Chapter 37 - KRAKEN?!
"HOLY SHI—!"
My voice caught violently in my throat as the ship pitched hard to the port side. Displaced ocean water cascaded over the wooden bulwarks in a freezing, torrential wave, threatening to capsize our entire vessel.
Beside me, the cocky, triumphant grin completely evaporated from Lyra's face. For the first time since we set sail, a flicker of genuine, wide-eyed hesitation crossed her features. Her hand flew back to the hilt of her steel sword, her knuckles turning bone-white, but she didn't immediately draw it.
How do you blade-strike something that could crush an entire vessel by simply rolling over?
"Kyro," Lyra whispered, her voice losing every shred of its usual bratty edge as she deliberately shifted her small frame between me and the ocean. "Get. Back."
"All hands to the rigging!" Brohm's voice shattered the paralyzing dread hanging over the deck.
The demon captain sprang into action. Her massive purple wings snapped open with a violent FWOOSH, generating a gust of wind that nearly knocked me flat. She looked absolutely furious.
With a swift stomp of her bare heel, she popped a stray broadsword off the floorboards, catching the hilt in a lightning-fast reverse grip without even looking down.
"Drop the main sail! Gunners, relight that match or I'll throw you to the depths myself!" Brohm roared as she vaulted onto the raised quarterdeck, drawing a heavy, serrated cutlass from her hip. "It's the Kraken! It's right under our damn hull! Move, you lazy sea dogs, or we're all meeting the ocean floor by sunset!"
The spell of terror broke. The sailors scrambled, screaming commands over the roaring wind as the sky above us suddenly darkened, blocked out by a massive, dripping shadow rising directly over the bow.
"B-BROHM!" I yelled, trying to be heard over the chaos. "I thought Krakens were supposed to hunt at night?! Why is it—"
"Clearly something woke him up from down there," a dry, sleepy voice grunted behind us.
Grann casually ambled out from the hatchway, cracking his neck and scratching his ribs. He had clearly just woken up and looked mildly annoyed by the noise interrupting his morning nap.
"G-Grann!" Lyra and I shouted in unison.
High above the deck, colossal, bruised-purple tentacles hovered over the sails. The head gunner frantically aimed one of the heavy deck cannons, while five other crewmates stood ready with lit matches.
"CAPTAIN! WE'RE READY TO FIRE!"
Brohm whipped her head toward them. "Fire at the tentacles!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Six iron cannons roared at once, belching smoke and fire. Fire stones connected to the tentacles as it obliterated them in one go, sending chunks to the sea and some to the deck.
"That was a good shot!" Brohm yelled, but four more emerged straight from the water.
"SHIT!" One of the crew yelled.
The Kraken made its move. Two massive appendages slammed down onto the main deck with bone-shattering force, sending wood splinters flying and tilting the ship further to the right.
The carcass of the Manta Shark slid off to the ocean.
Brohm flared her wings, launching into the air. Her cutlass flashed in a blinding arc, slicing deep into an incoming tentacle, but the blade wedged tight halfway through. The hide was impossibly thick.
On the deck, chaos erupted. Tentacles whipped across the floorboards, snatching sailors by their waists and dragging them toward the water. The gunners desperately tried to finish the reload, but a single sweeping strike from a third tentacle shattered three of our six cannons, hurling the iron barrels overboard like useless toys.
"DAMMIT!" Brohm cursed, wrenching her sword free.
Lyra, however, didn't hesitate. As another massive appendage smashed through the starboard bulwark, she activated her Aura. A brilliant blue shimmer wrapped around her small frame. With a fierce battle cry, she brought her blade down in a clean, vertical arc.
CHOP!
A ten-foot section of tentacle hit the deck with a heavy thud, squirming blindly before dying.
I stood there like an absolute idiot, completely out of my depth, while Grann stood right beside me, looking as relaxed as a man waiting for a bus.
"G-Grann! What do we do?!" I panicked.
Grann nonchalantly stuck a pinky finger into his ear, twisting it around before wiping it on his pants. "It's useless to just hack away at the limbs. Krakens have a minor healing factor. If their wounds make contact with seawater, their natural slime seals the gash almost instantly. And if you chop one off entirely, they'll just grow a replacement."
