An Understated Dominance Novel (Dahlia & Dustin) by Marina Vittori updated 2025-26 - An Understated Dominance Chapter 2631

Chapter 2631

No one had expected that, under the Fish King’s command, the deep-sea piranhas could unleash such overwhelming destruction.

A ten-meter-long escort ship had been torn in half with a single strike—it was almost unimaginable.

This was no ordinary school of fish. It was a swarm of monsters from the abyss.

Even ordinary deep-sea piranhas were a deadly threat. But these were fully matured predators—larger, faster, more vicious, and almost impossible to kill.

The fleet’s cannons and guns thundered, yet even with heavy firepower, the sailors wavered before tens of thousands of these elite beasts.

Tristan’s black robe, patterned with python scales, whipped in the sea wind, revealing the jeweled sword at his hip. He watched the escort ship break apart, flames on its deck flickering against the waves until they were swallowed by the inky sea.

“Pass my order!” Tristan drew his sword, the blade catching the glow of the copper lamps. “Port-side cannons—fire into the densest cluster! Starboard martial unit—shield wall formation! Seal every crack in the deck!”

The cannons roared. Iron shot ripped white scars across the water, tearing through fish and scattering their carcasses like hail.

But the pomfrets were cunning. They surged through the gaps between gun barrels. At the stern, a crack widened to several feet. Dozens of silver-gray shadows clambered onto the tilted deck, their teeth screeching against the wood—a sound that made the crew’s skin crawl.

“Your Highness! The southeast shield line is about to collapse!” a captain shouted. His left arm was chewed to a bloody ruin, but he still braced his shield.

Tristan vaulted over a shattered mast. His sword lashed out like a silver serpent, cleaving three lunging piranhas clean in half.

Dark-green blood splattered across his face, stinging with its fishy stench.

“Kerosene!” he barked, kicking aside a writhing corpse. “Pour it over the sides—now!”

Clay pots were rushed forward. Amber oil streamed down the hull, catching a faint blue shimmer in the wind. Tristan flicked a spark with his fingers—fire raced along the oil, forming a half-meter-high wall of flame around the ship.

The fish screamed, thrashing in the inferno. Blackened bodies rolled in the water, yet some managed to push through, slamming onto the deck while still burning.

Then the sea split. The Fish King erupted from the waves, its three-meter body crashing toward the bow in a surge of water.

The dragon-head carving shattered, wood splinters and bone fragments raining down. Three sailors were swept away by its massive tail, flung screaming into the ravenous swarm.

“It fears fire!” Tristan’s eyes narrowed. As the Fish King cleared the wall of flames, its dark-blue pupils shrank.

“Bring every lantern and torch to the bow!”

Copper lanterns arced through the air, spinning like golden wheels in the wind. The light exposed the Fish King’s underside—its belly, pale and unarmored, was the vulnerable spot.

Tristan snatched an explosive pack, the fuse spitting in his palm. “Captain! Ten assassins with me—now!”

Ten figures surged forward along the rocking planks, energy shields forming above their heads to ward off falling fish.

Tristan leapt from the rail, using a vaulting piranha as a stepping stone, skimming across the wave crests in a blur.

The Fish King sensed danger. Its massive jaws yawned open, rows of fangs glistening with blue-tinged venom, breath reeking with suffocating stench.

“Now!” Tristan hurled the explosive under its belly, slashing away the fish coiled around his ankles.

The blast went off—he used the shockwave to hurl himself back to the ship. The Fish King writhed in the flames, dark-green blood raining down.

But it wasn’t dead. Its tail lashed the sea into towering waves that nearly capsized the Zhenhai Longxiang.

Clinging to the rail, Tristan’s stomach tightened as he watched the wound knitting closed before his eyes. Regeneration.

“Shoot its eyes!”

Artillery and musket fire raked its face. One eye burst in a spray of green ichor. The beast roared, thrashing so hard the deck split wider.

“Chains—now! Around the dorsal fin!”

Five soldiers, chains as thick as bowls in hand, hurled themselves onto the monster’s back. The instant the iron bit into its fin, Tristan drove his sword deep into the wound, channeling his inner force to shred its organs.

The Fish King stiffened. Its jaws opened and closed once, then its massive body rolled belly-up.

Leaderless, the swarm broke. Some rammed the hull in panic; others scattered into the deep.

Tristan remembered an old text: Piranhas fear the blood of their own king.

“Pour its blood into the sea!”

Dark-green ichor streamed overboard. The surviving fish fled in terror, even those trapped in the deck’s cracks forcing themselves back into the waves.

When the smoke cleared, dawn was breaking.

Tristan leaned against the shattered rail, chest heaving. His robe’s python patterns were soaked in blood, but he stood tall.

The survivors slumped to the deck. Some bound their wounds with rags; others simply stared at the horizon. In the pale light, the Zhenhai Longxiang’s torn sails flapped like a blood-stained banner.

“Casualties?” Tristan asked, voice rough.

“Forty-six dead, twenty badly injured,” the guard reported, hands shaking. “Three escort ships lost. The main ship is heavily damaged—repairs will take at least three days.”

Tristan gazed at the distant waves. The sea was once again a deep, tranquil blue, as if the night’s carnage had never happened.

“Start repairs immediately. No delays. We’ll be the first to land on Fairyharbor Island!”

No matter the cost—be it more ships, more men, even the entire fleet—he would find the elixir.