Ocean Master

The news came like an exploding bombshell!

Its ripples spread far and wide, spanning the 7 great Seas at a speed that perfectly depicted the bombshell-like nature of the news. The news stirred the originally silent Oceania, hitting the hidden powers and waking them up.

Every single mercenary organization, both those created by variant humans and mutated beasts were alerted by the tyrannical spread of the news.

Once it got to the numerous empires that spanned across the world, the bounty hunters through their connections also got wind of the news which was one of the main reasons why it spread so quickly.

After over a decade of silence, the Atlantis Empire finally issued another Black bounty! Needless to say, it shook the whole world!

The Black bounty was the highest grade of bounty that had ever been issued by the overlord Atlantis Empire and considering the targets that the previous bounties were issued on, there was no doubt that this was the peak bounty.

Black bounties were issued by the Atlantis Empire to any enemy that they evaluated to be directly below Sea Kings when it came to effective combat strength, notoriety, and threat level.

Sea Kings were the absolute pinnacle in all of Oceania when it came to individual combat prowess. With their iconic unique skills, their threat level was clear for all to see, they were the most terrifying opponents to face.

For any predator or variant human to be described as directly below these apex predators, it was an honor and it displayed either their tyrannical strength or their completely unreasonable genius talent.

This grading alone meant that the number of targets who were worthy and had received black bounties in the history of the Atlantis Empire could be counted on one hand. 

Atlantian black bounties were no longer simply bounty missions, they meant a lot more, they not only showed the overlord empire's resolve but also revealed the amount of importance that it gave to this enemy.

In this age and time, when the Atlantis Empire was effectively at its peak, apart from the Sea Kings, which enemy was gutsy enough to rile up this Empire?

This was why the implications of this bounty were quickly blown out of proportion. Instantly, knowledge about the mysterious Megalodon that was a winged angel from another world became known widely.

In just a few weeks, the originally obscure Megalodon was now a world-known figure and this happened through a series of mysterious coincidences.

A week after the news was revealed through all the darknets that a black bounty was issued by Atlantis, strange storage footage appeared that not only showed the Megalodon's image but also left hints of information about it.

This storage footage took the Oceania net by storm!

To the common predators and variant humans, this was just a perfect mix of coincidences but to those that were in the know, this was a perfectly crafted ploy by the Atlantis Empire that was targeted at the Megalodon.

Despite how powerful and overbearing it was, the Atlantis Empire only had a firm grip over one of the great Seas in Oceania.

Once Sebastian escaped from their grasp, the search area experienced a drastic increase from the original ocean volcano region where they had to search to encompass all of Oceania.

No matter how powerful they were, it was unrealistic for Atlantis's forces to be numerous enough to conduct a thorough sweep search through the world.

This was why Atlantis cleverly leaned towards utilizing others' help. 

They were the overlord of this era; their dignity and strength were unmatched. Instead of wasting unnecessary time which was an irreplaceable and non-recyclable phenomenon, why not employ the service of others?

This overlord race was already used to power and leveraging on the help of others, this clever manipulation was part of the numerous reasons why, unlike the Sea Kings, they were able to solidify their overlord status.

This was also their greatest weakness since it was the main reason why they were unable to snatch the Megalodon and the 2 unique skills that it left with.

Apart from the Atlantian Domain which was completely theirs, in each of the other 6 great Seas, the Atlantis Empire had outposts where their military set up to engage in competition for the resources of the other seas.

Of the numerous variant human empires and beast empires, they were the only ones who had the capability of doing this, but it also stretched them thin.

They were only able to dispatch 2 Mega Fleets for the unique skill cause, this was because mobilizing more would have led to a lot of disruptions.

If too many fleets were pulled out from the regions that they were originally supposed to protect, enemies could then easily overrun these outposts, which could lead to an enormous loss of money and resources.

Atlantis had to make a calculated loss-gain plan before they moved.

By making use of other variant humans, and even predators who were greedy for the prize of fulfilling the requirements of the Black bounty, they could get the job solved but with more employees.

Overnight, Sebastian became a mutated beast household name. Overnight, he became famous as the recipient of an Atlantian Black bounty.

For the first time since he transmigrated into this world, he entered the sights of the real players of this world of magic.

…

"What is your progress?"

"I am 87% clear of finishing the process…"

Somewhere in the Green Mist Sea, in a dimly lit room inside a secret underground compartment, a group of predators from different species, even those species that were known to be hostile were now docile before each other.

At this moment, in the dimly lit room sat a group of variant humans who were browsing the Oceania net through a well-sophisticated virtual system.

A virtual projection was before them and under their manipulation, the huge shark body that was being projected was slowly dissected down into billions of tiny information packets.

Standing behind them was a variant human who had his hands behind his back. It was clear that this blue-skinned variant human was their leader.

This secret underground compartment was the intelligence room of the Green Mist headquarters of the Demon Inter-racial bounty organization.

This was an inter-border organization that spanned 5 of the 7 Sea Kings, they worked from the shadows and their main job was to take on bounties. In other words, they were the perfect lackeys that Atlantis needed.

No one knew them well enough to describe them since different species, both variant humans and mutated beasts all made up the organization.

According to unconfirmed rumors, the leader of the organization was a powerful Black tier predator called Demon.

This was the Green Mist headquarters of the organization, and at this moment, they were studying the life history of their new priority target.

"97%..., 99%..., 100% Done!"

"Good, tell me everything".

"Yes, Master Red Mask".

"Our target is indeed a Megalodon, but the fellow has a pretty messed up history. For some reason, in my data, he seemed to have appeared out of the blue 5 months ago, subsequent data of this fellow are inaccessible".

"He started as a Great White Shark and slowly evolved to a Megalodon".

"Current location?"

"Not precise, but it says the Anemone Domain".

"Good, effective combat strength?"

"I'm not sure, but it's best to exaggerate his strength considering his previous battle exploits. I'm not sure, the data is fuzzy but for a purple tier predator to garner so much attention, I swear that there is more to this Megalodon".

"It's the unique skill".

"Umm, what?"

"He has a unique skill in his possession". The leader of this headquarters called the Red Mask answered calmly before he turned around.

"Get the men prepared, we have a bounty to claim".