"They can do that?!" My jaw nearly dropped. "That doesn't sound like minor at all!"
He turned his gaze toward the dark water surrounding the hull. "If you want to actually kill it, you have to hit the main body directly."
A soft, golden aura began to hum and shimmer around Grann's weathered shoulders.
"And how are we supposed to do that...?" I asked softly.
He stepped toward the center of the deck. "Well, we still have three cannons—"
BAM!
Another tentacle smashed straight through the middle deck, crushing the remaining three cannons into iron scrap.
Grann coughed into his fist, clearing his throat. "Uh, my bad. There are zero cannons left. Which means you're going to have to be our heavy artillery, kid."
"GRANN!" I shrieked, stomping my foot on the deck. "WHY DID YOU JUST WATCH THE CANNONS GET SMASHED?!"
"Sorry, wasn't paying attention," the old man chuckled, flexing his wrists. "Besides, your magic hits way harder anyway."
Above us, a shadow fell over Lyra. A massive, sucker-lined appendage dropped toward her back while she was recovering from her swing. She sensed it at the last second, raising her sword to block, but a concentrated projectile of bright golden energy suddenly zipped past her ear, slamming into the tentacle and blasting it backward.
Lyra blinked, looking back in shock at the lingering golden mist. W-what was that?!
Grann walked smoothly across the tilting deck. With every casual jab of his fists, compressed bolts of golden Aura shot from his knuckles like invisible cannonballs, blasting incoming tentacles away from the scrambling crew.
Scrotus capitalized on the distraction, charging forward with a heavy axe to chop through one of the stunned tentacles pinned to the deck.
He can throw his Aura like a projectile?! I watched in absolute awe. It's like a punch with infinite reach!
"The tentacles are backing off!" Scrotus yelled, wiping sweat from his brow. "We might actually—"
SPLASH!
The ocean floor seemed to erupt. Eight more massive appendages whipped out of the water, wrapping around the ship's frame.
"WHAT?! THERE'S MORE?!"
Brohm zipped through the air, her wings a blur as she ducked and maneuvered between the crushing limbs, cleanly severing two more in mid-air. "I've heard Krakens only have ten tentacles! Why does it feel like this damn thing has twenty?!"
"LISTEN UP!" Grann's voice boomed across the deck, effortlessly drowning out the roaring waves. "IF YOU SLICE THEM, IT JUST SPURS REGENERATION! STOP TRYING TO KILL THE LIMBS AND JUST KEEP THEM OFF THE DECK!"
Grann spotted a tentacle sneaking up behind Brohm's blind spot. He threw a sharp straight-punch, sending a golden Aura projectile soaring into the monster's flesh. The impact paralyzed the appendage instantly.
"BROHM! GET OVER HERE!" Grann barked.
Brohm swooped down, landing heavily beside the old man. "What's the play, old man?"
"I need you to carry Kyro into the air," Grann said calmly.
I froze. "Wait, what?"
Before Grann could explain, a floorboard right beneath my feet snapped wide open. A thick, slimy tentacle shot up from the dark lower deck, wrapping tightly around my ankle.
"AH! HELP! IT'S GOT ME!" Panic seized my chest as I was yanked off my feet.
Brohm's cutlass flashed like lightning, severing the limb instantly. I hit the wooden floorboards hard on my rear, gasping for breath. The severed tip retreated into the dark hole leading down to the hull.
Brohm peered down the shattered hole, her golden eyes widening. "SCROTUS! WE'VE GOT HULL BREACHES!"
"ON IT!" Scrotus bellowed.
The barbarian ripped an axe out of a dead tentacle, grabbed a heavy iron hammer, and dived straight into the flooded lower deck. Five tentacles were thrashing around inside the dark water. Flaunting a dense, blood-red Aura barrier, Scrotus grabbed the tentacles with his bare, calloused hands, violently tearing them off within ten seconds.
Without missing a beat, he shoved the severed, fleshy tentacle stumps straight back into the wooden breach holes, using the monster's own thick rubbery meat as makeshift hull plugs.
