Amibus=Neptunus

It was a development that none of the House of Lord expected. Xia, in particular, treated this phenomenon with annoyance. She regathered the White Mana and hammered the humongous dolphin with the same spell.

White Magic Rank 4: Smite

The beam of white light hammered on to the sea monster, burning its skin and revealing the layer of bone beneath. In less than thirty seconds, Xia reduced the first monster unleashed by the awakening of the beast into a skeleton.

That hopeful image was quickly dashed by the roiling sea spout reaching into the sky.

Rising and falling down like torpedoes were five more gigantic dolphins, opening their jaws to riches with the stench of malevolence.

It was Nuan who first realized the magnitude of the problem.

Where did they come from? Nuan thought as Xia bombarded the area with the Wrath of Sol. It was like they spawned out of nowhere.

A shower of white comets slammed to the water surface, sniping down the gigantic dolphin with dozens of burning bombs of White Mana each. Alas, it wasn’t enough to stop the monsters from recovering and gunning at Xia herself.

Knowing that staying on the water surface wasn’t a good idea, Xia grabbed Nuan by the shoulder and lifted her to the sky.

Meanwhile, on the surface, Carolina exited the stage through the master gate, knowing that the battle had officially gone out of her league. Still riding on the [Atlas Machina], Betty read the situation with [Analysis] and gulped.

“Xia!” Betty screamed at her sister. “We need to run!”

“You get what is happening?” Xia said, stopping herself from throwing another spell. As confident as she was in her ability to overcome the obstacle, she trusted in her little sister's judgment more.

“Those things are just offshoots,” Betty screeched, opening the gate back to the Residence. “The real thing is about to come out.”

That was the moment the waters erupted as an island-size mass of blackness emerged from the ocean floor. The sea creature roared, stirring the sky into a tropical storm with its mere presence.

Xia, Betty, and even Nuan were in awe at the monster’s raw mass. The jaw that could bite apart the island was filled with teeth the size of battleships. An eye that was more up to calling a stellar object peered at them.

That humongous orca—a defiance to the law of biology—was the Awakened Curse; Amibus=Neptunus.

“Okay, he’s big,” Xia said. Even she didn’t think she could beat this thing's sheer size.

Right at that moment, a black mass bubbled from the beast. Chunks of mud, rich in oppressive curses, rose to the top of the ocean, tainting the pristine water with blasphemous color. From the emerging salty swamp, life that shouldn’t exist crawled out. Be it grotesque predatory fishes, sea insects, and monstrous species of Echinoderms such as starfish with fangs and sickly orange sea cucumber with ghostly fire, these new lives emitted sheer hostility that disturbed even the seasoned Nuan Yulong.

“Okay,” Xia said, deciding to reframe her entire line of thinking. “We have officially gone deep south.”

As agreed with the Princess of White, Amibus=Neptunus exhaled a gust of hot wind, packing the energy to eviscerate the city in their direction. The roaring wind vaporized everything in its path, forcing Betty to open the gate to the House of Lord and escape.

Xia, who was stuck with Nuan, wasn't so fortunate. With an uninvited passenger she couldn’t take inside the Residence, she was left with the one task of flying away with Nuan dangling from her arms.

…

Inside the Residence, Ciel checked the EXOS: DURANDAL he recalled from the battlefield and issued the order to the assembling hamster.

“Prepare the smokescreen and automated decoy No. 22 and No. 54,” Rem said. He paused after some contemplation. “And sent the content from the vault—specifically ‘Formula No. 8’—to Caislean for deployment. This will buy us some time.”

The rodent immediately saluted and left to perform their duty throughout the sliding door.

Concurrently, someone else steps into the eastern-style room.

After merging with Hikari’s Harriet House, the Residence of Lord produced an intoxicated, calming atmosphere that put the inhabitant’s hearts at peace. Ciel even did some minor tweaking with this effect as part of his hobby, and the result was satisfactory.

Alas, the sheer, unadulterated panic attack Carolina had as she exhilarated through that door proved that the Residence might need some tweaking.

“Ciel!” Carolina started, but Ciel cut to the point to calm her down.

“Ambius is now an island-size behemoth. You retreat from the battle, and Xia is still stuck outside the danger zone because of Nuan,” Ciel said, placating the girl by guiding her into breathing slowly. “The situation is dangerous, but I need you to breathe in and out.” He paused as his lover followed the instruction. “Great, in and out slowly like that.”

Ciel took Carolina to a chair and sat her down.

“Now...”

“We have a problem!” Betty—the second panicking damsel of the day—burst into the room. Her hair was tangled from her narrow escape.

