The next attack came from nowhere.
A wall of compressed water slammed into Gray from the side, moving like pure force through the dark. The barrier around him shuddered violently then shattered into a storm of silver-blue fragments.
[-42 HP]
[GRAY ASHFORD — HP: 691 / 870]
"Gray!! Hold on!" Cindy’s voice cracked with strain.
But the next attack was already coming.
The false squids closed in from every direction, their shifting bodies twisting through the water like living hallucinations. Fake images darted left and right, pulling his attention apart.
Then something real slammed across his bell.
[-28 HP]
He spun, but the squid was already gone, replaced by three more afterimages, each one rippling with the same colors.
’Tch... they’re too fast. I can’t even tell where the real one is anymore.’
A second attack came from behind, cutting deep into his soft, gelatinous body before he could turn.
[-36 HP]
[LACERATION — 5 damage over 6 seconds]
[GRAY ASHFORD — HP: 627 / 870]
Venomous Riposte activated. The spines along his bell lashed out automatically, stabbing into the retreating tentacle. The real squid flinched somewhere in the storm of colors, a brief and almost imperceptible disruption in the shifting pattern.
But it wasn’t enough.
The water around him began to move differently now. They wrapped around him from all sides, tightening like invisible chains. The squid was controlling the water itself, shaping it into a cage.
Gray struggled, but the current dragged him sideways, pulling his tentacles apart, forcing his bell to tilt at an awkward angle. He was caught.
The illusions swirled closer. Some of them reached out and touched him lightly, one after another, like fingers tapping glass.
’Shit... it’s playing with me.’
Cindy’s voice came, low and disturbed. "This monster... it’s completely different from the others."
The tentacles were coiling around Gray now, real and solid, their serrated suckers pressing against his armor. The false squids parted, and the real one emerged from the center of the illusion storm. Its colors shifted slowly as it drew closer.
’Ugh... these tentacles are disgusting, I can feel them crawling over every part of my body.’
"Gray... that thing is going to do something to you. You need to get out of there now!"
Gray’s tentacles twitched against the squid’s tightening grip. His body was still wrapped in those disgusting, serrated limbs, each one pulsing faintly as the creature tasted the water around him.
’I know,’ he said, his mental voice tight but focused. ’But I need the right moment. If I move too early, it’ll just tighten its grip and crush me.’
"That’ll take too long!" Cindy shot back. "At this rate, you’ll be eaten before you can even try!"
Gray’s bell shifted slightly, his barbs scraping against the squid’s flesh as he tested the strength of the hold. The suckers clung tighter.
’Listen,’ he said. ’When I give the signal, I need you to trap it with your shield and surround the squid completely. Can you do that?’
"...Oh," Cindy said, understanding dawning. "You’re going to do that explosion thing again, aren’t you?"
’Yes,’ Gray confirmed. ’So wait for my signal.’
Cindy let out a sharp breath.
"Then you should’ve said so from the start! I’ve been panicking over here!"
The squid’s grip shifted. Its tentacles were coiling tighter now, pulling Gray’s body closer to its hidden mouth. The real creature was somewhere beneath the shifting mass of color, its beak no doubt already open.
Gray activated EMP Shroud.
The electromagnetic pulse exploded outward. Gray pressed it directly into the squid’s body through the tentacles still wrapped around his bell and through the water between them.
The squid convulsed.
Its serrated suckers spasmed, loosening their grip for a fraction of a second. Its arms twitched erratically, and the squid let out a low, distorted vibration.
’Now, Cindy!’
"[PHYSICAL BARRIER!]"
Light flared from the locket. A shimmering dome snapped into place around the Mirage Squid, sealing it inside with Gray. The squid shrieked, its arms convulsing as the barrier trapped it in place.
Blue-white light blazed from Gray’s body. The electricity found the squid’s nerves and tore through them, turning every muscle in its body into a cage of locked bone and flesh.
[OVERCHARGE — 94 DAMAGE]
[CHROMATIC MIRAGE SQUID — HP: 466 / 560]
[STUN — 5 SECONDS]
The squid went rigid, its tentacles locking around him as the current scrambled its nervous system. Its chromatophores sputtered, trying and failing to project new illusions.
’Now let me out!’
Cindy opened a gap in the barrier. Gray tore himself free from the stunned squid’s grip and shot through the opening. The moment he was clear, Cindy sealed the barrier again.
Gray spun to face the trapped monster, his bell already heating as the crystalline structures along his body began to glow.
’You should’ve let go.’
He fired Cavitation Pulse into the barrier.
The superheated jet of water and crystal shrapnel struck the inner surface of Cindy’s dome. The barrier absorbed the heat but Gray kept firing, pouring more and more energy into the confined space. The residual electricity from Overcharge still crackled through the water, and as the temperature spiked, the mixture reached critical.
Then the barrier shattered outward.
The explosion tore through the water like a miniature sun. Shockwaves, boiling steam, shards of silver-blue energy, and the squid’s own convulsing body were hurled outward in every direction. The seafloor split as the water flashed white.
And inside that blinding light, Gray thought he saw the squid’s body tear apart.
Cindy’s voice exploded in his mind, bright with relief.
"Yeyyy!! We did it Gray! We—"
’...Wait,’ Gray interrupted. his senses still fixed on the churning cloud of smoke and debris. ’I haven’t received any notification...’
Cindy’s excitement died instantly.
"...What do you mean?"
Then, The Chromatic Mirage Squid emerged from the fading explosion, its body suspended in the center of a swirling sphere of water. Layer upon layer of compressed water wrapped around its form like a living cocoon, deflecting the heat and shrapnel before any of it could reach the creature’s skin.
It was untouched.
Cindy’s voice came, small and disbelieving.
"It used the water pressure around its body to form a shield...? That’s impossible... that level of control..."
Gray senses remained locked on the squid as the water shield began to peel away, layer by layer, flowing back into the surrounding sea as if it had never existed.
’What the hell...’
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