The water inside the lower deck was already knee-deep. Scrotus leaned down, took an impossibly massive gulp of the bilge water, and channeled his Aura through his lungs. He sprinted back up the hatchway, leaned over the railing, and forcefully spat the water out like a high-pressure fire hose, slicing clean through an incoming tentacle with the water pressure alone.
I sat on the deck, my legs shaking and soaked in slippery monster slime.
"W-what's the plan, Grandpa?" I asked, struggling to stand.
"Brohm takes you up into the sky," Grann explained, cracking his knuckles with a series of heavy pops. "I need you positioned high above us so you have a clear angle. I'm going to dive in and force an opening. When I give the signal, you fire the biggest fireball you can muster directly into its massive forehead. Got it?"
I swallowed hard, looking at his confident face, and nodded quickly. "Got it."
"Good." Grann turned, sprinted toward the wooden railing, and dived headfirst into the raging ocean, his golden Aura flaring around him like a falling star.
Brohm reached down, scooping me up by my collar. "You heard the old man."
Before I could brace myself, her purple wings beat violently, launching us straight into the cloudy sky.
***
The ocean abyss was freezing and dark, but Grann cut through the water like a torpedo, encased in a bubble of pressurized golden Aura.
Down in the black depths, the true scale of the monster revealed itself. The Kraken's main mantle was easily six times larger than our entire sailing ship. Dozens of reserve tentacles swayed in the deep currents, and its massive, sulfur-yellow eyes glowed with ancient malice.
Wow, you're a big boy, Grann mused, a wide, feral grin spreading across his face underwater. You're gonna make a fantastic seafood stew.
Grann kicked his feet, diving deeper and faster. He pulled his right fist back, condensing his Aura into a dense, vibrating sphere at his knuckles.
AURA CANNON!
He thrust his fist forward. A massive beam of compressed golden energy blasted through the water, striking the Kraken directly between its giant eyes. The leviathan jerked violently as the underwater shockwave echoed through the trench.
Its glowing yellow eyes locked onto the tiny human glowing in the dark.
A dozen thick tentacles whipped toward Grann at terrifying speeds. Grann casually maneuvered through the water, catching the tip of one incoming limb. The Kraken violently thrusted its tentacle to shake him off, but Grann simply rode the momentum, using the monster's own force to slingshot himself straight toward its head at blinding speed.
Closing the distance in a fraction of a second, Grann raised his left fist, his golden Aura blazing brighter than the sun.
AURA FIST!
He slammed his knuckle directly into the center of the leviathan's forehead. A massive, underwater implosion detonated, sending a violent shockwave tearing through the ocean depths.
***
On deck, the crew fought frantically to keep the remaining tentacles off the hull.
Lyra moved like a whirlwind, her steel blade cutting through rubbery flesh faster than the tentacles could react. She sliced four incoming limbs in under a second. Behind her, sailors fired crossbow bolts into the writhing mass, doing what little damage they could while Scrotus patched up new leaks from below.
High above the ship, Brohm held me tightly under her arm as her purple wings flapped steadily against the gale. She looked down at her bleeding crew, her jaw clenched so tight her fangs were visible.
"Tch...!" Brohm growled, her voice trembling with frustration. "I should be down there helping my crew!"
"B-Brohm, we have to trust Grann!" I yelled over the wind, holding onto her shoulder. "He knows what he's doing!"
"Look at them!" Brohm snapped, gesturing toward the deck where several unconscious crewmen were being dragged away from the edges. "My men are bleeding and dying while their captain hovers up here like a helpless fool!"
I gripped her coat sleeve, looking directly into her golden eyes. "Brohm... wasn't it you who told me earlier today? 'Out here on the open sea, sometimes you just have to trust the instincts of the people around you'?!"
Brohm froze, her black eyes widening slightly.
"Right now, Grann is our best shot at putting that nightmare down!" I yelled. "We have to trust him, or this whole ship goes to the bottom!"
"Tch." Brohm gritted her teeth, letting out a long, frustrated hiss before relaxing her frame. "...Fine.
