Dreleon tried to trigger his spatial perception the moment the darkness closed in.
He expected the familiar five-meter bubble of space to bloom, giving him an anchor in the black slime pool.
Instead, the energy crumbled instantly.
It was as if the black slime was a sponge, soaking up his mana before it could even manifest.
Then, he felt the first tug.
Strangely, there was no pain.
His nerves remained silent, but through the Basic Regulation Technique—a foundational internal monitoring skill he had mastered during his brutal childhood training—he felt the shift in his body.
His internal map flared red.
Tissue loss: Lower calf. Nerve ending status: Severed.
"What! What's happening?," he panicked and thought, and started linking what the old turtle said about his dinner.
"Hahahaha! Kid," the Elder's mockery vibrated through the viscous fluid, sounding like a muffled drum. "Don't become the dinner of my dinner! Otherwise, what will I say to the Princess? 'Your trusted guard died while catching fish?' Hahaha!"
The laughter felt like needles in Dreleon's mind.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you," the Elder added, his voice dripping with amusement. "Don't worry. Even if you die, you won't feel a thing. The water is... special in some way, hahahaha." He laughed like he was watching an interesting show.
Dreleon's internal map began to light up like a forest fire.
Flesh loss: Left thigh. Laceration: Right shoulder. Those were muscle groups reinforced with Royal Lion genes—tougher than steel, capable of crushing stone—and they were being chewed away like soft bread.
The psychological horror of watching his body disappear without feeling a single sting pushed his sanity to the edge.
The anger came as a flood.
His mind snapped. The calculating, quiet human side of Dreleon—the side that tried to regulate and monitor—simply shut down.
He didn't want to think anymore, He didn't want to be a guard or a slave.
He wanted to kill.
A guttural, forced underwater roar escaped his lungs, but not being heard because of the black slime water.
His claws extending to their limit, their sharpness forgetting all defence.
He began to kick and slash manically, his movements no longer refined.
He ripped at the water as if it were a physical enemy, his claws catching on the thick slime like it was tight rubber.
Every kick pushed him deeper, but he didn't care.
He became a savage.
The injured lion, trapped in a pit and surrounded by hyenas.
Then, the change happened.
In the absence of his human mind, his primal instincts took over the steering wheel of his soul.
He began to feel the bloodlust emitted by the Ghost Fish. He couldn't see them, and he couldn't feel their bites, but he could sense their intent to kill, to bite everything.
The hunter became the prey, and the prey turned into the apex predator.
As his bloodlust synchronized with the Lion's soul, his Space element reacted.
It mutated.
The thin glass of his previous space power suddenly hardened.
The water around him groaned as it was forcibly shoved back.
A capsule of pure, absolute space snapped into existence around him, it was a void-suit that rejected the world.
The slime, the Ghost Fish, and the numbing water were pushed five meters away in every direction, held back by an invisible, impenetrable wall.
Inside the capsule made up of his space element, Dreleon stood in a pocket of dry air, his golden eyes glowing with a terrifying, bestial light.
He was bleeding from a dozen places, his reinforced flesh torn, but he was finally standing.
He wasn't just catching fish anymore. He was clearing the pond.