Pioneer of the Abyss: A Deepsea Livestreamed
Book 1: Chapter 80

Aqua

I quickly learn it’s not just a headache. It’s blindness too as I immediately lose all vision. Everything also goes dead silent, meaning deafness too.

It’s like all of my senses are just shut down except for movement, touch, and pain.

Even when I try to shapeshift to give myself the sensory organs of my Bloodlines, it still doesn’t do anything.

I grit my teeth before doing the one thing that I can do.

Activating Maw of the Abyssal Kraken.

Then I try to move backwards, pushing through the pain that floods me as I do so. All without being able to hear or see a thing.

Eventually I find myself hitting something with my back that feels like the wall of the hallway. So I move to the side along the hallway.

But despite all this, I don’t feel anything that would signal the monster’s approach. I don’t feel the water rustling around me, I don’t feel any pain outside of my head that would signify an attack, and I don’t feel anything like poison hitting me either.

My brows furrow at the lack of any attacks besides the mental attack. And my confusion only grows when I begin to feel some of my senses returning a few minutes later.

Starting with my hearing.

Which leaves me hearing nothing other than just the water flowing around me. With no signs of the monster.

Um, did the monster flee or something?

After my hearing comes my other senses one after another. With sight being last, leaving me finding that I’ve moved all the way around the corner in the hallway almost back into the kitchen.

Then the pain from the attack begins to fade, leaving me with nothing but a throbbing headache and some slight confusion and lightheadedness.

I slowly move through the water before looking into the freezer room. Only to find the room completely empty.

And after that, I finally notice the System Messages flashing in the corner of my vision.

[You have killed a level sixty Deepsea Frost Hippocampus. EXP has been granted accordingly.]

[You have killed a creature underwater. Apex Predator of the Depths has been activated, increasing your REGEN stat by one.]

[Congratulations! You have now reached level 54! As the current First Ranker of Oceana, your total free points have increased by three, and your mana stat has increased by ten. Allocate the free points whenever you please.]

[Congratulations! You have now reached level 55! Your total free points have increased by two, and your mana stat has increased by ten. Allocate the free points whenever you please.]

[Congratulations! You have now reached level 56! As the current First Ranker of Oceana, your total free points have increased by three, and your mana stat has increased by ten. Allocate the free points whenever you please.]

I blink once. Then twice.

All while staring at the empty freezer room which is suspiciously missing a large block of ice, yet has smaller chunks of ice shattered floating around the room. Chunks that look like they might fit together in some places.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Did I just… kill it?” I mutter while tilting my head.

Then I remember the livestream chat and quickly check it. Only to have my theory confirmed.

[That feeling when you kill a boss level monster without realizing it]

[She killed the monster while cursed XD]

[Don’t see that every day…]

[When you think about it, monsters with mental attacks are often weak physically. So it makes sense that she’d kill it with a single attack.]

[I’m just glad that wasn’t as disgusting as watching the serpent being eaten…]

Huh…

I guess they make a good point. Mentally offensive monsters do tend to be weaker physically. Even if these things have those bone plates.

Didn’t really think about it until now.

I slowly swim through the freezer room looking for anything in it that could be of use. Since sometimes there are items in these broken dungeons. Ones held by the monsters of the broken dungeon.

Unfortunately I didn’t find any in the castle. At all.

Probably because the original monsters in it were all gone. Either swept away with the water or eaten by fish monsters.

And the mountain was just too large without a single trace of the original monsters in it. Probably because it was one of the first broken dungeons in the area from what the tour guide said.

But this broken dungeon is different. It’s a prison with sealed entrances and exits, making it so the elf and dwarf corpses can’t just be swept out of the prison. And the dwarves especially were locked in cells.

On top of that, the seahorses eat gradually and not all at once. So there are still plenty of them here.

And they don’t gobble down the entire corpse either. So any items they may have should still be here.

With that in mind, I search every corpse I find. One after another.

But I don’t find any items on them. And the occasional gun I see doesn’t exactly do much. Especially not underwater.

Guns are still relatively dangerous to System users even at level one hundred. But after that they don’t really hurt very much.

At my level they would be dangerous, but only if I’m not in the water.

And since I’m underwater, they’ll be useless both against me and against monsters.

So I ignore the guns and the armor that’s actually worse than the armor I’m already wearing. Plus not meant for underwater use.

But no matter where I search, I don’t find any items. Not in the freezer room, not in the kitchen, the cafeteria, or the storage rooms.

I frown after finishing searching everything.

Really? No items at all?

That’s disappointing.

Then an idea comes to mind, and I quickly leave the cafeteria area and begin searching the prison itself. For the command center part of the prison. Or whatever the main area is called.

I’m not exactly up to speed on prison lingo.

Wherever the prison warden usually stays.

Because I am absolutely certain that the prison warden must be the boss of this broken dungeon from before it broke. And bosses usually have at least one item on them.

I continue scouring the broken dungeon for a while before finding some sort of office. And at the back of the office is a larger corpse just floating above a desk.

This particular corpse seems to be a high elf. Which is pretty much just a buffer, taller elf. One with glowing green eyes and stronger nature magic. Unlike the regular non-glowing green eyes of the regular elves.

And he is wearing a set of fancier armor than the other elves here in the prison.

What catches my eye though is the necklace around his neck. One glowing with a faint green light similar to his eyes.

I grab my item scanner and scan the thing before grinning at the result.

This item is called the Amulet of Restoration. And it is an item that is usable once a week to restore the wearer’s mana to full.

It’s an item that’ll be incredibly useful to me in the future.

I grin as I put the amulet around my neck before moving my hair over the necklace and putting the amulet down under my armor.

The chat goes on about the item for a bit, but I ignore them to search the office in the hopes of finding another item. To no avail though.

After failing to find anything, I look through the rest of the broken dungeon, only to find it full of nothing but corpses and a few leftover seahorses.

I guess the seahorses really did just dominate this place without any other monsters here. Other than these elf and dwarf corpses.

Anyway, I glance at my mana before allocating my free points – which I forgot to do – and deciding to head back to the Hunter’s City for the night. Since I’m almost out of mana.

It doesn’t take me long to leave the prison. And soon enough I make my way back to the Hunter’s City.

But when I arrive, I find the place bustling with activity. With hunters and soldiers running around all over the place. Seemingly incredibly busy and incredibly intense at the same time.

Like some sort of emergency is occurring.

What’s going on?