Chapter 523 [Silver-Vein Longbow]

[Silver-Vein Longbow]

Type: Bow and Arrow. Grade: Fine (Green).

Effects:

1. +20% arm stability (when holding the bow);

2. +15% shooting accuracy;

3. +10% magic penetration;

4. [Empty String]: The [Silver-Vein Longbow] can condense magic particles from the air to form a bowstring and arrows. Charging the shot increases the number and power of the arrows (0.3–3 seconds).

Description:

A fine masterpiece forged by an arcane master who moonlighted as a blacksmith. The magic runes engraved on the inner side of the bow limb ensure its wielder no longer needs to worry about running out of arrows, but rather about the concentration of magic particles in the air.

Note: "Scrap iron!"

— Words scratched into a wall of the Chromatic Ring City Anti-Magic Prison using the limb of the bow.

Aboard the Blade of Vengeance Ship, inside a certain medical room.

Xia Nan pulled his gaze away from the Metal Longbow leaning against the wall, feeling quite satisfied.

It was a very interesting weapon.

Its biggest feature was its lack of a bowstring and the fact that it required no prepared arrows, instead condensing magic particles from the air to launch attacks.

It even possessed a rare "+10% magic penetration" effect.

However, according to the description on the Attribute Panel, the concentration of magic particles in the air seemed to affect the bow's power.

Xia Nan had never cared for equipment with such heavy restrictions, so the interest initially sparked by the [Silver-Vein Longbow]'s unique appearance instantly faded.

Of course, a large part of that was because he had finally seen the longbow's Attribute Panel.

As he spent more time in this world, his use of his golden finger had shifted from clumsy to increasingly proficient.

Often, even when just passing a nondescript street stall, he would stop and scan it to see if he could pick up a hidden treasure.

Observing the attributes of passing adventurers' weapons and equipment was practically a daily routine.

Earlier, when the Black Tide Hunter Fleet rushed past, Xia Nan had spotted the uniquely shaped Metal Longbow in the ranger's hands. He had felt a bit of regret because he couldn't call up its Attribute Panel due to the distance, but now his wish had been fulfilled.

Arms crossed and leaning slightly against the wall, Xia Nan looked toward the center of the room.

There, the slit-pupiled ranger they had just rescued from the ruined Black Tide Hunter Ship lay quietly on a bed, having received preliminary treatment.

Her chest rose and fell in a regular rhythm, and her breathing was steady. She was clearly out of danger.

As a Class Grade adventurer, her physical constitution was leagues beyond that of an ordinary person.

Many severe injuries that would kill a normal human on the spot could generally be survived by an adventurer with a swig of a Healing Potion and some light bandaging.

"Are you sure it was Sahuagins that attacked them?" Lorraine asked around the cigarette dangling from her lips, paying absolutely no mind to the ranger currently lying on the sickbed.

"I don't know exactly what role they played in all this, but they're definitely connected," Xia Nan said, handing her the blue-green scales he had scavenged from the Black Tide Hunter Ship earlier.

Neither he nor Lorraine were strangers to dealing with Sahuagins.

Even a single small scale was enough to identify them.

"But I suspect something else attacked them alongside the fishmen, otherwise the Black Tide Hunter Ship wouldn't look like that."

Sahuagins might be far stronger than average people, but even their four-armed elite guards couldn't instantly kill a Class Grade half-orc, much less tear his body in half with sheer brute force.

Not to mention snapping an entire ship in two.

Without a doubt, the Black Tide Hunter Fleet had faced an enemy far more powerful than just the Sahuagins.

"Could it be—" Lorraine paused, trailing off, but Xia Nan already understood what she meant.

She suspected it was the Shark Beast, the terrifyingly powerful monster that had once nearly wiped out the Blade of Vengeance.

Xia Nan simply shook his head.

"Most likely not."

At first, he had also suspected that the Sahuagins brought a Shark Beast along to ambush the Black Tide Hunter Adventurer Squad.

After all, that kind of monster possessed extraordinary physical strength and shared a strangely close connection with the fishmen.

However, after a careful inspection, Xia Nan quickly dismissed that theory.

For one thing, based solely on his past encounters, while the Sahuagins could summon a Shark Beast through a sacrificial ritual, their actual control over the monster was relatively weak.

In previous instances where a Shark Beast appeared, the battlefield had been littered with the corpses of Sahuagins. The creature was uncontrollable.

