Moonlight spilled like water over Gray Sea Bay.
But the water in the bay was rapidly falling.
At first, only the few Siege Turtles with the deepest draft struck bottom, letting out uneasy growls.
Then all the Many-Armed Folk warriors felt something wrong-their bodies were growing heavier.
It was no illusion!
"What's going on?"
"The water... the water is disappearing!"
Panic spread through the Bonecrusher Clan's lines. The seawater that had stood more than ten meters above their heads was now slowly receding, fleeing the bay through holes in the coral reefs and fissures in the seabed.
High above, Veylin rode on Nefarian's back, looking down at the magnificent sight.
He had calculated Gray Sea Bay's hydrology.
The spring tide on every Full Moon Night already caused a substantial drop in water level.
And the Coral Breakwater he had built was not merely blocking their retreat-it was a one-way valve.
It blocked the channels through which the rising tide flowed in, while multiplying the bay's natural drainage during the ebb several times over.
In just half an hour.
The once-turbulent deepwater battlefield became an enormous mire.
The deepest water was only five meters, while most areas had just two or three meters left.
The deep-sea behemoths suffered the most.
More than a dozen Rock-Breaker Giant Crabs had their bellies pressed against the mud, their eight jointed legs paddling helplessly through the black muck like overturned beetles.
The Siege Turtles' heavy shells pressed half their bodies into the sand, while their flat limbs, so well suited to swimming, could no longer move them.
Unas stood on a reef.
He watched the Deep-Sea Army he had been so proud of struggle helplessly in the mire like fish and shrimp flung onto a beach by a storm.
*So this was the land dwellers'