Chapter 1049: Hotter Than a Summer BBQ (7)
Chapter 1049: Hotter Than a Summer BBQ (7)
The Chimaeric Demons continued their work on Erik. His face returned to a healthy color as their mana knit his wounds and healed his skin.
Erik\'s eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first but sharpening as awareness returned.
"W-what..." Erik tried to speak, but his voice was a hoarse whisper.
The Chimaeric Demons couldn\'t talk in their current form, but judging by the look in their eyes, they wanted Erik to rest.
Their master managed a weak nod before closing his eyes again. He could feel his strength returning, but fatigue was still there.
Below them, the titanic battle continued. The Leviathan Serpent had coiled its body around the Shadowmaw Behemoth, squeezing with enough force to crush a fleet of ships.
But the Behemoth wasn\'t having trouble resisting it. Its tentacles continued to lash out, leaving deep gouges in the Serpent\'s scales.
Both creatures dove beneath the waves, then burst back to the surface, sending geysers of water hundreds of meters into the air. The sky darkened as the vapor clouds obscured the sun.
Where the Serpent was sleek and sinuous, the Behemoth was a mountain of flesh and fury. Its mouth opened and closed in a horrifying rhythm.
The creature had a beak, but nothing stopped it from developing razor-sharp fangs along the entire inner length of the beak. It looked terrifying to look at that beak, and the unfathomable depth of that mouth.
As for how the creature truly appeared, It looked like a mix between a squid and an octopus. Of course, Erik had never seen one of them in his life, both because he didn\'t live close to the sea and because they were extinct. However, he remembered them from some historical biology classes he took at school.
They were hard to forget creatures, even if there were far more unsettling and weird creatures around.
To see the Behemoth, though, wasn\'t easy. The creature kept most of its body underwater and kept its tentacles out for most of the time. However, when the Leviathan Serpent coiled around it, sometime he brought it outside the water, and that was the reason they all saw it. The ship moved further away from the fighting monsters. The waves, although still large, started getting smaller. The ship kept rocking in the rough sea, but the risk of it flipping over was gone.
Erik became more aware of his surroundings as time passed. And when he was in stable enough condition, he watched the battle move further away. However, given the monsters\' size, it took a while before they finally disappeared on the horizon.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Though the effects of their battle were present even after many nautical miles were put between them.
<Shit... Shit... Shit... SHIT!>
There were many things Erik wanted to say.
"Guys..."
The Chimaeric Demons turned to Erik, but since their master had no mana anymore, he couldn\'t use his instability brain crystal power to read their minds, and their current form didn\'t allow them to speak.
"Maybe I messed up."
It was weird and unsettling for the two Chimaeric Demons to hear their master, who fought and won against unbeatable foes for three years, say those words.
They knew everything; they had Erik\'s memories; they knew how strong their creator was, and yet he was here, saying those words.
"I... I knew thaids from the Mur continent were strong, but... not like this... not this much. I think that... I think that the average monster there is more powerful than a Wyvern... It wouldn\'t make sense otherwise."
If the clones could respond, they would have said that might not be true. After all, these were just two thaids, and they were sea ones, of which humanity knew little.
Besides, Hin marked these two creatures as very powerful. The most logical thing was that these thaids were as powerful as a Wyvern, not more.
The problem was that there was no way to know the truth before they set foot on Mur.
The only sure thing was that the sea was dangerous. At that point, it was clear it was much more dangerous than the sky, at least on average.
So, a question surged within the Chimaeric Demons\' mind. How the fuck did Frant send his troops on Hin?
Even that might have had many answers. Maybe the situation changed. The blackguards were on Mur doing who knew what, after all, and whatever they were doing on Mur was pushing not only land and flying thaids to move, but even sea ones.
The how, though, was an enormous question, because it meant the blackguards were powerful enough to force these titans to leave their original territories.
What his father said about the blackguards on Mur started to have less sense. A beast like this could destroy hundreds of thousands of people in a heartbeat. Even 10 armies wouldn\'t be enough to kill it.
The group had to rethink their strategy; they had to rethink what to do and how much time they spent on Hin before going to Mur, because if they went unprepared, they might lose their lives, or worse, they might lose Erik.
Luckily, the Chimaeric Demons were different from Erik\'s past clones in that having not one but multiple brain crystals, courtesy of Erik\'s efforts in improving his brain crystal power, allowed them to become stronger by making more neural links.
The problem was that there was a much more complex brain crystal. It wasn\'t better, but it was something that was purely made by mana, which meant it was also harder to develop connections to the body, neural links.
"We need to get back to the ship," Erik said, his voice stronger now. "There\'s much to discuss, and we need to assess the damage."
The Chimaeric Demons nodded in agreement. They began their descent, carefully watching the ship\'s movement to time their landing. From their position, and much to their relief, the Chimaeric Demons noticed that the ship\'s temperature decreased to bearable levels, thanks to all that water crashing on it.
However, they also saw the extent of the damage to it. The hull was warped and blackened in many places, and several of the smaller parts had broken off entirely.
With a gentle thud, they landed on the deck. The metal was still warm to the touch, but no longer dangerously hot.
Erik stood on shaky legs, leaning on one of the Chimaeric Demons for support. His wounds had been largely healed, but not all of them, because the clones didn\'t have that much mana
to begin with.
"Find the others," he said. "I can\'t contact them until I get my mana again... Make sure everyone is safe. Then gather in the main cabin. We need to plan our next move."
As the Chimaeric Demons dispersed to carry out his orders, Erik made his way to the ship\'s wheel. Barely, of course, but he still got there.
He placed his hands on the warm wood, feeling the vibrations of the engine below. From the vibrations, it was clear the engine sustained a lot of damage because of the heat, but there was nothing Erik could do to lower the temperature right now.