Suddenly, the violent thrashing below abruptly stopped.
One by one, the massive, bruised-purple tentacles loosened their grip on the wooden hull, sliding backward over the railings and slipping silently back into the ocean depths.
The ship leveled out, rocking gently on the water.
A suffocating quiet fell over the deck. The surviving sailors lowered their weapons, staring at the calm, bubbling water in disbelief.
"T-The tentacles..." a sailor stammered. "THEY'RE RETREATING!"
Cheers broke out across the main deck. Men dropped their bloody axes, hugging each other and yelling at the sky. "WE DID IT!"
On the quarterdeck, Lyra stood with her sword still drawn, her eyes narrowed at the ocean surface. She didn't cheer like the rest of the crew. A prickling sensation was crawling up the back of her neck.
Something in her gut told her this was far from over.
***
Deep below the surface, Grann was hammering the Kraken's massive forehead repeatedly.
THUD! BOOM! THUD!
Muffled concussive shockwaves rippled through the water with every punch. Suddenly, a colossal shadow fell over Grann. Sensing the danger, he shifted his body mid-water, narrowly dodging a brutal tentacle slam that kicked up a cloud of underwater sediment.
As the Kraken pulled its primary tentacles away from the ship's hull to deal with the threat in front of its eyes, Grann let out a underwater grin.
Good. Let go of the ship like a good boy you are.
Before he could push forward, two massive tentacles whipped around his waist and legs, pinning his arms to his sides. The Kraken violently slammed Grann straight down into the ocean floor, smashing him through layers of dead coral and jagged rock.
More tentacles immediately joined the onslaught. From two to four... from four to ten... then fifteen massive appendages began hammering Grann's trapped body in a relentless, brutal barrage.
CRASH! BOSH! BAM!
The ocean floor groaned as Grann was buried deeper into the churning silt under the weight of the monster's fury. But deep within the cloud of pulverized stone, a bright, golden light flared.
Grann grinned, his teeth flashing through the dark water.
His golden Aura flared, and with a flick of his wrist, he unleashed a sharp Aura Cannon directly into the nearest two tentacles. The compressed shockwave stunned the limbs for a fraction of a second, and a fraction of a second was all Grann needed.
Bursting free from the seabed, he rocketed upward and slammed another Aura Punch square into the Kraken's forehead!
BAM!
The force of the strike sent a massive underwater shockwave radiating across the sea trench. The Kraken shuddered, its giant golden eyes rolling back slightly as its massive body twitched in shock.
Oh, I know you aren't dead, Grann thought, adjusting his posture in the water. You're just going to regenerate from all that damage I gave you. As much as I'd love to stay down here and trade blows with you all day...
Grann bent his knees against the giant monster's forehead, channeling his Aura into a massive jump.
My son's wedding is coming soon, and I can't miss it.
He kicked off the creature's head with terrifying force, propelling himself straight toward the surface like a golden missile while sending the massive Kraken crashing backward into the seafloor below.
***
"DON'T CELEBRATE YET!" Lyra's voice boomed across the deck.
The cheering sailors froze, turning to look at her in confusion. Lyra stood on the quarterdeck, her knuckles white around the grip of her sword, her body coiled like a spring.
"The Kraken could strike again at any second!" she yelled, glaring down at the men. "We need to prepare the ship and get ready to move while the hull is still intact!"
"Huh? But the tentacles retreated—it clearly ran away!" one of the deckhands tried to argue, lowering his crossbow.
"You can't possibly know that!" Lyra shot back, her voice ringing with absolute conviction.
"Do what she says!" Brohm's voice roared down from the sky.
The remaining crew gasped, looking up. Only fifteen men were left standing on deck—ten of their crewmates had already been dragged into the abyss or knocked unconscious during the initial assault.
"Grann is still out there, fighting the entire damn leviathan by himself!" Brohm yelled from above, her purple wings beating against the heavy wind. "He's buying us time! So raise those sails, get this ship turned around, and brace yourselves! Because when that monster surfaces, Kyro is going to drop a sun on its face!"
