From who knows where the second beast appeared, a bit smaller than the first one, but much more ferocious. It directly dived in the formation sailors stood in and began to ruthlessly massacre them. With every paw swing a hand or a leg was torn off and Leo didn’t even manage to blink when several sailors had their heads torn off and fountains of blood sprayed over the crowd and the deck, painting everything red. For some reason the effect was completely different compared to when people were killing the crab family and there was much more blood.
“Hold this one back!” Lyam shouted and darted to protect the sailors, “You two! Just defend! Don’t take any risks!”
Even though he tried his hardest, this time Leo couldn’t see his father’s fight at all. In fact, he only saw blurred figures darting over the deck and from time to time heard a wail of another dying sailor.
People were in actual trouble. No matter how fast Lyam was, he couldn’t protect the regular sailors and for some reason the damned rat was taking a pleasure in killing them while evading his attacks. Only when the captain and the first mate finally joined the fight the beast stopped playing around and fully focused on the only Core formation cultivator on the ship. It clearly knew that if it dealt with the fast one who kept loudly cursing, the rest of the humans posed no threat.
Leo in awe watched the blurred figures below, realizing that after this he really had to practice hard and find the spark his father talked about, because at some point Lyam’s sword suddenly lit up in flames and he managed to leave a deep cut across the beast’s side.
The smell of burnt flesh and hair filled the air along with a shrill squeak and the first beast that until now was playing around with Gaston and Maurice suddenly became anxious. The two men already were barely holding their ground against it and now they miserably jumped and rolled, trying to avoid the beast’s claws while covered in bloody wounds all over.
It looked like the two beasts were trying to reunite either purely on instinct or they were used to fight together, but Lyam didn’t intend to allow that. When for a brief moment the second beast’s hind paw got entangled in cordage, Lyam used the opportunity to leave another two deep cuts on its body and almost managed to sever on of the limbs. But when the beast fell back defensively, he pressed on.
This time not only Lyam’s sword, even his forearms lit up in flames.
“You asked for it, bitch! Fire claw!” He shouted and slashed at the beast leaving a large cut at least two feet deep.
It was clearly a deadly wound and the beast as its last effort tried to take the hateful attacker along to the afterlife, but Lyam nimbly avoided a couple slashes that took lives of two sailors each and already darted towards the first beast.
At this point Leo was barely holding back loud cheers. He had never seen anything so ‘cool’ in his life! He definitely had to learn Lyam’s ultimate technique and for that he needed to find that spark inside of him as soon as possible no matter how hard it was! No wonder father was so happy he also had the affinity for the fire element! It was so strong and beautiful! And thanks to the father’s demonstration Leo already knew the special chant to invoke the technique!
Of course, the boy had no clue Lyam drained all his Qi reserves with that slash and currently was operating on sheer willpower and bodily strength. While the second beast was taking last breaths and convulsing in agony, the first went completely berserk. It long stopped playing around and when Lyam got to it, Gaston had his right arm bitten off at his shoulder and Maurice was lying in a pool of blood his intestines scattered around him.
While the death of one and crippling of the other aide pained Lyam, they were not his family members and he could always hire more people. The problem was that while fighting the smaller beast he spent all of his Qi and there was no way he could handle the first beast alone.
With a grin he remembered Leo’s question whether he was going to fight rank seven beasts on the continent of Storms. He could barely take on one rank six! And it was only a damned rank six rat, not a lion! But then, after taking a hit from the beast’s tail, Lyam recovered with a roll, got up on his feet and fully focused again.
He shouted, “Bobier! Stop f*cking holding back! We’ll all die this way!”
Clenching his teeth captain called over the first mate and they took positions at Lyam’s side just like Gaston and Maurice did before the fight started. He was annoyed at Lyam that the man found out his cultivation was actually higher and at himself for revealing it, but there was no way around it. Lyam was right – they had to go all out to not die here.
The two parties – the beast and the three men stood in the middle of the deck and stared at each other for a while. Lyam used this time to calm his breathing and recover at least a little bit of expended Qi, but after the beast threw a glance at its partner that finally stopped convulsing, it suddenly soundlessly jumped at the trio like a dark, wet ghost.
All three men avoided beast’s claws, but the first mate got hit by its tail and flew several yards only to pass out somewhere in a heap of cordage. Captain, seeing it, loudly cursed, but his sword slash managed to leave a bloody mark on the beast’s hind leg. Even though he did hide his cultivation during the trip, he was still only a Foundation establishment cultivator, even if it was the late stage. Therefore he was not yet able to unleash any powerful elemental techniques, but the last attack was a feat considering how tough the beast was.
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It instantly drew the beast’s attention and for several breaths of time captain Bobier desperately tried to avoid its crazed attacks. He was scratched and bloodied all over when suddenly fire reflected in his eyes and with a grin he witnessed how Lyam directly cut off the beast’s head while shouting his signature ‘Fire claw! Die, bitch!’.
