Unfortunately what happened was out of Lyam’s expectation. It did look a bit funny how the crabs ‘evacuated’ the rocks after they spotted the ship and for brief moment the reef seemed almost like a piece of butter melting on a frying pan. In the end the deserted rocks barely could be seen above the water surface with the ocean waves beautifully splashing over them.
Leo could not enjoy the sight for too long. One after another black colored crabs in a size of a large pig began to crawl on the deck and the crew tried to push them back in the ocean with the long pikes. At first they seemed to have control over the situation, but every crab they pushed over board was replaced by two others and within moments the sailors were overwhelmed.
At this point the people at the foundation establishment – the captain, first mate, Gaston and Maurice, joined the fray. The first two with pikes and latter with swords were a much more destructive force and for a while held on. The cracking sounds of crab armor breaking and squeaks of the dying beasts filled the air along with the strange vibrations made by hundreds of crabs crawling on the ship’s body beneath the waterline.
Even though most sailors were only at the bone reforging stage, their long pikes were enough to keep the relatively slowly moving crabs away, but soon Leo was startled by the wail of the first injured person. A larger crab clipped off a sailors leg below the knee as if cutting it off with large scissors, but when the sailor fell down, few more crabs jumped on him and the guy died in terrible agony becoming crab food.
“Watch out! Some are rank four!” Captain shouted, “Pay attention to the pincers.”
Unfortunately not only it was obvious, those words didn’t manage to raise the morale because right after captain’s shout another sailor fell and then another one.
Meanwhile the father-son pair stood in the middle of the deck near the main mast and observed the chaos. From time to time Leo expectantly glanced at father in hopes he would join the fight and single-handedly eliminate the beasts, but to his great disappointment Lyam only stood there with furrowed brows thinking something.
The black beasts kept crawling over board and the people were completely covered in their blood and organ pieces. The problem was that the swarm seemed to be never ending and sailors were dying one after another making the defense weaker with every passing moment. At some point even Gaston was injured when a larger, rank four crab clipped his leg, but fortunately the guy managed to cut the pincer off and was now fighting with a bloody, crippled leg.
When Lyam caught who knows which pleading look the captain sent his way, he sighed and said, “Leonel, If anyone in your life suggests an auspicious day for anything – kill them! They bring bad luck! Now go inside, it’s time for me to lend a hand.”
The last part were the words Leo really didn’t want to hear, but he had never disobeyed his father. The moment the doors closed behind him, he heard father’s roar and cheers from the crew – obviously everyone welcomed the reinforcement.
Leo really didn’t want to miss the event especially because at some point father could employ the beautiful fire technique, therefore struggled on the way to the cabin, but then he got an idea – if he opened the door just a tiny bit and only peeked through a small gap, no one would notice it and technically he would be still inside!
With this thought he ran back to the door, but no matter how hard he tried a small gap didn’t allow him to see anything. The fight sounded too exciting and after another brief moment of inner struggle Leo’s curiosity won and he poked out his head, eyes widening in delight.
His father was indeed fighting! While the whole crew was currently protecting the right side of the deck, Lyam alone managed to defend the left. He was cursing, dashing along the board to the front and back, kicking and laughing at the same time and, if not for the dead sailors, the rest of the crew would’ve laughed along. Yes, the crabs were still coming, but it finally seemed that the situation had stabilized.
Seeing the deck was safe, Leo forgot about father’s instructions and stepped out. He glanced around and suddenly got a cheeky idea – after verifying no one had noticed him, like a fat and agile monkey he ran over and scaled the main mast.
It was damaged from the lighting strike, but the rigging was still there and made the climb possible. After a short while huffing and puffing Leo managed to get to the top and crawled inside the crow’s nest. It was the most damaged part of the mast and even had pieces of burned wood lying inside, but Leo was not bothered by it because below him there was a spectacular view.
From the above crabs resembled large, black, round bowls that his father was stomping on one after another, making loud crunching sounds. In addition, he had a lot of fun doing it and in a way it almost seemed as if Lyam was playing some kind of a game. With every stomp a crab exploded and its insides flew all over the deck that currently was covered with a layer of dead beasts, but if the others were mostly focusing on pushing crabs back in the ocean, Lyam was performing a genocide on their kind.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Now when Gaston and Maurice could focus on protecting the rest of the crew, everyone finally felt at ease. Even Leo to his disappointment realized he climbed up for naught and began to think of ways how to get down from the mast before his father found out he was up there.
All this time the ocean stream kept carrying the ship forward and when the rocks where the crab family resided were left over half a mile behind, beasts suddenly stopped crawling on the deck and the fight was finally over.
“Gather the cores and meat and wash the deck!” Captain Bobier commanded in annoyed tone when the last crab died under Lyam’s heavy foot.
