Born in Blood

"Good choice," Bill praised with a smile. "Not too hard, not too easy."

Then, Bill took out a flat, disk-like device from his ring and handed it to Liam. It was plain, other than a simple arrow that pointed him towards a single direction.

A compass.

"This little thing here is important, alright?" Bill said firmly. "Try not to lose it. It's called an Anchor, and it'll point you towards here in case you get lost, or the Teleportation Platforms somehow end up broken."

"Jades don't work under the waves unless heavy Formations like mine allow them to. It also acts as a tracker."

That meant that, if Liam was stranded on the other side of a Quadrant… well, he was stranded for good, unless Bill sent support his way.

"Of course, I could just arrange a helper… but—"

"I'm good," Liam interrupted, raising a hand. "—you don't seem the type to accept help. Right…" Bill looked a little dejected, but not worried in the least. "Before you leave, I recommend a change of clothes. Your wrappings are strong, but they leave parts of you exposed. Trust me, you don't want something crawling up your urethra." "Before you leave, I recommend a change of clothes. Your wrappings are strong, but they leave parts of you exposed. Trust me, you don't want something crawling up your urethra." That, Liam agreed with. Bill pointed him to a changing room, upon which Liam took out the same skinsuit that he and Usan wore in their diving journey to the Korsan Lands.

Wearing it, the black suit covered the four corners of his body. Liam came back to Bill's room, and the CEO gave him an approving nod.

"Before you go, just a small tip – don't treat your abilities like you do above ground."

Liam furrowed a brow. "Why?"

"You'll see what I mean," Bill said with a sinister chuckle. "Also, the underwater pressure is different between Quadrants, so be careful not to venture into Rank 5 areas."

Liam nodded.

"Also, one final thing," Bill said, snapping his fingers, which conjured a collage of pearly seashells on the table. "Store these. They're the ocean's currency — Shellings. This amount should last you at least 6 months."

Liam stored them. Bill snapped his fingers again, and a circular platform on the floor shimmered azure.

"That's a TP to the Stonehenge Quadrant," Bill said. "Happy tracking, killing and rescuing, friendo!"

TP in this case didn't mean toilet paper. It meant Teleportation Platform.

A moment later, Liam jumped through it.

***

WHOOM!

Immediately, Liam's surroundings changed.

He was taken out of the luxurious penthouse of Bill McGill.

Disgusting, lumpy water flooded his mouth, lungs and ears.

A heavy pressure weighed against his spine, anchoring him to the floor. Liam immediately empowered his body and used Transfiguration to grow gills from his neck.

The dirty sea water invading his lungs was instantly expelled.

A thin layer of skin covered Liam's irises, allowing him to see the surroundings in perfect clarity, even with his eyes open.

A moment later, he grew out another pair of eyes on the sides of his head, and his cheekbones.

The first thing he noticed was how dirty the seawater in the Stonehenge Deep Quadrant was.

It was like murky, dirty trashwater that hadn't been cleaned out in forever. Even with the King's Eye and Spirit Sight, there was still a dirty filter covering his vision.

Liam looked below.

He was on a blocky piece of stone that jutted from the dirty ocean floor.

All around it were similar stony structures, some jagged, some uneven, but all shared the same rectangular form, covered with thick, black algae and moss.

However, further ahead, the stones turned razor-sharp and dangerous.

If a person walked upon them or through them, their feet and bodies would be cut and sliced into.

Still, the Teleportation Platform remained. Liam memorized the surroundings, just in case he needed to get back here when the mission was over with.

However, Liam quickly realized what Bill meant by the words, 'Don't treat your abilities like you do above ground.'

As Liam spread his mental waves, he felt incredibly disoriented and wobbly. The further it spread from him, the more his mind grew perplexed. He felt as though he'd suffered a concussion, and was seeing twice the number of fingers he actually had.

The waters were doing this to him!

But it didn't end there.

The same went for his Shifter Sense and Shadow Sense!

The information that poured through his senses were hazy and blurry, as if he was experiencing them through a screen of shaky, tumultuous water.

Clearly, the ocean was a much more difficult place to work with compared to land.

However, as long as Liam kept his mental waves, Shifter Sense and Shadow Sense close to himself, the disorienting feeling would go away.

'Is this another one of the Argonaut's powers?' Liam thought. 'Seeing as the Division was there to separate humans and seafolk, I'm pretty sure this was done on purpose to level the playing field between humans and them.'

'She looks out for her people, eh?' Needless to say, Liam was at a disadvantage while he remained beneath the waves.

However, he quickly made a few modifications to his body to improve his diving experience. Novel Fire - novelfire.net

His hands grew webbed, like an otters, and his fingers grew sharp and draconic. A long, thick tail emerged from his back, covered with black scales and lined with tiny little fins.

'Good enough,' Liam thought, then began swimming forward with no particular direction in mind. Judging from the map, the Stonehedge Deep Quadrant has exactly four species that lived in its midst.

The first, was the Moray Eels. The second, were the Rock Frogs.

The third, were the Stinger Stonefish. The fourth, were the Bulwark Barracuda. These were the culprits that had kidnapped the Axolotl Princess, who belonged to another Quadrant called the 'Pink Rosary'.

Obviously, the reports stated that it was the Moray Eels who did it…

But Liam would obviously take these reports with a grain of salt. There was no guarantee to their authenticity.

Plus, this Quadrant was sketchy and cutthroat. Only ghetto species like those four lived here.

If anything, perhaps some of them had ties with one another?

Nothing was impossible!

'Everyone is guilty until proven otherwise,' Liam thought. A moment later, Liam began swimming upstream, following the map to the nearest civilization.