Read Novel Full Chapter 494: No Retreat Against the Sea Beast? [2]
Chapter 494: No Retreat Against the Sea Beast? [2]
A flying snake that devoured a beam of light during its descent; that was the image that was painted for all to see. And currently, that snake—the Captain’s Leviathan—had begun to shed its scales.
Not out of natural causes, but because the beam of mana had already burned its entire insides. However, it was worth it, for it had soon reached the two-headed Leviathan, who gazed upon its falling figure with a look of surprise.
But then...
’What the—!?’
The Twin-headed Seawater Leviathan swerved its heads out of the way, dodging the charred leviathan that continued to burn from the inside, before opening its mouths and—
CRUNCH! x 2
—Biting into the sides of the Captain’s leviathan.
His eyes shot wide open, horrified by what he was seeing. He needed to transform his cutlass back to its regular form! And quick!
The two heads of the Seawater Leviathan felt something amiss with what they were biting into and found it to be shrinking, narrowing rapidly into a long metal blade.
And it only continued to shrink!
Once the Captain had managed to transform his cutlass back to normal, he spared a single glance towards it and found bite marks taken out of his precious, curved blade.
Grimacing, he shifted his attention back to the Leviathan. There was no way he was going to allow his cutlass to be destroyed before his very eyes!
...
SWOOSH!
That was what he wanted to believe, at least.
The right head of the Leviathan shot towards him, swerving through the air like a slithering snake and opening its mouth.
Surprised by this sudden attack, the Captain swerved to the left, narrowly dodging the bite before having to raise his sword.
CLANG! SKRR!
Following closely behind the right head was its brother, the left head, which managed to catch the Captain off guard and bite down on his weapon, making it look as though it was biting down on a toothpick.
’I can’t get it freed!’
Fear flashed through the Captain’s eyes as he struggled to pull his cutlass free from the mouth of the beast. He had also begun to feel the monster applying pressure on his blade!
’Stop! Stop it right this instant, you beast! STOP IT!’
The Captain yelled in his mind, watching as cracks began to form along the edges of his blade. He couldn’t repair it... He couldn’t stop this!
He had completely run out of mana to get himself out of this!
’POTION...! That’s right, I have a potion!’
Reaching into his spatial storage, he pulled out Lillian’s mana potion and hastily bit off the cork.
However... Right as he was about to drink it—
C-crack—! SHATTER!
—Tremors shot through his arm.
The world became slow as metal shards flew through the air, slowly becoming glassy and turning into dust. He slowly turned his eyes towards his cutlass and found it to have been... Shattered.
{A Shard has been Shattered}
His... His cutlass...
Upon destroying the Captain’s pathetic weapon, the Leviathan shockingly twisted its body around with unnatural speed for its size and whipped its tail at the Captain, swatting him out of the air and—
SPLASH!
—Into the sea...
The Captain slowly descended under the surface of the water, falling and sinking as a dazed look appeared on his face.
And when his mana eventually dropped to what can be considered 0, his body began to warp and shift around.
’Is this the end...?’
The body he had so painstakingly tried to keep together and stable earlier had begun to morph into something else.
His large bushy black beard had shortened, gradually disappearing and being replaced with a clean-shaven youthful face.
His black eyes became blue; a navy ocean blue that was filled with sadness as he plummeted further down. His black hair had also begun to have blue streaks.
What remained of what was known as Captain Righthook was but a petite young man, who looked as if he were still in middle school.
’Is this where I am going to die...?’ The young man internally asked himself.
Feeling the water soaking his clothes, he thought to himself:
’The water... It’s cold...’
Soon enough, his vision glazed over, and his mind fell into a daze as a scene from the past engulfed his mind.
[12:03 AM]
***
{??? POV}
It was a dark night; a stormy night.
SPLASH!
"CURSES! IS THIS WHERE I’M GOING TO DIE!?"
With no land in sight, I had only a plank to cling onto, hoping for the raging waves around me to subside their anger.
I didn’t know where I was, what period I was in, but all I knew was that... This was my 3rd Trial.
"DAMNIT! TO THINK THE HEAVENS WOULD FORSAKE ME LIKE THIS!"
Having used my Element of Transformation, I used the wooden plank I had found earlier as a base to form a much larger raft.
It was cold and I was hungry...
I was fortunate that I was granted a Trait to survive in the sea from my last Trial, but I wasn’t sure how long I could last out here without a food source.
Worst of all... I wasn’t even prepared for this. I was forced into this!
At the age of 5, I was an orphan who was thrusted into my first Trial against my will. At the age of 11, I was held captive by pirates at sea—forced to do menial tasks.
