Has it started?
Including Johnson Good,
all the sailors grew nervous, crowding towards the railing of the deck and peering downwards.
They saw the sea surface, stained with blood, bubbling like a boiling kettle,
the seawater churning and stirring, forming waves in stark contrast with the surrounding doldrums.
"Return to your posts!"
The first mate beside the captain barked in a low voice, drawing a cutlass and slapping it heavily against the railing.
The dull sound from the clash of blade and railing jolted these ntally unwell sailors back to their senses,
abandoning their gazing and returning to their respective posts.
Either managing the sails,
or rearranging the winch, preparing to raise the anchor,
or... adjusting the harpoon turret.
Whoosh.
As the owner of the ship, Johnson Good naturally had the right to stand with the captain and watch,
they saw a two-ter tall, ten-ter-long flat black object surfacing from the water,
churning the sea, creating long V-shaped waves.
It looked like the long dorsal fin of so fish,
or the tentacles of an octopus.
One couldn’t help but imagine how massive its body below might be.
The sailors on the ship let out suppressed gasps, they had sailed the seas for years, encountering countless sea monsters and behemoths, and had even hunted a few themselves.
The layers of brown paint on either side of the ship concealed shattered wood grain,
behind the wooden panels glead the coldly flashing sharp harpoon turret and muzzle fire guns, evidence enough.
Of course, hunting giant sea beasts at sea is not considered auspicious,
superstitious sailors rarely engaged in it,
only whaling ships chasing profit and the Imperial Navy tasked with safeguarding sea routes, hunted sea monsters.
(So precious biological materials found on sea beasts are sotis a reason for humans to hunt them)
Under the first mate’s reprimand, the sailors on the Atoka returned to their posts,
the most elite crew mbers were in the cabin adjusting the harpoon gun, whaling net, and muzzle cannon.
The seemingly dead stillness of the eerie, vast doldrums hid lurking dangers,
the Sea Kings here were more ferocious and violent than sea beasts on outside human routes, generally larger in size.
Could these weapons in their hands, ant for dealing with regular Sea Kings, really protect them if the summoning ritual track failed?
Whoosh—
The exaggeratedly large black dorsal fin subrged beneath the surface,
neither actively attacking the ship,
nor diving away,
but swimming back and forth around the anchored Atoka.
Gulp.
Johnson Good looked at the large dark shadow beneath the sea, instinctively swallowing a gulp,
recalling the giant Sea King skull specins he had seen in the Empire Museum that could swallow an entire carriage.
Each year, the Imperial Navy would drag so of the Sea Kings they captured along the routes into the city’s inner port for citizens to view,
as a display of the Empire’s might.
But the oppressive sense brought by the mass of shadow moving beneath the sea far exceeded that of the museum’s dead relics or the stench-filled Sea King corpses in the inner port.
Johnson Good couldn’t help but ask quietly: "Captain, what kind of sea beast did you summon?"
"..."
The dark-skinned captain took a deep breath, not knowing himself.
This thod of summoning sea beasts was passed down from his ancestors,
in his life, he had only seen his father use it once,
he himself had never used it before.
Whether it would succeed, he wasn’t confident.
Just as the captain was about to explain the situation to his young employer,
there was a loud "bang,"
the whole four-masted ship shook violently.
Barrels rolled on the deck, sailors staggered,
Johnson Good, with a year’s sailing experience, instinctively grasped the deck railing to steady himself, preventing a fall from causing him to slide off the slanted deck into the sea.
He turned his head towards the captain, seeing him plunge the tip of the cutlass into the deck to steady himself, his stern, somber face also slightly pale.
"All hands to your stations, prepare to attack..."
Before the words were fully spoken,
a violent tremor ca again from the front of the ship’s bottom,
accompanied by the sound of massive amounts of seawater being raised,
the front half of the sailing ship lifted high,
revealing the densely packed, greenish-black barnacles growing on the hull,
the people on board finally saw the full appearance of the attacker that had pushed the sailboat up.
It was a gigantic creature resembling a cross between a crocodile and a lizard,
its skin displaying a reef-like greenish-black hue, the overall body elongated like a serpent,
its limbs fin-shaped,
a long black dorsal fin ran along its back,
while both sides of the dorsal fin were covered with dense, barbed protrusions.