Ciel, not even having time to mentally word his phrase, could only react to the newest panic epidemic with a silent resignation. Patting himself on the back for inventing an intercom system for this exact scenario, Rem spoke through the hotline.

“Amy, I want you to prepare three cups of hot cocoa. Ask the hamster to bring two of those to my room. For the third cup, I want you to give it to Xia when she comes back." Ciel paused for a second. “And please prepare a canteen of said cocoa for Nuan if you have the time.”

Ciel left the intercom and turned toward the two women, who had lost their usual calm exterior.

“I know you two have questions,” Ciel said.

“Question?” Betty repeated the word. Her eyes still hadn’t recovered from the gigantic monster that made her develop an abrupt kinship with ants. “Ciel, ever since I met you, I have fought through a lot, but that thing has to take the cake. Do you see the size of that thing?”

Carolina nodded in agreement. “Nothing that large should exist. It defies the square-cube law and the very principle of biology.”

Carolina then got the pivot of the question. “What is that anyway?”

Ciel decided to take apart their questions one at a time.

“Yes, I did see the size of that thing,” Ciel said, frowning. “It will be an understatement to say the sheer size we are up against will pose a problem. To answer your question about the square-cube law, that law only applies to the complications arising from the maintenance and transportation of vital material in living things as the size increases. However, those complications could be totally ignored if said ‘thing’ isn’t alive.”

Betty’s mouth hung open. “That whale isn’t alive."

“Oh my god... Carolina, being a necromancer, immediately put the math together. “The whale is a naturally occurring undead.” Carolina gulped as she finally understood the truth behind its sheer mass. “And a mutant-type to boot.”

“Exactly,” Ciel said, applauding the necromancer’s intellect. “Three hundred years ago, Amibus and Neptunus perished, but those two would never go with forgiveness in their hearts.” Rem shrugged. “How could they? Both of them died a miserable death. Neptunus even has the dishonor of being betrayed. With that kind of grudge and their natural power, it was inevitable they would be resurrected as undead. That orca you saw was Amibus’s fermented body bloated to a massive scale due to the accumulation of grudges.”

A tiny beep got their attention, and Ciel quickly summoned a panel to record the data. He whistled as a number confirmed his theory.

“And would you look at that?" Rem whistled, showing them the graph. “I have mapped the growth of curses on that zombie with the theoretical growth.” Rem pointed at the curves. “The value is at least double my best-case hypothesis. This likely means we are facing the worst probable outcome.”

Carolina’s face sank. As a skilled necromancer, her intellect pinpointed the explanation for that dreadful graph.

“Is it the outcome that Amibus consumed the dying Neptunus to inherit both his curse and Authority?” The necromancer squeaked.

Betty’s enthusiasm vanished like air from a leaking balloon.

“Ciel,” Betty said. “I believe you say a Lord cannot usurp another Lord’s Authority.”

“Correct,” Ciel confirmed. “We couldn’t steal the other’s power. Our existence simply isn’t built to house such expansion in capacity. Then again, you could solve that problem by expanding that capacity, but doing so meant you would no longer be qualified as Lord anymore. No, Amibus had become an entirely different concept—a swimming oceanic biological Bigbang—sustained by three hundred years of stored fuels.”

Ciel pulled up the image of a massive orca surrounded by a swath of mud, which rapidly spawned both plant and sea life.

“Right now, this floating life-spawner—Ambius=Neptunus—can be called the incarnation of the sea of life. With Amibus’s Authority, it will keep producing new oceanic life while converting the ocean’s ecosystem to fit its image using Neptunus power,” Ciel explained, and he swiped the screen to reveal another graphic model. He read the prediction and winced. “Forget the Clam Palace; at this rate, the entire oceanic ecosphere will officially be facing a mass extinction event as new, ever-evolving species gut the food chain. I believe the entire Acceltra will be facing an armageddon in a week if we do not stop Ambius=Neptunus.”

While what needed to be done was obvious, Betty felt the need to point out a certain critical obstacle.

“Ciel, how do we kill that in the first place?”

The sliding door opened and a hamster holding a tray with two cups of steaming cocoa rushed in.

“That is a good question,” Ciel said, pulling another board filled with plans and schematics. “I do have an answer, but first you should take the drink to calm your nerves.”

Betty took a sip from her cup.

“You know what, Ciel,” Betty said. “I am impressed that you have a plan for this. Hell, I don’t think anyone can be calm in this situation. You even have a plan for this curveball.”

Ciel sighed, deciding to break the truth.

“I am not,” confessed Ciel. “This is me pretending to be under control. As for the plan, I only have about 43% of it.” Ciel’s shoulder sank. “Unless the stars align within the next 48 hours, I believe the entire planet is positively doomed.”