Chapter 6
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Chapter 6: Echinoderms! Face the Wrath of the Vertebrates!
“Whoo… Hiss…”
Fierce currents sprayed from the gill openings of the giant beast, sweeping through the entire mobile city.
Many were caught off guard and washed away instantly.
But unless terribly unlucky, they’d later swim back unharmed.
The deputy minister of the Third Branch, however—the long-hidden shapeshifting demon—fared differently.
“Uh… Ah ah ah…”
He howled in agony, horrified to find his demonic core’s power shrieking and cowering within him. It trembled weakly, ignoring his summons.
“Damn it! Sulya was right! A new deity has truly descended!”
“This power… it even suppresses the Chaos God!?”
“Ah! This terrifying divine might! Years of disguise ruined in an instant! Damn it!”
The deputy minister wasn’t the only one exposed.
Stripped of their power, disguises crumbled.
Shapeshifting demons revealed their true forms; Chaos followers showed their mutations.
Traitors unveiled themselves one after another!
“Gods! Help! The secretary’s a demon! He’s the one who peeked at Lady Sulya bathing!”
“Damn it—two demons in maintenance!? Confess! You drank the antifreeze, right!?”
“A cook grew tentacles and horns! Chaos follower! No wonder my stomach’s been off!”
“That’s him! The demon who smeared balm on your underwear! Beat him to death!”
Shouts and chaos erupted everywhere.
After this, the Third, Seventh, and Tenth Branches would surely become far "cleaner."
But the “giant beast” deity seemed preoccupied. It didn’t linger, nor leave divine oracles or teachings—just brushed past the four mobile cities and raced away.
“Whoo… Whoo… Whoo…”
The deputy minister gasped heavily. The crushing pressure finally faded; his chaotic power returned.
Staying now? Impossible.
A seasoned spy, he acted decisively.
Exposure meant escape—by any means—with every scrap of intelligence.
Luckily, he still had options.
“Seems this ‘benevolent god’ isn’t too bright.”
“Rushing off like that.”
“Doesn’t he know? Without divine pressure, my magic can send intel to the fortress and get me out! These mortals can’t stop me!”
“I’m a high-ranking demon!”
He extended his left hand.
“Whoosh——!”
Hellfire ignited in his palm, flickering like dim lights beneath the waves. Instead of spreading wildly, it gathered into a sharp blade!
“Hah——!”
No time left to think.
Knight Sulya was already upon him, fist swinging through the water!
“Think your fist can beat my hellfire blade?”
“Laughable——!”
The hellfire blade thrust straight at Sulya, meeting her knuckles head-on…
“No——!”
“Look out!”
Ocean people warriors who’d rushed to the scene shouted warnings. Everyone knew fists couldn’t break a demon—you needed weapons blessed with holy power!
Some squeezed their eyes shut, unable to watch the noble knight turn to shapeless ash under hellfire’s fury.
Yet moments later, their eyes snapped wide in disbelief.
“Hiss——!”
“What?!”
The shapeshifting demon’s pupils shrank. Its hellfire blade vanished the instant it touched the knight’s fist.
“Pfft.”
Like a pricked bubble.
“Impossible!”
“No—!”
To the demon, Sulya’s fist now filled its vision.
“Crunch——!”
The living saint’s iron fist smashed into its face. The demon spun head over heels, slammed against the railing, and crumpled to the deck.
Its body swayed limply in the current.
“Sizzle… hiss…”
Where Sulya struck, the demon’s face caved inward. Smoke curled from the dent as its hideous features corroded into ruin.
Then, the bureaucrats who’d rejected Sulya’s proposal moments before dropped to their knees in terror.
“Lady Sulya! We… we’re not with him!”
“G-great living saint! Spare us!”
With gods proven real, Sulya—first to believe, blessed by divine power, wielder of Chaos Energy—naturally became the undisputed leader of all mobile cities.
Their begging echoed across the deck.
But Sulya looked down on this group with disdain and indifference.
“Guards! Drag them away! Lock them up! Await judgment!”
“I’ll form a purge team to investigate whether there was collusion!”
“As for the battle plan…”
Just as Sulya was about to announce the strategy,
“Hahaha…”
“There’s no battle plan left!”
The demon Sulya had punched away suddenly laughed. Though too weak to stand, triumph still lit his face.
“I magically transmitted news of the Giant God immediately!”
“Andumali and Dantalin of the Chaos Council know! The chaos fortress forged from fallen gods’ flesh knows!”
“They’ll respond with full force!”
“If your god has any sense, he’d abandon you and fle—”
The demon’s words cut off as…
“Boom——!”
Another violent tremor shook them. Raging currents surged through, thrusting the mobile city’s colossal shell backward hundreds of meters.
“Creak——!”
Steel groaned under strain as the massive city tilted sharply from the impact.
“Ah——!”
“Ugh!”
Everyone on the terrace staggered. The gravely wounded but defiant demon tumbled off the ledge, battering against the mobile city’s jagged edges before a railing impaled him through.
But a demon was still a demon—his tenacious vitality kept him clinging to life despite the wound.
“Whoo…”
Sulya rose, shaken, and gazed into the distance.
Her pupils shrank!
