Chapter 66: Desolate Dive

I felt the icy darkness swallow me in an instant, immense water pressure surging from all sides.

The moment the seawater closed over my head, the world’s sounds shifted dramatically.

The clamor above the surface— wind, shouts, crashing waves— vanished as if wiped away by a giant hand, replaced by a muffled, distorted silence.

The sound of currents brushing my ears amplified a thousandfold, becoming a constant, low rumble, and with each stroke, I heard the sticky slosh of water parting.

From the deeper darkness came a drumming thump-thump, which I soon realized was my heartbeat.

I was afraid.

That’s right— both Kritiya and I could swim, no doubt, but that experience was limited to sunny days in the mirror-flat river bend near the duke’s castle.

And only now, truly immersed in the vast, surging sea, did I instantly grasp how, compared to this, the river bay the girl had once waded in was little different from a warm bath.

I must be insane— to jump in without a second thought!

But there was no turning back now; the mana flowing from the Seed of the Evil God seemed to lend me some sense of power, steadying my nerves.

Recalling those meager techniques, I clumsily tried to dive deeper with limbs and all.

Guided by survival instinct and magic’s aid, I forced my eyes wide, relying on the faint night vision from Eye Within Eye to search the murky seawater for that familiar figure.

Finally, not far below, I spotted the struggling, sinking shadow— I recognized it at a glance as Nolan.

He seemed to retain some faint awareness, eyes half-open, limbs flailing helplessly, yet his body plummeted downward like a lead weight.

That injured arm dangled limply to the side, a fatal burden.

As expected, the real world’s cruelty far outstripped the tales on paper.

But— there’s still hope!

A flicker of hopeful fire ignited faintly in my heart, only to be doused by fear the next instant, as my lungs began to ache and groan, making me realize I didn’t have enough air left!

What to do? What to do!

With Nolan still sinking toward the seabed— if I couldn’t pull him up soon, it wasn’t just about saving him; it was whether the air in my lungs would last to reach the surface myself!

But the suffocation spread relentlessly through my chest, physiological instinct forcing my mouth open in search of air, only for the briny seawater to choke down my throat upon the first gasp;

“Cough cough!”

I clamped my lips shut tight, preventing more water from invading my windpipe, but the craving for oxygen brought no relief whatsoever.

A sense of absurdity washed over me like the tide— this was a world with magic, so why were humans still so tightly bound by the laws of breath and survival?

Right…… magic.

Indeed, there was magic to resolve this crisis— if I used that black magic……

But I hadn’t forgotten on purpose; it was just that if it came to that, the cost to this body would be far too steep.

Since forging the pact with the Evil God, I’d always been cautious, meticulously selecting relatively harmless spells to cast.

Black magic earned its taboo status precisely because so many of its rites, once invoked, inflicted irreversible corrosion on the caster.

Perhaps among this world’s orthodox magics, there truly existed gentler, more convenient spells like “underwater breathing,” but those weren’t powers I could wield right now.

Still, how much time did I have left to steel myself mentally?

If I relied on that last held breath, I might struggle back to the surface, but what kind of life would that be— aside from getting my clothes wet, what meaning would it hold?

Light novel protagonists wouldn’t settle for that.

“Fine, I’m already here……”

In the end, I didn’t deliberate much longer.

I gritted my teeth inwardly, steering my body downward toward Nolan at the seafloor while silently channeling mana and chanting the incantation.

My silver hair drifted with the current, brushing my cheeks and neck; as the chant progressed, I felt my body, stiffening from the cold, begin to twist fluidly like a swimming fish.

Two seconds later, a faint tearing pain arrived, and then I opened my mouth, feeling cool seawater flood in— only for it to flow out through the slits.

Those were…… gills.

Organs akin to fish gills, forcibly reshaped by flesh magic.

With the first effective circulation of seawater, the blood seeping from the deformation was carried away too, diffusing slowly behind my neck like a red scarf streamer fluttering in the ink-blue depths, swirling and swirling.