Fighting in coordinated unison with the fishmen would be exceedingly difficult for it.

For another, Xia Nan hadn't found the signature bite marks of a Shark Beast on the half-orc's wounds or on the splintered planks where the Black Tide Hunter Ship was snapped.

Instead, flesh had been torn apart and ship timbers snapped entirely by sheer brute force.

"Let's wait for her to wake up before asking for the details," Xia Nan said, jutting his chin toward the ranger on the bed.

Right now they were only guessing. The clearest answers would come from someone who had actually experienced it.

Judging by how her wounds were healing, she would likely regain consciousness soon, and the Black Tide Hunter Crew's ordeal would finally come to light.

"Ugh—" Just as Xia Nan and Lorraine were talking, a soft, pained groan suddenly drifted from the bed.

Sarissa slowly opened her eyes.

An entirely unfamiliar ceiling greeted her sight.

Her expression was blank.

'Where is this—'

'I—'

She wasn't fully awake yet, and her thoughts were a tangled knot of yarn, impossible to sort out.

But a second later, fragmented images flashed through her mind like a spinning zoetrope.

A torrential downpour, leaden clouds, howling winds, and crashing waves; the shrieks of fishmen, the furious roars and agonized screams of her teammates—and that massive tentacle wrapping around the gunwale, tearing the ship apart.

"Ah!" she gasped as the events just before her blackout flooded her mind. Her hands instinctively braced against the bed to push herself up, but the painful weakness radiating through her entire body sent her collapsing back down.

Two sets of footsteps reached her ears.

She looked over.

Fiery, long red curls, and deeply striking, pitch-black eyes—

"Blade of Vengeance?" Sarissa's voice was hoarse and incredibly dry.

Though phrased as a question, she could piece together her current situation from the events leading up to this.

Her tension vanished instantly, replaced by a surging wave of exhaustion. Her vision went dark, and her head rolled back as she passed out once again.

When Sarissa woke up again, it was already the morning of the next day.

After a full day and night under the effects of a Healing Potion, she wasn't completely recovered and still had to stay in bed, but her mind was entirely clear, and she could converse normally.

"So it was a massive swarm of Sahuagins that attacked your fleet?" Lorraine asked with a serious expression, sitting in a backed chair by the bed.

"Yes, but they showed up later," Sarissa replied, wolfing down the bowl of meat broth in her hands with no regard for her image.

Gulping down the last mouthful of soup, she wiped her mouth and began explaining the sequence of events to Lorraine and Xia Nan.

"Our mission objective this time was a special monster known as a 'Wind-Seed Octopus'."

"They typically inhabit the deep sea and are incredibly difficult to track on normal days. It's only when they hunt that these monsters surface, using the long horn on their heads to attract prey."

"The chaotic magic particles in the air also churn up storms in the surrounding waters."

'A Wind-Seed Octopus?'

Hearing that name from her, Xia Nan's expression didn't change, but he couldn't help being taken aback inwardly.

Just a short while ago, he had seen that exact name on the Attribute Panel of the [Scale-Breath Horn].

Based on the obscure details listed in its "Description" section, the [Scale-Breath Horn] was likely crafted from the horn of this very monster, and a Wind-Seed Octopus possessed the ability to control air currents and ocean waves.

However—his mind drifted back to the rather modest size of the horn itself, and then to the sight of the completely sundered Black Tide Hunter Ship from the day before.

Clearly, the Wind-Seed Octopus that provided the core material for the [Scale-Breath Horn] must have been far smaller than the one that attacked the Black Tide Hunter Ship. It might have even been a juvenile.

As he thought this, Sarissa's explanation confirmed his suspicions.

"We sailed into the storm that day specifically to seize the opportunity to hunt the monster while it surfaced."

"But we never expected the Wind-Seed Octopus to be so much larger than we anticipated."

A flash of regret involuntarily crossed Sarissa's amber, slit-pupiled eyes as she spoke.

"We should have retreated, but—"

The resonant sound produced by the Wind-Seed Octopus's horn during its hunt could manipulate the minds and emotions of other creatures. Because of this, the Black Tide Hunter Crew had plugged their ears before sailing into the storm, and the Class Holders had preemptively taken Resistance Potions.

But perhaps due to the sheer size of the Wind-Seed Octopus they encountered, that heaven-shaking horn blast effortlessly pierced right through all their defenses.