There, the Giant God heaved its sea-shadowing bulk, ramming violently into another colossal beast!
—-
“Boom——!”
“Boom——!”
The massive armored sea beast slammed ruthlessly into the ram’s horn crinoid-shaped fortress.
“Zii——!”
The fortress retaliated fiercely, driving its spiked limbs into the sea beast’s armored hide.
The two giant beasts clashed, their titanic forms churning the currents into chaos across the sea.
"Ah——!"
"Help!"
"No——!"
Once wicked demons who reveled in spreading fear now cowered shamefully in fortress corners, grasping anything within reach as they wailed and wept in terror.
Their bodies swayed violently with the fortress’s heaving tremors.
Yet those still inside counted themselves lucky—those flung outward faced a crueler fate.
Drifting like helpless plankton in raging currents, they either smashed against the giant beast’s body, shattering upon impact, or were swept into the maw of the "fish-shaped giant beast."
"Fear nothing!"
"All will be well!"
Clutching a pillar within the fortress, the Demon Prince—its supreme commander—trembled uncontrollably.
Muscles that once tore constructs apart and fearsome claws now served only to grip the pillar for survival.
The voice that once brought humans death and dread through snarls and roars now whispered like a terrified girl’s.
Yet his confidence blazed undimmed!
"This fortress was once the lowest-ranked Chaos God on the Chaos Council! After defeat, he was stripped of his Soul and name, cast down to the primary material world!"
"Even before exile, this Chaos God’s divine form was famed for its ‘indestructibility’!"
"The fortress shares a god’s resilience! Nothing can breach it!"
"Retreat, accursed giant beast!"
"You cannot prevail!"
As if answering the Demon Prince’s declaration, the giant beast released the Divine Body Fortress and slowly withdrew.
Trilobite had indeed met a minor setback.
"Damn it!"
"Life without jaws is misery!"
Such was the plight of early vertebrates—most were filter feeders or dirt-eating Scavengers.
Though conodonts sported nightmarish mouthparts with complex grinding teeth, they could only hunt prey smaller than their jaws, barely claiming a small predator’s Ecological Niche.
Trilobite’s starfish body suffered the same flaw.
His sturdy Exoskeleton repelled the ram’s horn crinoid’s spiny arms, yet he couldn’t breach its thorny, rock-hard form.
The calcite Bone Fragments supporting its body proved equally stubborn, resisting ordinary thrashing and charges.
"Zii——!"
The ram’s horn crinoid reared triumphantly, waving its arms as if announcing victory and mocking Trilobite’s weakness.
Had Trilobite retreated then, the crinoid’s triumph would’ve been absolute.
As defender repelling an attacker, it had won.
"Damn!"
“This was truly like a golden bell against an iron shirt.”
“But don’t think you’re invulnerable like that, crinoid!”
Vertebrates surpassed other creatures in more ways than just their crushing jaws!
“Whew…”
Trilobite inhaled seawater deeply, accelerating its flow through his throat so the gill filaments in his gill openings could absorb more “oxygen.”
He curled his body, tilted upward, and…
“Boom——!”
With a powerful thrust of his caudal fin, the starfish surged upward!
Though he lacked pectoral fins and his body structure wasn’t built for swimming, the tail’s momentum carried him high—far above the ram’s horn crinoid.
There, Trilobite adjusted his position, turning his head downward.
“Whew…”
Another sharp flick of his caudal fin sent him plunging toward the ram’s horn crinoid!
“The first edge of vertebrates is their unmatched mobility from flexible vertebrae!”
“See this, you brainless lump of flesh!”
“Vertebrate fury!”
“Shatter for me!”
“Bang——!”
Gravity’s pull and his tail’s thrust slammed the starfish into the crinoid!
The impact wrenched the crinoid backward, bending it beyond what its body structure could endure.
“Crack——!”
Calcareous bone fragments snapped!
The ram’s horn crinoid broke into two miserable pieces, connected only by thin strands of muscle.
Of course, the force recoiled—the starfish fared little better than if he’d rammed a pillar.
Trilobite’s eyes rolled back as he sank belly-up to the seabed.
Concussed…
“Blub, blub…”
Bubbles streamed from his mouth…
But unlike the bisected crinoid, he blew bubbles briefly before shaking off the daze.
This highlighted the benefit of a bony endoskeleton—resilience.
Though the crinoid also had an internal skeleton, its calcareous plates were brittle under stress, concentrating impact force.
The starfish’s cartilaginous vertebrae, however, dispersed and absorbed the collision, cushioning the blow.
Vertebrates had triumphed utterly over echinoderms!
“Gotta… eat fast…”
Trilobite wobbled toward the broken ram’s horn crinoid, pinning it with his remaining appendages to suck its fluids and soft tissues.
But then…
“Huh?”
Tiny “pixel dots”—plankton—poured from the crinoid’s corpse.
On the “Chaos Energy” three-dimensional map, little red dots swarmed everywhere around it.
“Heh?”
“Symbiotic plankton and micro-crustaceans fleeing?”
“Escape?”
“No chance!”
“Chaos Energy and meat—all mine!”
The starfish shook off his dizziness, circling the carcass with tail flicks.
“Slurp——!”
He chased the “plankton,” sucking them in relentlessly.