This was an advanced application of black magic’s flesh manipulation branch, its essence far beyond the body reinforcements or flesh controls I’d used before—

Stepping into even more forbidden territory: reshaping the human form itself, adding organs and structures nature never granted, or even further, briefly drawing the caster toward those legendary transcendent beings like ancient dragons or giant yokai.

By my guess, Black Mage Ross’s horrifying aberrant tentacles were likely some variant of this magic.

But now that I’d rashly taken this taboo step in haste, pondering such things held no meaning.

As the current flowed steadily through my mouth, via hidden channels along my throat, and finally out the cranial slits at the back, I experimentally sealed my lips, the newborn, scale-sensitive tissues contracting slightly too.

Then, a breath rich with mana’s distinct tang, cool and faintly sweet, slowly filled my chest.

By my previous life’s scientific understanding, fish extracted oxygen from water through intricate structures, relying on a whole physiological system’s synergy.

But these “pseudo-gills” I’d gained via magic were no true facsimile; their mechanism was obscure and arcane, aided by the specific organ structure, with mana itself acting as a stagnant medium to forcibly extract life-sustaining air from the seawater.

I couldn’t claim this mana-extracted gas was oxygen in the usual sense, but without doubt, it enabled me to breathe underwater— or some form of breathing, at least.

In this life-or-death moment, knowing that was enough.

Alright, the last retreat was cut off— or rather, the choice was made.

With no further hesitation, I held that taboo-magic-won breath sustaining my life in my mouth, flicked my form like a true aquatic creature, and swiftly, agilely swam toward the blurry figure still slowly descending below.

I finally reached his side.

I maneuvered my body, dodging Nolan’s instinctive, feeble flailing of his one good arm, then circled behind him, wrapping my arms around his chest to try hauling him upward.

But the boy’s body, waterlogged from near-drowning, had grown immensely heavy; survival instincts made his limbs thrash uncontrollably, turning the drag into a grueling ordeal— in the end, not only did I fail to lift him, but I was pulled down with him instead.

No, at this rate, we’d both perish here.

As that thought flashed through my mind— I understood I had only one choice left.

I released my hold on Nolan’s arms, then swam back to his front.

The boy’s eyes were half-lidded, pupils slightly unfocused; I didn’t know if he retained any spark of clarity.

“No— no, you have to live…… otherwise, everything will fall apart.”

An inexplicable obsession clenched my heart— I simply raised my hands, cupping his cheeks, watching his flaxen hair drift like seaweed in the gloom.

No time left for hesitation.

I drew a deep “breath”— not air, but the mana-tinged, sweetish essence filtered through my pseudo-gills— then leaned in, pressing my lips to his cold ones.

In the instant of contact, an indescribable shiver raced down my spine.

But my mind spared no room for extraneous thoughts;

I knew this wasn’t some tender touch— between our overlapping lips lay a lifeline cord, conveying life amid the brine’s saltiness and a faint, elusive metallic tang of blood.

I carefully controlled it, passing the vital “breath” from my lungs— or rather, the mana organ now serving that function— mouthful by mouthful into his mouth.

At first, he showed no response.

His jaws seemed clenched slightly from the cold and asphyxiation, the passed essence merely bubbling faintly from the seal of our joined lips and teeth.

Panic wrapped around my heart like kelp.

No— he has to accept it!

I steadied the back of his head with one hand, pressing harder against the boy’s pallid lips, trying to pry open that barrier to life.

This time, I felt a faint spasm in his throat, followed by the tiniest, almost imperceptible swallow.

My heart eased for a moment, then tightened again; without question, my effort had worked, but I dared not pause for an instant, merely sustaining this eerie, somewhat intimate motion.

Fresh current drawn through the pseudo-gills, converted in my lungs to mana-mingled essence, then fed from my lips to his.

Thus— cycling repeatedly, until I saw a trace of color finally return to Nolan’s ashen face.