Down on the main deck, the surviving crew didn't hesitate as they followed their captain's orders. Hands blurred across ropes, pulleys squealed, and the main canvas unfurled, catching the howling wind. The vessel lurked out of the danger zone, turning hard to starboard and carving a path away from the epicenter.
Watching the ship pull away, a heavy knot in my chest finally loosened. They were out of immediate range. But as my eyes drifted back down to the dark, turbulent water below, the reality of our situation hit me like a bucket of ice water.
How in the world is Grann going to make an opening? I chewed on my lip, my brain racing. Fire magic and deep ocean don't mix. The second my fireball hits the water, the steam resistance will smother it, or it'll explode on the surface before it even touches the Kraken...
"HEY!"
A sharp, shrill shout cut through the sound of the wind.
I leaned over as much as Brohm's grip allowed. At the very stern of the retreating ship, Lyra was hanging precariously off the wooden railing, both hands cupped around her mouth, her face red from straining her lungs.
"TAKE CARE OF KYRO!" Lyra screamed up at the sky, her voice cracking slightly.
Brohm let out a booming laugh, her purple wings beating in steady, powerful strokes. "DON'T WORRY, LITTLE GIRL! I WON'T DROP HIM!"
"YOU BETTER NOT!" Lyra yelled back, pointing her sword threateningly toward us. "CUZ IF YOU DO, I WILL PERSONALLY GUT YOU MYSELF! YOU HEAR ME!?"
Brohm chuckled, the vibration rumbling right through her chest and into my shoulder as she looked down at me with a smirk. "You've got an adorable big sister, you know that?"
"Heh... yeah," I managed a weak, breathless smile, feeling a warm burst of affection through the terror. "She's... definitely something."
SPLASH!
A dazzling streak of gold shot out of the ocean at blinding speed, tearing through the cloud line and soaring right past us into the upper atmosphere. It was Grann. He ascended so fast that the sheer wind pressure of his flyby nearly flipped Brohm and me upside down.
For a split second, he hung suspended in mid-air at the apex of his launch. His golden Aura flared with incandescent brilliance, concentrating entirely into his right fist. It grew brighter and brighter, shining like a fallen star against the grey sky.
Then, gravity caught and pulled him back to the planet.
Grann plunged back toward the sea, falling directly past us. His face was set in a fierce, wide grin, his right arm pulled back so far his shoulder muscles looked ready to burst from compressed kinetic energy.
He fell past the hull level, past the spray, until he was mere inches from the surface of the sea.
"AURA CANNON!"
Grann threw a straight jab into the water.
BAM!
The universe seemed to pause for a microsecond before a terrifying, apocalyptic shockwave erupted. The sheer force of the compressed air, combined with Grann's golden energy pushed the water so deep and made way from the its force alone.
Brohm snapped her wings around both of us to shield us from the insane atmospheric backdraft. I threw the back of my hands over my face, squinting through my fingers as the gale-force wind threatened to rip us out of the sky.
When Brohm opened her wings again, my breath hitched in my throat.
All of that was his pure strength alone. Grann's strike had blasted a literal hole through the ocean. A massive, hollow water vortex—hundreds of meters deep and wide—had opened up, forcing millions of gallons of ocean water to swirl outward in a towering, vertical cylinder.
At the bottom of that bone-dry column, resting on the shattered remains of an ancient sea cave hundreds of feet below sea level, was the Kraken.
The monster was exposed to open air. Its massive yellow eye flickered in stunned confusion, its body twitching, completely vulnerable at the floor of the swirling water canyon.
"GO FOR IT, KYRO!" Grann's boomed from below. The sheer recoil of his own strike had sent him bouncing backward into the air, clearing the line of fire. "AIM AT ITS MASSIVE FOREHEAD!"
The walls of the water vortex were already starting to collapse back inward. I had seconds.
Time seemed to slow down. My head throbbed violently—my mana core was screaming from the healing spell I had cast earlier on the deck hand. I was running on pure adrenaline and empty reserves. But as I looked down at the leviathan that had almost killed my friends, a spark ignited deep in my chest.