Even with her relatively outstanding Perception, she only registered it faintly in her subconscious. The entire crew fell under the horn's influence, losing their usual calm.

"Thinking back, its size wasn't actually exaggerated to an awe-inspiring degree; it was only about three to four times larger than we expected."

"If it had just been that one Wind-Seed Octopus, we might have suffered heavy losses, but we wouldn't have ended up in this situation."

The Black Tide Hunters were a professional adventurer team specializing in hunting various sea beasts. The nearly five-meter-long harpoon wielded by their captain, "Whale Anchor" Ode, was proof enough of their vast experience and capability in slaying massive marine creatures.

Even if the Wind-Seed Octopus far exceeded their size estimates, with the adventurers and crew coordinating together, they likely would have managed to take it down eventually, no matter how bitter the victory.

However—

"Those damned Sahuagins!" Sarissa gnashed her teeth, her expression filled with hatred.

"They had long been using the waves and dark clouds to lurk deep in the nearby waters, waiting for us to engage the Wind-Seed Octopus."

"The fishmen priests controlled Guk with a spell. Before he could even swing his axe, the octopus's tentacle tore him in half."

"Captain Ode was dragged into the sea by the octopus. I wanted to help, but by then, the fishmen had already leaped onto the deck, and I—"

Sarissa didn't elaborate on the specific details of what happened next, but it was clearly a devastatingly tragic battle for the Black Tide Hunter Fleet.

Their captain's fate was unknown, her teammates died one after another, and the very ship carrying them was ripped apart by immense force.

Sarissa had been besieged by several elite fishmen guards. She barely held on with her teammates' protection, but was ultimately struck in a vital spot by a Magic Missile fired abruptly from beneath the waves, dropping her health below the safety threshold.

Just before blacking out entirely, she had managed to use "Water-Ripple Concealment"—one of her [Ranger] class's combat techniques—to mask her presence and aura. This allowed her to survive just long enough for Xia Nan and the others to pass by and save her life.

"Thank you for extending a helping hand," Sarissa said, expressing her gratitude to Xia Nan and the others. Unable to completely suppress her grief over the death of all her teammates, she forced a stiff smile.

"I'll pay you a reward once we get back to Barracuda Bay."

As an adventurer herself, Sarissa knew perfectly well that they had absolutely no obligation to save her, nor could she possibly make any additional demands of them.

She was simply expressing her thanks while simultaneously demonstrating her value, hoping Xia Nan and Lorraine wouldn't toss her aside.

Though Lorraine remained cautious of her strength as a Class Holder, Sarissa was currently gravely injured and incapable of high-intensity combat. Furthermore, they had already confiscated her weapons.

If the woman behaved herself, simply adding another mouth to feed at the dinner table in exchange for a handsome payout upon their return, Lorraine didn't mind keeping her aboard.

"Roughly how many Sahuagins did you encounter?" Xia Nan asked the woman on the bed, inquiring about the details she hadn't mentioned yet. How they negotiated later was Lorraine's business, outside the scope of his duties.

"There was an immense number of ordinary ones. The environment was too chaotic, and many more were hiding beneath the waves. I couldn't count them all."

"But as for the four-armed elites, at least a dozen boarded the ship alone. In addition, there were two fishmen priest Spellcasters."

Xia Nan nodded slightly at this, getting a general idea, and immediately followed up, "When we arrived, we didn't see the bodies of any of your other squad members besides the half-orc who had been torn in half. Is there any chance they're still alive?"

"No bodies!?" Sarissa's eyes instantly lit up as a sliver of hope seemed to rise within her upon hearing Xia Nan's words.

But a second later, the light in her amber eyes dimmed once again.

"The odds aren't likely—"

As the squad's ranged archer, she had been protected in the rear.

Because of this, Sarissa had watched almost all of her vanguards get slaughtered by the fishmen with her own eyes.

If anyone had actually survived, it would likely only be Captain Ode, who had been dragged into the sea by the Wind-Seed Octopus at the very beginning and whose fate remained unknown.

Having only asked to confirm his suspicions, Xia Nan wasn't surprised by Sarissa's answer.

Judging by his past encounters with Sahuagins in the Southern Archipelagos, why had the bodies of the Black Tide Hunter Ship's crew disappeared?

Naturally, it was because of the fishmen's sacrificial ritual.