Chapter 87 - Third Encounter, And Fail To Succeed.

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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After spending a few hours every day underwater for months inside the Great Lake, Quinn had gotten used to the water so much he felt it was just another part of his life. Everything, from moving his body underwater to how to breathe with gills, had become natural to Quinn. He no longer felt that water was outside of his comfort zone.

Just two weeks ago, he had been smacked by the Kraken and had ended up revealing himself to Daphne, Tracy, and Astoria. But with some work and luck, he had been able to put that incident behind him.

Now Quinn was ready to get another dig against the Kraken. Within two weeks, Quinn had done more practice with water magic and human transfiguration, and he had become better at both fields.

His progress with human transfiguration was clearly visible in his body. Previously Quinn had had three pairs of gills that allowed him to breathe underwater on his neck and underneath his ears.

But now he had a more complex underwater respiratory system. Instead of the three-neck pair of gills, Quinn had made himself a more extensive system, with another six pairs of gills on his chest placed between the opening of the bones in the rib cage, connecting them to his lungs.

Inside his body, Quinn had opened up his windpipe to let water in and had layered his lungs to prevent them from getting irritated and protected both the bronchus, bronchioles network and alveoli branches from getting in contact with water. He had transformed his lungs into a water chamber where water could enter from his windpipe, reach the lungs, and exit through the gills, leaving behind oxygen in his blood.

What prompted this change was that Quinn's body was large and needed more oxygen. Quinn had noticed that when he tussled with the Kraken he was getting out of breath, as he moved rigorously in the water and used a lot of magic.

Even though Quinn was using water magic to move around, there was still a physical aspect to his underwater swimming. During his skirmish with the Kraken, Quinn had to make lots of movements quickly in a short amount of time, which left him feeling out of breath. That induced him to gulp down a lot of water to gain the sufficient amount of oxygen.

It took some practice and reading, but Quinn managed to get it done, and even after performing crazy moves underwater, he didn't feel the lack of oxygen in his body.

And now that he was ready, Quinn cruised towards the Kraken's primary location, while speeding at a velocity faster than the last time he had tried to get past the Kraken.

'This time, I need to find a sign of the area where the third vault is kept,' thought Quinn as he pumped more magic to increase his speed. 'It's going to be different this time.'

And things turned out to be different.

Just as Quinn was about to reach the point where he could usually see the Kraken's tentacle, instead of seeing a tentacle laying on the lake bed, Quinn saw two tentacles moving directly towards him.

'Oh, shit!' screamed Quinn in his head as he saw the Kraken taking the initiative in their third meeting.

Punching the proverbial brakes, Quinn commanded the water to come to a stop and immediately swam upwards to avoid the two tentacles.

'That was clos -," his thoughts of relief shattered when Quinn saw five more tentacles appear in his zone visibility and zoom towards him, "Oh! You've got to be kidding me!'

Quinn's magic thrummed into life as more and more of it was released into the water, bringing the water under his control. With the water at his service, Quinn swam at faster and faster speeds, making tight brakes in water and maneuvering sharp direction changes on the dime, all in the attempts to stay away from the grasp of the Kraken.

'Damn, I wasn't expecting-' thought Quinn dodging another tentacle jab. '- such aggression and momentum from the Kraken.'

As seven tentacles wriggled and moved in the water, trying to catch something much smaller and weaker than them, Quinn was getting more confident in his ability because he wasn't feeling the pressure like the last time.

'Let's drop some ~freeze~ in here,' thought Quinn as ice magic made another appearance, and walls of ice manifested from the freezing of the lake water, held in place by Quinn to deflect and block the tentacles that were getting a little too close for comfort.

But because of the speedy casting of magic while evading the continuous and tenacious attack of the tentacles, Quinn could only create ice walls that could stop a tentacle once, and a second hit would cause them to crack and break.

'I need to find an opening to dive in closer,' planned Quinn as he shifted to his left, avoiding an incoming tentacle, simultaneously creating two ice walls to block two tentacles. One ice blockade for the tentacle coming from the left and the second wall for the tentacle that he had just dodged, which was coming back from his back.

Quinn swam up before the ice walls broke and alertly looked for an opening while still keeping an eye on the tentacles because while he was successfully evading the Kraken's grasp, Quinn didn't know when the tables could turn.

'There it is!' yelled Quinn as he saw an opening straight ahead; all the tentacles were far enough for Quinn to sprint full speed and without getting caught by them. Just to be sure, he barraged a near hundred ice spheres in all directions in an attempt to stall the tentacles.

'Go!' with a mental yell, Quinn zapped forwards, but not even three seconds in his full speed swim-sprint, two new tentacles appeared in front of Quinn.

