Chapter 52
Gnnngh...
When Beral opened his eyes again, what he saw was still the pitch-black sea.
The Southern night sea’s signature all-consuming darkness. It was one of Beral’s favorite sights.
In waters like these, giant monsters like Tusoteuthis could hide especially well.
The dark sea was the best hunting ground.
"Where are you, where are you!"
But from the prey’s point of view, there was nowhere more terrifying than a sea like this.
In the dark water, he couldn’t tell front from back. Having been knocked unconscious and left drifting, he couldn’t even tell where he was.
All he could do was wait for the next attack to come from every direction.
The silent, frigid sea, without even the slightest movement, made Beral’s heart sink coldly.
"What in the world is this bastard!"
Countless underwater creatures flashed through Beral’s mind.
The giant abyssal monster from legend, Kraken.
Likewise, Leviathan, the ruler of the sea passed down through legend.
A predator of the underwater world that flanked Tusoteuthis, Mosasaurus.
They were all terrifying enemies, but each was at least something he could imagine fighting.
Kraken, Leviathan, it didn’t matter. They all had bodies.
If an enemy had a body, he could wrap it up with his enormous tentacles.
But—
Kuuuuung-!
"Gah, ngh...!"
What kind of enemy was this, anyway?
There was no physical form to see. What in the world were those things, drifting like ghosts in the darkness of the night sea and launching unknown attacks?
One more limb had been blasted away. With only four of the eight tentacles left, there was no way to make the giant Tusoteuthis move.
In the end, all he could do in the night sea where the unknown enemy was hiding was drift helplessly with the current.
For Beral, who had lived his entire life as a ruler of the sea, this was an incomprehensible situation.
For the past thousand years, Tusoteuthis had been the ruler of the sea. Having become one with that ruler, he looked down on ordinary humans.
The moment he linked his mind with the giant squid, he became a predator of the sea.
When he crushed ordinary humans beneath him, he had thought he would never become such a weakling.
So he couldn’t accept this situation.
"Come out and fight! I am not your prey!"
The submarine fleet’s answer was simple.
Kuuuururur...
A distinct torpedo wake cut through the darkness and closed in.
BOOM-!
"Gah, ngh...!"
It happened once more.
When the spray cleared, all that remained was Tusoteuthis, its body completely tattered and unable to move.
Beral felt fear for the first time in his life.
He was going to die. Not figuratively—really die.
If a mental-type spell is forcibly severed, the brain physically melts. Mental magic was always something that had to be handled carefully.
That said, even if Tusoteuthis died in this state, he was obviously going to die too.
His brain was already at its limit. One more hit from that bizarre attack and he wouldn’t be able to hold on.
He desperately tried to move the remaining tentacles and flee.
"Tusoteuthis directly ahead, distance about 500 meters!"
"Fire torpedoes!"
Until U-7’s torpedoes completely smashed the remaining tentacles.
BOOM-!
The searing pain stabbed straight into Beral’s mind. The unbearable agony blurred his vision for a moment.
But that was only the beginning.
Through his blurred vision, something appeared. It was an unidentified enemy slowly revealing itself in the dark sea.
Those "enemies" were ships shaped like blunt-tipped blades.
"That..."
Only then could Beral understand what the mysterious "enemy" actually was.
Because in this world, there was only one enemy that made ships out of steel.
"No way... the Southerners...?"
U-7 and the ten submarines that had followed it emerged from all directions. As they all opened their torpedo tubes at once, bubbles gurgled up.
Beral instinctively realized that was the attack signal.
"No... impossible. This can’t be happening."
I’m being killed by humans?
By the hands of weak, helpless humans, the ruler of this sea is supposed to die?
He gave one last spasm, twisting his body in a convulsion.
"I am the rider of Tusoteuthis and a proud 8th-circle mage of the East! I am a predator of the sea!"
And then, torpedoes were launched in unison from all eleven submarines.
Watching the pure white trails tinged with the color of death, he left behind his final words.
"There’s no way I’d die to mere humans-"
BOOM-!
When all eleven torpedoes exploded at once, an immense shock unlike anything so far shook the surroundings.
Tusoteuthis’s massive body shattered apart and floated up onto the night sea.
That was the end of the giant monster that had once ruled the East’s seas.
***
Bubbles rose and popped over the pitch-black night sea.
Above the blood-soaked sea left by the giant corpse of the 200-meter-class beast.
Eleven submarines surfaced all at once in the waters strewn with thick hide scraps and squid entrails.
촤아악-!
