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

It wasn't even orbs—just one.

A solitary sphere of white light, faint but unwavering, glowing far off in the darkness. It drifted toward me, slow but deliberate.

My brow furrowed. That wasn't possible. No other merfolk could be using light, it was strictly forbidden down here. Which meant… whoever, or whatever, this was, it wasn't one of ours.

And yet… I felt something strange.

An unspoken pull.

The orb seemed to beckon me—no, drag me—closer. It wasn't just light; it was magnetic, intoxicating. My mind warned me to stay put, but my body betrayed me. Without realizing it, I was gliding forward, inch by inch, closing the distance.

The light grew larger… brighter… until it wasn't an orb anymore. It was a boulder. A massive, glowing boulder floating in the black void.

That was when my instincts finally screamed loud enough to cut through the haze. My eyes widened, and I snapped backward, as I put space between myself and that unnatural thing.

'What the hell is that?'

It looked like a giant bulb suspended in the deep, too large, too perfect to be anything natural. It had to be part of a creature—a lure.

I wanted to grow stronger, yes, but charging into something without understanding it was suicide. Distance first, analysis second.

I began to circle the light source in a wide arc, keeping it in my peripheral vision as I shifted position. From here, I could finally make out some details—it wasn't floating freely.

It was attached.

A thin, wire-like filament trailed away from the glowing sphere, curving downward into the darkness below.

My gaze followed it into the dark… and that's when I saw it.

A shape moved there.

The void peeled back to reveal a monstrous face—flat, wide, and still. Twin eyes gleamed with an unblinking hunger, set above a jaw lined with jagged teeth like shards of broken glass.

Its body was scaleless, the skin stretched and wrinkled in ugly folds. It wasn't the inky black with sickly purple of Vorr'Kael's spawn—it was something else. Something… natural.

Natural, but no less deadly.

The realization struck me cold—if this was just a deep-sea predator, then why hadn't my system activated? Why wasn't I getting its details?

'How did I lose my system?'

There was no time to linger. I kicked back hard, retreating from the creature's hunting path, not stopping until the water between us felt safely vast. Only then did I let myself think.

I could still breathe underwater. I still defied gravity. I could still move as though the ocean's weight didn't touch me.

So it wasn't that I had lost everything. I had powers… albeit much different.

I hadn't used my amethyst lighting element ever since I dealt with the entity of the horde. At that time I had used the other element and somehow either killed or made it flee.

After that, during that moment when the last remnants of Cassius were fully gone. I did felt a lack of strength... No, it wasn't lack of strength. It was something different like lack of sensation.

It felt as if mana was rejecting me. Yet, I could feel it, use my system.

The system had worked before—before the sky-abomination, before… I blacked out. Something must have happened while I was dead. Did the merfolk did something? Or was it caused by that Abomination of the Sky?

Did I lose my element because it attacked me? Was it some kind of separation abilities? Maybe it locked my abilities for sometime.

It had happened before. But it still didn't explain why did I lose the system? Why couldn't I use my powers? What caused them to disappear?

What?

The thought gnawed at me. I could still feel the inkling of my mana, still sense the potential for power—but my abilities were gone.

Unless…

My breath hitched.

'Wait.'

I hadn't tried my other element.

The NOTHINGNESS.

Without thinking further, I let go. Of everything, of my consciousness, of my body.

My mind… stopped. My thoughts… dissolved.

Even the gentle thrum of instinct went silent, like a candle snuffed in a sealed room.

The ocean's whispers vanished. The ever-present rush of currents and distant groans of shifting water were gone.

All that remained was silence.

And in that silence… I found something else.

Harmony.

It was strange—alive, yet absent. A sensation that wasn't a sensation at all.

I felt numb. Not the numbness of cold or injury, but of existence itself—as though I had shed my body entirely. As though I was only a soul, suspended, unable to touch or be touched by the living world.

It was alien. It was intoxicating.

No, perhaps it wasn't intoxicating—because intoxication was a feeling, and I didn't feel anything. There was no joy, no fear, no weight of emotion. Just the faint awareness of being.

And yet… something pulled at me. Not a tug on the flesh, but a gravity on the spirit.

I couldn't name it. Couldn't understand it. Couldn't fathom it. But it was there—waiting, welcoming, claiming me.

It seeped into me like ink into water, folding itself into my essence, and I into it. We weren't separate things anymore. We were one.

It gave me strength.

SWISH.

Something moved in the stillness.

My awareness turned toward it—not with curiosity, but with a faint, cold flicker of annoyance.

They had disturbed the quiet. They had intruded on my sanctuary.

It was a school of fish—sleek, streamlined bodies with long, spear-like snouts, their pale white skin broken by blotches of black. Hundreds of them moved together in perfect formation, cutting through the darkness.

They were heading straight for the angler fish.

But why should they get to continue? Why should they escape the consequences of shattering my peace?

They wouldn't.

They didn't deserve to.

They deserved to be…

Erased.

I didn't decide to move.

I simply… wasn't where I had been anymore.

My form blurred, edges dissolving, as if my body had become mist. I slid through the water… just appearing in motion, faster than thought, faster than the idea of speed itself.

And then I was there—

Right before their eyes.