Standing at the end of the best dock in the city stood a young noble with short, blonde hair. His deep blue eyes and charismatic appearance, combined with toned but still obvious muscle, gave him the appearance of a true greek god.
In front of him stood a group of 5 people, a young woman with a black cloak wrapped around her shoulders and 4 men, most of them middle-aged. However, what truly set them apart from everyone else was the feeling of experience and power that they gave.
"I am most thankful for the renowned platinum team, the Night Ravens, to come to escort me on this mission. Please take care of me." The young noble said, giving a small nod to each of the people in front of him.
The one who answered was the oldest of the group, a man that looked to be in his early 50's. He wore a simple shirt and jeans, carrying two short daggers at his hips.
"No, no. It is our honor for being chosen to serve Young Master Silus, your fame has spread out far and wide." The old man answered with a pleasing smile.
The name Silus was indeed widely recognized. He was a synonym for freedom and adventure after all. The explorer of the unknown, a young noble with a charming appearance, and to top it off, a powerful fighter. His exploits in the ocean, defeating evil pirates and discovering amazing riches, was almost legendary for many.
Hearing the old man praising him, Silus could only give off an embarrassed smile. The group and Ravens discussed for another twenty or so minutes before the Ravens decided to embark on the nearby ship.
After checking supplies and making sure the crew was there and ready, Silus too embarked. Immediately after, the ship sailed off, cheered on by a huge crowd that had gathered in the harbor.
Silus was widely loved by the people, and even the king himself held Silus in extremely high regards. So high, in fact, that he offered to sponsor multiple expeditions in the past.
After just a couple of minutes, the ship left the harbor. The moment they were a safe distance away, Silius gave the order, and as the Ravens watched in amazement, the sailors began activating multiple runes all through the ship.
In the next moments, the ship began to truly pick up speed. After just 10 minutes, the ship was going at an insane 40 miles per hour.
Days passed, and soon, they were out of the charted territory. They had enough supplies with them to last them for months, and also one of the strongest mercenary teams, hence, Sirus was confident in the possibilities of this expedition.
As the ship raced on, Silus calmly steered the ship. Next to him stood the five members of the Night Ravens, who were chatting with each other, occasionally asking Silus some questions.
Silus knew them, as he was forced to study a lot of things, especially since he was a noble, and although not the direct heir of his family, that was his brother, he was still second in line and required to have a certain degree of knowledge.
There were very few platinum teams. After all, the mercenary guild and the adventurer guild were both pyramids, with a lot of people at the bottom and few people at the top.
Copper teams were common, bronze teams were considered decent, iron was already good, silver teams were already elites, and gold teams were the cream of the top. After that came the really big guns, platinum teams, diamond teams, and the legendary Mythril.
As of right now, there were no Mythril teams, and there had been very few in the past. Normally, only heroes were able to become Mythril, but heroes were existences from another world, so most thought it was natural.
Apart from that, platinum teams were people who truly exceeded human comprehension. Diamond teams too were far beyond comprehension, but the real difference between the two was more of a matter of status.
It was simple, really. Diamond teams were those who chose to settle down and pledge themselves to the guild, while platinum teams were free souls who traveled the world or at least refused to obey the guild's every order.
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Being a platinum team, the Night Ravens were widely recognized to be an extremely powerful group. They were furiously sought after by a lot of nobles and kings, however, nobody dared to force them to do anything. That was why, even though they were technically commoners, Sirus was so respectful to them. Granted, Sirus tended to be respectful to everyone, but especially so to them.
"Hey, Sara, is everything okay?" One of the male Ravens asked. He was the youngest man in their group, looking to be in his late twenties and the worse a heavy armor along with a huge two-handed sword. He also had a helmet, but it was currently resting on the ground.
Sara, the only female Raven, had her eyes closed and on her face was a serious frown. After a couple moments, she got up and whispered: "They're coming..."
Hearing this, all the Ravens instantly got up and armed themselves. Although stunned at first, Sirus too yelled down at his crew to get ready for a possible fight.