The submarines that emerged, cutting through the current, gathered around the carcass with satisfaction like wolves that had finished a hunt.
"Turn on the searchlights! Check the carcass, and keep the torpedo tubes open in case anything survived so we can finish it off!"
The captains stayed tense until the very end, but in truth there had been no need to.
Because the Tusoteuthis corpse before them had been torn to shreds beyond recognition.
"I don’t think a finishing shot is necessary."
"Exactly. For now, take a few photos. We’ll need them on the front page in a few days."
It was difficult to even capture the scattered remnants of the giant beast in a photo. Tusoteuthis was that huge.
The soldiers looking at the carcass felt a strange emotion.
For the last thousand years, the strongest beings in the sea had, without question, been the underwater monsters. Just as wyverns had once been the rulers of the sky.
But... it had already been a year since the age of the wyverns ended.
And now, even the depths of the sea had fallen into human hands.
"Good grief... what a sorry sight."
"Exactly. How dare they try to block our shipping route."
Humans had hunted a sea monster without any casualties among themselves. As expected, it was something no one had ever even dreamed of until now.
All the soldiers standing on deck and photographing Tusoteuthis vaguely came to the same thought.
That maybe they were witnessing a change of era that would only be written about in history books.
"Everyone, be careful not to get the submarines in the pictures! This is a top-secret weapon! If even a little of it gets on the front page, we’re all dead meat!"
Three submarines carefully documented the Tusoteuthis carcass, cutting through the blood-soaked sea.
Next to be deployed were mages accustomed to underwater operations.
In this era, when specialized scuba gear did not exist, ordinary humans could not enter the water, and it was impossible to see clearly underwater.
The mages had only one mission.
To completely erase all traces of humans from the scene.
"Burn every torpedo fragment you can see! This is the Grand Duke’s order: make absolutely sure information about the new weapon never reaches the East!"
Following that order, the mages dove into the water and melted away every torpedo fragment they could see.
Not a single mage protested.
Mages from other regions would never have done such a thing, but the Southern mages were different.
The South was a city for humans. The mages who had abandoned the honor of the Center and drifted into this human city each had their own story.
And as a rule, those "stories" tied to the Center’s power struggles rarely ended well.
"Incineration of the torpedo fragments on the carcass complete. Returning."
They were people with enough grit to endure anything under the Southern Army’s command.
The mages who wanted Kyle Leopold to destroy the Center more than anyone else completed their mission in silence.
"Operation complete. Returning."
All that remained at the site of the hunt was Tusoteuthis’s massive carcass.
And the scavengers that had gathered to tear into the corpse of the monster that had once ruled the sea.
It was the moment the underwater monsters that had ruled the sea for a thousand years began to fall.
***
A few days later, the Southern newspapers all ran the photographs taken by the submarine fleet on their front pages.
[ The Moment the Ruler of the Sea Fell ]
[ The South’s New Superweapon That Defeated Tusoteuthis? ]
[ Military Releases Official Stance on the Tusoteuthis Hunt ]
Tusoteuthis’s appearance in the newspaper was pitiful.
Even though it was mosaicked, enough of the original photo was still recognizable.
Naturally, public opinion among Southern citizens was in a frenzy. It was proof that humanity had finally and completely conquered sky, land, and sea.
The East, on the other hand, had no reaction at all.
They were probably investigating the traces left on the carcass.
"That won’t be easy."
Of course, it was a fool’s errand.
The important evidence had already been handled by the mages, and whatever they might have missed would have ended up in the bellies of the late-arriving scavengers.
Still, there was one unexpected thing.
Tusoteuthis had only blown apart after taking nearly forty torpedoes.
Oh, of course, about twenty had hit the body and twenty the legs. Blowing off the legs didn’t directly threaten its life. To actually kill it, it probably took around twenty shots.
As expected of a giant monster that had ruled the sea for a thousand years. Its durability was absurdly high.
"Well, aside from being tough, it doesn’t really have any other strengths."
In a place where over-the-horizon engagements had become routine, a huge body, loud noise, and a lack of ranged attack capability were nothing but drawbacks.
No matter how tough it was, it wouldn’t escape being a hard punching bag.
"Thanks to that, we can finally start preparing our own serious move."
Because we could now be sure there was no need to fear their naval blockade anymore.
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Send a formal notice to the East Grand Duke’s residence."
It was time to lift our naval blockade.
How, you ask?
"If they don’t lift their naval blockade, we’ll blockade their sea instead."
The most effective countermeasure to a naval blockade was to impose one of our own.