Ocean Master

At the last moment, before he died, Sebastian had only one regret.

"I couldn't even dissect a dragon…"

…

What comes after death?

This was an age-old question that has been asked and answered by a lot of races, dignitaries, and authority figures over the years. Everyone had his/her own answer, but there was no definite proof to verify any of them.

Even as an anatomist who dabbled in the physical aspect of sea creatures in his previous life, Sebastian was never able to graduate to the more ethereal aspects of any life that he ever dissected.

This was one of the numerous mysteries of life.

Like was unsearchable to the end, this was why it was called life.

He may shamelessly call himself an anatomy genius, but even if he had a million times more guts, he could never call himself a master of life.

To people like Sebastian who belonged to a certain religion, they believed that after death there was this phenomenon called heaven and hell.

This was a phenomenon where the evil goes to hell, and the good goes to heaven. Though no definite scientific proof for this had ever been produced, life itself was also not scientifically proven to its fullest.

What is life? Why do we even live? Where did we originate from? These were unanswered questions that Sebastian frequently asked due to his inherent curiosity as a scientist.

Despite how much he pondered, he never got a definite answer.

Due to this frustration, Sebastian decided to give up and simply accept the explanation that was given by his religion, heaven, and hell.

So where would he go? Heaven? Hell?

As a Megalodon now who lived in a fantastical world like Oceania, did the phenomenon of heaven and hell still even applied to him?

Before his last regret, these were things that Sebastian pondered on. Unfortunately, his thought process was prematurely cut off since the dead could not think.

He was dead!

…

It took an unimaginably long time that Sebastian could not process before he regained what he could call mild consciousness.

Blink!

This time, Sebastian didn't wake up as an Atlantian, nor as a Megalodon, he instead woke up as a soul.

He was a floating ethereal bob of yellow light in a dark void.

On regaining consciousness, Sebastian's memories were still fuzzy, but he remembered his last encounters and knew that he was dead. He instinctively started directing a curious exploratory look outwards.

"Is this heaven?"

"I don't think so. It's a dark void, it's probably hell, right?"

Amid his thought, Sebastian could feel his soul strengthening and becoming more corporeal. This was when he tried to access his system, he got no answer which was spooky but surprisingly, a different answer appeared.

Zap!

To Sebastian's shock, what seemed like a space rift appeared in this spooky dark void as an enormous claw appeared before his tiny floating soul.

Without any modesty being exhibited by it, this giant claw grabbed Sebastian's soul and pulled back.

Bzzz!

Sebastian felt like a million drums were playing in his head.

The pull was so strong that he could not offer resistance. He could only flail helplessly as he was rudely pulled out of this dark void by the powerful giant claw.

In an instant, both Sebastian and the giant claw were gone.

…

Blink!

Sebastian opened his eyes again, then he heaved a sigh of relief, he was back!

For some strange reason that he did not know, he was back and was still in the form of an Atlantian. The reason for the giant claw pulling him back also eluded him, but he was glad that he survived.

On looking down, he saw his still squirming flesh that was now rapidly recovering though the pain was already more or less gone.

"Did Queen Heareth rescue me?"

Sebastian soon scraped this guess since his injuries from that previous battle were so severe that he doubted the shark queen's healing magic domain could take care of it so effectively.

He was supposed to be dead, so what happened?

This was when he arrived at a radical but more acceptable guess. "Did I…, pass the test?!"

This was his only explanation since he believed that only the Sea King had the measures to heal such fatal injuries.

Sebastian was astonished and excited as he quickly activated his sound control skill and created the sound detector construct. With this construct, he was able to survey his surroundings.

He was back in the catacomb; Sebastian was instantly certain of this.

The only difference was that this was a different part of the catacomb. Unlike the previous parts that were submerged in water, this was like a cave in a medieval assassin's creed game.

The cave was fairly narrow but could fit Sebastian's current form.

He saw no instruction guide, but Sebastian easily understood. In the end, the Sea King intervened, he won the contest and was now the main inheritor. He needed to pass through this cave to get his inheritance.

