Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil - Chapter 1934

Silence.

As soon as Eren finished speaking, everything went still.

The sea, which had been restless just moments ago, became eerily quiet.

It was as if time itself had frozen. Even the currents that had once swayed around them came to a sudden halt.

Azurea and Marina felt the weight of the silence pressing down on them.

It was suffocating. Their own heartbeats felt too loud, like war drums pounding in their ears.

But deep down, they knew it was just their imagination.

Then, in the next instant—

BOOM!

A terrifying mana pulse exploded from the abyss.

The force of it rippled through the water, distorting the very fabric of the sea. It wasn’t just powerful—it was overwhelming. The kind of power that shouldn’t exist in this place.

Azurea and Marina felt their bodies tremble. Their gazes met, and in their eyes, the same thought flashed—Impossible.

The sea monster had advanced.

No wonder the barrier couldn’t hold on after suffering from a single issue. The chaos caused by Eren had only expedited the process that was apparently inevitable.

This wasn’t just an S-Rank beast anymore. No, it had become something far worse. A Half-Step SS-Rank entity.

A creature that was just a breath away from true SS-Rank power—strong enough to rival a Saint Ranker. And as a beast with a stronger physical form, it could already stand against one without much trouble.

The barrier was not only meant to trap him. It was also meant to stop him from growing stronger.

But it had failed.

Or rather… it had done the opposite.

Azurea’s stomach dropped. The very thing that was supposed to suppress him had helped him instead.

Unbeknownst to Raashim Temple or anyone else, the reason for his advancement was quite simple. The sea monster had merged with an Elder Seed Artifact.

That reckless gamble had given him an edge. Instead of being weakened, he had used the barrier to break through his limits.

Almost two centuries.

For a being at the late-stage S-Rank, two centuries was nothing more than a blink of an eye. But in that short span of time, he had shattered his bottlenecks, rising to a level of power that should have taken far longer to reach.

And now—

He was free.

No one spoke. Not Marina. Not Azurea. Not even Reen, who suddenly felt like her skin was crawling with invisible ants.

Only Eren moved.

He stood at the edge of the abyss, looking down with a small smile.

The butcher was a bit nervous. But he wasn’t afraid.

After all, this wasn’t the first time he had felt a power beyond S-Rank. His mind drifted back to his first encounter with the Titans’ skeletal remains in Anfang—Eliza’s prized trophies displayed in her ancestral palace. Some of those Titans had been Pseudo-Saints, their bones still radiating a presence that could shake one’s soul.

Even now, standing before a living, breathing Half-Step SS-Rank beast, Eren didn’t feel the same terror he had felt back then.

It was strange.

It was almost as if his mind had already assigned fear to those dead Titans. And there was no room left for anything else.

Then—

A voice.

Deep. Ancient. Drenched in confusion.

"Brother? Do… Do I have a brother?"

The words drifted up from the abyss, hesitant and uncertain.

Something about it was… off. The voice was too doubtful. Too childlike.

It was as if an overwhelming force had gathered to release an earth-shattering spell, only to produce the smallest flicker of magic.

Or like a giant cannon, prepared to fire a devastating blast, only to shoot a tiny bullet.

The sheer contrast made it unsettling.

But no one dared to speak.

Because as the voice faded, the pressure in the water thickened. The abyss churned, and a colossal shadow began to rise from the depths.

The water trembled. The deep, crushing silence was broken by the slow, steady rise of something ancient. Something that had slept for too long.

Then, from the abyss, it emerged.

A giant, primordial shark-like creature, its body stretching endlessly into the dark waters. Its sapphire-blue skin shimmered under the dim, filtered light of the ocean, like polished stone beneath a full moon. The massive body was covered in glowing white runes, each one pulsing softly, as if breathing.

Two golden eyes opened.

They burned like molten metal, filled with an unsettling mix of wisdom and raw, untamed hunger. Those eyes locked onto Eren, unblinking. As if staring through him.

A slow exhale left the beast’s gaping maw, releasing a deep, guttural sound that rumbled through the ocean. The pressure of its mere presence made the water feel thick, heavy—like liquid steel.

And then there was the conch.

A massive wooden conch clung to the sea monster’s upper fin, its structure unlike anything seen before. Twisted wooden branches and thick vines jutted out from it, wrapping around the beast’s body like living chains. Some of the vines dug into its flesh, their tips glowing faintly, almost like veins filled with magic.

Eren’s eyes narrowed. It didn’t take him long to understand.

This wasn’t just any artifact. Even hundreds of well-crafted Hex artifacts from different pantheons wouldn’t be able to match its price. After all, this was a genuine Immortal magic item.

It was an Elder Seed Artifact.

The conch wasn’t simply stuck to the sea monster—it had become a part of him. This wild seashark "brother" of Eren’s had forcefully merged with it, absorbing its power in a way that should have been impossible.

And yet, it had worked.

The unstable energy from the artifact had granted him an Elder Ichor bloodline—a power that shouldn’t belong to him. A power that twisted and reshaped him in more ways than one. He had grown physically stronger, but it had also affected his psyche, turning him childlike.

This sea beast had lived for centuries even before his capture. But due to his forceful merger with the Elder Seed Artifact, his sanity and intelligence had been sapped away.

What Marina and others didn’t know was the fact that this effect worsened when the sharky brother was captured by Raashim Temple and imprisoned within the barrier for over two hundred years.

Eren could feel it. The sea monster’s aura wasn’t just strong—it was wild. Unstable. It was a genuine Half-step SS-Rank creature. However, this power had very erratic highs and lows in terms of its mana signatures. Like a storm barely held back by the thin walls of a dam.

The beast shifted slightly, the vines creaking and the runes along its body flashing in response.

Then, slowly, it spoke again.

"Brother...? Who... are you?"

Eren smiled and was about to respond. But then, the sea shark sensed something and his golden eyes landed on Marina and Azurea, standing just behind him.

Its expression darkened. And the mood changed all of a sudden.

The beast opened its mouth, and its voice rumbled through the waters.

"You… it’s because of you. You’ll pay for this."

The menace in its tone was unmistakable. Its presence grew heavier, its killing intent spreading like a bloodstain through the sea.

It was the kind of hunger only a predator like a shark could have—a primal, focused desire to hunt and destroy its prey.

’Damn it. This guy is going to go berserk at this rate. I need to think of something,’ Eren thought quickly.

He knew that if he left things as they were, the twin dragon wives would be humbled by his "brother" in an instant.

As the family head, it was his job to step in and settle this "family dispute" before things got out of hand.