The abyss pulsed with an unnatural rhythm, as if the deep itself stirred in response to Eo’s awakening. The thick, ink-like waters were heavy with the remnants of the primal pulse, an aftershock that still unsettled the lesser creatures. Their instinctual retreat left only silence in the abyssal void—except for the slow, deliberate movements of something far larger.

  Eo hovered within the abyss, his elongated form drifting as he adjusted to his newfound senses. The fusion of elements coursing through him, merging and stabilizing, left a lingering density in his body. His flesh no longer felt purely organic—it had adapted, altered by the surge of power he had unknowingly absorbed.

  Yet, something still felt incomplete.

  Ozure’s voice broke through his thoughts, her injured form looming in the distance. The kraken-like entity, though weakened, still emanated the weight of an ancient existence.

  "Do you understand what you are now, anomaly?" she asked, her many eyes narrowing as her tendrils coiled around a rock formation for support.

  Eo turned his gaze toward her. "Not yet."

  Ozure’s bioluminescent eyes flickered. "Then before you go seeking what you are, understand what you are not. You are not bound by this abyss. But neither are you bound by the world above. You will never belong to either."

  Eo remained silent. He had suspected as much—his very existence defied the rules that governed both land and sea.

  "I sensed your intent," Ozure continued. "You wish to face them, don’t you?"

  Eo did not need to answer. His body had already begun to move.

  Ozure let out a slow exhale, a ripple disturbing the abyss around her. "Then go. But remember, power alone does not grant belonging. It only invites challenge."

  Eo drifted into the open abyss, his body vanishing into the void.

  Further into the abyss, three massive figures lurked in the darkness, their bodies partially hidden in the deep trenches. They had not yet left after their failed assault on Ozure’s domain. Instead, they remained, their instincts telling them that something else was here—something unaccounted for.

  The first, a colossal crustacean with a shell so dense it absorbed the surrounding pressure with ease, shifted its massive pincers. Chitinous plates clicked, each movement reverberating through the waters.

  The second, a serpentine predator coiled within the abyss, its body dissolving into shadow. Unlike the others, it did not rely on brute force. It waited. It stalked.

  The third, a bioluminescent entity, its body resembling a living current, drifted within the crushing waters, its glow pulsing like a slow heartbeat. It was the first to react when Eo emerged from the darkness.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  A pulse of recognition passed between them.

  Not of familiarity. But of uncertainty.

  Eo was not a beast of the abyss. His form lacked the primal traces of any known lineage. Yet, neither was he a mere anomaly—they could sense something akin to their own presence within him.

  The crustacean lord clicked its pincers aggressively. "You… are not one of us."

  The serpent coiled tighter. "Yet you are not prey."

  The bioluminescent lord’s glow sharpened, its presence intensifying. It did not speak immediately—it studied Eo, watching, waiting for a sign of weakness.

  Eo’s body remained motionless, his tendrils drifting with the abyssal currents. He did not flinch beneath their scrutiny.

  "What do you want?" the glowing lord finally asked.

  Eo spoke with clarity. "I want to see where I stand."

  The abyss stilled.

  The crustacean lord slammed its pincer against the trench wall, sending a tremor through the abyss. "A challenge, then?"

  Eo did not answer with words. His Abyssal Instinct unfurled, a quiet yet overwhelming force that pressed against the abyss itself. It was not an explosion of power, nor was it raw aggression. It was pressure—a heavy, suffocating weight that sent a ripple through the lords’ very instincts.

  They understood.

  This was not an invitation to fight.

  This was a demand for recognition.

  The bioluminescent lord’s glow dimmed slightly, its presence shifting. "You seek a test of power, not a fight to the death?"

  Eo remained still. "If power is the language of this abyss, then let me speak it."

  Silence.

  Then—

  The abyss roared to life.

  The three lords surged forward, the challenge accepted.

  Their forms blurred into motion, the crushing waters spiraling into a vortex as Eo prepared to meet them.

  This was not just a battle.

  This was the first step to understanding where he belonged.

  Got it! I'll emphasize the sheer size disparity between Eo and the Territorial Lords while making it clear that his power is something beyond mere physical dimensions.

  The abyss trembled.

  Not from a natural current shift, nor from an eruption of the deep. This was intent—a suffocating presence spreading like a noose, tightening, constricting. The three Territorial Lords loomed in the murky waters, their bodies towering at nearly seven to nine meters, each a living behemoth wreathed in raw abyssal power.

  Eo, by contrast, was small.

  Once a one-meter organism, his body had grown, now stretching to two meters—an anomaly of twisting, abyssal flesh, brimming with newly fused elements. He was still a fraction of their size, dwarfed by their monstrous forms.

  But something was off.

  Size was power in the abyss, yet the Lords did not move recklessly. They did not simply charge to crush him.

  Because what pulsed from Eo was something beyond physical scale.

  A presence so dense, so unnatural, that it sent ripples through the ocean floor. Though the Lords towered four to five times his size, it was Eo's existence that felt heavier. The sheer compression of magic within his body was a mystery—something that shouldn’t exist.

  Even here, in the deepest parts of the world, he was an anomaly.

  Ozure, wounded but watching, narrowed her many eyes.

  "He’s still far from them in raw power… but they can’t just swallow him like prey, either."

  Eo flexed his limbs, his mutated form pulsing with elemental shifts. He had no intention of running. The challenge had begun.

  The abyss would witness something new today.