'Hell no!'

Quinn had enough and clapped his hand in front of himself, and immediately the surrounding water with Quinn in the center turned black. Waves and waves of black erupted, covering everything in inky black. He had released so much magic in a low costing color change spell that it was slightly visible on the Great lake's surface if someone was paying attention.

To make sure that he didn't get in contact with tentacles by accident, Quinn dropped down to the lake bed and started to swim close to the surface.

'The damn Kraken took me by surprise!'

Quinn wasn't a great fan of his current situation. He had been avoiding both of the actions he had just taken because of the disadvantage that they put him in.

Turning the water into a color that reduced visibility did provide Quinn cover from the Kraken, but it also heavily reduced away his own ability to see in the water.

Plus, Quinn wasn't sure if the Kraken had some form of water perception. If it did, then his effort was a waste.

Second, Quinn avoided swimming close to the lake bed because it took away his ability to move downwards. He had been staying a good distance above the lake bed because that allowed him to move in any direction, a three-sixty degree movement possibility.

But now, with him swimming so close to the lake bed, Quinn had lost a variety of evading options.

'Don't let it find me. Don't let it find me. Don't let it find me,' repeatedly chanted Quinn in his mind as he carefully and silently swam forward.

'ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ No(v) e lBin ᴏɴʟʏ.',

Three tentacles suddenly came from above and stabbed the ground behind Quinn.

'Did it find me?! Did it find me?! Did it find me?! Did it find me?! Shiiiit!'

He didn't know if Kraken had locked onto his position, so Quinn did what he felt right in the moment and kicked up the speed and darted forward, throwing zig-zags every few meters.

Quinn could hear the sounds of the stabbing of the ground by the tentacles; this told Quinn that Kraken had a vague idea of his location, but that piece of information wasn't favorable to Quinn, so he kept going, and finally Kraken's body.

This was the first time in his months of starting his dives that Quinn had seen the Kraken's main body.

It remarkably looked like a squid with an elongated tube-shaped body, large yellow eyes, skin that certainly didn't match a typical squid's skin; it had that hard and rough texture, unlike the squid's soft outer layer.

There were so many tentacles coming out of the Kraken's body that Quinn couldn't tell how many did it have. One thing that Quinn did notice was,

'It wasn't going serious against me...'

Even though Quinn couldn't count or even see the number of tentacle bases, he knew that there were far more than the Kraken had used on him.

Kraken's eyes met with Quinn's, and at that moment, he studied Kraken's eyes. In those eyes, Quinn saw no hostility or anger of any kind. All he could discern in the wholly yellow eyes was curiosity and interest towards Quinn.

The Kraken saw in Quinn's eyes fascination, interest, and slight concern.

The Kraken clearly had an idea of what the tiny human wanted. The tiny human child clearly wanted to get to the place that it was hiding. It knew that this human child knew of the place that it hid beneath its body.

The Kraken knew of the 'vault' because it knew everything about its home. The Kraken was the oldest of all living inside the Great lake.

The Kraken could be the apex predator if it wanted to be and wipe every being in the lake, but it didn't. All it wanted to do was to live its life peacefully. Even the colony of militant merpeople avoided the Kraken because of fear and respect.

Decades ago, it had come through the waterway connecting the Great Lake to the ocean and ever since lived inside the lake. During its time here, it found about the place that he now guarded. The 'vault' wasn't much to someone as great as itself. But to the little human children that came to the castle every year, it was dangerous.

It had taken upon himself from getting humans inside there. It wanted to protect human children.

So when this little child was clearly trying to get inside the dangerous place, it stopped the child twice, but here he was coming for the third time, and he had almost slipped away this time.

The beast and the human stared at each other for a moment of peace and stillness before the game of cat and mouse started again as tentacles rose to catch Quinn and Quinn took off with water magic.

Quinn, who had gotten so close to the Kraken, looked for a gate or entrance of some kind. He had gotten so close and wasn't going to let this opportunity pass away.

'It doesn't matter if the Kraken likes it or not, but I am going in there,' thought Quinn as he dodged tentacles that seemed to increase in number and increasing the difficulty by another level.

'Where is it? Where is it?'

Quinn swam at top speeds around the Kraken, trying to find the vault and avoiding the tentacles at the same time when he came across a clearly carved design into the lake bed. Upon a closer look, Quinn was that it was some kind of tunnel partially blocked by the Kraken's tentacle.

'That is it! That must be it,' smiled Quinn and immediately shot towards it in an attempt to get inside. 'Yes!' celebrated Quinn when he saw within touching distance of the tunnel.

