To breathe, Arad conjured wind using magic directly in his mouth and breathed it, and when he got used to that, he started generating the air deeper and deeper until he was able to make it right inside his lungs.

He didn’t need that much volume of air to survive, so it cost him barely anything. The only problem he faced was keeping a steady rhythm. He needed to synchronize generating air with his chest expanding so his lungs won’t be torn under the pressure.

Since the seawater wasn’t getting into his lungs, he could easily keep doing that and breathe, solving one of his biggest problems, and now, it was time to solve the next one.

If mana couldn’t leave Arad’s skin due to the water blocking it, then he only needed to keep it inside his body, beneath his skin. There weren’t that many spells that would work, and most would only cause his body to explode from the inside out.

But there was one type of magic that Arad knew would work, and it would even be more powerful in this salty water. But it had one problem: it could very well kill him before he could even realize it.

While being surrounded and not having much of a chance, and feeling the Qallupilluit’s fangs piercing his skin, he decided to stop being a human for once, and act more like the wild dragon he is.

It was time to show those monsters who the real monster is here.

Arad slowly started generating an electric current beneath his skin using lightning magic, and he quickly raised the power until it started frying the Qallupilluit latched onto him.

When the Qallupilluit died and let go of him, her corpse floated up, burned and bloodied. Arad floated in place, covered in blood, burns, and ghastly wounds, but his eyes still flashed purple with light, glaring directly at the Qallupilluits’ Queen soul.

They can’t stop him. He is inhuman.

What’s more, the lightning magic wasn’t done causing trouble. The black water blocked mana, not electricity, and so the current generated by Arad started ionizing the salty water around him, breaking it down to oxygen and hydrogen, then the sparks jumping between his teeth and fingers ignited those bubbles, boiling the seawater around him.

The Qallupilluits’ queen swung her arms, and all of the terrified Qallupilluits rushed at Arad to kill him. They had stopped seeing him as a monster, as a Yeti, or as prey; now, they only saw a predator eyeing their queen.

As they got closer, they were shocked, burned, and stabbed to death with his spear. Arad endured the unimaginable pain as he fought, because if he couldn’t endure it, he wouldn’t be able to keep his magic up anyway.

The black river’s water boiled, roiled, and frothed, foaming with blood and torn flesh. The Qallupilluits fighting Gojo looked back, hearing the screams of their kin echoing out of the river, and they wondered just what kind of horrid monster Arad was.

Those Qallupilluits had their share of fights, but they had never faced an extreme being before. They always ran away from the horrors of the depths, and never even saw the Blizzard Monster outside. So this was their first encounter with an extreme being, two of them at that, Arad and Gojo, even stuck in human bodies, were still fundamentally dragons.

Arad slashed his way through the Qallupilluits. It was easier than before since anyone who got close to him got shocked to the bone and burned, which allowed him to easily reach their queen with a large mad grin on his face.

He finally reached her, the mother of blubber. All of that fat would be nice when grilled, especially with how cold it is.

With one look at his grin and purple glowing eyes, the Qallupilluits’ queen sensed Arad’s hunger and freaked out. She wasn’t the queen anymore, but a prey desperately trying to survive the fangs of a harrowing monster.

Now that Arad got closer, he could fully see how stupidly massive she was. While all of the Qallupilluits didn’t grow past three meters long and looked like seals, the queen itself was almost fifteen meters long and as thick as a whole house. Even calling her a whale would be an understatement.

But that thing, the mother of blubber, moved as gracefully as a tuna, quickly circulating around Arad and swung her massive tail at him, smacking him all the way to the bottom of the river.

She opened her titanic maw and was about to blast him with a water beam, only for Arad to throw his spear at her, stabbing right in her gums. Using that as a distraction, he swung behind her back and latched onto her hair.

Since her upper half looked human, he knew exactly where the heart should be and started discharging as much current as he could through her back, zapping her like a taser.

She struggled for a while, then swam down, smacking her back on the solid rocks and forcing Arad to let go of her hair. She wanted to smash him between her massive body and the rocks, but he was too nimble and fled before she could do that.

Her body was still sore, burned, and feeling numb from the shock, which slowed her down enough for him to swim out of the dust and mud, grab his spear, which was still sticking out of her mouth, and pull it out.

Being this close to her face, she couldn’t just blast him with a breath, as he could easily swim around her head, and so the battle of attrition started. Arad kept swimming around her head, zapping and stabbing her with his spear, and she kept spinning in place, trying to catch him with a bite.

She was definitely stronger than the other Qallupilluits, but Arad was certain she was just as dumb. As he kept shocking and wounding her, and as she kept spinning, soon, the dizziness and numbness got to her, and she stopped moving, for a second, allowing Arad to come in and discharge one last burst at her head.

At that moment, Arad was already running out of mana, and she was still alive. The shock didn’t kill her, even if it was delivered directly to her brain. If the current wasn’t powerful enough to kill Arad, it won’t kill a monster as big as Qallupilluits’ Queen, but the pain reached her.

Looking back, she could see Arad’s purple eyes glaring down at her, and what she felt; it was nothing like someone who’s about to win a fight.

What she saw and felt was a massive, black scaled creature pinning her down with its massive claws, glaring at her as if she were nothing more than a snack, a fish on its dining table.

She relaxed and gave up, fearing that he would kill her and all of her clan. He was clearly a stronger monster than the Yetis’ chieftain, and she had to submit if she wanted to survive.

Arad noticed that she stopped resisting, and just to make sure, he stabbed her a few more times. She just sat there and took the hits, not lifting a finger.

Arad smiled. If she had kept fighting, he would’ve lost as his mana was nearing its limit. In fact, if he doesn’t turn the lightning and wind magic off, he’ll pass out in a second or two.

He turned all of his magic and swam to the surface, feeling the cold water washing over his burnt skin. As his hand emerged the water and landed on the shore, he slowly climbed out, and the Yetis there jumped back, terrified to the bones.

He survived the black river... and not just that. The Qallupilluits’ queen extended her head out of the water and roared, calling all of her daughters to turn around. They got a new master.

Arad stood, took a deep breath, and rested his bloodied spear on his shoulder, looking at the Yetis’ chieftain with a smile and purple glowing eyes.

"I won’t be killed, I’m unhuman."