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Siwoo had a bad feeling about this.

His fate was nothing but one crazy ride after another.

Even just breathing seemed to land him in trouble.

From the moment he got dragged into that shady incident, he knew a peaceful package tour with his mother-in-law was never happening.

What came next was predictable ; either a homunculus with some shady abilities would show up, or some criminal exile targeting Siwoo, the male witch, would make a move.

And sure enough, signs of chaos were already brewing in the distance.

Shadows stretched across the dark night sky, making it even blacker.

Looking closer, each of those shadows was actually a massive fish.

With their elongated pectoral and ventral fins stretched out like gliders, they soared through the air, flapping occasionally as they sped forward, a swarm of flying fish in a breakneck speed.

Seeing those fish-shaped monsters brought back an all-too-familiar memory.

It wasn’t about homunculus or anything like that just a bizarre swarm of piranhas.

Back when Siwoo was still in the modern world, the Cowardly Witch had unleashed a massacre at COEX.

The memory of that nightmare resurfaced, and his expression hardened.

“What’s going on?”

Deneb had also leaped onto the roof, taking in the same scene.

The sight of countless flying fish, easily numbering in the tens of thousands, flapping their wings and flying in unison was breathtaking in its own way.

“Countess, what should we do? I think they’re coming for us.”

For once, he regretted not bringing the Red Branch, which was stored in the Gemini mansion’s lab.

If he had known this would happen, he would’ve kept it closer.

Siwoo conjured a long spear from the shadows and turned to Deneb.

“If it were me, I’d focus on shaking them off and figuring out the situation while staying on the move.”

Even though he knew this was a crisis, his heart remained eerily calm.

And why wouldn’t it? Before becoming a witch, he’d fought tooth and nail through all kinds of shitty messes over five times, life on the line.

Twice, he had even come close to death, his heart nearly stopping.

But those life-or-death battles had only made him stronger.

At this point, he could probably beat down that massive, dog-shaped homunculus he and Sharon had barely managed to take down before like it was nothing.

No matter how many of them there were, if they were just a bunch of small fry, he could handle it.

Besides, Deneb, who could cast magic on the level of a 20th-rank witch all on her own, was right beside him.

“Countess?”

But Deneb didn’t respond. She just stood there, mouth half-open, staring into the sky.

Is she...nervous?

He had heard that both Deneb and Albireo were experienced witches when it came to combat.

Bit the swarm of flying fish, which descended like a Chinese army, was only enough to cause a temporary setback.

Still, there was no time to stand around waiting for his unexpectedly adorable mother-in-law to snap out of it wasn’t an option with shit hitting the fan.

“Still, there was no time to stand around waiting for his unexpectedly adorable mother-in-law to snap out of it...”

“...No!”

Out of nowhere, Deneb cut him off with a sharp shout.

Siwoo turned around in surprise.

Deneb was clutching her forehead, ruffling her hair, and looking completely frazzled.

“If I’m right... that’s not the real problem here.”

“You mean the flying fish?”

“They’re not just flying fish! Those are monsters created by the Witch of the Deep Sea!”

Deneb bit her lip hard, then pounded her chest in frustration.

“The Witch of the Deep Sea....”

Siwoo frowned instinctively at the ominous name.

His eerie sense of déjà vu when he saw the fish had been spot on.

“The Witch of the Deep Sea is dead. But her mystic code still lingers, and some witches are exploiting what she left behind. You know that.”

“I get what you’re saying. Like Paola Xochitl, right?”

“Exactly. The Witch of the Deep Sea created her familiars by weaving together legends and folklore passed down through the ages.”

Before science advanced, the unpredictable ocean, with its raging waves and storms that could swallow ships whole, was an unknown and terrifying place for sailors.

Not to mention the deep sea, where sunlight never even reached.

People feared what they couldn’t understand, and to them, the unknown was the same as terror.

Fueled by that fear, human imagination gave birth to countless sea monsters, and the Witch of the Deep Sea brought five of those mythical creatures to life as her familiars.

Each one was a powerful, infamous beast.

But unlike homunculi, the Witch of the Deep Sea’s monster’s didn’t have the ability to create pocket dimensions to hide themselves, nor could they travel between dimensions.

They kept growing bigger and more dangerous, and even releasing them for a short time could cause an unimaginable catastrophe.

To keep them sealed away until needed, five ‘aquariums’ were created.

“This is her aquarium. The entire city itself is both a storage tank for the monsters and a hunting ground.”

A closed-loop world, created in a day and destined to fall apart just as quickly.

A world designed to satisfy an endless hunger that had no bottom.

A world where fake prey was scattered at random, ensuring the monsters never forgot the thrill of the hunt.

And in this world, where everything was an illusion, there were two ‘real’ pieces of food, radiating an irresistible magical scent.

The predator lurking in the abyss noticed them.

“We’ve become prey.”

-KUGUGU!!!

A deafening roar erupted.

At the same moment Deneb finished speaking, the distant sea split apart.

No.

Something had surged up, slicing through the black water.

