Chapter 6

Hold Tight!

People were beginning to panic. Everyone was in disorder. O’Kallan was straining with every fiber in him to keep his shield up. He’d gone days without sleep. The captain began recruiting all capable fighters to attempt a defensive attack on the King Cyladon. He was now yelling above the din of panic, coordinating their strategy. For good reason. The body of the monster was coiling tighter around us. Within the day, the monster would make contact with us and squeeze until O’Kallan’s shield broke and we all drowned.

Jack and I were on the outskirts of the chaos. Just in front of us, several adventurers ran into each other, knocking each other down.

“This is a mess,” Jack said.

I leaned against a stack of crates that were tied down. Jack sat upon one, drinking water from his waterskin. There was light, now that several mages had begun to use lighting spells. Several bubbles of light floated above people. Then there were suspended rings of light, and brilliant magic chandeliers floating over groups of adventurers.

“There was never an official call that magic could be used above deck yet, was there?” I said. Jack shook his head. “We’re running out of time.”

“Takes time for the infection to spread and take over the host,” Jack said.

“Will it happen in time?”

“Our lives depend on it.”

“That’s not reassuring. Do you think we acted too late?”

“I think everyone else acted too late,” Jack said.

At that moment, the gargantuan eye of the Cyladon opened and it was quite near to the ship. Light was reflected in it by the hundreds from all the magic being cast on deck. The captain stood tall amongst the adventurers on deck. Nearly everyone had grown silent and all heads were turned to the captain who shouted at the of his lungs.

“Fire!”

A hundred spells were cast at once, fired from blue mana circles. Everything except for fire was cast. Tridents made of ice pierced through the whale shield. Bullets of light ripped through the water. Electric spells hissed when they made contact with water. A myriad of other spell’s colors disturbed the water.

The King Cyladon emitted several clicks in a row, diffusing every single spell. The pitch of the clicks was lower than I’d ever heard it. Every single one of us took a severe amount of damage from the sheer volume and pressure of the sound.

Healers scrambled to heal. I focused solely on Jack and I, bringing our health back to full. The man was sweating and I knew it wasn’t from taking damage. He was worried.

“Talk to me Jack,” I said. “Anything?”

“There’s nothing I can do Tosin! I’ll only know when the host is completely infected. Only then can I control them.”

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Gasps from the crowd broke our conversation.

“We’re done for!” Someone shouted.

The King Cyladon’s other eye came into view as it turned to face us head on. Then its body began constricting at an alarming speed. Its long serpent body crashed against O’Kallan’s whale shield. Then it squeezed.

O’Kallan let out a mighty cry. He tensed and veins bulged at his neck and face. I saw a horror cross his face, the moment before he could no longer keep going. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he slumped over in mid air. He fell to the deck in a thump of flesh.

The whale shield broke. It shattered like glass. The monster's body came crushing toward us. It was the water rushing in that was most terrifying.

Every single person was entirely silent as fate came rushing in. Jack stood still, watching with wide eyes. Green shreds of magic flickered at the tips of his fingers. He gave me a smile.

“Brace yourself,” he mouthed just before everything imploded.

As soon as the water and monster hit the ship, it crumpled like a wad of paper. I cast several shields around Jack and I. Star Armor, Meuraali’s Carapace, and Orb of Razor Light. Star Armor’s bubble was speckled with galactic lights and it broke the moment I cast it. Meuraali’s Carapace saved our lives, and the Orb of Razor Light burned water and ship debris away. My shields were destroyed five times over, and I had to recast them every single time the outer layer broke.

“I’ve got him!” Jack shouted “Hold tight, Tosin! Keep the shields up for a little longer!”

The absolute destruction caused by the King Cyladon was awesome. Planks of broken wood and ship parts battered my shields. Adventurers were pulverized to nothing in the carnage. The sea was dyed red in moments.

The inside of my shields was suddenly filled with a brilliant green light. It appeared in shreds and spread like lightning.

“Tosin, help! Mana!” Jack said.

His mana was dwindling faster than I’ve ever seen mana go before. I cast my mana bar wide. One of the newest additions to my mana bar was Boera’s Mana Portal. I’d brought it up to level 50 which allowed a party member to draw from my mana bar in the event that they ran out. I’d used it many times before, for circumstances quite familiar to this one.

Jack had nearly four thousand mana points and It was already less than halfway. I focused Boera’s Mana Portal on Jack and let the spell take control.

“When you’re out of mana, you’ll start drawing from mine!” I said.

“That’s going to be real soon!” Jack said. “I’ve got control of the Cyladon! It’s drawing too much mana to control it. I need to bring us above water and to shore soon before I run out of mana and lose control.”

The body of the Cyladon slammed up against us and we began rising through the water. In a couple of minutes, we broke the surface of the sea. All around us, black arches of the Cyladon broke the surface. It looked as though a thousand small serpents surrounded us. I knew it was just the one. The monster was large enough that the wreckage of the ship and most other adventurers had also been hauled up out of the water. About half had survived and they clung for dear life to the scales of the Cyladon.

“Hold on, Tosin!” Jack said.

He leaned forward and cast his arms wide. Flickers of green light sparked at his fingertips. He threw his arms forward and the Cyladon’s head rose high out of the water. Then it began swimming. I had no choice but to invert my flagstaff and stab it through one of the Cyladon’s scales. I held on with all I was worth, while Jack seemed as if he were part of the monster.

His cloak undulated and Boule poked his head out the side, then it clambered up onto Jack’s shoulder. The zombie monkey grinned wickedly at me before hopping up and down, not needing to hold onto anything as the Cyladon sped forth.

Jack had started eating up my mana pool and we didn’t have long before I would run out.

“What happens when we run out of mana and you lose control?” I said.

“Remember when I said there was a potential third problem?”

“Yea.”

“Well, that’s the third problem. If I lose control, the world of Felke has got a zombie King Cyladon on the loose.”