I edged closer to the creature's corpse, unable and unwilling to take my eyes off its body.

The… fish? Its form seemed to blend aquatic and humanoid features, shimmering with moist scales and ending in sharp, webbed appendages.

I steeled myself and placed my hands flat on it. Its skin felt slick and alien beneath my palms. The touch sent an involuntary shiver down my spine—it felt like grasping wet leather, only colder and far more disturbing. I suppressed a shudder and hoisted myself up with a groan of pain. The creature's stench was like that of the Dead Sea, a pungent mix of salt and decay that clawed at the back of my throat. I gagged as I tried to balance myself upright on its body.

"Did you know," Ada chimed in, "that this creature's skin secretes a substance prized for—"

"Later, Ada!" I hissed, my voice strained as I precariously balanced on the thing's rigid side.

Speaking her name out loud also made her more real to me. And I desperately needed something real to hold onto right now.

"So, now what?"

"I have highlighted the fastest and safest route through hand and foot holds. Watch and follow."

I looked up just in time to see pixelated, navy blue handholds bloom across the broken stairs. 'Great.' Catching my breath, I pushed myself up, engaging more quad and core strength than my aching muscles could spare, especially with the wound in my side. It took twice as long and was just as painful, but I managed it, somehow. I found the energy and determination to fight the pain and do exactly as the highlighted patterns showed me. It was only with their, and Ada’s, help, that I barely managed to grab hold of the edge of the upper landing and hoist myself up and over.

“Well done. Now, stealth is your best option. There are far too many demons remaining aboard [The Sea Sovereign] at this time. The majority are on the main deck.”

I groaned and gasped in pain in reply as I rolled onto my side to stare up at the ceiling.

“Hah. Demons, she says… Hah. Ha-ha, I must be losing… my damn mind,” I huffed up at the creaking timber beams that made up the ceiling. I think I even saw a cobweb up there. That was interesting.

“On the contrary, New Soul. You are adapting remarkably well to your circumstances. However, you must focus. Your life very well depends on your performance in the next few moments.”

“Gah~ Ugh. Right. Right, yeah. Thanks,” I managed to get the words out through clenched teeth.

The ship suddenly lurched violently, accompanied by the sound of cannon fire and splintering wood.

I rolled onto my side with a grunt and curled into the fetal position as I covered my head with my arms. Nothing happened. I unfurled myself with a wince as my wound flared hot with burning agony, but pain was okay. Pain was fine. Pain meant that I could still feel something. I felt a trickle of fear in my gut as I got my feet under me and stood. It was the thought of running into another one of those things. I was terrified. I quashed the sensation with brutal, clinical detachment. I couldn’t afford to feel right now. I couldn’t afford to even allow the chance of fear or indecisiveness holding me back from surviving whatever this all was. All that I knew was that it was all very real, and very painful. I had to leave this dim and cramped place. I needed to see sky and breathe fresh air. I needed that right. Fucking. now.

Thunder mercilessly roared from above.

‘That wasn’t a cannon,’ I thought, and absently let the information wash over me as I carefully moved onward through the deck. ‘It’s storming.’

I passed more hammocks, crates, barrels, and bulging sacks. And it wasn’t long before the sound of conflict became unmistakably clear—metal clashing, shouts, and the thuds of bodies hitting the deck. The chaos was palpable, even before I could see it. Surprising even myself, I felt my blood start to rush at the thought of throwing caution to the wind and rushing ahead through the pain to get back into the fight. I pushed it down through great effort and heavily swallowed down the groan of pain that pounded at my temples. I could feel cold sweat beading on my forehead and running down the sides of my face as I forced myself to slowly and quietly move forward. My efforts paid off as I managed to get to the periphery of the fight without actually being seen or heard.

I was crouched behind a trio of stacked, iron-banded wooden barrels when the fight reached a fever pitch.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

It was happening beneath the only illumination available within dozens of meters—a solitary lantern that swayed gently from a beam above, casting eerie shadows across the supplies and curved walls.

I peered around the edge of a barrel.

A cry, close by, and then a body came crashing down to the deck beside the barrels. It was a man, dressed in a tattered uniform that once might have been sharp and authoritative—perhaps a fully-fledged member of the crew. Now, there were half-digested portions sloughing off his twisted frame. And his head was facing me. Backwards. His eyes were wide with the terror of his last moment, a ghastly expression on a bloodless face that stared directly at me.

I swore loudly and lost my balance in fright, falling out from behind the barrels as my burning thighs gave out. Then, my stomach flip-flopped before dropping straight to my feet.

“Oh, fuck me.”

