In the deep sea, atop a pitch-black seabed, mound after mound of sand rose like little earthen hills.
The dunes stretched in unbroken swaths, their end invisible at a glance.
Eternal darkness reigned, without even the faintest trace of light.
Yet within that everlasting darkness, in a place of terrifying water pressure, strange creatures lay sleeping inside every one of those sandy mounds.
These creatures had fish heads, with absurdly large eyes that nearly bulged from their sockets.
Their bodies were entirely emerald green, and they had four limbs. In that respect, their evolution was not much different from the Shark People.
But compared to the Shark People, they were uglier and looked even more like genuine monsters.
Calling them fish people would be less fitting than calling them frog people.
They had fins and scales, but with their green bodies, flat heads, and huge protruding eyes, what else could they be but frogs?
These strange Frog-Fish People were neither as tall nor as sturdy as the Shark People.
Yet their numbers were vast, and their population spread across most of the deep sea.
As they slept on the muddy seabed, even a slight parting of their mouths revealed the dense, fine spikes filling them.
These Frog-Fish People were clearly no harmless creatures.
The view sped forward, quickly arriving at a place in the heart of the deep sea.
At a certain abyss in the deep sea, Frog-Fish People had gathered so densely that they filled the darkness.
They packed together in endless numbers.
Within the abyss, a Frog-Fish Person wearing a strange bone crown continuously emitted peculiar sound waves.
Without opening his mouth, the sound waves carried messages through the water and into the minds of every frog person.
"The great Lord of the Deep Sea has awakened. The time to unite the four seas has finally come!"
"Children of the Deep Sea! Begin! Reclaim for our god the divine authority that belongs solely to water, solely to the sea!"
"The Pseudo-Gods shall perish! The ocean shall belong to our god, and it shall belong to us Children of the Deep Sea!"
Raising a scepter fashioned from a Shark Person skull high overhead, the Frog-Fish Person priest at the center beneath the abyss was filled with fervor.
Around the abyss, the countless Frog-Fish People floating in the water all let out bizarre cries in unison.
For a moment, the strange sound waves emanating from the entire abyss made even the water at the distant surface splash into waves that radiated outward.
The Frog-Fish Person priest was very satisfied with the response of the populace and raised his scepter.
"Go! Go! Fearless warriors of the deep sea, go destroy the populace of those Pseudo-Gods!"
"Ooh, ooh, ooh! Kill the Pseudo-Gods!"
"Ooh, ooh, ooh! Eat the populace of the Pseudo-Gods! Kill them all!"
"Ooh, ooh, ooh! I'll charge at the front!"
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The Frog-Fish People of the deep sea erupted in frenzied cries, the smiles on their faces bordering on madness.
Once the Frog-Fish Person priest declared the attack, the Frog-Fish People in the abyss scattered and streamed off in every direction.
As they traveled, they continued making strange sonic cries. More Frog-Fish People, who had been sleeping in sandy mounds throughout most of the deep sea, awoke and joined the main force.
For a time, the entire deep sea boiled over, with Frog-Fish People visible everywhere across the ocean floor.
These Frog-Fish People blotted out the sea and sky, seemingly endless.
Only after these rather dim-witted frog-person cannon fodder set out did the group of Frog-Fish Person priests slowly gather to discuss what came next.
"The great Lord of the Deep Sea is no longer satisfied with our offerings. He needs more and more. What an awe-inspiring appetite!"
Though the High Priest of the Frog-Fish People, wearing a bone crown, spoke thus, his tone could not conceal his fear and sighs.
He turned to look farther down into the abyss.
There was an enormous black hole there, and within it, several colossal tentacles were swaying.
Seeing that intermittently visible sight, every priest could not help but tremble.
One priest restrained his terror, then assumed a solemn expression like that of the most devout believer.
"We, the populace, must satisfy Father God's appetite. They are merely Pseudo-Gods. Under the full assault of our brave Children of the Deep Sea, they will have no chance of survival."
"Of course, it would be even better if Father God were willing to act."
The implication behind this frog-person priest's words was obvious: someone had to enter the black hole to seek an audience with the Lord of the Deep Sea, report the matter, and perhaps, if possible, ask the Lord of the Deep Sea to deal with the Pseudo-Gods of the other three seas.
The Frog-Fish Person priests looked at one another, but none of them spoke. In the end, they could only all turn toward the High Priest of the Frog-Fish People in the center.
How could the High Priest of the Frog-Fish People fail to understand what these fellows meant?
They wanted him to seek an audience with the god?
Just thinking of the god's chaotic eyes and the terrifying sight of him feeding made the High Priest of the Frog-Fish People shudder in fear.
But the High Priest of the Frog-Fish People had no choice and no way to evade the task.
After all, who told him to inherit his current position?
Though the populace of the deep sea was easy to sustain, able to reproduce in terrifying numbers merely by eating certain minerals in the mud and sand.
But numbers could not change their weakness in quality. Besides, how could they launch a full-scale assault without facing the enemy's gods?
How could mortals contend against gods? They would have better odds of ghosts appearing.
If gods could be defeated through numbers alone, the ocean would never have maintained its current balance of four seas.
Only gods could defeat, even kill, gods. Every intelligent creature in this world understood that principle.
What was more, the Frog-Fish People had already tested it some time ago.
With their overwhelming numbers, they caught the Shark People and the other two races off guard. Though they temporarily seized a vast stretch of sea territory, they soon encountered the opposing gods.
Then all the Frog-Fish People died.
And now, this was the Frog-Fish People's final desperate gamble.
There was no helping it. If they could not find enough food for the Lord of the Deep Sea, then once he grew enraged and crawled out from the very bottom of the abyssal sea, the populace of the deep sea might face total annihilation.
From ancient times until now, the Lord of the Deep Sea had always possessed a tremendous appetite.
But no matter how great it was, the Frog-Fish People had always managed to satisfy it.
On one side, they acquired Blood Food through prolonged wars with the other three seas. On the other, they lured some of the less intelligent Frog-Fish People down into the abyssal sea to seek an audience with the god.
In any case, after all these long years, they had barely managed to satisfy their "own" god.
But now, that no longer worked. Not only had the god's appetite grown larger, but he had also become pickier.
He even spat out the Frog-Fish People he swallowed, making them seem like garbage food that not even dogs would touch.
The fact that the Frog-Fish People's god no longer wished to eat Frog-Fish People seemed like a good thing, but in truth, it made the Frog-Fish Person priests tremble even more.
Because it meant that, in order to obtain enough offerings, their entire race had to expand the war with the other three seas, perhaps even wipe out the race of one sea region.
The Frog-Fish People were numerous. Even the races of the other three seas combined did not amount to a tenth of their number. But they were mortals in the end.
How could mortals fight gods?
The gods of the other three seas were far kinder than the Lord of the Deep Sea. They would avenge their populace.
In short, seeing the relationship between the races of the other three seas and their gods, the Frog-Fish Person priests, who knew their own circumstances, did not know whether they should feel envy or sorrow.
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