Black Killer Whale Baby - Chapter 194
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 194
Three days later.
The day of the wager I had made with the Matriarch had arrived.
The venue for the wager became the indoor training grounds of Aquasiadel.
It was a place I had visited even in my previous life.
The grounds were prepared like a stage for a duel. It was a sparring arena constructed to allow matches like those in a gladiatorial arena.
We would fight there.
‘In the third cycle, it was utterly destroyed due to the succession struggle.’
This meant I was seeing the training grounds in pristine condition for the first time.
The indoor training grounds boasted tremendous size, and the massive doors bore a great orca painted upon them, befitting the Aquasiadel family crest.
A scar was etched upon the orca’s forehead—a wound said to have been inflicted during a battle with the first Dragon Duke.
It proved that the ruffian-like tendency to enjoy combat had been a tradition passed down from the ancestors for ages untold.
The moment I stepped through the doors, I was somewhat taken aback.
‘What is this.’
Regardless, the wager at stake was absurdly enormous.
‘I was certain crowds of people would be gathered here.’
There was not a single person behind the Matriarch.
Well, there was only one person.
Why had I assumed there would be many?
‘The Matriarch would never believe she would lose.’
In the Matriarch’s eyes, I was merely an eight-year-old child. Unless I sent Father as my proxy, there was no way I could win.
That was indeed the reality.
She would not know that I had gained the ability to wield the power of the third cycle through Ekion.
‘Right. So I thought she wasn’t excited about the prospect of gathering crowds to humiliate me.’
The empty training grounds gave me a small shock. What could it mean?
While the Matriarch’s side was sparse, my side had quite a few people. All the important figures from my faction had attended.
‘Does she regard this wager as a joke?’
That could be the case.
Rather than picking a quarrel, I quietly ascended onto the sparring arena.
“You’ve come quite modestly, haven’t you?”
The Matriarch appeared to have lost a bit more weight over the past few days.
Yet rather than appearing gaunt or withered, she looked even more like a sharp predator.
The Matriarch did not smile.
“Why, do I appear to be taking this wager lightly?”
“….”
I hadn’t said that, had I?
“A crowd would only make this a spectacle. I am approaching this with utmost seriousness.”
At her measured words, I glanced at the figure standing behind the Matriarch.
‘Hmm, I let it pass, but that person….’
It was an unexpected individual.
“A duel requires witnesses. My witness is that man.”
He was the Matriarch of the strongest collateral family branch.
The family name was Kipleau.
One could say he was the Matriarch’s chief commander of operations.
“No need for lengthy explanations, is there?”
If their witness was the Matriarch of that collateral branch, then ours was Father.
The duel began with the witnesses’ testimonies.
They stepped forward as witnesses to this duel, declaring that as observers they would speak only truth regarding the outcome—that sort of thing.
It was also conducted under the Sea’s Oath, preventing any falsehoods from being spoken.
“I’m reluctant to admit it, but Mother’s words will surely be truthful.”
After finishing his witness declaration, Father approached me and whispered that Grandmother was right to take this seriously.
The fact that Father acknowledged it felt strange.
“Calypso.”
Ekion stood beside Father. When had he drawn so close?
He had pulled his cloak hood down firmly to hide his face, then pressed against me and gently grasped my hand.
Since there was a time limit to using the water’s power, Ekion would step forward and use his strength after the witness declaration concluded.
It was what we had agreed upon.
“You said we need to press our foreheads together, right?”
“Yes.”
“And kiss?”
“…Yes.”
I was reciting the method Ekion had already explained to confirm it, and my temples burned.
Glancing to the side, I saw Father watching with a displeased expression.
“Aha… shall we get started?”
I laughed awkwardly and pulled Ekion toward me.
“Thank you.”
After the process concluded, I whispered into Ekion’s ear.
Soon the duel’s participants took their positions.
The Matriarch and I faced each other, our gazes colliding.
‘But did it really work? Can I truly use the Third Cycle’s power?’
When I could use the water’s power for a few moments in the City of Dragons, from the instant I received my power through Ekion’s strength, it felt like power overflowed from my body.
This time was different.
‘Rather, it feels like there’s nothing in my body at all…’
I soon understood.
Yes, that was it.
In those martial arts novels I’d glimpsed briefly on Earth long ago, there was a saying like this.
