My Taming System Makes Me Overpowered

To the nobility of Nethros, the ocean was a living current—a endless tapestry of warm tides, flowing hydro-mana, and pulsing currents.

To the rogue merman known as The Calm of the Sea, the ocean was a prison.

He floated five hundred meters above the grand estate of House Aris, suspended in the pitch-black void of the abyssal trench. His massive, dark-scaled tail beat with slow, deliberate precision, his body covered in ancient, glowing white abyssal runes that mimicked the scars of the deep. Across his broad, battle-hardened back rested two long, curved blades forged from the jawbone of a leviathan.

Below him, House Aris sat like a glowing jewel in the dark—a fortified coral estate surrounded by twenty-five elite Vanguard guards, their bioluminescent spears casting wide arcs of blue light into the surrounding current. They were on maximum alert, their hydro-mana shields flared to full capacity in the wake of the Vaelen massacre.

The Calm closed his dark, slit eyes. He took a single, deep breath, feeling the pulse of the ancient ocean beneath the stone.

”A kingdom built on a lie,” he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly resonance that vibrated through his chest. ”Chaining a primordial god with corrupt royal blood... and calling it peace.”

He opened his eyes, and his abyssal runes flared with a blinding, cold white light.

[Domain: Dead Water]

It didn’t expand as a violent shockwave. It didn’t explode with roaring currents or crushing pressure.

Instead, in a two-hundred-meter radius around the Aris estate, the ocean simply... stopped.

Every natural current, every thermal drift, and every micro-wave in the water froze in an instant. The glowing hydro-mana crackling along the Vanguard guards’ spears suddenly sputtered and died—because without the natural flow and kinetic movement of the tide, magic could not exist. The water became dead, stagnant, and impossibly heavy, transforming into an immobile block of fluid density.

Panic erupted among the guards, but no sound carried. The dead water swallowed the acoustic waves entirely.

”What... what is this?!” a captain tried to scream through his mental link, but his telepathic signal barely reached three feet.

Guards tried to kick their tails, but moving through the Dead Water was like trying to swim through wet cement. Their arms felt like lead, their lungs struggled against the sudden, suffocating stillness, and their hydro-shields dissolved into harmless bubbles.

From the dark void above, The Calm descended.

He did not swim; he glided through the dead water effortlessly, completely immune to the stagnation he had created. He drew his twin leviathan-bone blades, their white edges cutting silently through the stagnant sea.

He passed the first line of Vanguard guards. A soldier tried to thrust his spear forward, his movement agonizingly slow. The Calm casually tilted his head, letting the dull tip slide past his cheek, before sweeping his blade in a silent, fluid arc.

Thwip.

The blade didn’t cut the soldier’s neck. It passed straight through his chest, cleanly severing his armor without killing him, before flinging him backward out of the dead zone. The Calm had no interest in the blood of soldiers who fought for a paycheck.

He moved like a phantom through the courtyard, tossing guards aside like lifeless dolls, his dark gaze locked strictly on the grand marble sanctuary at the center of the estate.

CRASH.

The massive, pearl-inlaid doors of the sanctuary imploded inward as The Calm stepped into the grand hall.

Inside, Lord Aris—a plump, golden-scaled noble draped in silk robes—stumbled backward against his coral throne, his hands trembling violently as he pointed a trembling finger at the intruder.

”You... you monster!” Lord Aris shrieked, his voice choked by the dead water leaking into the room.

”The Vanguard... General Nerissa will flay you alive! You are going to drown us all! If you break the seal, The Sleeper will wake and erase Nethros!”

The Calm halted ten paces away, resting the tips of his leviathan blades against the marble floor. He looked at the noble not with hatred, but with deep, unyielding pity.

”Nethros was erased the day your ancestors built a city over a sleeping god’s throat,” The Calm said, his voice echoing with absolute, solemn conviction. ”You built a empire of glass and silk, anchoring your wealth to the blood of your children, pretending the deep ocean belonged to you.”

”The seal keeps the realm alive!” Lord Aris screamed, backing up against the wall as the glowing blue ”royal anchor mark” on his chest flared desperately.

”The seal keeps Nethros in a cage,” The Calm corrected softly, stepping forward. ”You fear the deep because you cannot control it. You fear change because you are weak. Only through absolute collapse can the tide be set free.”

”No—Wait!”

The Calm didn’t hesitate. He thrust his right blade forward with terrifying, mathematical precision.

The white leviathan bone pierced Lord Aris’s chest directly through the glowing blue anchor mark. A sharp, glass-like shattering sound echoed through the silent room as the magic within the noble’s bloodline fractured. Lord Aris’s eyes rolled back, his body going limp as his soul-anchor severed.

Far below the city, deep within the subterranean vault, a colossal, invisible chain snapped around The Sleeper’s neck.

The Calm withdrew his blade, wiping the dark crimson blood onto his arm. He turned slowly and glided back out into the ruined courtyard.

HOOOOOOOOOORN.

In the far distance, past the boundary of his Dead Water domain, the heavy war-horns of Nerissa’s incoming Vanguard evacuation detachment reverberated through the outer ridge. Bright, bioluminescent search-flares cut through the dark ocean as three dozen armored elites rushed toward the estate—twenty minutes too late.

The Calm stood atop the shattered spire of House Aris, his long tail swaying gently as he deactivated his domain. The tides rushed back into the area with a heavy, roaring sweep, restoring motion to the ocean.

He looked past the incoming soldiers, his cold eyes fixing on the distant, shining spires of the Royal Palace at the center of the kingdom.

Five noble anchors down. Only three remained.

”Dispatch your couriers, General,” The Calm whispered into the rushing tide, a dark, solemn smile fading into the abyssal shadows as he dissolved into the deep current. ”The tide is coming home.”