After a tense couple moments, they spotted something in the horizon. As they approached, they finally saw what it was.
A huge carcass of a whale floated on top of the water, the water around it filled with blood and huge fins that constantly rammed against the carcass, likely tearing off chunks of meat.
When he saw the scene, Sirus instantly shouted at his men "A shoal of Water Bloodhounds. Try to circle around them, but prepare the arcane cannons anyways!"
As his crew quickly got to work, Sirus slowed down the ship and tried to take a wide turn around the sharks, however, the sharks quickly noticed the ship, and they all abandoned the easy carcass in favor for more slaughter.
As hundreds of fins, and likely far more hidden sharks, charged toward the ship, Sirus couldn't help but smile grimly.
As the sharks neared, one of the Raven men rushed up and hooked himself to the sails of the ship, careful not to damage them.
After a couple seconds of chanting, he began to unleash a torrent of spells upon the approaching sharks. Darkness bullets and lightning strikes, along with the occasional shadow manifestation that created shadow sharks that disrupted the approaching shoal, showed the experience and strength of the man.
After the sharks got close enough, magical cannons popped out of the sides of the ship and began to rain arcane hell upon the sharks, killing a huge number of them.
Nonetheless, it wasn't enough. Many of the sharks reached the ship, some tried to slam themselves against it, albeit to little effect thanks to the magical shields protecting the ship, and some tried to jump overboard and kill those on it.
However, the Ravens were quick to intercept those foolish enough to try, and their mage and cannons slowly took care of those still in the water. It took them well over an hour to finish killing the last shark, finally terminating the blood-seeking threat.
The following weeks were rather peaceful. Silus' goal for this expedition was to map out all of the huge areas outside of the kingdom, and that's what he did.
They had a few other encounters with sea monsters, but none proved too difficult to handle. Finally, as Sirus drew the last line on his map, he revealed a happy smile and turned to the female Raven besides him, Sara.
"I'm finally done with the map. We should return and restock." He said. Sara smiled from within her cloak and nodded, however, the next moment, a huge impact rocked the ship.
As sailors screamed, Sirus shot up and yelled "What was that? What's going on?"
The answer revealed itself in the form of a giant octopus rising out from the water, it's 8 limbs trying to grasp the ship through its shields.
"Damn it!" Sirus yelled as he barked at his men and gave orders. Meanwhile, the Ravens frantically fought off the octopus' tentacles trying to rip apart the ship.
They could barely fight it off. As blades flashed and spells roared, the octopus was forced to back off, and the ship was let free. Instantly, Sirus put it on max speed and tried to flee away from the octopus.
A chase followed, as the octopus constantly tried to destroy the ships, and the shields and Ravens fought it off. This lasted for a tense half an hour when the octopus suddenly stopped.
It let out a frantic and angry roar at the ship but didn't dare to follow them for some reason. It would sometimes try to go forward and follow them, only to shrink back the next moment. Finally, with a last, defiant roar, it slowly went back into the sea and swam away.
The crew was ecstatic at having survived the ordeal, but both the Ravens and Sirus knew what truly happened. Likely, they had come into the territory of an even more terrifying monster.
Their shields were completely wrecked, and the ship had even suffered serious damage. If they didn't repair it soon, they would likely all sink and die.
Sirus was barking orders when a man at the crow's nest suddenly yelled out "Land! I see land!"
Hearing this, the Ravens and Sirus all whipped out a strange magical eyeglass, with which they could see much further than normal.
Indeed, they could see the vague shape of a large landmass. After a quick discussion between the Ravens, Sirus, and the higher staff of the ship, it was decided to land regardless of the risk, as the alternative was almost sure death.
Two hours later, the ship was dragged onto the shore by every resident of said ship, who put in great effort to drag the giant vessel.
After the ship was secured, people began to bring out supplies and tents, most in good mood. Even Sirus couldn't help but smile as he observed the large forest in front of them, smelling adventure.
Little did the poor fools know, the master of the island had already discovered them, and was currently running towards their location from another her house, only a couple kilometers away from their landing site.