My mana kicked up for just a second as the silver krait locked eyes with the intruder, curled up in the bloodline kelp as he was—it had made its way through the tunnel without suspicion and now poked its wide head into my halls, black eyes swiveling as they took in the ripe feast of mana flowing through the currents. Shark.

And one floor above, a piece of glowing algae ripped from the ceiling cried out in an unseen voice to all the other plants in the Drowned Forest as a final alarm; something new and skulking.

Or, by new and skulking, I meant the same fucking bat that had evaded me so far.

It'd grown in its insolence, able to safely sprint past the first floor before I'd even noticed—and, with the silver krait only noticing the shark when it'd entered my halls, I was beginning to understand just how powerful Rhoborh's blessing was. My home-built alarm system only worked as long as one of my creatures actually looked at my entrances. Not exactly a good thing.

The bat cried out, shrill voice reverberating in the narrow space of the first room it was so casually exploring; more creatures raised their heads to squint at this irritating annoyance but it had moved on before they could track it down, its hooked wings and massive ears disappearing before they could blink. I kept up with it of course, unlimited by such pedestrian consequences of gravity and air resistance, but I didn't want to.

Though it was frankly impossible, my points of awareness managed to squirm out of my control and angle themselves away from the wretched thing's screams.

Yeah. Shark first.

I shot the majority of my attention back to the Underlake.

The shark fully emerged into my hall, and it was a beast; maybe thirteen feet long, riddled with mottled grey and white patterns arranged like the sun shafting through the water's surface. Common camouflage, if a bit flashier than normal—most sharks just went with grey on top, white on bottom—but I could respect it. Its fins were large and edged in black, the typical shark mouth filled with gnashing teeth; a streamlined brute.

Something I was rather suitably interested in. My third floor had all manners of smaller predators, but as the armourback sturgeons were still figuring out how to defend themselves and others and Seros hunted infrequently, there wasn't a true top predator.

And I was looking at one that would slot well in.

I nudged my creatures to awareness.

The krait was the first to move, having been the one to spot the shark—he wriggled free of the bloodline kelp, wide, paddle-like tail swishing as he popped loose of the forest that was quickly overtaking the available space.

Honestly, it was kind of concerning. I'd planted three whole stems and in a few weeks, it'd swallowed over half of the claimable space in the Underlake. I'd need the baby crabs to grow up so they could keep the population in check.

And speaking of the baby crabs–

Hundreds of them, all less than a foot in size but with those same enormous, crushing claws and the vivid emerald carapace. Pint-sized monsters. I loved them.

But it was definitely still concerning to see what were essentially infants merrily start trotting towards the invading shark. Hm. Of course I'd had births in my dungeon before, given with the staggering rat generations that had already come and gone, but it was different seeing the children fight. Ah well. Crabs were independent from birth and while this group still had plenty of rounds of molting to go through before they reached their full size, that didn't mean they were weak.

I did nudge the krait out first.

He swam forward, plenty of air in his lungs to support this fight without needing to take a break, and waited until he was just free of the kelp before starting to spin, over and over as the algae-light from above broke over his scales and scattered rippling light throughout the lake.

The shark took about a heartbeat to see the light and immediately lash its tail, enormous bulk prowling forward.

Hm. I'd assumed the krait's silver and white colouration was for camouflage, hiding in the ripples of water, but maybe it was equally a distraction. For a darkwater hunter, the flash of his tail would trigger nothing but an urge to chase. Which the shark was very much doing.

The krait disappeared back into the kelp but the shark wasn't a woe-begotten scavenger; its eyes easily picked out the silver amidst the amber-gold fronds, shoving its way through with its enormous head. It looked strangely at home here, stalking through the kelp.

Just unfortunately for it, not all of the strands were kelp. The krait had lived here plenty long enough to know where the traps were.

A mimic jellyfish, its tendrils the exact size and shade of the bloodline kelp, welcomed its new prey with the sort of enthusiasm that was supposed to be impossible for something without a central brain. Its tentacles all lashed together, wrapping around the shark with their thousands of micro-barbs all perfectly poised to release their venom–

And failed miserably.

The shark's skin repelled the barbs but not the tendrils; they seemed to hook and latch over the mottled surface, caught on invisible rough edges and breaks. The shark swam forward and all the tentacles the jellyfish had rooted into the ground below were ripped free, tearing away from its body, its bell tugged along for the ride.

Half a second later and the shark had realized what had happened, spun in as tight a circle as it could manage, and swallowed the bell whole.

It looped in great, sweeping rounds as it continued to tear into the jellyfish's corpse, gnawing down the tentacles with the same care as if it was beef. Given how it hadn't seemed to notice it was systematically ripping the jellyfish's tendrils off, I would guess it was a biological reason instead of a mana one; intriguing, though. Armour? It just looked like regular skin.

Its meal was rather interrupted, though, as the silver krait returned with a friend in tow. A few friends, actually.

The electric eel waited a second for its electric silverheads to get into position before releasing a blast of lightning-attuned mana.

The shark exploded—no organ to make sound but I could see that it wanted to, thrashing with its mouth gaping and gills writhing. The baby crabs spooked, disappearing back to the kelp's base, but the shark had no such escape, seizing and paralyzed. The silver krait, rather peacefully, swam around to its relatively still back and nipped his fangs through its dorsal fin.

Yeah. Turned out that no matter how strong an aquatic creature was, they really didn't have an answer for electricity.

The little krait-eel duo stilled as the mana from the kill flowed through them, rippling through their channels; nowhere near close to evolution for either, but the burst of strength was welcome. They'd need it with how many of these sharks I was planning on adding.

Speaking of.

Roughwater Shark (Common)This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

It never stops swimming, hunting evermore for more prey to stave its insatiable hunger. To protect itself, it rubs against stone walls to sharpen its skin, preventing anything larger from stopping its hunt.