NCCnovel Chapter 429: The Jaw of Death
Chapter 429: The Jaw of Death
When Baswara arrived, he saw a scene beyond miracle.
The old Sea Dragon had lived for thousands of years. He had literally seen everything and thought that nothing could surprise him anymore.
He was wrong.
The reservoir of a hundred billion cubic meters of water, held back by a single human woman with her arm extended, while a corrupted ocean geysered into the sky behind her.
Not just that. A white dragon fought a tornado while a Kraken tore through the fabric of reality—
It was, Baswara decided, the most extraordinary thing he had ever seen in a millennium of extraordinary things.
"TOOK YOU SO LONG, YOU OLD BASTAR—"
"HANG ON!" Baswara took the younger dragon’s curse with a broad heart. He landed beside Oathran, his feet finding purchase on the broken dam and his eyes still fixed on the woman holding the reservoir.
Around him, two more dragons descended from the grey sky. Jenggala landed on the far side of the basin while Serayu landed beside him.
"WHERE DO WE GO?"
"Please, one of you, reinforce the temporary dam upstream." Cecilia said, cutting through the roar of the water and the wind, taking over the command. "Profe—Lord Baswara, please help me with this reservoir. The other, please help Oathran and the rest."
"Godde—" Baswara stuttered, his jaw going slack.
"Please. Move." Cecilia cut him off.
Baswara moved. He didn’t stop to question, even as a legend who had not taken orders from anyone in centuries, he immediately obeyed a human woman without hesitation.
He leaped into the wall of water, his body transforming into a massive dragon form. It unfurled into the reservoir like a fish returning to the sea, and the water welcomed him.
Immediately, Cecilia felt the pressure lift by less than half.
The Sea Dragon had connected his own mana with the reservoir water. He was moving it now, alongside Cecilia’s control, from the inside, turning it into his own moving domain.
Meanwhile, Jenggala flew upstream. The temporary dam, that desperate construction of logs and mud and werebeaver ingenuity, grew upward upon his arrival, reinforced by slithering clay that gathered itself from the riverbed and packed itself into the gaps.
His earth and water magic worked together rapidly. It was clearly the work of a dragon who had shaped landscapes for centuries and knew exactly how to hold back a flood.
With this, Cecilia could work faster. She guided the arc of water more into the temporary reservoir with increased speed, and Baswara, moving and holding the old reservoir back beyond her control, widened his ancient eyes.
Who was this woman—no, what manner of creature could hold a hundred billion cubic meters of water with one broken arm and still have the presence of mind to issue orders to dragons?
Meanwhile, Serayu transformed into her dragon form beside Oathran, her sleek blue body coiling through the air. "I will handle the tornado. You go beat that shit u—"
Oathran didn’t wait for her to finish. He relinquished his control over the corrupted ocean water tornado and flew toward his brothers.
But he didn’t stop.
He flew past them, his dragon form shrinking and compressing, condensing into the tight, controlled shape of his humanoid body—and then—
BLAST—
He burst into the rift. Through it, then beyond it. He was a guided missile of flesh, breaking straight into the jagged beaks of the massive octopus that was still tearing its way through.
"OATHRAN!" Arkai and Eastiel screamed together.
GRRRRRROAAAA—
The Kraken was hit back. Its tentacles, massive, sucker-lined limbs, pulled away back from the opening as Oathran pushed it and himself beyond, into the corrupted ocean on the other side, into the darkness and the unknown.
"HE IS TRYING TO CLOSE THE RIFT FROM THE OTHER SIDE! FOCUS ON STOPPING THE WATER PRESSURE!" Serayu’s voice cut through the chaos.
Eastiel and Arkai turned to her, their eyes wide and their hearts hammering.
Oathran was—
He was trying to fight the monster alone.
On the other side, in its own domain—in an ocean of corruption, with no backup and no retreat and no guarantee that he would ever come back.
Cecilia turned. Her eyes, still burning with the light of a dozen mana potions, found the rift and the darkness beyond it. She saw the shape of her husband disappearing into the maw of a corrupted ocean.
Her eyes flickered with painful worry. That man—
"Goddess, he will be alright."
Baswara said, trying to be calm and steady. He had watched Oathran Alicei survive four centuries of impossible odds and had learned to trust in the younger dragon’s talent for not dying.
His massive form coiled through the whirlpool Cecilia had created, his mana intertwined with hers, his eyes watching her with reassurance. "That boy has been through worse than this."
But in Cecilia’s ears, it was all a lie to comfort her.
Cecilia turned back to the reservoir. Her hand, still extended, didn’t waver. But her voice, when she spoke, was cold. Furious.
"Through worse or not, what woman could witness the father of her child dive into the jaw of death?"
Baswara’s eyes went wide. Around them, the people who could hear her, everyone, felt the temperature of the air drop by several degrees.
"C-child?!"
"Work harder, Lord Baswara," Cecilia said, voice like ice and steel. "Let’s follow after him the moment we stabilize everything here."
***
Oathran pushed through the black ocean like a needle through rotting flesh.
The water was not just water. Not anymore. It had the weight of water, the pressure of water, the crushing, suffocating density of the deepest trenches where sunlight had struggled to reach—but it was wrong.
It was thicker. Oily. It clung to his skin like tar, burned where it touched. The corruption was not merely poison, it was actually intent.
It wanted to get in. It wanted to unmake him, cell by cell until there was nothing left but another blackened creature drifting in an ocean of filth.
The pressure was immense. Even for a dragon. For him. His ears rang with it, a high, keening whine that vibrated through his skull and down his spine.
His lungs, reinforced by centuries of evolution, designed to function at depths that would crush steel, strained against the weight.
The corruption was seeping in. He could feel it in the growing numbness at the tips of his claws, the distant, foggy sensation that was trying to creep into the edges of his consciousness.
Dizziness. The first sign. The body’s desperate warning before the real damage began.
In front of him, vast and incomprehensibly ancient, the Kraken, or whatever an octopus shaped gigantic monster should be called, screamed.
"KREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—"
Its beak-like teeth gnashed against his foreclaws. Its tentacles, massive, sucker-lined, barbed with something that looked horribly like bone, lashed through the black water, trying to find purchase on his body, trying to drag him deeper into the abyss.
Beyond it, he could sense more of them. More shapes in the darkness. More hunger, more corruption. An entire ocean of monsters, waiting for their turn.
Oathran’s vision blurred. The dizziness was spreading. He could feel the corruption working its way through his mana, through his blood, through the divine essence that had kept him alive for four centuries.
It wanted to consume him. It wanted to turn him into one of them, a blackened, mindless thing, drifting forever in this poisoned sea.
He thought of Cecilia.
The way she had looked at him this morning, her blonde hair mussed from sleep, her borrowed shirt hanging off her shoulder. The way she had called him back to bed, her voice soft and irresistible.
The way her hand had drifted to her stomach, their egg, their child, and the small smile that had curved her lips.
He thought of her standing on the dam, her arm extended, holding back a reservoir with nothing but will and mana and the terrifying brilliance that he had fallen in love with at a McKing parking lot two years ago.
He thought of the black water behind her, and the way it had almost taken her, and the sound her arm had made when it broke.
Something inside him snapped.
"How dare you—"
He hissed, lost in the crushing darkness of the corrupted ocean. The Kraken screamed again, its tentacles wrapping around his torso, its beaks lunging for his throat.
ROARRRRRGGGRRRRRRR—
"HOW DARE YOU HURT MY MATE!"