Sebastian was hyped to the limit as he made all these deductions.

Since his system set hunting for the other unique skills as his ultimate goal, he had always been striving for this, now he was so close to getting one, his excitement at the situation knew no end.

Without any hesitation, Sebastian took his first step inside the cave.

As he walked deeper, he observed his surroundings.

The cave was not too deep, but Sebastian spent 30 minutes going through it till he reached the end. During the journey, he was able to see the arrangements of the Sea King along the cave passage that deepened his guess.

At each interval that he walked deeper into the cave; he saw 2 rows of a specific monster that were stored inside the walls of the cave.

Those parts of the cave were made transparent, which enabled Sebastian to see them. These monsters ranged from Great White Sharks to enormous Pythons, to giant dinosaurs that looked extremely similar to Godzilla, and even a Dragon!

The common fact about these monsters was that they were all dead!

And on top of each of these beast storage walls was a word and a number.

-        Doppelganger 0129

-        Doppelganger 0130

-        Doppelganger 0131

-        Doppelganger 0132

Sebastian kept on seeing monsters, powerful monsters that left him shuddering from their presence alone but they were all dead which made all this all the more frightening.

He kept seeing until he got to the end of the cave.

At the end of the cave, Sebastian finally saw the will of the Doppelganger and Invisibility King for the first time.

The arrogant smirk that was on its predatory face, the feeling of absolute superiority and disdain for everything other than itself resonated so much with the annoying writings that he kept on seeing.

Sebastian had no doubt, this was the crazy Sea King's will.

"I pay my respects to the Sea King!"

Sebastian didn't know the right way to greet a Sea King, but he simply used the one that he remembered being used prevalently in movies.

On seeing the young Megalodon's reaction, the will nodded in satisfaction.

"Congratulations!" It finally spoke. "You are my main inheritor!"

"Thank you". Sebastian finally dared to observe the Sea King properly.

The will was not in a normal form, it was in an ethereal form, just like his soul was a few minutes ago. Sebastian easily recognized that this was the entity that pulled him out of his predicament.

The Sea King was actually a Chameleon! 

A Chameleon with a Draconic bloodline!

Despite it being a chameleon, and despite it just being in an ethereal form, Sebastian did not dare to underestimate this deadly predator.

This was not only a monster that evolved to the absolute peak of the Black tier realm but a monster with the ability to kill other peak Black tier predators.

This was the might of a real Sea King, not a half-baked one like the current Sebastian. Just looking at the will revealed much about the dead Sea King's previous dominance to Sebastian.

Sebastian remained reverent as the Sea King's will explained.

The will first elaborated on how great of an opportunity Sebastian got by qualifying, then he elaborated on how Sebastian's potential directly increased exponentially due to this encounter.

Finally, it revealed how Sebastian could inherit the unique skill.

Throughout, it never spoke about Sebastian's performance, it was like the performance of an orange tier predator was far beneath its notice.

An excited Sebastian did not complain as he eagerly approached the machine. The final inheritance mechanism was installed in a machine, this machine's manifestation was in the form of a chair.

All that was required of Sebastian was for him to sit down on the chair, relax his mind, and let the machine do everything else.

Sebastian walked towards the machine with anticipation in his heart, then he finally sat down as excitement rippled through his heart.

[System Notification!]

Sebastian looked at the system notification before quickly ignoring it, he focused all his attention on the possible changes that would soon go on inside his body. This was when the machine moved.

Clang!

The mechanical arms moved as what seemed like injections were pushed closer to Sebastian's brain, Sebastian remained still as all this happened.

Just a few inches away from his head, before the metal could pin his head, Sebastian raised his hand and grabbed it!

He turned his head and looked straight into the Sea King's eyes, then he spoke extremely slowly.

"This inheritance…"

"This inheritance was a fake from the onset right, Sea King? Or should I say… Carcarot Gorgoneon?"

"…"