Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

Rain's idea of encouragement was quite dark, to say the least… everyone was already quite tense for moving underwater at night, and when they returned to the surface, they were surrounded in all directions by darkness as well.

Fortunately, the sky was free from clouds and so they could see a sea of stars and the moon illuminating things quite a bit, but it wasn't enough to make them feel safe. Using all the heat that they could control in a large area, the heat sorcerers created several fireballs and made them slowly rotate around them.

That illuminated things a lot, but then they realized that they would easily find it in that situation, and underwater was still pitch dark.

While everyone was tense, only Artisia and Rain looked fine. Rain didn't have time to think about anything since he was hungry and was talking out the cooking utensils that he brought from home… he didn't know for how long the mission will last, so he was going to make sure that he will keep his morale high with good food. He was a man who had his priorities straight, after all.

"Use one of the fireballs to heat this up, decrease the temperature and increase the size of the fireball, yeah, that much is fine," Rain said.

There are some rumors among the members of the raging phoenix that Rain is a great cook, but people treated that like a joke or some urban legend. It was impossible for them to imagine someone like Rain cooking food, but here was him doing that… the rumors were only going to start to get crazy.

Since the size of the group increased insanely in the last two months, people began to think that they would began to get served rations or something, but when they were in the headquarters, they all had nice and warm food… even though they were being paid to work outside, they regretted a little when they didn't have the chance to make that food… they never imagined that Rain was the one cooking and thanks to it, his Cook's path was already at level forty.

In any case, after they filled their bellies and forgot the situation that they were in for a moment, the group finally got tense again and began to wait to be attacked, or devoured alive for that matter… they didn't know the size of the sea dragons, but they could only imagine that they could eat all of them at once… In any case, eventually, Rain got tired of waiting and decided to split the work.

"Half of you can go to sleep, the other half will stay on guard duty," Rain declared and then he realized that he will have to choose the ones who are going to sleep first. "You three, you two, and you five, you will join them as well, I will call you if something happens."

They only needed two heat sorcerers to keep the area illuminated enough, so Rain didn't feel the need to only use the heat sorcerers awake at night… Regardless, while they resisted at force, the chosen ones and Artisia eventually fell asleep thanks to the sound of the waves.

During the waiting time, Rain kept himself aware while using his magic on the water around to notice the approaches of anything. His range was three kilometers, since he was also using Meditation Mastery… thanks to that, he noticed when some of the other guards in the area approached to check on them.

Knowing his luck, Rain imagined that the first sea dragon would only show up after several days and he didn't expect that they would come alone too…

"It is coming…" Rain suddenly got up. "As I said, focus on defending and don't move from this spot."

Rain jumped on the water already using his wind barrier… it didn't take long for him to see the giant sea dragon in the distance and coming from the East. The massive sea dragon unfurled its form. Stretching an astonishing one hundred meters from head to tail, this creature was a breathtaking sight.

Its scales were a vibrant mosaic of colors, shimmering like precious gemstones under the gentle play of sunlight filtering through the water.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

With a grace that defied its immense size, the sea dragon moved through the water with an effortless fluidity. Its serpentine body was undulated in harmonious rhythms as it navigated the underwater currents. The sea dragon's head was a scary sight, dominated by a cavernous maw bristling with rows of sharp, glistening teeth.

Its eyes, like liquid gold, exuded an intelligence and age-old wisdom, a testament to the countless ages it had witnessed. Enjoy exclusive adventures from empire

As it cruised through the submerged realm, the sea dragon commanded both fear and wonder. It stood as a symbol of the ocean's boundless mysteries and untamed beauty.

"My speed is limited here, and the Limit Breaker is practically useless," Rain thought. "I will have to keep using only magic for a while while studying the movements and skills of this thing."

Rain raised his hand and froze the water in front of the monster, creating several ice walls on it. Still, the beast easily passed through the… however, that was within Rain's expectations… he immediately controlled the ice shards and made them pierce the face and the eyes of the monster… but the creature closed them fast enough out of reflex.

The sea dragon trembled a bit when the ice shards pierced the space between its scales, but aside from that, nothing happened. In the end, Rain made his wind barrier move toward the enemy as fast as possible, but he wasn't even one-third as fast as he was when he used Impulse. Thanks to that, the monster had enough time to summon a whirlwind that began to pull Rain.

"While this is reality, this is why I hate underwater levels in games," Rain thought while he tried to fight the pull, but he failed.