The Eye of the Ocean
With the fall of the meteor, the Oceans have not ever fully recovered. Here the cradle of life was diminished by the powers of enraged nature. In the region now known as the Eye of the Ocean, the elements began their eternal battle sparked by the impact brought into their world. Giant whirlpools and undercurrents elevated the abyss, the darkness of a bleak seafloor, while the deafening winds formed blinding vortexes full of lightning. Pressed by this hostile environment, the mermaids devoted themselves to the destruction of the opposing tribe.
Now only the strongest of the creatures can survive in the Oceans. As there is something else lurking within chaotic currents. The battle of the Oceans was so fierce, so full of energy and hatred, that it did not only annihilate the ancient temples of the mermaids and whole underwater civilizations. It also opened a rift that could never be closed. The tear between space and time, where the two realities collided. When the Eye of the Ocean first opened its cracked lid, unseen forces flowed through the gates into the world. As they passed the waters, they broke the laws of nature and from the gaps, new creatures emerged.
These beings were not the living nor unliving, for they never required energy to use, never needed to draw a breath. These creatures were demons of old, who feasted only on the single thing – the planet itself. And they could do so only when in contact with the core. There was one such place in the world, which connected the surface with the heart. The Tree of Life. Yet the demons could not distance themselves from the rift that birthed them, otherwise they faced complete banishment. And so, they had found their ways into the living through sweet whispers and promises in the dark.
Mermaids of the Shadow favored the dominance over all. As the Light tribe recruited dolphins and saved whales of the Ocean, the Shadow strived to rule the Oceans alone. These mermaids had found a way how to infect the last remnants of kelp forests. Instead of blooming biomes full of life, the forests became entangling and poisonous places of death. The kelps lost their brilliant color and became pale white. Instead of thriving in the sun, they had turned to a carnivorous path. With the increased currents came debris, which the kelps learnt how to catch together with passing dolphins or whales. The Shadow mermaids were proud of translucent predator forests, yet even they did not know that the ideas came not from them but from demon parasites who now infested their minds.