Chapter 521 The Horn and the Colossus

Glancing back at the distant sea, where the Blade of Vengeance Ship had already dwindled to a tiny black speck, Ode—captain of the Black Tide Hunter Adventurer Squad—let out a breath. He slightly relaxed his tight grip on his Whale Anchor. He hadn't lied to Xia Nan and the others.

His crew truly had been attacked by pirates recently, and they had indeed lost a lot of supplies as a result. They were in desperate need of a restock.

He hadn't even hidden the Black Tide Hunter Ship's true purpose for sailing into these waters. He had told the truth: they were indeed tracking a certain marine monster. However, Ode had left one thing out.

Before the Blade of Vengeance Ship noticed their approach and raised its fleet flag, he truly hadn't realized who they were. He had merely assumed they were an ordinary Adventurer Squad encountered by chance on the open ocean.

And the method of "exchanging" supplies they had originally intended to use was nowhere near as sincere or peaceful as what had just transpired.

The survival of the fittest was the prevailing law across this stretch of the sea.

This was especially true for adventurers like them.

If his initial judgment had been correct—if the vessel appearing near the Black Tide Hunter Ship had just been an ordinary adventurer crew—forget paying for the supplies. Merely leaving them alive would have been considered an act of mercy.

But the reverse was also true. By the time they closed in and the flags were raised, they discovered it was the Blade of Vengeance Fleet. Facing fellow adventurers whose strength far exceeded what his crew could handle, Ode found himself backed into a corner. Unable to retreat, he was forced to pay a price far exceeding the actual value of the supplies. Not only did he hand over monster materials harvested mid-mission, but he also firmly owed them a favor.

"Captain, weren't we just a little... too cautious back there?"

"If word gets out, once we return to Barracuda, people are going to call us spineless cowards," a half-orc warrior muttered, his tone thick with complaint as he finally failed to suppress his frustration.

His answer was a heavy slap to the back of his head, striking him so solidly that his burly frame violently stumbled forward.

"'Blade of Vengeance' Lorraine! Don't you fucking tell me you haven't heard that name!"

"Believe it or not, if my attitude had been even the slightest bit tougher just now, our Black Tide Hunter Ship would already be a pile of burning cinders!" Ode cursed, his chest heaving with rage.

Not daring to talk back to the captain, the half-orc lowered his head, though a hint of defiance still lingered in his round, beast-like eyes.

Something must have crossed his mind. He turned his head toward a tall figure standing not far away by the deck railing, who was still gazing out at the receding Blade of Vengeance Ship.

"Sarissa, what do you think?" he asked without thinking.

"Our Black Tide Hunter might not be world-famous, but we at least have plenty of Class Grade members. I just don't believe..."

"We would've died," the ranger named Sarissa answered, not even waiting for the half-orc to finish speaking.

Turning around, her platinum-blonde ponytail whipped back and forth in the strengthening sea breeze. Her amber, slit-pupiled eyes swept past the stiff-faced half-orc warrior before locking onto Captain Ode.

She gave a slight nod, expressing her full agreement with his decision to back down.

This woman clearly held nearly as much influence on the ship as their captain, Ode. No matter how aggrieved the half-orc felt, being rebuked by two of the squad's core members forced him to cool off.

He furrowed his brows and thought hard for a moment, but that foolish, hybrid brain born of his orc bloodline couldn't produce an answer.

"Why?" he asked the ranger in a baffled tone. "Just because of that so-called 'Blade of Vengeance' Lorraine? I admit she's strong, but don't we have the captain? Plus, in terms of Class Holders, we should have the numbers advantage, right? If a fight really broke out, as long as the captain stalled her for a bit, I think we could use our numbers..."

In response, Sarissa merely shook her head.

She glanced over at Ode and saw he had zero intention of explaining. He was simply frowning at the half-orc with exasperation. He was likely already plotting how to make this newly recruited member suffer a bit later to teach him a lesson.

Noticing that several other squad members on deck were also watching them—seemingly sharing the same doubts about Ode's actions, though lacking the half-orc's recklessness to ask aloud—she sighed.

Slinging her Metal Longbow back over her shoulder, she raised her voice slightly so the eavesdropping crew could hear. "The key isn't Lorraine," she explained. "It's that black-haired adventurer on their ship."