But then his body snapped to stop, and Quinn clearly felt something wrap around his leg and pull him back.

The Kraken had got Quinn's legs with one of its tentacles.

"NO!" yelled Quinn into the water, but no voice came out.

All he could do was see the tunnel getting distant from him as the Kraken's tentacle pulled him away.

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- (Scene Break) -

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On the lakeside, Quinn laid on the ground watching the sky the afternoon sky. The Kraken had dropped him on the shore immediately after his capture.

Quinn had been caught inches away from the tunnel and dragged away from the prize he was seeking. For the third time, Quinn had been bested by the Kraken.

Both parties didn't want the other to get hurt and had taken the lethality out of their moves. And in that playing field, Quinn had been defeated thrice.

Currently, Quinn was feeling a deep sense of failure. The goal line was in front of him, and he was about to reach it, but then he literally was thrown out of the race.

The reason for that unusual sense of deep failure was because of the last year's events. Last year, Quinn had been taken over by the sin curse and taken for a ride that he clearly didn't sign up for.

Even though Quinn had come out stronger on the other side, but the truth was that the second vault had utterly defeated him without even giving Quinn a fighting chance. He was defeated before he even knew the fight had started.

So to make up for that humiliating defeat, Quinn wanted to cruise through the third vault and show that the results of the last vault were not his top ability and that the Icy vault wasn't a fluke.

He wanted to crush the third vault without breaking a sweat.

But even before entering the vault, Quinn had been thwarted thrice.

"No."

A barely audible whisper escaped Quinn.

Quinn got up from the ground and stood up straight, looking at the lake with a straight expression, but there was a fire in his eyes.

"Failure isn't the opposite of success," spat out Quinn with heat in his voice. He turned away from the lake and walked some steps away before turning back to face the lake and cracked his neck. "It's a part of success."

He ran towards the lake, and as he ran, gills appeared on his neck and sides of his chest.

'

Quinn jumped into the lake, and the second his body was fully inside the water, he opened his eyes, and the water surrounding him heard the command of magic; A calm envelope of water formed around Quinn, but outside of that water envelope, the water roared with energy.

With a single thought from Quinn, he shot forward with full speed towards the Kraken.

'Not towards the Kraken,' thought Quinn. He wasn't going towards the Kraken. 'The Kraken is a stepping stone. I am going towards that tunnel. I am going towards success.'

Within a few minutes, Quinn reached the Kraken's tentacles, and instead of going straight for the tunnel, Quinn landed on the lake bed, closed his eyes, and raised his hands.

*Failure* he was feeling.

*Determination* to get past the Kraken.

*Anger* of failing to get past the Kraken thrice.

*Serenity* he felt in the current moment as he focused on his magic.

*Resentment* towards the Kraken, who blocked his path.

*Excitement* of having his goal so close.

Every emotion Quinn felt mixed together and touched his magic.

The failure of the second vault wasn't a worthless experience. It was one of the most important events of Quinn's life.

And right now, Quinn was going to use what he had learned in that failure.

All sound vanished for Quinn as he opened his eyes and casted the magic.

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The Kraken, who had just sent the human child away, 'frowned' when he felt the child return and was about to once again throw him out of his house when it felt a tingle through the water.

It felt magic. A lot of magic coursing through the water.

The Kraken could tell that the magic was from the human child, and the second that thought flashed through its mind, the Kraken saw.

The mighty beast of water watched as the water around its skin turned to ice, covering his body in ice. Within a blink of an eye, the front side of the Kraken was covered in thick ice.

The Kraken was confused because it felt no pain or discomfort from the ice. All the ice did was cover his body.

But then the Kraken understood the reason for the ice as the blanket of ice suddenly pushed against its body and dislodged its body from the lake floor, pushing him up to make him tumble.

The tiny human child was pushing with ice so that he could get inside the dangerous place.

It wasn't going to let him go in so easily.

The Kraken tried to break the ice, but another layer of ice would replace the cracked layer.

No matter what the Kraken tried, the ice reappeared thicker than before, and eventually, he was pushed and tumbled over to his side, leaving the tunnel to the dangerous wide open.

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Quinn lowered his hands with a deep exhale of water before jumping with water magic his movements, and in one leap, he was beside the tunnel with the carvings around the edges of the entrance of the tunnel.

He gave the fallen Kraken one final look and saw that one of the tentacles had risen and was making its way towards Quinn.

A smirk appeared on Quinn as he waved the tentacle goodbye while jumping down the tunnel, leaving behind the fallen Kraken.

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Quinn West - MC - Channeling his inner young Magneto and finding that balance.

Kraken - Mighty Beast of Water - Had a big fall.

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