Its mouth was sharp and V-shaped, teeth conical, large and sharp like razors.
The upper half of its body rose above the water surface,
with orange-yellow beastly eyes, overlooking with the disdain of viewing ants,
coldly and rcilessly gazing at the dumbfounded people aboard the ship.
"Sea Snake Dragon..."
Johnson Good’s face turned pale, clinging tightly to the railing on the ever-rocking ship, a murmur escaped his throat.
The sea was filled with countless kinds of Sea King class creatures, the Sea Snake Dragon being one of the most nurous, widely distributed across the oceans and one of the Imperial Navy’s most vexing adversaries.
The Sea Snake Dragons around regular shipping lanes were nearly the size of a two-masted sailing ship,
and the farther north and the colder the sea, the larger the Sea Snake Dragons grew, up to the size of a three-masted sailing ship.
However, the Sea Snake Dragon in front of them was even bigger than their four-masted Atoka.
The sailors controlling the harpoon turret and muzzle fire gun were also thunderstruck by the deep-sea beast as grand and strong as a Titan creation, standing dumbfounded with trembling hands on the gun triggers, unable to move.
"Captain?"
Johnson Good turned his head, looking at the Otherworldly Captain in whom he placed great hope, "What should we do?"
"Hehehe,"
the dark-skinned captain seed not to hear the employer’s words, his eyes fixed on the brown-yellow slit pupils of the Sea Snake Dragon, his gaze unfocused, muttering to himself, "Uh hehehe haha hehehe, hmhmhm hahaha..."
"Captain?"
A chill spread all over Johnson Good,
not only the captain, but all the crew on the Atoka who looked into the eyes of the Sea Snake Dragon had fallen into a state of stupor, standing motionless, letting out eerie laughter.
What on earth is happening?
A strong foreboding sense engulfed Johnson Good, he dared not look at the Sea Snake Dragon but instead moved his legs, striving towards the ship’s side lifeboat.
But before he could take a few steps, he was knocked to the ground by a roaring sound from behind,
his Waist-side Long Sword fell out of its sheath, the bright blade reflecting a vivid scene—
The Sea Snake Dragon floating on the sea surface slowly opened its narrow mouth, splitting its jaws to nearly 180 degrees,
from the abyss-like pitch-black throat, a large number of barbed tentacles spewed out,
scattering like flowers, covering the Atoka, reaching out for everyone on board.
Among those standing still with that strange grin, the captain was the first, caught by tentacles hand and foot, and was drawn into the wide-open mouth of the Sea Snake Dragon, disappearing completely,
his face still displaying that eerie grin even as he disappeared.
The remaining sailors, in a panic, launched futile counterattacks,
either drawing their blades to cut at the tentacles,
or firing the harpoons and cannons, trying to blast them away.
The blades proved useless against the tentacles, only volleys from the cannons could sever one or two tentacles; however, the next mont, more tentacles surged out from the throat of the Sea Snake Dragon, preying upon the sailors on board.
Johnson Good ran madly along the way, seeing the tentacles seemingly intelligent, skillfully burrowing into the ship’s cabin, dragging out the hiding sailors like opening a can,
amidst the sailors’ miserable screams, casting them one by one into the beast’s black throat.
Sea Snake Dragon,
no,
that thing was definitely not a Sea Snake Dragon, but a far more terrifying and evil parasitic entity residing within it.
Johnson Good’s expression was frenzied, now his mind completely overtaken by the instinct to survive, totally irrelevant in the face of this ravenous monstrosity feeding on humans.
As long as... he reached there...
Johnson Good sprinted across the rocking deck, each step pounding heavily on the ground, leaping over the deck railing, attempting to fall onto the lifeboat tethered to the side of the ship.
Bang!
His waist and abdon felt like being punched heavily, his downward montum suddenly halted,
Johnson Good looked down in despair, seeing a massive tentacle tightly wrapped around his waist, drawing him backward.
The booming of cannons, shrill screams, cries, prayers, the creaking of the ship’s deck, the sound of splashes.
Amid the cacophony, the golden-haired noble fell into a weightless descent,
the last thing he saw was the black, tentacle-filled throat of the marine beast.
Reviews
All reviews (0)