C’thylla sped through the water, her physical form and her magical prowess working in perfect sync to allow her to either keep pace with or outmatch the rest of the Naga in speed, depending on whether she chose to do so or not. In this case, she was doing as instructed by her ‘mother’, Zalga. She was to lead the raid from the front and show to the younger generation that she was not merely a fragile doll to be ogled at.

C’thylla still had traits leftover from her time as The Beast, one of which included her seeming immortality and inability to be killed, but that would be sorely tested in the minutes to come. Before the raiding party could make landfall, a massive surge of electricity fried all of the Naga and their war beasts as if they had been dropped into… well… a heavily electrocuted saltwater pool, I guess…

This was enough juice to either outright kill or to cause heart attacks, but it was not enough to stop C’thylla. If she were a normal Naga, she likely would have taken this attack as a sign that she and her raid were not only discovered prematurely, but that their target was prepared for them, but C’thylla was most assuredly not a normal Naga. As The Beast, she had been tailor-made to be very suggestible to the ones who held her leash, and even though much of that programming ended up either being corrupted due to her own madness or wiped away when she became what she was now, she was still obscenely devoted to her ‘master’ and would follow their/ her instructions until she was told not to.

So, while the rest of the Naga and their beasts either died or tried to reset/ restart their hearts, C’thylla continued on ahead, letting the weaker Naga (all that did not include herself) stay behind to deal with what had just happened. She was on a timetable, and she would complete this raid in the appointed time, increased threats be damned.

…

Da Ji savored the smell of ionizing saltwater and the tinge of seared fish that followed shortly thereafter. She had sensed the incursion of these aquatic monstrosities and had ‘saved’ the people of this little village. This was not out of the goodness of her heart, of course. This was, like all things in her life, a way to gather power, influence, and wealth, among other things. These people would be indebted to her, and after seeing her power firsthand they would be more inclined to behaving how she wished.

Da Ji was turning back to the village when the feeling that something was still coming sent a shiver through her. She stopped mid-motion and was turning her face to look at the Shadow Sea when the right side of her face connected with the slimy left fist of some kind of fishy woman. However, to the fish-person’s seemingly minor annoyance, Da Ji did not budge. Instead, a mixture of pure rage and hate filled her eyes for the briefest of moments, turning the supermodel face into something twisted and hideous before its wearer took control over herself once again. In the moment that followed, Da Ji grabbed the fish-person’s arm and chucked her through the village.

Why would Da Ji have destroyed a good portion of the village after ‘saving’ it? Well, this was the first time in untold generations that someone had ever touched her without her permission, and worse still, the attack reminded her of the previous Emperors who had used their sheer might to keep her down. Only they had been able to land a blow on her, and even that made her angry. For this insignificant speck of dirt to dare strike her glorious body, let alone her face, was something deserving of torment. Her fury was to the point that this village and even her entourage would just be collateral damage, and who would mourn these people, anyway?

She expected the fishy bitch to be seriously wounded, but as the dust cleared the wet wench merely rushed back towards her as if nothing had harmed her.

“Strange…” Da Ji remarked. “I could have sworn I tore your arm off with that.”

Cue the moist bint bursting through the dust clouds, somehow having regenerated her missing limb and using the removed one as a makeshift club to try and slap Da Ji with her own severed hand. This perturbed the foxy woman, who created a sphere of razor winds around herself to see what would happen. Remarkably, the soggy siren did not respond with intellect and merely charged the bubble of scything winds and used sheer determination and an absurd healing factor to literally push through it as if it were barely even there.

This was enough to give Da Ji some cause for concern, but not nearly enough to give her a reason to fear her damp damsel of an opponent.

“If physical force won’t work on you…” Da Ji said with a sadistic smile and malicious fire in her eyes. “Then I’ll see just how far I can toy with you before you break!”

…

The following scene would have been too graphic for even late-night television to air without the channel that showed it being bombarded with letters regarding excessive brutality and sadistic behavior, so to make a long story short, Da Ji used the next few hours to ‘experiment’ with what she assumed would be her new ‘toy’. Whether you would call in unfortunate or not, Da Ji was gradually losing interest in her plaything due to how it seemed to ignore any damage it sustained and seemed to have no concerns about pain or emotional shock.

This whole thing was getting so unbelievably droll, and Da Ji was about to simply toss the rag of a creature back into the waters from which it came, but the gathering storm clouds and churning waves snapped her out of her fun and sent her gaze towards the sea once again. To her shock, a massive tidal wave was barreling down on not just herself, but the remains of the now completely destroyed village. She tossed the ‘ragdoll’ into the path of the wave before flying above the reach of the water, which crashed down and obliterated anything that remained. Her eyes were focused on that mesmerizing scene until a bolt of lightning struck her and caused her eyes to focus up while filled with rage.

“Kr nyeee’kit fv-sja vraativ’vn.”

A horrible, mind-crushing voice penetrated the swirling storm that rushed around a massive figure that was creeping its way through the darkness. Da Ji gazed into the four glowing red eyes of the monster that towered over the ground and whose lower lip alone was taller than her own body.

“Jaar’nah vlarz nii’turi kam sch ryl gwdmni scraf-nala…”

Da Ji’s eyes burned with a fire that she had figured was long since extinguished by now. It was a fire that all Beastmen had within them, to one degree or another, but few ever felt that fire ignite in such a way. This would be a fight against an equal, or so Da Ji thought. But reality is often far more disappointing than what you think is real.