It was just so massive, so overwhelming, that even a single movement caused destruction on the scale of a tsunami.

It was as if a new island had risen from the ocean.

He had never seen this monster before, but somehow, its appearance made its name instantly clear.

A massive cephalopod, resembling an octopus, the Kraken.

With terrifying speed, a tentacle lashed out and snatched a sailing ship as it soared through the air.

The grand masts, which once stood tall and proud, snapped like twigs, and the ship’s hull crumpled like folded paper.

The flying fish, still trying to escape, weren’t spared either.

Tentacles, each with suckers over five meters wide, moved with unnatural agility, catching the fish in an instant.

The monster shoved the crushed remnants of the flying fish and the sailing ship into its massive maw, lined with thousands of razor-sharp teeth, and let out a monstrous roar.

ROOOOAAARR———!!!

The sheer force of the sound blurred into a shockwave, reverberating through their bodies.

Right then, Siwoo felt goosebumps rise all over his skin.

The roar sounded like the horrific wails of countless souls drowned in the abyss, crying out through thousands of mouths.

“Looks like we’re the main course.”

Forcing down the chill with a joke, Siwoo tightened his grip on his spear.

“Let’s run and figure things out as we go.”

“Good call.”

Dodging the flying fish that had gotten dangerously close, Deneb and Siwoo pushed off the rooftops and sprinted away.

2.

The massive swarm of flying fish, fleeing in terror from the Kraken, devoured anything in their path.

With their mouths gaping wide, they tore into everything they saw like a horde of starving locusts.

When their flight brushed past the city, all that remained were the scattered ruins of buildings, as if they had been carpet-bombed.

Grown-man-sized omnivorous flying fish raiding a medieval port town.

It was straight out of a B-grade cosmic horror movie.

After that, like an orca slowly tracking a school of sardines, the Kraken steadily closed the distance, stepping on the broken wreckage.

As massive as it was, it moved sluggishly.

If Siwoo and Deneb really put their minds to it, they could easily outrun it.

But the real problem was that they were stuck, trapped in a chaotic mess with no clear escape.

Before they could even think about dealing with the Kraken, they had to shake off the relentless swarm of flying fish first.

-Schlkk!

Siwoo’s spear spun in a blur, ripping through the fish as they lunged at him.

With the sharp stench of fish in the air, a neatly sliced flying fish crashed onto a rooftop.

-Crunch, crunch, crunch

Siwoo cast a disgusted glance at the flying fish head, still munching on the rooftop with only half its body left, its mouth constantly gaping.

“Nasty little bastards...”

One of Siwoo’s guesses had been right, but the other had been wrong.

First, the part he got right.

Just as he thought, the swarm of flying fish wasn’t a real threat to him or Deneb.

They were even easier to take down than the black hounds the mother dog had spawned.

Siwoo barely caught a breath, his feet soon surrounded by hacked-up fish chunks with no space left to step, while Deneb’s purple mana flashes blasted holes through the dense swarm every time they sparked.

From the start, they were just biting at anything they saw while fleeing, not really targeting Siwoo and Deneb.

But here’s where Siwoo had miscalculated:

Nevertheless, the flying fish were still very annoying.

Thinking they only numbered in the tens of thousands had been a huge mistake.

At a glance, the endless wave of fish surging from the ocean had already surpassed six figures, and they weren’t stopping.

No matter how many they killed, more kept coming from all directions, showing just how terrifying a sheer numbers advantage could be.

Not only was their range of movement extremely limited, but their stamina was gradually being depleted like clothes getting wet in a drizzle.

The Kraken, slowly advancing while turning the city’s wreckage into dust, was also a problem with no immediate solution.

“Countess! Just how strong is that damn octopus?!”

Siwoo had to shout at the top of his lungs as he inched closer to Countess Deneb.

Without yelling, his voice would’ve been drowned out by all the roaring and wing flapping around them.

Noticing this, Deneb waved her hand, and a shimmering line appeared between them.

Then, her voice came through clearly, cutting through the surrounding noise.

“I’ll try attacking first. We can’t just keep running forever.”

“You sure about that?”

“It’s a hassle without big sis around... but I’ll manage.. The Deep Sea Witch was powerful, sure, but she was taken down by Duchess Keter 300 years ago. Back then, she was ranked 21. If that’s the case, taking down just one of her familiars shouldn’t be too difficult.”

A familiar’s strength usually reflected the power of its master.

Even though the Deep Sea Witch had once been powerful enough to sink an entire nation on her own despite resistance from countless other witches, at this point in time, she was just another “once strong” witch from history.

Deneb spoke with confidence before making her request..

“Buy me a minute.”

“Got it.”

He didn’t have the Red Branch.

But ever since defeating Bianca, Siwoo had gained a significant number of ribbons, and if he used them all, holding out for a minute wouldn’t be too hard.

He’d already been through hell and back.

No one would complain if he let his mother-in-law carry just this once.

“Bloom.”

A ribbon bloomed behind Siwoo’s back and he began to defend himself against flying fish.