Every member of the Mer race knew the tale of Amphitrite.
Long, long, ago before even Nereus's reign, she was the mermaid Queen of the Seven Seas.
Her husband was Nereus's great great great grandfather Aron Azr, one of the most renowned monarchs of the seven seas and remembered by history as a merman though in actuality he was a Leviathan.
According to what Nereus remembered from family discussions, their love was somewhat frowned upon by the Leviathan race.
But in any case, Aron and Amphitrite fell madly in love in their youth, and as customary were soon betrothed.
Every Mer within the seven seas looked upon their marriage with envious gazes as they truly seemed to be the perfect match for one another.
But on the night of their wedding something quite unexpected happened.
According to the tale, that very night they were to consumate their marriage to one another.
A terrible sickness fell upon the Queen. And try as the palace physicians and healers might, they could not save her and she died within hours.
Losing the love of his life on their very first night together sent the poor king Aron into a deep depression but nevertheless he decided to build her a most grand tomb to stand as testament to their love and in defiance of fate and death.
Allegedly he built the tomb in the most secret of places, a place that only he knew how to find so no one could ever disturb her eternal sleep and if the tale is to be believed no one has ever found this location.
Since then, their star-crossed love story has become the most legendary example of true love, romance, and tragedy for the Mer race.
But alas... Nereus knew all too well that this dazzling love story was almost entirely a giant lie.
While it was true Aron and Amphitrite fell in love and got married, that was where the facts ended. Amphitrite didn't die from a sudden sickness, in fact she never died at all.
What really happened on that fateful night centuries ago was something so terribly taboo that King Aron had no choice but to use his powers as regent to bury it's truth beneath the sands of time.
And he succeeded at this goal, at least temporarily.
After his reign ended and Nereus's fathers' own began, the truth was finally discovered to only the most senior of the Leviathan clan. And that truth, in addition to being that Amphitrite didn't die that night, was that she instead became something else.
Upon consumating their marriage , Queen Amphitrite's dormant bloodline awakened and she became one of the most feared and hated species across the seven seas.
She became a monster.
"A Siren." Nereus whispered as he sat down crosstailed in front of the three chained skeletons and closed his eyes.
He could still remember the day that his father took him to visit King Aron's tomb and they discovered the secret within a hidden sector of it.
King Aron had left a crystal recording to his son explaining that even though he discovered Amphitrite was a bloodthirsty Siren, he couldn't bare to kill her.
Instead, he used every mean at his disposal to find a way for them to be together while keeping her existence a secret within the palace.
Even after later remarrying to Nereus's great great great grandmother he didn't give up this quest and a decade later he discovered, no created a way for them to be together forever under everyone's noses.
Upon discovering this huge secret Nereus's father was indeed shocked but even more so he was intrigued by the ingeniousness of Aron's research and as such he spent much of his life improving upon and ultimately further perfecting the secret Leviathanic Aqua Art that would become known as.
Amphitrite's Seal.
This secret technique was the only one in existence that could not only make use of but also in theory create Sirens.
The technique worked by transforming angry and restless souls that had died at sea into sea wraiths which would then matriculate under the spiritual control of the user as long as they were regularly fed blood and sea essence into sea banshees, then sea nymphs, before reaching their final form of a Siren.
Under the control of the technique's user the Siren could be used for a variety of purposes, however in its initial stage as a sea wraith its main uses lied mostly in espionage thanks to its unique ability to not only become invisible but also incorporeal within water for short periods of time.
Nereus decided to create the four sea wraiths to use as scouting tools for now and to assist him in battle once they matured a bit more in the future.
At this moment as Nereus sat crosstailed with his eyes closed in front of the skeletons while he was rummaging through his memories to perform the technique...