Focus. Push it all out. Everything I have left.
I extended my hand straight down into the vortex.
Fireball...!
I dragged every last drop of available mana out of my soul and poured it into the spell. The air around my hand ignited instantly. Heat radiated outward, singeing my bangs and burning my cheeks as a sphere of dense, swirling crimson flame expanded in front of my palm.
It grew until it was twice my size—not quite as big I had created at dawn, but it was enough. It didn't matter if it's a bit smaller. The raw heat whistled against the cold sea draft, turning stray water droplets into instantly hissing steam.
I gritted my teeth, my vision blurring around the edges from mana exhaustion, and screamed from the absolute bottom of my lungs:
"EAT THIS! FIREBALL!"
With a violent thrust of my arm, I unleashed the roaring sphere of death straight down the throat of the water canyon.
PHEWWWWWW~!!
The blazing, swirling orb of flame screamed through the open air of the vortex like a falling meteor, trailing a tail of superheated steam.
BOOM!
The fireball struck the Kraken squarely between its massive yellow eyes. Upon contact, the magic detonated in a blinding flash of crimson light. The highly flammable, deep-sea oil coating the creature's thick hide caught instantly, igniting a roaring inferno across its entire face and mantle.
The pressure of the explosion sent a violent shockwave through the open air, shoving Brohm backward in the sky. She spread her purple wings wide to catch the wind, gritting her teeth as heat washed over us.
Down in the abyss, the leviathan gave one final, silent tremor. The brilliant, mottled purple of its flesh instantly bleached into a pale, cooked white. Its massive, golden eyes dulled, rolling back into lifeless, milky voids.
Then, the ocean reclaimed its territory.
With a thunderous CRASH that shook the air itself, the towering walls of the water vortex collapsed inward, millions of tons of seawater rushing together to seal the gaping hole. A massive plume of white steam billowed into the sky, carrying with it the unmistakable, bizarrely rich scent of giant, fire-roasted calamari.
The sea gradually settled, returning to rolling grey waves.
"...Kyro?"
Brohm blinked, staring down at the swirling steam in utter disbelief. The shock on her face slowly dissolved into a wide, triumphant grin.
"We did it... You actually did it! HAHAHA!"
She let out a booming laugh, pulling me tight into a victory hug—only to pause when she felt how limp my body had gone.
I was completely, utterly spent. My vision blurred into complete darkness, and my chin slumped heavily against Brohm's shoulder as my consciousness flickered out like a spent candle.
"Kyro?"
Brohm's laughter softened. She quickly shifted her grip, cradling me securely against her chest so I wouldn't slip. She looked down at my pale, sleeping face, her black eyes softening into something gentle.
A fond smile touched her lips. "You did it, buddy," she murmured softly, using a thumb to carefully brush a strand of sweat-soaked hair away from my forehead.
"HEY!"
A boisterous voice cut through the sound of the ocean below. Grann was treading water directly beneath us, waving a sun-browned arm wildly in the air.
"Did the kid hit the beast or what?!" Grann shouted up, squinting through the sea spray.
Brohm turned her head toward him, her warm smile returning as she gave him a sharp nod. "He got it. Clean hit."
"HAHAHA!" Grann's boisterous laughter echoed across the water. He slapped the surface of the sea, kicking up a splash. "THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! Good work, kid!"
Before Grann could swim back toward the distant ship, the water beneath his boots began to churn. A massive shadow bulged upward from the depths, lifting the ocean surface like a rising underwater mountain.
Grann blinked as something hard and rubbery pushed his legs out of the water.
With a heavy, wet slosh, the colossal, pale-white carcass of the dead Kraken broke the surface, floating like a massive, fleshy island in the middle of the sea.
Grann wobbled for a second before gaining his balance, ending up standing directly on top of the Kraken's scorched forehead like a flag planted on a conquered continent. He looked down at the mountain of giant, cooked tentacles floating all around him, then looked up at Brohm with a massive, toothy grin.
"Oh, hell yes!" Grann cheered, stomping his foot on the rubbery hide. "Looks like we're eating Kraken feast tonight!"
[End]