A soft, scraping noise pricked my ears. It was a subtle sound, almost drowned out by the creaking of the ship and the distant crash of waves against the hull. But it was there—a slow, deliberate drag of scales against rough planks.

My blood went ice cold.

“New Soul.”

I turned slowly, squinting into the darkness. The dim lantern light did little to penetrate the shadows, but as my eyes adjusted, a form began to take shape. At first, it was just a darker patch against the gloom, but then the details started to emerge—scaled skin that glistened with a sickly, iridescent sheen.

“New Soul!”

The creature paused, as if it sensed my gaze, and in that moment of stillness, the outline of its body became clearer. It was large, towering, with spindly limbs that bent at strange angles and a torso that seemed both elongated and grotesquely muscular. Its head was a nightmare fusion of fish and human, with bulbous eyes that gleamed red in the low light and a mouth that was too wide, filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth.

“New Soul!”

It moved again. A slow, stalking step that brought it closer. The sound of its movement was a soft, wet shuffle, the slap of webbed feet against damp wood. I could see now that it was dragging something behind it.

It was a body.

“Move!” A pair of strong hands suddenly grabbed me and yanked me backward.

The creature passed through the spot I had just been standing in. Then, I found myself falling backward, slamming onto my back. I felt the same grip on me readjust itself before the next second, resuming dragging me backward away from the monster.

"Ada?" I gasped out in confusion as I was sent tumbling and rolling off the side and into a grouping of well-packed canvas sacks.

When the room finally stopped spinning, I got a good look at my surroundings, and nearly lost my breath.

A woman with braided fiery red hair shoved the barrel of a flintlock pistol down the throat of a [Sea Demon Fledgling], and pulled the trigger. The creature’s throat dangerously distended before the scaly skin tore apart like wet paper to emit black rivers of blue blood. The creature’s face collapsed around the body of the flintlock pistol, allowing the woman to easily slide the gun out from its gullet and kick its mushy corpse away to sag on the floor.

“You!” My attention snapped from her lips to her eyes, which were furiously staring at me. And also, a very pleasant green.

"Sailor Boone! What are you staring at?! Move!"

“…Who are-" I couldn’t get the rest of my very important question out before she was suddenly crouching down at my side, grabbing me by the chin, and craning my head back.

I slowly blinked up at her.

“Shut up,” she commanded.

I wanted to put up some struggle, but I was too tired. And my arms were incredibly heavy at the moment. “They got you good, huh? Drink up, we have to move.”

The next thing I knew she was uncorking something in front of my nose and then a liquid that felt like icy hot was pouring down my throat. I reflexively coughed and hacked, sputtering words as I leaned off to the side and made wrenching noises to the air. My body was suddenly both uncomfortably warm and cold in waves that grew stronger until I was just one big temperature-addled jumble of nerves that wouldn’t stop misfiring. The pain in my side had long ago changed to a deep, unscratchable itch that only grew and spread to other parts of my body. A powerful shudder ran through me and slammed into my convulsing stomach, which I then emptied while on my hands and knees. Moaning, I focused my bleary eyes on what was in front of me. I made a strange noise in the back of my throat. My vomit was like black oily sludge that smelled absolutely awful.

“You have to be kidding me—now? Why would you breakthrough now?!”

I opened my mouth to speak, only to choke and spit out more of that weird black substance. Oh god, I was probably dying. That didn't look natural at all.

“Of all the selfish, inconsiderate things to do—I should leave you here to die, you know that?!”

I heaved another watery-eyed mouthful of the stuff and wiped my mouth with a sleeve. My mouth felt and tasted like a garbage fire. And my side—"Oh?" I muttered in surprise, bringing a hand up to my side. It didn’t hurt anymore. It was sore, sure, but the pain was gone.

I glanced up just in time to see the woman viciously swing her blade to the side, a small shower of dark blue blood painting the deck boards.

I slowly blinked up at her lithe figure towering over me.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She snarled, then crudely spat on me. “Gods curse your soul.” Then she turned her back on me and readied her sword and flintlock pistol.

“You should trust this crewmate, New Soul. She is a strong cultivator with moderate success in her Foundation Establishment stage,” Ada advised.

I was still trying to get over my feelings of being spat on while on my knees on the verge of death, when the gears in my already frayed brain skipped a step and tore a tread.

“Did you say… Cultivator?” I spoke to the air. My watery, blood-shot eyes locked onto the red-haired woman’s back.

“What? No! Shut up and cultivate like our lives depend on it!” The woman shouted over her shoulder.

I saw more shapes moving in the darkness behind her.

“Because they do!” She snapped, aimed the flintlock, and fired.