Chapter 444 - 434: Sailing Carnival 36

When Moira Lynch came out, Shane Rhodes and Kai York were already waiting outside.

Seeing her emerge, Shane Rhodes said, "Hugh Finch was worried something might have happened to you, so he sent us to come get you."

Moira Lynch walked quickly over to them, an unhappy look on her face.

"By the way, what did the captain want with you just now?" Kai York asked.

Moira Lynch didn’t hide the truth. "He wanted to buy the Ghost Cat Owl from me at a price far below market value."

Then, Moira Lynch recounted what had happened in the room earlier.

After she finished, Shane Rhodes and Kai York said in unison, "How shameless."

"It’s a good thing our mission is almost over," Shane Rhodes said. "Otherwise, with you taking the Ghost Cat Owl all over the ship, someone was bound to get some crooked ideas."

He’d long since noticed that it wasn’t just the captain and the crew who had their eyes on the Ghost Cat Owl; even other players were coveting the massive bird of prey.

And so, two days passed without incident. As they drew closer and closer to their destination, Moira Lynch found herself growing increasingly eager.

This mission was the longest on record.

It wasn’t so bad for the players. After all, despite being a little lonely on the cargo ship, they had food and drink. And though the environment was occasionally harsh, it was still leagues better than the weather on Caelus.

What’s more, perhaps because they were lucky, they hadn’t encountered severe weather even once during their long time at sea.

Even the occasional dangers they encountered were all handled by the players working together.

So, apart from its length, some players even felt this mission wasn’t difficult at all.

Just then, a cry came from the distance.

Moira Lynch stood on the deck, looking up at the sky. A black silhouette was rapidly approaching.

The Ghost Cat Owl, much like a normal owl, made almost no sound when it flapped its wings. That’s why it always let out a cry upon returning, to alert everyone.

This time, the Ghost Cat Owl’s talons clutched a still-thrashing giant fish. Its scales faded from blue at the top to purple at the bottom, and its fins flowed like the hem of a girl’s skirt.

Except now, those skirt-like fins were soaked through, hanging limp and destroying the fish’s beauty.

The Ghost Cat Owl landed on the deck, fish in its grasp.

The surrounding players quickly backed away a few steps, giving the Ghost Cat Owl some space.

Everyone reacted with lightning speed. They couldn’t help it—experience had taught them to.

After all, getting smacked by one of those enormous wings or having a fish dropped on them would mean more trouble than they could handle.

They couldn’t afford to provoke it, but surely they could afford to get out of the way.

Once the Ghost Cat Owl had landed steadily, Moira Lynch stepped forward and deftly stored away the fish it had caught.

Ever since the Ghost Cat Owl had started following her, Moira Lynch had been sending it out to catch the types of fish she liked to eat.

Fish jerky was delicious, but even that gets old when you eat it all the time.

At Moira Lynch’s command, the Ghost Cat Owl would scout the route ahead each day, flying back and forth to the ship dozens of times and always returning with a full haul.

And this time was no exception.

Except, the last few times, the Ghost Cat Owl had brought back good news. But this time...

"Are you saying that the waters ahead are the region where the Kraken is said to appear, and that there really *is* a Kraken there?"

Hearing the news from the Ghost Cat Owl, Moira Lynch was shocked, but at the same time, she had a feeling of ’I knew it.’

"The Kraken? Finally, one piece of intel turns out to be true," Kai York snarked.

This had to do with the information Moira Lynch had obtained from The Adventurer’s Guild.

Except for the information about the Stonefish, none of the other reports had proven true. They had passed through all the supposed danger zones safely.

The corner of Moira Lynch’s mouth twitched at Kai York’s words.

She wanted to say something, but held her tongue.

In reality, the intel from The Adventurer’s Guild hadn’t been wrong. The only reason they hadn’t encountered any danger was that Moira Lynch had already dealt with the threats beforehand.

Right now, she still had several unprocessed Sirens in her storage space.

The song of a Siren is beautiful and enchanting. Legend says that anyone who hears it loses their sanity. Their bodies move uncontrollably, either walking into the sea or steering their ships to crash against nearby reefs, leading to the death of the crew and the destruction of their vessel.

Those drowned sailors would then become food for the Sirens.

But apart from their song, Sirens were pathetically weak. And... unbelievably ugly.

Moira Lynch recalled the first time she saw a Siren. She felt like her very eyes had been polluted.

’Seriously, how could such an ugly creature exist in this world?’

Deep-sea fish are generally not good-looking; you could say each is ugly in its own special way. But in the deep sea, where you can’t see your hand in front of your face, there’s no light, so they all just evolved haphazardly. It’s not like anyone could see them.

But these Sirens, while able to enter the deep sea, didn’t actually live there. They had no excuse for being so arbitrarily thrown together.

Despite their ugliness, the upper half of a Siren’s body was very similar to a human’s. Moira Lynch found it unsettling. It felt like eating a person.

So she only took the lower half, along with the most valuable piece of meat from the Siren’s throat. The rest she tossed back into the ocean.

She had dealt with the dangers in advance, which, in Kai York’s eyes, simply meant the intel was wrong. This was just... well, it was understandable.

It wasn’t as if she could tell anyone what she was doing, after all.

Besides, all that was in the past and didn’t matter anymore. The most important thing now was the Kraken.

"Moira, what do you know about the Kraken?" Hugh Finch asked her.

At this, Moira Lynch thought for a moment before replying, "The Kraken is a species of giant octopus that lives in deep-sea trenches. They’re enormous—they can grow up to a hundred meters—and they have twelve exceptionally agile tentacles."

"Each of the Kraken’s tentacles possesses an independent mind. In other words, it can perform twelve different actions simultaneously."

"Furthermore, the Kraken’s Life Energy is incredibly resilient. Even if only a single tentacle is left, it can regrow the rest of its body. The condition, however, is that the original body must be truly dead."

"A single tentacle can regrow the entire rest of the body? Isn’t that just like a starfish? The Kraken could constantly grow its population just by severing its own limbs," Caden York mused.

At his words, Moira Lynch continued, "It’s not that simple. Scientists have studied this ability of the Kraken. In reality, the ability has limitations, and they’re quite significant."