My Taming System Makes Me Overpowered

The transition from the inner rings of Nethros to the Western Ridge was marked by a sudden, brutal drop in temperature.

As the ninety-man Vanguard detachment pushed past the final outer gate, the comforting glow of the city’s bioluminescent coral spires dissolved into a vast, pitch-black sea. Down here, eleven thousand meters below the surface, the ocean was an unyielding, oppressive weight—a suffocating expanse of freezing fluid pressing against the basalt canyon walls with thousands of tons of static force.

Captain Thalan adjust his grip on his abyssal gold spear, its tip casting a narrow cone of pale blue light into the murky gloom. Beside him, Captain Kael rode the crest of a heavy underwater current, his eyes darting across the jagged stone ridges flanking their formation.

The eighty elite Vanguard soldiers behind them swam in a tight, military battle-wedge. Their fish-scale plate mail clicked rhythmically against the dense water, but despite their iron discipline, a palpable tension hung over the ranks. They had left the central dungeons lightly guarded to answer this alarm. If this was a wild goose chase, General Nerissa would have their heads.

”Keep your eyes sharp,” Captain Thalan warned through a directional hydro-resonance pulse. ”The scout said the western outposts went silent two hours ago. No signals. No survival flares.”

”Silent is an understatement,” Kael muttered, his webbed hand hovering over the hilt of his short-blade. ”Listen to the current.”

Thalan paused, allowing his body to drift in place.

Kael was right. The natural acoustics of the deep ocean—the low-frequency hum of tectonic plates, the distant clicking of abyssal leviathans, the rustle of current through deep-sea kelp—had completely vanished. The water was unnaturally, terrifyingly dead. It felt heavy, stagnant, and thick, as if the ocean itself was holding its breath.

The Calm.

”Forward,” Thalan commanded softly, his voice tight. ”Defensive grid alpha. Spears out.”

The squad crossed over the crest of the Western Ridge, and the pale light of their spear-tips illuminated the first perimeter outpost.

Gasps echoed through the mental comm-link.

Watchtower Three had not been torn down by siege engines. It had not been melted by magma or blasted by hydro-explosives. The ten-meter-tall basalt structure looked as though an invisible, cosmic hand had reached out and squeezed it from every angle simultaneously. The massive stone blocks had imploded inward, crushed into a fine, smooth gravel that lay piled at the base of the foundation.

”What kind of mana does this?” a young guard whispered, his gills flaring in shock. ”It’s like... the water pressure around the tower was multiplied a hundredfold in an instant.”

”Don’t touch the rubble,” Thalan ordered sharply, steering his tail away from the debris. ”Keep moving to the Vaelen estate. Now!”

They pushed deeper into the silent canyon, the dead water offering almost no resistance as they swam. Ten minutes later, the massive, pearlescent gates of House Vaelen appeared in the gloom.

Or rather, what remained of them.

The estate sat within a natural oceanic trench, built from white trench-marble and decorative sea-glass. But as the Vanguard detachment descended into the courtyard, they were met with a sight that chilled their cold blood.

A faint, dark crimson cloud hung completely motionless in the stagnant water—a veil of blood suspended in the sea, refusing to drift or dissipate due to the eerie lack of currents.

”Search the grounds!” Kael barked, his face pale as he cut through the crimson haze.

The guards fanned out, their spears sweeping over the quiet estate. What they found was not a chaotic massacre, but a display of terrifying, surgical precision.

Dozens of non-noble household servants—guards, cooks, stable-hands—lay scattered across the courtyard. None of them were dead. They were merely unconscious, their bodies floating limply where the sudden pressure drop had knocked them senseless.

Inside the main manor, however, the story was ghastly.

In the grand dining hall, Lord Vaelen and his four blood relatives sat at the long coral table. Every single one of them had been struck with absolute, lethal force. A single, razor-thin puncture wound pierced each of their chests—drawn with mathematical precision straight through the glowing, blue-hued ”royal anchor mark” embedded in their flesh.

”It’s an execution,” Kael whispered, stepping back from the table in horror. ”He spared the servants. He didn’t even steal the family heirlooms. He came for those with the mark.”

Thalan swam toward the head of the room, where the massive marble back wall had been scarred.

Deep, jagged grooves were carved three inches into the solid bedrock, cut by high-density water-blades. Thalan brought his glowing spear closer to read the message left behind in the stone:

”The anchors shall drown.”

”He knows,” Thalan breathed, his golden eyes wide with realization. ”The Calm of the Sea... he isn’t fighting a war against the city. He knows the secret of the containment vault. He’s hunting the noble houses to shatter the seal beneath Nethros!”

---

Far away from the silent carnage of the Western Ridge, back inside the High Command War Room of the royal palace, the atmosphere was a pressure cooker.

A high-speed courier, his scale armor covered in salt-dust, dropped to his knees before the central tactical table. ”General Nerissa! The report from the Western Ridge! House Vaelen has fallen! Lord Vaelen and his entire bloodline... dead!”

The assembled military commanders erupted into panicked shouts.

General Nerissa did not shout. She stood at the head of the polished obsidian table, her voluptuous sapphire frame perfectly still under the azure glow of the floating hydro-maps. Her clawed fingers rested lightly against the golden pommel of her side-blade, her webbed cheek-fins flaring in a cold, calculating rhythm.

”House Vaelen was the fourth anchor,” Nerissa murmured, her rich voice cutting through the noise like a blade.

She raised her hand, and the hydro-map above the table shifted. Twelve glowing blue crests flickered in the water—representing the ancient noble lineages bound to The Sleeper’s containment seal. Four of the crests slowly turned black and shattered into dust.

”Eight remaining,” Nerissa stated coldly. ”The Calm is working down the perimeter map. He is striking the houses farthest from the inner castle first, cutting off our response time.”

”General!” a senior captain stepped forward. ”We must recall the vanguard from the outer ridges and lock down the entire city!”

”No,” Nerissa commanded, her dark golden eyes narrowing. ”If we pull back now, we leave the outer noble estates completely defenseless. The Calm will slaughter them one by one until the anchor seal reaches critical failure.”

She turned to her personal elite guard commander.

”Issue an immediate, high-priority evacuation order,” Nerissa instructed, her voice unyielding. ”Send elite couriers to every remaining seal-bearing noble house not currently present inside these castle walls. House Aris, House Belor, and House Thalor. Tell them to abandon their estates immediately. They are to be escorted straight to the central vault under full military armor.”

”And if they refuse to leave their family seats, General?” the commander asked.

Nerissa’s eyes flashed with a lethal, icy glare. ”Drag them here in chains if you must. Their lives no longer belong to them. They are the anchors holding this continent above the abyss... and I will not let a rogue merman drown my kingdom.”