Into the Sea

At that moment, Redd and the three dragons, flying at the very front, were right in the center of this storm of destruction!

This time, there was no chance of a lucky escape. This was clearly a carefully calculated trap!

The instant those three pillars of lava shot skyward, surrounding them completely in the heart of the destructive storm, Redd saw the almost certain death facing them.

The shadow of death engulfed him in an instant, but strangely, his mind instead grew exceptionally calm, racing at a speed far beyond that of an ordinary person.

Escape! I can't let even the slightest chance of survival slip away!

There was no time to hesitate. He steeled himself and shouted an order with all his strength: "Dive! As fast as you can, dive straight down! Hold on to each other once we're underwater!"

He knew full well that the Smoking Sea's waters were boiling, hot enough to scald dragon scales,

and might even damage their internal organs, but that was still better than taking a direct hit from the rain of lava falling from a thousand meters above!

This was their only way out!

Hearing Redd's desperate yet exceptionally resolute command, the three dragons immediately unleashed all their strength.

They beat their enormous wings furiously, letting out deafening roars, their bodies plunging straight toward the sea below like streaks of black lightning.

Redd took a deep breath and braced himself for the worst,

both hands clutching the hardest, most prominent bone spur on the Black Dragon Ehm's back, his knuckles white from the force of his grip.

Just then, King Ghidorah made a move that touched Redd deeply.

All three heads let out urgent cries at once, and that enormous body flipped nimbly over,

landing directly on the Black Dragon Ehm's back and folding those broad wings,

then crouching down to shield Redd completely underneath.

Those three heads watched their surroundings warily from different angles, clearly intent on using every ounce of strength to shield Redd from any possible impact.

At that moment, King Ghidorah's usual somewhat lazy, even slightly teasing behavior vanished, leaving only pure loyalty and the desire to protect.

Warmth stirred in Redd's heart. At this moment between life and death, a warm current instantly spread through his entire body.

The man and three dragons hurtled almost vertically downward at the utmost speed, smashing into the churning, boiling sea!

Splash! A tremendous crash rang out, like a meteor striking the sea,

the impact of two hundred-meter-long dragons hitting the water was terrifying, sending mountainlike sprays shooting skyward, at least dozens of meters high, perhaps even over a hundred.

They were lucky. The seabed near their point of impact was deep, with no deadly reefs in their way.

But when that tremendous force collided with the seawater, terrifying water pressure followed!

The invisible pressure instantly squeezed Redd's body, making him feel as though his internal organs were being torn apart, the pain almost knocking him unconscious.

Almost at the very instant Redd and the three dragons crashed into the deep sea, throwing up towering waves,

the rain of lava covering dozens of kilometers around came pouring down right behind them like divine punishment.

The lava hissed as it touched the boiling seawater, rapidly cooling and releasing vast quantities of scalding steam as it solidified into chunks of hard volcanic rock.

But the destructive rain pouring from the sky was simply too vast for the seawater to cool it completely in so short a time.

The entire surface instantly became a churning, boiling world of red, the water's temperature soaring to a despair-inducing level.

Seen from high above, the sea at that moment was almost indistinguishable from lava, a scarlet chaos.

Redd and the three dragons, already underwater, were in even more desperate straits.

The terrifying energy of three underwater volcanoes erupting simultaneously stirred up violent currents in the depths.

Like a tiny boat amid monstrous waves, they were swept along by that immense, invisible force,

tumbling and sinking through the scalding, murky seawater toward an utterly unknown dark abyss filled with the breath of death.

The immense water pressure squeezed Redd like an invisible giant hand, forcing a groan of pain from him.

The instant he opened his mouth in agony, a gush of scalding seawater poured in,

burning his throat and making him choke and cough violently, his lungs aching with a fiery pain.

With the raging currents continually tossing and tumbling him underwater as well, his consciousness soon blurred, his vision went black, and he lost consciousness entirely.

His body began slipping uncontrollably from the Black Dragon Ehm's relatively hard back.

Just then, King Ghidorah, who had been closely watching Redd's condition, moved.

One of the three heads, responsible for perception, immediately detected the signs of Redd slipping off.

Without hesitation, King Ghidorah extended one enormous claw and seized Redd with precision and strength,

then wrapped him tightly in those broad wings, shielding him against that massive chest.

Meanwhile, the other two heads were also working hard to steady that enormous body and keep the currents from sweeping them apart.

And so, in the raging depths, the man and three dragons were swept along by boiling seawater and destructive currents,

drifting on the edge of death like dead leaves carried by the water.

Yet it was precisely King Ghidorah's timely action

that spared them an even worse end-being buried alive on the cold seabed beneath the cooled volcanic rock that kept falling afterward.

When the three world-shattering underwater volcanoes finally exhausted their terrifying stores of energy, the furious Smoking Sea seemed to gradually settle as well.

Yet on the previously relatively calm sea, the accumulation of vast amounts of cooled, solidified volcanic rock had abruptly raised three brand-new volcanoes.

They rose an unknown number of meters high, thrusting above the sea, and although their eruptions had ended,

dark red embers still churned in each crater, constantly belching thick black smoke.

More chilling still, these three volcanoes were not scattered at random, but arranged precisely in a perfect equilateral triangle,

as though they were an eerie, carefully calculated mark left behind by this catastrophe.

Just then, an illusory figure of flame appeared like a phantom above the three newborn volcanoes.

The figure stood briefly at the edge of each crater, quietly gazing down at the sea below, calm once more yet still roiling with waves of heat,

its gaze deep, as though scrutinizing something.

Back and forth, the figure passed between the three craters several times, each pause carrying an indescribable sense of certainty.

At last, it seemed to confirm certain things, and the illusory figure paused slightly,

then vanished completely into the air as though it had never appeared,

leaving only the three slowly dying volcanoes billowing black smoke, and beneath the sea's surface, the still-boiling deep blue with its unknown depths.