'Swoooooosh!'
The tentacles filled the air as they descended. Simon's cloak fluttered as he grabbed the greatsword with his right hand and swung.
The sky seemed to split as dozens of tentacles were severed all at once, tumbling across the deck.
Watching the severed limbs fall limply, Finch's expression hardened. The level of power had suddenly, drastically changed. The opponent he had been dominating just moments ago now had a completely different aura, as if he were another person entirely. The moment Finch unknowingly took a step back, Simon's form appeared behind him like a bolt of lightning.
'What the—!'
Simon raising the greatsword was faster than Finch pulling back. Finch's right arm flew into the air, spraying a fountain of blood.
"Aaaaaaghhh!" Finch writhed in agony. "My arm! My arm!"
Even as he thrashed in pain, a terrible question bloomed in his mind. Just like with the tentacles, why wasn't it regenerating? His gaze fell upon his severed arm. The wound had turned necrotic, the flesh gray and dead, as if it were no longer part of his body.
"Give up," Simon said, his voice resonating from behind the skull helmet. He effortlessly held the massive greatsword with just his right hand, his shadowless, blue-green cloak fluttering in the wind. "Your head is next."
He was overwhelmed. Finch felt a deep, primal terror in the face of this junior, a boy so much younger than himself. Over twenty of his tentacles and one of his arms had been rendered useless in a single blow. Pier's greatsword was the perfect counter to his invulnerability.
Biting his lip, he tilted his head back, a strange smile of resignation spreading across his face.
"...Haaaaah, fine. I concede."
Simon was puzzled.
"I was certainly called a genius when I was seventeen, but I was never as strong as you," Finch admitted, his voice hollow. "If this is the level of Special Admission No. 1, then I can finally accept why I couldn't get into Kizen."
Simon scowled. "Even now, are you really that hung up on your academic credentials? What you should be thinking about isn't Kizen, but the innocent people who died because of you."
"I wonder." Staring blankly with his head tilted, Finch rolled only his eyes to look at Simon. "To a necromancer, death is as close as a good night's sleep. After my sister's passing, the deaths of others fail to stir any emotion in me at all."
Finch fell silent.
"Still, the undead you command are quite impressive," he sneered, ripping his tattered shirt down the middle. The gesture revealed a complex Jet-Black magic circle covering his entire chest. The formula was far too advanced for a first-year student like Simon to comprehend, but he recognized the seals marking its four corners.
A 'Perpetual Seal!'
It was a parasitic formula, one that latched onto a host's Jet-Black and remained active until the moment of their death. That had to be the source of Finch's ability to liquefy his body.
"Your Undead versus the monster under my control," Finch mused, his voice dripping with arrogance. "Aren't you dying to see which is stronger?"
He pressed his palm against a rune at the center of the circle and twisted it with a sharp click, like turning a dial. The Jet-Black in his body began to surge violently.
"What trick is this?!" Simon demanded, gripping his greatsword.
He lunged forward, but Pier's voice stopped him cold.
[Back away, boy!]
"What?"
Finch's entire body dissolved into liquid, swelled like a grotesque balloon, and then burst with a wet splashing sound. Simon's eyes widened in horror as chunks of flesh and organs rained down onto the deck.
"Ugh...!"
The gruesome sight sent a wave of nausea through him, and he gagged involuntarily. He panted, his gaze fixed on the scattered remains of what had been Finch. The organs, which had been pulsating as if still alive, soon fell limp and motionless.
'He killed himself.'
"Legion Com... No, Master!" Erzebet cried out, materializing in her female form on the deck. She held Shun tightly, her hand clamped over his eyes to shield him from the carnage. "Is it over?"
"I think so," Simon replied, his eyes scanning the churning sea around them. "But something feels wrong."
A mournful howl swept across the deck as the wind and rain intensified. A strange, thick sea fog rolled in, swallowing the sunlight and plunging them into a gray twilight.
The ocean currents grew violent, swirling into a vortex. The three massive pirate ships, still tangled together, pitched and groaned under the strain.
"Legion Commander! Behind you!" Erzebet screamed.
Simon spun around just as a tentacle of horrifying size erupted from the waves.
[What in the world is that thing!] Pier roared in his mind.
More tentacles rose from the depths, surrounding the ship. There was nowhere to run. They coiled around the masts like colossal serpents, their tips slithering across the deck.
"Ugh, it's disgusting!" Erzebet shrieked, pulling Shun back.
"No!" the boy cried.
Then, a short distance away, the very surface of the ocean began to bulge upward.
'That's...!'
Simon's eyes widened. A moment later, the monstrous body of a colossal kraken broke the surface.
'And a creature of this size isn't even an adult yet. No one has ever captured an adult kraken.'
Finch's words from the exhibition echoed in his mind. This was an adult kraken.
"Master! Why is that monster attacking us?" Erzebet yelled over the storm.
"I don't know!"
The kraken's body slammed against the hull. A gaping maw opened in the center of its fleshy torso, and a tentacle shot out, snatching Finch's scattered remains from the deck and shoving them inside. It devoured the corpse with a series of sickening, grinding crunches.
'What is happening?!'
After swallowing Finch, the kraken pulled away from the ship, its head breaking the surface while its mouth remained submerged. The skin on its crown began to bulge.