Hearing this, the half-orc warrior unconsciously thought back.

"The one carrying two longswords on his back? The guy who looked super young?"

Sarissa nodded. "'Sea Fang' Xia Nan."

"You should have heard that name by now. After what happened with the Horned Shark Gang and the Ebb Tide Gang, I shouldn't need to explain any further."

She paused here. Her amber, slit-pupiled eyes lost focus slightly, as if recalling something.

"To some extent, his danger level is far higher than Lorraine's," she slowly continued in an indescribable tone.

The [ranger] class, along with its related sub-classes, mostly leaned toward the Perception attribute.

Even though the adventurers of this world couldn't gain extra attribute points through Secret Realms like Xia Nan could, they still specialized in their core attributes. Sarissa possessed the highest Perception among all the crew members of the Black Tide Hunter Ship.

During the brief exchange between the two Adventurer Squads just now, while Xia Nan was secretly observing them, she had been carefully probing the Blade of Vengeance Ship under the cover of the crew.

In terms of Class Level, the captain, Lorraine, should have been the highest.

But within their ranks, another aura had caught her attention.

If Lorraine was a blazing fire burning over the sea, then the feeling Xia Nan gave Sarissa... It might sound a bit abstract and hard to describe, but he felt like a lone wolf casually pacing in the depths of the night.

A sharp lethality was hidden within his seemingly relaxed movements, a fierce cruelty flickering in the depths of those dark, wolf-like eyes.

That suffocating sensation—the feeling that if she took one more glance and caught his attention, she would become his prey—was something Sarissa had never felt from anything other than a monster.

She knew perfectly well what such a dominant presence under her Perception meant.

It meant a danger level equal to, or perhaps even greater than, the Blade of Vengeance Fleet's captain, Lorraine. It meant strength that vastly surpassed the other adventurers in his squad. Combine that with the recent rumors spreading through the Southern Archipelagos about the gruesome aftermaths this "Sea Fang" left behind, and the miserable fates of those gang members...

Sarissa had no doubt that if the Black Tide Hunter had truly clashed with the Blade of Vengeance, the brief window where Lorraine stalled Ode would have been more than enough time for "Sea Fang" to inflict devastating losses on the rest of them.

"Enough. It's in the past. Just be more careful if we run into them again," Captain Ode said, cutting the conversation short.

The trade was already done. Though they had paid a steep price, they no longer had to worry about supplies.

As for the Blade of Vengeance, they wouldn't likely see them again until after the Sea Rhythm Festival passed.

The most pressing matter right now was completing the commission they had set out for.

Crash!

Dazzling lightning flashed deep within the leaden clouds blanketing the sky.

Freezing raindrops lashed against their cheeks alongside the howling gales. The ship, which had been sailing on relatively calm waters, was now pitching violently under the assault of swelling waves. Unlike other vessels at sea that would defensively skirt away from a storm, the Black Tide Hunter Ship charged directly into the furious waves, driving madly toward the eye of the tempest.

All for the sake of the target they had been tracking for dozens of days.

"Hoooooom..."

Just as the Black Tide Hunter Ship was swept deeper into the storm by the howling winds, looking as though it might be swallowed by the waves at any second, a deep, drawn-out echo abruptly resounded through the gaps between the crashing thunder, shrieking winds, and roaring waves.

It sounded like a horn blown from the deepest depths of the ocean, pulsing with a strange power. The pitch wasn't high, yet it made the eardrums of anyone who heard it throb with pain, and even the deck beneath their feet seemed to vibrate in resonance.

"It's here! Three o'clock!"

After tracking it so painstakingly across the vast ocean for days, they had finally caught up.

An unmasked look of ecstatic surprise lit up Ode's face. Hoisting his nearly five-meter-long Whale Anchor onto his shoulder, he ignored the steeply listing deck and hurried over to the ship's gunwale.

Gripping the railing with his free hand, he leaned out over the edge, his eyes locked dead onto the direction the horn's call had come from.

Crack!

Another bolt of lightning split the sky.

The pale lightning was fleeting, but for a split second, it illuminated the pitch-black, oppressive world beneath the storm clouds. It allowed Ode to spot a colossal, blurry shadow looming like a massive reef on the distant sea.

