Born in Blood

Liam was drowning.

He was under the sea.

Tranquility.

There was peace here.

Sure, he was drowning, and water flooded his lungs. But the water made him feel safe.

Like he was in his mother's womb.

But Liam's mother was dead. How pitiful.

Not that. How he still needed air to breathe! But that wasn't the only problem.

Right now, Liam was in several pieces. As in, the lower half of his body was torn apart. His eyes drooped with drowsiness. Even his mental sphere suffered a few cracks, despite him using his defenses in the nick of time. He was pretty sure something was boiling, too.

But he didn't know what.

His thoughts were slow.

But his mind was slowly coming back to him.

What was he doing?

Right.

Tribulation.

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Tribulation.

His mind was back now. He realized what was boiling. It was his blood. His Pearl was unharmed. His vital organs were… gravely injured, but at this point, he'd take what he could get.

Was he in imminent danger?

No.

Not yet, at least.

Liam's vision weakly returned to him. It was like seeing through murky water, which slowly parted with clarity.

Nothing was killing him just yet… but he had a very, very small amount of ichor left.

No one was coming to help.

And quite frankly, Liam would prefer that.

How embarrassing would it be to be saved like a damsel in distress?!

'Lame way to go out, though,' Liam thought, light slowly returning to his vision.

Just then, the water waves rippled with movement that didn't belong to him. Liam weakly moved his head to the side, a vague silhouette wiggling left and right towards him.

Liam's eyes widened.

It was a magical beast!

A sea creature!

An Eight Eyed Limb Shark! It was obvious the smell of Liam's blood had attracted it.

It was also in the fourth Rank. The Eight Eyed Limb Shark's description was self explanatory.

It had eight blue eyes on both sides of its long, curved body. But what made it special were the two, human-like hands that emerged from its back.

They were human-like in shape and anatomy, but were sharp, dangerous, and covered with glowing blue scales. And it was swimming straight towards him with incredible speed.

Liam steadied himself. Slowly, his right arm turned into a huge tentacle, and he grew a curved fin out his back. Next, his fingers became webbed like an otter's, granting him underwater maneuverability.

Then, he waited patiently.

Liam glanced above.

The tribulation hadn't actually gone anywhere. It was still running. But since he was underwater, it faced difficulty getting through. That was gaseous darkness' weakness! But slowly, the tribulation was adapting. It was becoming liquid and solid. Not to mention, he still had the chaos lightning to worry about! Though, for some reason, he wasn't being struck.

Perhaps its chaos reserves were diminished. Liam had to move. Fast. Seconds passed as the movement beneath the waters grew more hectic.

The shark was approaching faster and faster, until its dark silhouette was no longer vague.

WHSH!

With its monstrous jaw open, the shark lurched at Liam with a burst of power, all eight of its blue eyes glowing with malice. In response, Liam waved his left hand and propelled himself above, successfully dodging the charge.

Then, as the jaw clamped a few inches away from him, his tentacle hand tensed into a scythe. SHING!

Liam slashed once across the shark's head, slicing through the rigid scales and severing it cleanly in half.

Safe from one evil, exposed to another. Jagged, sharp rods of darkness began to rain upon him by the tribulation like a flurry of arrows. A few managed to pierce his chest and arms. But Liam used Admit on the shark.

Immediately, the shark's scales, blood, organs and form was absorbed by him.

Likewise, Liam's skin, blood, organs and form changed into the shark!

In just a few seconds, he had become a shark with limbs and eight eyes, and grew longer than 9 meters in length. Liam shot towards the bottom of the water, using his special limbs and long tail to ramp up his speed.

SHHHHHHH!

Then, he made an upward curve towards the ocean, straight towards the heart of the tribulation.

The darkness that rained upon him managed to chink and crack his special scales, but he powered on.

SPLASHHHHH!

Even as he emerged from the water, Liam was kicking his tail and rising into the air, similar to how a crocodile might attack a seagull.

Except, Liam's victim was a swarm of darkness/corruption/chaos.

Strangely enough, it was a mere fraction of its original size. Despite the focus being on Liam, the Chaos Abomination's devastating explosion blew away most of it. But slowly, the cloud was transforming.

Into an Abomination!

'No you don't!' Liam thought. In his shark form, Liam just… devoured it.

OMP!

It felt like he'd just swallowed a rag that was used to clean feces and dirty vomit. As soon as it passed through his gullet, it exploded, melted and seared his anatomy. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! And it exploded over and over and over and over again. The Chaos inside it was detonating! Inside Liam, no less. Parts of his shark form reverted back to a humanoid shape since it was damaged beyond repair. Liam was losing consciousness. The damage on his mind, blood and soul were starting to weigh on him. Even if pain felt good now, that didn't necessarily mean that his body didn't suffer for it.

His eyes drooped. His vision became hazy and blurry.

His body was still exploding. Before long, he was back to his original form, with Expel and Admit on cooldown.

But as the seconds ticked down… the pain turned into nourishment, which funneled straight into Liam's core!

It was his darkness. True, pure, Zenith darkness that filled his new core and nourished it beautifully. The Defense Tribulation was over. Speaking of darkness, Liam's vision was filled with it, and his mind went black.