While Arius may have recovered enough to prevent himself from being crushed, he was still trapped beneath the water. So long as they remained beneath the surface, Tavras should have the advantage over him.

The direction of the surface could only be sensed by the gray light. Everything else was dark and glowing red. They only seemed to be going deeper into the sea—a good choice on Tavras's part to continually drag him downward. Arius would run out of air eventually, so where crushing failed, he would drown.

Arius seemed desperate to get out of his watery snare, so he tried swimming up. Though his legs kicked and his arms floundered, he could not move against the pressure. Some of his accumulated energy, he threw into a beam of sheer force. Just like how he had dropped from Urru in a blur, he tried to blast himself towards the surface.

He broke past Tavras's sphere of influence, but that seemed to have taken most of his energy because Arius did not get very far away from him.

Tavras cut through the water and reappeared above Arius to stop him in his path. The ease and speed in which he swam through water made Arius's attempt at escape laughably pathetic.

Some bubbles of surprise came from his nose, and Arius tried to swim to the side, as if he had any hope of evading Tavras in the sea. Most of Arius's excess energy had been spent on that one, desperate move. When Tavras reached out to him again with his pressurizing attack, Arius folded under the pain once more.

The bubbles of his old air, now relinquished, floated for the surface. As Val watched them move upward, she caught a red glimmer descending downward.

Urru had plunged himself headlong into the ocean, diving deep to get down here to Arius. The dragon's body flicked and snaked in the iconic way that his aquatic brethren swam through the water at full speed. Urru struggled in this regard, trying to swim down to Arius. His massive wings folded tight into his body, not quite viable in water the same way that they were in the air.

A violent spin of his body brought his tail around to snap into Tavras's face. To gain some lift in the water, Urru fanned his wings out. In that way, he shielded Arius with his body to prevent further assault against his master.

The dragon's jaws opened, but his roar came out dull and muffled in the water. Lots of bubbles appeared from his throat instead. In the middle of a fight Urru looked to be breathing bubbles instead of fire, yet it made Tavras withdraw some feet. Val supposed that heat still poured from his maw, and boiling water could burn as badly as fire.

With a pound of his wings, Urru resumed swimming. This time, he made a desperate dash for the surface and his wings continually aided him to that end.

Some seconds after Urru had blown heat into his face, Tavras recovered and was in pursuit. The currents of the water shifted to reclaim them and tug them down.

A portion of Arius's strength gathered into a razor's edge, which he hurled for Tavras. It was the same ability that had sliced a sea serpent in half, but to a less powerful degree. The projectile still flung through the water at an incredible speed.

Tavras avoided it by a narrow margin, only by shooting himself into an even quicker dash. He ended up drifting a great deal ahead of Urru and Arius, that much closer to the surface. Compared to the distance that they had to traverse, the loss was trivial. Tavras closed in to halt them for real this time.

Urru kept swimming desperately.

Again, Arius used another fraction of his strength in a follow-up attack.

Just as well, Tavras dodged effortlessly. Having moved too far last time, he modified the strength of his dash and pulled up immediately beside Urru and Arius. All of the water in the vicinity collapsed down onto this point.

Immediately, Urru's flight was halted. One wing flung outward to bash Tavras in the face. Then, his body crumpled inward, otherwise useless.

Somewhere in the curled-up form of Urru, Arius still had a vantage point. For the second that Tavras staggered backwards from the hit, Arius flung a third razor blade his way.

Golden blood split forth upon this attack, straight across Tavras's gut. His arms folded over the wound and it looked like he coughed in the water from the impact. The force that he had lain against Urru was interrupted, and Tavras swam down for the time being.

Free from Tavras's attack and pursuits, Urru carried them up to the surface. With wings spread wide, he broke through the water and sailed right into the air. At first, he did not fly very high, just skimming over the water as the hoarse sound of a dragon's hack came from his throat.

What sounded worse was Arius on his back. He tried to cough and breathe all at once, resulting in an unproductive wheeze. On his second attempt at breathing, he threw up instead. Rather than letting himself recover, Arius took to talking. "Fly up."

If Val did not have Insights of the Past to aid in her understanding, she would have had no idea what he had just said.

"What did you say?" Urru asked.

"Fly up," Arius gasped.

As commanded, Urru did so while he took raspy inhalations from the exertion. "Is this our retreat?"

"Nether no." It took longer for Arius to regain himself, having been under the water longer and possessing the smaller lungs of a human.

While they flew together, there was a moment of peacefulness above the ocean.

"Are you okay, Tongueless?" Urru asked.

"Not tongueless—just breathless." With another big gulp of air, Arius cleared his throat and said more intelligibly, "I'm fine."

The calm seemed to be lasting for too long.

"Wait," Urru said slowly. "Did the Sea Itself just give up on us?"

"There's no way," Arius said. His eyes narrowed down to the rough waters below. "I can sense him pursuing us."

The venomous effect that Arius held over Tavras also alerted him of his location. In addition to the way that he generated power for himself, it was a constant, conscious effort for Arius to sap away Tavras's strength.

For a brief period of recuperation, Tavras had decided to heal himself. Now, he was returning to the offensive.

"He's coming up to the surface," Arius yelled to Urru. "Fly faster!"

A column of water rocketed from the ocean, coming straight for Urru's soft belly with the same strength that had split a behemoth in two.