A lump grew on the kraken's flesh, twisting and contorting. An arm burst forth, a face began to form, and holes tore open, shaping themselves into eyes, nostrils, ears, and a mouth. The features were grotesque and malformed—the eyes too far apart, the mouth crooked—but it was unmistakably a person.
And it knew his name.
[Did you see that, Simon?!] the voice boomed. [I have surpassed you! I have surpassed 'them'! Fused with the kraken, I am the strongest being in the sea!]
More than twenty tentacles shot up from the water.
[With this body! With this power! I will drag you and every last human in Blue Harbor to a watery grave! Then, I will go to Roc Island! Nephthys will pay the price for her mistake! I, Finch, the one that witch cast aside, will show her!]
The mouth, positioned vertically in the center of the monstrous face, gaped open, splitting its head in two.
[I AM INVINCIBLE!]
Twenty tentacles lashed out with explosive speed. Simon channeled Pier's power, leaping into the air.
Sucker-covered appendages grazed his body. Sparks flew from Pier's armor, and a jolt of agony shot through Simon. The power, speed, and flexibility were on a completely different level from the tentacles Finch had wielded in his human form. There was no comparison.
"Erze! Get Shun inside the ship!" Simon yelled.
"Yes!"
The Cloak of Invisibility flared. Simon pushed his speed to its absolute limit, becoming a blur of motion. He was a single point of light darting along the deck's railing, pursued by dozens of whipping lines.
"Grrrgh!"
He spun and swung his greatsword. Massive tentacles were severed, but this time, new ones sprouted instantly from the wounds.
[Hahaha! I won't fall for the same trick twice!] Finch's voice echoed.
Everywhere he looked, there were tentacles. At this rate, the ship's hull would give way and sink. He was running out of time.
[Boy! Behind you!]
Simon snapped his greatsword above his head just as a tentacle stabbed down like a spear, slamming him through the deck.
The force shattered the wooden planks, dropping him to the level below. He'd avoided being impaled, but two more tentacles smashed through the ceiling, then three, hammering him down.
He was driven from the third floor to the second, then from the second to the first.
Five tentacles converged, punching a hole through the ship's bottom and shoving him into the churning sea. The impact tore Pier's sword from his grasp.
"Aahh!"
Simon held his breath. The seawater, anathema to the undead, immediately began to sap Pier's strength, and Simon felt the power drain from his limbs.
[Boy!] Pier was helpless against the crushing force. Finch, now fully submerged with the kraken, extended an arm. A tentacle wrapped around Simon's waist and began dragging him into the abyss.
[It's all over, you Kizen lackey!] Finch's crazed laughter echoed in the water.
Simon's strength faded. His lungs burned.
[Boy...!] Even Pier's voice was becoming faint, a distant echo in his mind. His thoughts went blank. The frantic dash across the deck, dodging tentacles in the pouring rain, seemed absurd now. The sea was peaceful, almost comforting, as it enveloped him.
[Get a grip, boy!] As his consciousness began to slip away, Pier's voice was the only thing anchoring him to reality.
'I hear you, Pier.'
[What are you doing! Are you going to give up?!]
'I'm not giving up.'
Simon reached his right arm toward the dark silhouette of the ship above.
'There's too much at stake.'
Shun's life. Erzebet's life. The people of Blue Harbor. The safety of his friends back on Roc Island.
'Come.'
His arm, sheathed in Pier's bones, pulsed with Jet-Black. Bubbles streamed from the bottom of the distant ship.
'COME!'
His Absolute Command flared to life. Pier's greatsword shot toward him, slicing through the water like a predatory fish. Finch, seeing it, sent a flurry of tentacles to intercept, but they were torn to shreds by the blade's ruinous power.
In an instant, the sword was back in his hand. Simon gripped the hilt and swung.
The tentacle around his waist was severed. Freed from the pressure, he brought the sword into a ready stance.
[I will explain the principle of the slash once. Listen carefully!]
Simon angled the blade, pouring every last drop of his Jet-Black into it as Pier instructed. The sword began to shimmer, vibrating with immense power. The water around it boiled, and a brilliant light illuminated the dark depths.
Finch sent all twenty tentacles at once. Even as the enemy's assault consumed his vision, Simon held his stance.
[A true slash is not about cutting what is before you,] Pier's voice resonated, clearer than ever. [It is about striking an opponent worlds away. The moment you acknowledge the 'distance' between you, your blade will taste only empty air. You must erase that distance. You must envision cutting through space itself to reach your foe!]
An unbelievable amount of Jet-Black seethed within the greatsword, churning the water around him. With the twenty tentacles about to crush him, Simon gritted his teeth.
'Seize the Space!'
His waist turned. His arm moved. The bones fused to his body replicated the martial prowess of a thousand lifetimes, channeling it directly through him.
'I will cut you down!'
The moment the condensed Jet-Black erupted from the blade, a slash of pure white energy shot out, cleaving the ocean in two.
The sea itself parted. The slash tore through the water, its light momentarily reaching the sky above. The kraken's tentacles and body, caught in the void, were all sliced clean in two.
Finch's monstrous eyes wavered in disbelief.
'How...'
The kraken's body split apart, disintegrating from the waist down.
'...How can such power exist?'
Just then, Simon shot through the current, using the last of the Jet-Black in his greatsword to propel himself forward. He appeared right before Finch and swung his blade in silence.
'CRACK!'
Finally.
Finch's body split apart.

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