Leo also witnessed the whole thing. He was standing in the crow’s nest with clenched fists amazed by his father’s might. It didn’t matter to him that the man was all spent and heavily panted from the Qi overuse.
Only Lyam knew he’ll have to recover for at least a month, but the main thing was that they were finally safe. Rank six beasts were not common sardines and it was extremely unlikely for another one to show up. The reef with crabs was most likely their hunting ground and they attacked the ship in revenge for slaughtering their prey.
“You, motherfucker!” Lyam pointed at the captain while heavily panting, “From now on the first rule of the Renaud household will be – ‘There are no auspicious days! Everyone who claims otherwise brings bad luck and has to die!’ Am I clear?”
“I’m sorry, Sir!” Captain immediately apologized with a slight bow, “It’ll never happen again!”
“I’m sure it …” Lyam abruptly stopped mid sentence only to notice a bloody tip of a sword sticking out from his chest, “I … careless ..”
Not waiting for him to finish, the first mate kicked Lyam in the back and his body fell over board.
“Why the hell did you do that?” Captain Bobier barked at the first mate, but then sat down directly on the deck and began to take care of his injuries.
“We had to strike while he was the weakest, otherwise we were dead for sure. I’m certain he had guessed our cultivation long ago and only waited for the trip to come to its end.” The first mate casually shrugged. Despite the heavy hit he seemingly took earlier, he was completely fine.
“I’m not talking about that!” Captain snorted, “I wanted that sword! It looked like a good weapon, but now … anyway – gather the boys and finally clean the ship. I hope at least half of them survived, otherwise the rest of the way will be a pain in the butt.”
“What about them?” The first mate asked with a grin pointing down, obviously inquiring about the Renaud family females.
“F*ck off! We’ll have our fun later.” Captain barked at him, “Young master will be generous with the reward so keep it in your pants. Even though the plan was slightly altered, we completed the objective earlier and now can directly return home … broken rudder my ass … how stupid one has to be to believe that! Of course, the part about the ocean current was true ...”
Leo watched the events from the top of the main mast as if paralyzed. One moment he intended to cheer for his father’s victory, but in the next the mighty invincible man was kicked over board as if he was some dead crab. The worst part was that the perpetrators behaved as if nothing special happened. But then he realized – if they really killed his father, they would definitely kill the rest of the family members as well!
With this thought Leo squatted down in the crow’s nest, hugging his knees. For the first time in his life he really wanted to cry, but then swallowed the bitter sob remembering his father’s words – ‘Renaud family men don’t cry!’. Right! His father wouldn’t and maybe he wasn’t even dead! Maybe he was only caught by surprise, pushed over board and will climb back in to punish these weaklings!
Leo began to peek down, stealthily trying to find any signs of his father in the waves. Unfortunately no matter how hard he stared, the only result he got was the dizziness from the ship swaying.
Suddenly his eyes widened in surprise – two beasts, albeit much smaller than the two attackers from earlier, carefully poked their heads over board and inspected surroundings. And then silently another two heads joined. From above the beasts looked like wet weasels, basically tinier copies of the two that lie dead on the deck. Of course, ‘tiny’ they seemed only to Leo, but in reality they were in a size of a large dog.
Contrary to dogs the wet pups turned out to be abnormally ferocious. When they noticed the dead bodies of their parents, they transformed into silent death incarnates.
Surprisingly the first victim became the captain who was currently focusing on treating his wounds. He was still sitting on the deck while mumbling curses at the two dead beasts and Lyam while making crude bandages out of his shirt, when three of the smaller beasts jumped at him at the same time.
While the parents were mostly using their claws, these little things didn’t shy off to use their sharp teeth as the main weapon and in an instant captain’s two hands and head were separated from the body. The fountain of blood didn’t even hit the beasts with how quickly they dashed towards the rest of the sailors.
“They are at most rank four! Get in formation!” The first mate tried to stop the panic that broke out, but it was futile.
From the above Leo watched how the beasts massacred every human on the ship, creating on the deck a small tornado of blood and limbs while only the first mate was trying to show some kind of resistance. Beasts darted all over the place leaving only mutilated bodies behind them and they were so fast to Leo it looked as if shadow bolts were attacking the ship.
In a span of few breaths there was only the first mate left standing in the middle of the deck holding a sword in his remaining hand and the beasts slowly encircled him as if savoring the moment of vengeance.
‘Nine?’ Leo quickly counted in surprise.
Apparently the family was much larger than he earlier thought and the rest of the pups joined the fray from the other sides of the ship. No wonder they managed to clean up the crew so quickly while being only rank four. Of course, even rank four beasts were terrifying monsters to a regular person, but if the captain and the first mate joined their forces they could’ve easily held their ground against four or five at the same time.
Sadly for the two of them the pups, contrary to their parents, didn’t intend to fool around and immediately killed off the strongest person alive and now on the deck was only one man left. He died in an instant when the beasts simultaneously made their last attack, for a split second creating a large ball of fur that afterwards separated into nine mourning pups. The beasts whimpered at the corpses of their parents for some time when suddenly became restless again and began to look for something all over the place.