When someone reached a certain high realm, they appeared no different from an ordinary person on the surface.
The water’s power was the same.
After accumulating countless realms and finally reaching the pinnacle, the water’s power appeared indistinguishable from when it wasn’t being used at all.
‘Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve been in this state that I’d forgotten.’
I clenched my fist, then opened it.
‘If it’s like this, even after all this time, I won’t struggle to exert myself, will I?’
I slowly lifted my head.
A woman as massive as Mount Tai stood before me.
Silver strands of hair, revealing the passage of years, were mixed throughout her swaying locks.
A person who had always appeared impossibly large.
In this moment.
She no longer seemed so towering.
Perhaps it was because of the colossal power surging within my body.
The power of water swirling through my body that I had briefly forgotten—I focused on that sensation.
My power that had lifted me to my peak in the third cycle.
‘The power of water.’
Water slowly spiraled forth from my hand.
“…!”
The Orca Family Matriarch’s face showed surprise, then she let out a short laugh.
“Ha, you’ve awakened?”
I didn’t answer.
There was no obligation to respond.
Instead, I quietly felt the power surging through my body.
Gradually, the smile faded from the Orca Family Matriarch’s face.
“…What on earth.”
There was no time to mock her vacant voice.
‘How long has it been. This feeling of such fullness.’
Soon a tremendous power of water rose, taking form in my hand.
Finally, the weapon held in my hand was a colossal axe.
In the third cycle, when I returned to this place, it was the weapon I had used to settle the succession struggle.
“Now the fight will be fun, won’t it?”
I swung the massive axe back and forth.
I had expected some awkwardness since the weapon was fitted for an adult body.
Yet it moved without resistance.
‘Is this thanks to Father? I offer glory to Father, who wielded it so enthusiastically in the past.’
I stepped back with my feet.
“Hahaha, this will be fun. Truly.”
The wager slipped from my mind for a moment.
And a wish I had harbored purely long ago came to mind.
Yes. How much had I longed for this in the third cycle.
‘I wanted to beat the Orca Family Matriarch with my own hands!’
And so I didn’t realize.
That from this moment on, my eyes were beginning to lose their sanity.
* * *
“She’s lost her mind.”
Atlant, who had been quietly observing Calypso’s battle from behind, muttered under his breath.
“Indeed.”
Bellus responded to Atlant’s words in a cold voice.
Atlant looked at him with an absurd expression, then added a fierce glare to it.
“What, you’re not even hiding it anymore, you bastard?”
“What does ‘bastard’ mean coming from my brother?”
Atlant caught the force of the incoming water with his bare hands and ground his teeth.
This bastard—brother my ass.
He had recovered his memories later than I did, yet refused to acknowledge it, circling only around Calypso like a fool.
How could I possibly recognize such a man as my brother?
“I have no brother.”
I cannot acknowledge such a defective creature!
Bellus simply stared with an icy expression.
“Then get beaten instead.”
Atlant blamed Bellus while completely forgetting his own similar behavior, despite having his own denial phase.
“You want to try?”
The moment Atlant clenched his fists, a pale-colored water spike shot toward Bellus.
In that instant, both Bellus’s water blade and Atlant’s spike were swallowed and disappeared beneath a tremendous surge of water.
“Be quiet.”
It was Pierre’s power.
“I can’t hear Calypso’s breathing.”
Though he spoke quietly, his voice was closer to “Shut up, you bastards.”
Bellus and Atlant immediately lowered their fists.
‘What kind of person is this man anyway…?’
Atlant was bewildered and felt wronged.
‘He’s stronger than a regressor?’
No matter that his body was still before reaching adulthood, even in his prime during the third cycle.
He had no confidence he could defeat Pierre.
How had he contracted an illness and died?
He had never understood why the Matriarch could not let go of her attachment to her father who had fallen ill.
This was the first moment he truly understood that longing.
Glancing over, his brother Bellus seemed to harbor similar thoughts.
The two brothers had no time for further contemplation.
Boom!
A sound so tremendous erupted that one could not help but turn around.
After quickly turning his gaze toward the training grounds, Atlant saw a colossal wave.
‘Wow, I’m seeing that again.’
That mysterious azure wave rising fiercely as if it would touch the high ceiling.
It was her signature technique from her previous life, the one that had made Calypso the Matriarch.
It is a tidal wave that sweeps away everything.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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