I spent some time half buried in the muck of the ocean floor to calm down a bit. Having some solid ground below me helped immensely with my admittedly high-strung nerves. I tried clearing my mind to force a reset in my brain, and it helped, mostly. It took quite some time until I felt like I was in a normal state of mind and finally able to look at my situation a bit more objectively.

I was in some pretty deep shit, to be honest. I had no clue how far down I was, for all I knew I could be thousands of meters below the sea. I probably wasn’t, but it was possible. The fact that no light made it down here told me that I was pretty far down, at least. I once again took note of the fact that I hadn’t been attacked the entire time of my underwater adventure, which was odd, to say the least. I knew the ocean on this layer was full of monsters, and with the way I’d been broadcasting my location, I really, really should have been attacked.

I thought back to the moment when it had all gone wrong. The lightning spell the eel had used took me by surprise, and the few seconds it stunned me were the catalyst for me nearly losing my life. I clearly outclassed the fake water dragon by miles in terms of combat power, but I didn’t give it enough credit to anticipate a move like that. I remembered the passive skill in my skill tree that allowed me to see when somebody was casting a spell and how I’d dismissed it at first.

Turns out that it would function as a great early-warning system for situations just like that. I didn’t need the complementary ability to figure out what spell was being cast, just knowing that something was coming should help me out greatly. I should unlock that one next.

The eel had been in the enclosed bowl between the islands when it swallowed me, and then probably swam straight down. It was possible that the entirety of the bowl counted as the territory of the island guardian, which monsters tended to avoid. This would explain why I hadn’t been attacked. There simply weren’t any monsters around. The other good news was, that if I just picked a direction at random, I should eventually emerge somewhere in between the islands again.

I dissolved my javelins, plunging myself once again into darkness. I waved my eyes around trying to see if there was maybe a sliver of light anywhere, indicating where the closest shoreline was, but I couldn’t spot anything. Just darkness. With a resigned sigh, I emerged from the muck, summoned another javelin for light, unfolded my wings, and started practicing my swimming.

Now that I wasn’t fearing for my life and being distracted by imagined enemies, my swimming was a lot smoother. I took it slow, trying to get used to the movement. Still, my wings were designed for gliding in the air, so they struggled against the water. I needed to apply quite a bit of brute strength to create the wave-like movement, but it was working and I was slowly improving. The thought of using a void jump to get up and out came to me again, but I didn’t want to jump blindly. And if my theory was right, I was actually pretty safe down here, which made it a good environment to practice in.

I swam for quite a while, actually having a bit of fun after a bit. I did enjoy being in the water as a human, and this felt as close to a nice swim as it could be. Every now and again I’d turn off my little light to watch for any signs of the sun. I never saw anything, but I wasn’t in a particular hurry to leave. After all, it was kind of peaceful down here.

My swimming was getting smoother, and the motions started to change into a practiced routine after a while. Now that I was more comfortable with swimming straight, I started practicing turning around, swimming backward, and swimming at different speeds. I even tried swimming a few loops underwater, with disappointing results. For a time, I forgot about my need to leave the depths and just focused on the feeling of the water caressing my form as I swam various maneuvers.

It was at times, a bit frustrating. Learning to properly swim in this alien way wasn’t easy, and I failed a lot of times. On the other hand, it was also relaxing. I was almost certain that there were no monsters down here due to this being the guardian's territory, which gave me peace of mind. Something that I’d rarely been able to experience in this new world. I swam and just emptied my mind for a bit. Relaxing after the stressful encounter I just had did my mental state a lot of good, and I enjoyed every second of it.

Hopefully, I’d be able to take some time off on a beach resort planet after I was done on Suigoss…

I was doing one of my frequent stops when I finally saw a tiny bit of light cut through the darkness. It hadn’t been visible when my void javelin was on, but after everything had turned dark, I could spot the tiny mote of light far off in the distance. I felt a slight twang of disappointment upon seeing what was essentially the exit to this underwater prison I’d found myself in. But hey, the good times couldn’t last forever, and work was calling for me to continue.

I didn’t summon another void javelin, choosing to stay in the dark, lest I lose the light by accidentally swimming away from it. My eyes were fixated on the small light, guiding me in a straight line to my destination. The closer I got, the more odd the light appeared. If I was actually getting closer to the surface, shouldn’t my entire surroundings start to light up gently? Shouldn’t I follow an upward slope since I was going up? But none of that happened. Instead, all I got was this little light in the distance, that slowly took on a greenish hue and was eventually joined by two more lights as I got closer.

I slowed down my approach a bit and got more wary of my surroundings. Whatever this was, it wasn’t the surface. I was still semi-certain that I was alone down here, but just in case I took my alertness up a notch. As I got closer to the strange lights, I was able to make out some shapes in the distance. There was a lot of small detritus that acted like a fog wall, making it hard for light to penetrate far and difficult to make out any details of what I was looking at.

I decelerated even further, keeping close to the ocean floor and keeping my eyes open for any suspicious movement as I approached whatever this was. It took some careful movement, but I eventually got close enough to see. In fact, it was like I’d passed an invisible wall of sorts, the ocean suddenly becoming clear, revealing what I’d found in all its glory.

A massive underwater temple!

I admired the architecture of the submerged building, which seemed to be a nonsensical mix of Roman, and Aztec techniques. The whole base looked like a multi-tiered pyramid, with four segments making up the whole thing. On the flat top, a large building stood proudly, supported by heavily decorated pillars. There were more pillars situated on the balconies of the different segments, seemingly placed at random intervals and serving no purpose. The lights I’d seen were attached to a set of hanging lanterns that were attached to the building on top, bathing the whole thing in an eerie, green glow.

Seeing the large building suddenly emerge in front of me had me flabbergasted for a moment, wondering what the purpose of this construction was. I kept looking at the out-of-place structure, looking around for any monsters that might be guarding it before I remembered something.

I had a bonus objective relating to this! I quickly pulled up my evolution menu and, sure enough, there it was. “Retrieve a deep sea gem from an underwater temple”, it said. I’d already given up on that bonus objective, since being underwater in that murderous ocean would be suicide, even for me. But here I was, stumbling across potentially the only underwater temple that wasn’t guarded by hordes of psychotic murder fish. Well, there was the huge island guardian, so it wasn’t entirely unguarded, but that guy was already dead.

I looked again at the ominous-looking temple entrance at the top, briefly wondering if this was a good idea. But then again, this was likely the only opportunity I’d ever get to complete this objective. I only weighed my options for a short time before shrugging and making my way to the entrance.

Deep sea gem, here I come!