While they had won the fight, almost a quarter of his crew died and the captain obviously blamed Lyam. If the only Core formation cultivator joined the fight from the start, it was highly likely no one would’ve lost their life. Of course, captain wouldn’t dare to voice such opinion, but Lyam couldn’t care less about his problems. He was inspecting Gaston’s leg.
“For the next half a month take it easy.” Leo heard his father saying.
But then suddenly Lyam got up, with a worried expression went over to the forecastle and kept staring to the front. Meanwhile the crew was busying around the deck. Sailors gathered the beast cores and crab meat intending to later have a feast. While there were only few rank four cores, the numerous rank three made up a small fortune. Obviously most of the loot would go to Lyam, but the captain pretended to not notice when sailors slid a core in their pockets now and then – boys worked hard and lost many friends. They had to be compensated.
“Fall back! In the formation! Quick!” Lyam’s roar suddenly shook the ship.
While most of the crew similar to Leo was startled by the sudden shout, captain Bobier was more experienced.
He shouted, “Quickly! Main deck! Defensive formation!”
While sailors had no clue what was going on, he already suspected that with how many crabs died on the ship, it had become a flavorful bait for a larger predator.
Even before any sailor reacted, Lyam was back in the middle of the deck and stood back to back with his two aides. After throwing a glance full of hate their way, the captain positioned himself nearby and the first mate joined him. The two men realized that Lyam’s earlier shout was directed at his own men and he actually didn’t give a damn about the crew that positioned themselves in a circle formation ready for an attack from any side.
Up on the main mast Leo’s heart was wildly beating. For his father to become so serious the next opponent had to be strong and he was really looking forward to the fight. Even though the first one was messy, there was not much skill involved and Lyam even didn’t draw his sword.
For a time span of twenty odd breaths nothing happened. The ship was calmly swaying in the waves and water from time to time splashed over the deck washing away the body parts of the dead crabs. Sailors already began to relax, but the captain’s tense expression kept them where they stood.
Then a loud thud of something heavy bumping in the hull on the left side made everyone realize Lyam unfortunately wasn’t seeing things earlier and then another on the right side confirmed it. Sailors anxiously held their breaths, but didn’t dare to ask the moody Core formation level cultivator what he had seen.
Few moments later their questions were answered. A large, gray and wet paw landed on the right side of the deck. It was large if compared to a regular dog, but the crew heaved sigh of relief realizing the paw’s owner was not an oversized serpent, dragon or some other sea monster. After a moment the second paw joined the first and with a screeching sound eight half feet long claws sunk in the deck.
But then Leo’s eyes widened in surprise and he almost began to laugh. A head with two coal black and curious eyes appeared and quickly glanced around while the pointy nose sniffed the air. The large and wet ferret-like creature seemed completely harmless and even silly, somewhat resembling a strayed rat in a rain.
The atmosphere on the deck immediately became relaxed and few of the sailors even giggled, when Lyam’s words made their scalps go numb.
He simply said, “It’s rank six.”
After a moment of silence, captain Bonier cursed, “Motherf*cker! What the hell is it doing here?!”
But when the beast’s stare focused on a closest sailor who was still holding several beast cores in his hand, the question was answered. The sailor didn’t even bat an eye and threw the cores over to the beast which it nimbly caught and immediately swallowed.
At this moment its body was already fully on the deck, but from the top of the mast Leo had hard time judging its actual size. Sailors, on the other hand, could only gasp at the sight of the bull-sized creature, and a slight panic overtook the crowd. One after another they began to throw the beast cores they had on themselves towards the beast and over board, but it was obvious it only delayed the inevitable.
“Stop! Focus and hold your positions!” Lyam suddenly shouted, “No matter what happens, stay together and watch our backs! Boys, let’s go!”
Leo’s heart jumped with joy realizing his father was about to fight again and this time he even had a sword in his hand! Unfortunately what happened next disappointed him. The beast nimbly evaded Lyam’s first slash and quickly retreated towards the front of the ship. The boy didn’t know his father tried to avoid the fight showing the beast there was a dangerous opponent present in hopes it would prefer to go and feast on the dead crabs on the ocean floor.
The beast made few quick circles around the forecastle and then stopped near the foremast, curiously observing the three humans slowly approaching. From what it looked like this was not Lyam’s, Gaston’s and Maurice’s first rodeo and without any words they positioned in a simple triangle formation with an obvious intent to attack the beast.
Strangely enough it even seemed that the damned rat guessed their plan and was openly laughing at them while making loud ‘kha-kha-kha’ sounds.
“Blame yourself!” Lyam snorted, but before he could act a complete chaos broke out in the middle of the deck.