Now, I’m 15. And with that, I was thrown into my 3rd Trial due to the incompetence of my captors, who thought they could take on a humongous kraken on their own.
I was fortunate enough to escape by stealing one of their Gates, but that didn’t mean I had any other option.
"Shit... I need food..."
Eventually, 3 days had passed. And I was still stranded with no hope of finding land of civilisation. Since I didn’t have that high an education, I didn’t have any way to know what period the Trial was set in.
My body, which was already petite and scrawny, had become skinnier as days without food went on. Water wasn’t an issue due to my Trait, but I can’t hope to survive on just water.
"The sea is far too dangerous..."
With my time out at sea, this sea to be specific, I had seen countless dastardly monsters become eaten by even larger ones—larger than I could ever hope to imagine.
The last monster I saw was a shark with a hundred eyes devouring a large whale.
Fortunately, as fate would have it, I was lucky not to be a target in their hunt.
On the 4th day, though, I had to make a decision. It was either I stayed on my raft and hoped I would stumble upon civilisation, or... I went into the sea in search of food.
If I continued to linger without doing anything, my body would only become weaker and weaker as time went on.
I...
I desperately needed food.
"HRAAH!" And with that need, I leapt into the sea after breaking off a piece of my raft to form a spear. Then, to my expectations—
SPLASH...
—I was met with a monster 20 times my size, hovering right below my ship as though it was waiting for something.
Its eyes numbered the hundreds, its fins were bigger than any sail I had seen before, its teeth were broader than any cutlass I had seen...
It was a humongous shark.
And... Its Predatory Aura was far more terrifying than the kraken my captors had faced.
This... This was the monster that I had last spotted! Was it waiting for me to get off my raft the entire time!
With no time to even dodge, I was eaten the moment I leapt into the sea along with my raft. But it wasn’t a bad thing, though, as inside the giant shark was an entire ecosystem.
Its stomach acid was weak against any creatures that still lived, but melted through anything that didn’t have the slightest hint of a pulse.
It was a magical sight, and because of the shark, I was able to live on just a bit longer... Soon enough, days, months, and... Even a year had passed as I continued to live within the shark.
"What day is it today...?"
During my time inside the shark, I had learnt a few things.
I had learnt that the stomach walls were near impenetrable from the inside, which was the reason why nothing had been able to break out of it.
I had also learnt about the areas where the acid couldn’t reach me and the best spots to hunt. So, with that knowledge, I built my own little home with the bones of the creatures I collected and killed.
And, I could proudly say I was thriving.
My body, which used to be scrawny, had now developed into a lean and muscular one. And due to the fact that I had been eating nothing but the meat of monsters, I was a lot stronger.
"Ah! I’m 16, right? Wow, I am! Praise the Azure Dragon!"
Having managed to tame a fish that told the time with the colours of its scales, I made a functioning clock and calendar too! Everything was going well!
Unfortunately, these peaceful times soon came to an end as the shark I was began to shake violently. These signs would usually indicate that it was in a battle.
Up until now, nothing had been able to contend with the shark, from what I knew.
’The shaking stopped... Did it win?’
If it did win, I needed to get to the front of the stomach to retrieve the food before it got melted by the stomach acid!
"This... Impossible..."
But when I got to the entrance where the corpses of monsters the shark defeated would end up, I found something else that shocked me to my core.
It was the sun’s light and the blue sky.
From where I stood, the entire area in front of me was cut off. I could even see what I thought was the shark’s head floating away, being lifted onto a humongous metal ship powered by steam.
The shark... Was defeated?
"Arr... What this then?"
I took a step back as I watched a man slowly walk in the air in front of me. He had a large bushy black beard, an eye patch, a wooden peg leg, and lastly... A cutlass that was smeared with blood.
Was he... The one that killed the shark?
"KAHAHAHA! Young lad! Have yar been living in this cursed creature this entire time?"
Walking down towards me in the air, he wiped off the blood on his cutlass before pushing his hand out to me.
"William Rubert Farland, otherwise known as Captain Righthook of the Blackbeard Cutlass of Noah’s Ark. A pleasure to meet yar, matey. What’s yar name?"
This... This was a living person. A human! And not a monster...
I stared down at his hand with a reluctant look... He didn’t seem like a bad person...
"Hm? Do yar not know how to speak?" The Captain asked.
My face twitched as I heard that. Of course I do.
Pushing my hand out to meet his, I shook his hand, and then I hesitantly muttered—not used to social interaction:
"N-Nearlo... Just Nearlo... I don’t have a last name..."