The main deck had turned into a bloodbath, the crewmen devolved into blood-starved beasts of war, and the water surrounding the merchant ship had been tainted crimson with the blood of the mermen.

Time diluted for the crewmen, not one person could say how long the battle had gone for but for everyone it had felt like an eternity, their enemy seemed as endless as the ocean itself, and just like the ocean, an unbeatable enemy lays at the end.

“Are those all? Please tell me there’s no more, I can’t lift my arm” one of the sailors spoke, his breath ragged and irregular, the handle of the axe he was holding had broken and splintered after who knows how many swings and he looked just as exhausted as the other men surrounding him.

Still, silence remained, a deafening silence intermittently broken by the sounds of the waves splashing against the helm and the calm salty sea breeze.

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The captain held back his words; it had been more than twenty minutes since the last mermen had been slain; He had long since run out of iron volts as well as the energy to pick up the crossbow to fight; after a few seconds passed, he broke the silence to bark orders at them.

“I want all of these ugly fuckers out of my ship! Throw them overboard and teach them what we do with their ilk… also someone better start wiping the floor I don’t want to trip on blood and guts,” The sailors wasted no time following the orders, even if they made their discontent known with grunts and complains as they start picking up the bodies and throwing them into the sea.

“Come on gentlemen, it’s no time to start acting like a bunch of spoiled brats. Put your backs into it. I wanna see some muscle,”

The Oldman turned towards its youngest crewmember, he was silent and still in shock after such a long, tiresome, and bloody battle, “Kid go down and check the cargo, you’re on cleaning duty, don’t come back up until everything is squeaky clean, I won’t deliver blood soak goods so get your ass moving before anything goes to waste, and don’t come back up until the work is done,”