Even from a distance, obscured by the leaden clouds and sheets of rain, its preposterous size made the exaggerated curve of its body breaching the waves visible. Slender tentacles erupted from the churning sea around it, whipping wildly through the air like gigantic pythons. But the most striking feature was a twisted, piercing horn rising from the behemoth's crown, pointing straight at the heavens and surrounded by a tangible vortex of mist and cloud.

"That's it! Everyone, prepare for battle!" Ode shouted in sheer excitement.

His manic fervor infected the crew behind him, rousing their adrenaline. It was as if they could already see the end of this wretched mission, returning to Barracuda with pockets full of gold to gorge on food and fine wine.

The half-orc warrior was especially worked up, jumping and hollering until he nearly slipped right into the sea.

Only Sarissa maintained her baseline calm.

She might not have realized that the droning horn born from the airflow around the monster's horn possessed a mind-altering effect on intelligent creatures, but her sharp Perception made her instinctively resist the unnaturally chaotic excitement swelling in her chest.

Her brow knitted tightly. The amber, slit pupils inherited from her bloodline granted her far keener night vision than an ordinary human's. Staring at the blurry shadow churning the gale in the distance, a deeply worried thought rose in her mind.

'The size of this thing... it looks way bigger than we expected,' she thought.

But there was no time for Sarissa to voice her warning. Spurred on by the horn's subtle influence, and with the ship rapidly closing the distance, Ode had already hoisted his Whale Anchor.

Thick, heavy iron chains wrapped loop after loop around his arms and waist, while he aimed the harpoon's razor-sharp tip directly at the colossal shadow in the water. Ode suddenly took a deep breath. His already massive frame bulged another size larger, his highly defined muscles swelling beneath his soaked clothes until the fabric threatened to rip apart.

Stepping forward into a lunge, he leaned back, settling into a coiled stance to build momentum. His entire body resembled a fully drawn longbow.

And then...

Whoosh!!!

A shrieking tear through the air erupted in an instant.

The Whale Anchor vanished from his palm in the blink of an eye. In its place was a silver-gray blur that shredded the rain as it shot toward the distant sea, trailing a thick iron chain that sparked furiously as it was rapidly pulled taut.

Hissss—Boom!

KABOOM!

A deafening clap of thunder echoed through the sky.

Low, churning leaden clouds had fully blanketed most of the heavens.

The torrential rain battered down, and the ocean swelled.

The storm had arrived.

The Black Tide Hunter Ship, having departed moments ago, had long since vanished into the distant crests of the waves. The Blade of Vengeance Ship, meanwhile, remained anchored in place, quietly awaiting the descent of the natural disaster.

Thanks to Xia Nan and Hein spotting the squall early, the crew had already finished their preparations and were currently holding fast at their respective stations. Taking advantage of this final window before the storm fully hit, Xia Nan used [Tidal Stabilization] to stand perfectly flat-footed beside Lorraine at the ship's helm, asking her for specific details about the Black Tide Hunter Fleet.

"They're just a decently strong Adventurer Squad. Their main focus is hunting marine beasts, earning their gold through commission payouts and selling monster materials," she explained.

"I haven't really crossed paths with them before, so I don't know too much."

"Hmm... 'Whale Anchor' Ode has a bit of a reputation. Word is he's slain quite a few monsters with high Challenge Ratings. The rest are pretty ordinary."

"What about that ranger with the Metal Longbow?" Xia Nan asked.

Lorraine manned the helm, searching her memory. "I don't have much of an impression of her."

"Why? Is she someone to look out for?"

Xia Nan nodded. "Her Class Level shouldn't be low. She's likely not far off from Ode."

"Now that's strange," Lorraine said, furrowing her brow. "If they really had a core member like that, she shouldn't be completely unknown. Or perhaps she's a recent addition to their squad?"

It had only been an offhand question anyway. Seeing that Lorraine was equally clueless about the ranger, Xia Nan dropped the subject.

He opened his mouth, about to change the topic to something else, when he suddenly paused. He had just heard a faint, familiar sound drifting over from the distance—something that sounded like a horn.

His body stiffened instinctively.

"Did you hear that?" he asked without thinking.

"Hear what?"

Lacking severely in the Perception attribute by comparison, Lorraine just gave him a bewildered look.