Transmigrated as the Cuck.... WTF!!!

"The personification of confinement and freedom, misery and joy, suffering and euphoria. The being who veils the sea, who drapes the oceans under a blanket of blood. Our deity," Denus said, his voice almost trembling with reverence, "is the sovereign of the seas—The Red Sea."

His expression was nothing short of devout. The way his gaze softened and his jaw set carried a weight I could feel even through the water. There was no doubt—this was more than a belief to him. It was a truth carved into his bones.

I hummed, studying him. "So… your deity is the Red Sea. What else do you know about it?"

Denus didn't answer immediately. His hands stayed clasped in that prayer-like gesture, and his voice, when it returned, carried the solemn tone of someone retelling something sacred.

"Ever since the dawn of the First Epoch, when countless races roamed Cronica… back in the era of the Mighty Dragons, we—merfolk—lived on land. We didn't have gills. We didn't have the tails you see now. We were land dwellers, bodies like giant crocodiles—only more massive, more powerful, more… primal."

He took a pause before continuing.

"But that era was brutal beyond imagination. Every race clawed and bled for the same thing—the dense cosmic energy known as ether. It was food, power, and life itself. Those who devoured it grew stronger. And the dragons… they gorged themselves most of all, becoming near-invincible. For us lesser beings, survival meant war. We merfolk were locked in an endless struggle against the Serpentines—creatures with the heads of snakes and the bodies of humans."

I felt my pupils tighten at that. This world's history ran deep—deeper than I'd imagined. And yet, humans had erased it from our records. The mystery of why grew heavier in my mind. What happened back then that demanded so much be forgotten? My gut told me even Denus didn't know the full truth… or perhaps he knew only a version of it. Perhaps, a fabricated one.

He went on. "We lost to them. They were cunning, merciless, and their strength was our equal. Defeat forced us to flee, but escape came at a cost. Our ancestors made a desperate choice—to vanish beneath the waves. Years of slow, painful change shaped us into what we are now. But the seas were no sanctuary."

I raised a brow. "And your deity still hadn't appeared? Why start worshipping it at all?"

He lifted a hand, cutting me off. "Patience. Let me finish. Just because we entered the sea didn't mean we were safe. The deep was already ruled by things far older and far hungrier than us. We were strangers in their domain. We were hunted, devoured. If we tried to return to the surface, the Serpentines would kill us. If we stayed in the sea, the beasts of the depths would consume us. We were trapped—land above, death below."

His voice dropped, becoming almost intimate, like he was pulling me into a secret. "Then… like a ray of hope piercing the depths, one of our ancestors found a relic. It lay hidden in the dark trenches, a thing both alien and alive."

Something in that word—relic—stirred my memory. The carvings on their buildings. Flowing water. Hands reaching upward.

Denus's eyes brightened faintly. "It was black stone, carved with patterns of flowing water, hands reaching out from it. But this was no dead rock. It breathed. It pulsed with life. It lived."

'Exactly like the carvings I saw,' I thought. This was the heart of their faith.

"Finding it was only the beginning," Denus said, a grim smile tugging at his lips. "Our ancestor was hunted the moment he touched it. They chased him. Cornered him. And in the end… killed him. His blood seeped into the stone, staining it deep crimson. The black relic became red. That was when our deity awoke. And the rest…" His smile widened, almost cruel. "…the rest, The Red Sea took care of."

I stayed silent for a moment, slowly weighing everything he'd told me, the way his voice carried that unwavering reverence whenever the Red Sea came up. Then I finally spoke.

"You speak about your deity with so much devotion, Denus… almost like you'd give up anything for it. Which makes me think—you wouldn't dare use your deity as leverage, even if it meant saving your own skin."

Denus nodded without hesitation. "Yes. You're right. That's exactly why I've never done it. I can't—no, I won't—disrespect my deity like that. Using its name as a bargaining chip would be a stain on its legacy, on its very existence."

I hummed quietly, studying him as if he were a puzzle with missing pieces. "I think you're missing something here. If you revere your deity as deeply as you claim… shouldn't you want to be more connected to it? To bind yourself even closer to its image? Even if the connection is built on… let's say, embellishment, you'd still be uniting your people under your deity's name. That's not blasphemy. That's integration."

Denus let out a low chuckle—more like the sound of someone humoring an absurd thought. "Ahahaha… no, no, no. That would still be staining our deity's name. The Red Sea gave us life, and to truly respect it… if it demanded our deaths tomorrow, we would die gladly. No hesitation."

My eyes narrowed, my voice sharpening like a blade. "You've got quite the ideology, Denus. You can't stomach living under the rule of the other merfolk, but you're perfectly fine living under the shadow of your deity. So much so, you'd throw your life away for it without question." I leaned forward slightly. "Didn't those other merfolk also help you survive? Or is gratitude selective for you?"

His brows furrowed, his gills flexing sharply.

"This isn't devotion I'm hearing," I continued. "This is fear. You're not admiring your deity… you're afraid of it."

Denus shot up to his feet, his tail flicking in agitation, eyes burning with restrained fury. "Nonsense! You have no idea what you're talking about! Don't go flinging wild accusations just because your tongue is faster than your brain!"

"Sit. Down." My tone wasn't loud, but it carried weight.

He hesitated, then sat, though his glare didn't waver.

"Here's the point," I said, my voice cool, steady. "You're clouded by your own judgments, locked inside this mental cage you've built around the Red Sea. If you truly want what you claim—freedom—then you're going to have to take steps that don't feel comfortable. Choices that might not look righteous on the surface. You can't win by clinging to safe ideals."

His jaw tightened. "And what does that mean to you?"

"It means," I leaned in, eyes meeting his without flinching, "saving your kind—isn't this your deity's job?"

His voice dropped to a low growl. "What?"

I didn't blink. "Saving you. Saving all of you. If the Red Sea is as mighty as you say, shouldn't it want its people to endure—by any means necessary?"