithral never cared about his sister-in-law in either way. Positive or negative.

He was just happy that his brother was happy.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Now he couldn’t be happier as he tightly grips onto the necklace and sends one message after another to the other Kraken Bloodliners searching the endless depths of the Abyss. Sending his current location on the map along with pictures of the necklace.

It will take a while for any of them to reach his location thanks to how vast and dark the Abyss’s middle layer is, but that’s to be expected.

After sending out his location, he begins looking around the nearby currents to try to find where the necklace could’ve come from. Or to decide if the necklace was lost here.

But it doesn’t take more than a few minutes of searching for a bright blue light to begin shining deep down in the Abyss. Making Rithral immediately close his eyes and look the other way. Acting as divers should when spotting light down in the depths.

While looking away, he makes sure to set up all of his defenses while focusing his vibration senses on the direction where the light is coming from.

And as he summons massive blue tentacles all around him and begins to sense what exactly the monster is that’s nearby, he grits his teeth. Because the monster is too high a level to identify, proving it’s at least ten thousand levels above him.

Without hesitation, Rithral transforms into an enormous Kraken spanning over a thousand meters in height before sending thousands of pressurized water blades at the monster as he creates a massive wall of tentacles between him and the monster. Only to use his skills to camouflage himself and hide every last bit of his presence.

So by the time he feels his tentacles being warped by some strange spatial power, he is completely gone from the sights of all those around him.

Including the monster as he senses the creature searching the area for a few seconds despite not being able to see it in the dark the moment it turns off its lights. Then the monster begins to turn the lights back on and leaves the area.

Rithral stays silently in place for hours, making sure the monster is gone. And when that certainty is clear in his mind, he finally goes out of hiding while transforming back into his normal form.

He lets out a sigh after that before continuing to search for his brother.

But not even ten seconds later, the water currents around him begin to shift at a rapid pace.

Another monster?! So soon?1

Rithral grits his teeth and prepares to go into hiding again despite his level being in the tens of thousands, only for something to catch his eye in the corner of his vision. And it’s nothing like what he was expecting.

He doesn’t see any entire bodies of any monster. Instead he just sees enormous tentacles reaching upwards from the deeper depths of the Abyss.

A flash of shock fills his mind.

Because the tentacles are even larger than those of the Kraken. And on top of that, they have deep blue almost black scales coating them.

It’s also unclear to him just how massive the tentacles are as even with his vibration detection he can’t even sense where they begin.

All he knows is that they’re coming from far deeper down in the Abyss.

Possibly even the lower depths.

Was this what-

His thoughts come to a crashing halt when all of the tentacles move in at once, and everything blacks out for him.

Leaving the last sight before losing consciousness being that of the necklace as it slips out of his hands.