Chapter 527 Dragonborn, Spinning

The Barbarian Aken's heavy, powerful strike landed dead center!

Although the brief paralysis from "Hold Person" slightly disrupted his wind-up and kept the axe cleave from reaching its intended power, the blade still dealt a devastating blow the moment it struck the Wind-Seed Octopus's vital spot.

"Squelch-thud!"

Wrapped in a blue fluorescent glow, the axe blade carried the immense strength of a Class Grade Barbarian, piercing the octopus's highly resilient skin in an instant.

Pale blue blood gushed out. Through the wound, the writhing muscle tissue and the keratin at the base of its horn were clearly visible.

Screech—

The high-frequency, agonizing shriek of the Wind-Seed Octopus sent visible ripples radiating through the surrounding seawater.

Whatever meager reason remained in the massive, ferocious monster's mind was banished by the agony erupting from its head, leaving only a violent, raging urge to destroy everything.

Its eight thick tentacles turned into dark-brown whips capable of wringing steel into scrap, thrashing wildly through the surrounding water.

Friend or foe meant nothing; any sahuagin lackeys caught in the crossfire were pulverized into unrecognizable mounds of minced meat.

Aken had been prepared for this. The moment his axe fell, he decisively pulled back.

He fell back to regroup with Lorraine and the twin Warriors, Ryan and Gordon.

Unable to speak underwater, he gave Xia Nan a distant hand signal to thank him for the support.

With that, their plan to intercept the Wind-Seed Octopus had achieved initial success.

Yet neither Lorraine, who formulated the plan, nor the Barbarian Aken, who delivered the final cleave, showed any signs of relief.

Instead, their expressions grew even more solemn, bordering on grim.

They knew the most dangerous phase was just beginning.

Driven by pain and fury, the Wind-Seed Octopus might no longer target the Blade of Vengeance Ship, but it clearly wasn't going to flee either.

Instead, it shifted its aggression from the ship directly to the culprits who had caused its agony: Lorraine and the others.

For the foreseeable future, they would have to endure the frenzied retaliation of this massive sea monster in the dim, freezing, and desolate depths beneath the waves.

The violent shrieks filling their ears, the deafening churn of water whipped by tentacles, and the harrowing battle ahead pushed the group's mental pressure to the absolute limit.

Fortunately, they were all Class Grade veteran adventurers with abundant combat experience. Having fought side by side for years, they possessed exceptional psychological resilience.

Any ordinary adventurer would have been terrified out of their wits and fled long ago.

On the other side of the battlefield, Xia Nan—who was intercepting the sahuagin attacking the Blade of Vengeance Ship while hunting for the remaining sahuagin priest—was fully aware of Lorraine's predicament.

He felt an overwhelming urge to rush over and lend them his support.

However, his current task was also a crucial part of their prior strategy.

Only by eliminating all the fishman Spellcasters in the enemy ranks could the rest of the team fight without looking over their shoulders.

Otherwise, another sneak attack at a critical moment—like the sahuagin priest's earlier "Hold Person"—could easily cause their already precarious situation to collapse entirely.

'Where is it?'

Casually decapitating a fishman lackey blocking his path, Xia Nan pushed his Perception to the absolute limit.

Meanwhile, on the deck of the Blade of Vengeance Ship.

"Thrum-swish!"

Sarissa, the last survivor of the Black Tide Hunter Crew who had previously been disarmed as a precaution, was once again wearing her Fine-grade light leather armor. The Metal Longbow known as the [Silver-Vein Longbow] had returned to her hands.

As a veteran Class Holder with years of maritime adventuring experience, she had quickly seized the highest vantage point on the ship the moment the battle began.

Using the straps on her back and waist, she anchored herself firmly to the towering mast.

—

The insides of her specially crafted leather boots featured sharp metal plates designed for anchoring. She drove them into the mast to support her body, keeping her two long, powerful legs as steady as if she were standing on flat ground.

Her left hand, calloused at the web and palm, gripped the stringless longbow tightly. Her right hand made no special movements, nor did it pinch a physical arrow between its fingers.

Instead, with an incredibly Proficient and casual motion, she brought it between the limbs of the bow.

"Thruuum—"

Ambient magic particles suddenly condensed in the air, and runes flickered with a radiant glow along the inner curve of the Metal Longbow.

Crackle—

Formed entirely from pure mana and condensed magic particles, a slender bowstring bridged the two ends of the bow.

Though composed of formless energy, the string exhibited the physical traits of solid matter, allowing Sarissa's fingers to pluck it.

As she pulled it back forcefully, a silvery-white arrow—also constructed from magic particles—materialized on the string, nocked perfectly between her index and middle fingers.

She took aim and released.

"Swish!"

Even with just a brief charge, the arrow fired from the [Silver-Vein Longbow] traveled far faster than any mundane projectile.

It was nothing more than a fleeting streak of silvery-white light cutting through the air.

A split second later, a rapidly dissipating energy arrow buried itself dead center into the skull of a fishman lackey that had just clambered over the railing to attack the crew.

Killed instantly, the sheer kinetic force of the arrow shoved its center of gravity backward, sending it tumbling into the ocean with a heavy splash.

"Slash! Slash! Slash!"

A long, fluffy tail swayed gently behind his back, perfectly maintaining his balance.

The agile tabaxi, Sasha, blurred into a phantom. The soft, incredibly elastic pads on his paws absorbed almost all the kinetic shock of his movements. Wielding his twin short swords to their absolute limits, every strike felled a fishman grunt, reaping lives with terrifying efficiency.

With manpower stretched thin, the Halfling Alton no longer had the luxury of hiding in the backline strumming his lute for buffs. Right now, he was locked in a bitter struggle with an elite four-armed fishman guard.

His diminutive stature granted him nimble mobility. Dodging and weaving between its legs, he used his Short Dagger to carve a series of shallow wounds into the enemy.

This slippery fighting style infuriated the fishman guard. It blindly smashed its trident downward, only for the missed prongs to get wedged deep into the deck planks.

It yanked with all four arms, trying to wrench its weapon free, but the effort left its body stiff and exposed for a critical second.

"Thrum-bang!"

The high-frequency whine of volatile energy echoed through the air.

Three crimson Magic Missiles slammed into its face in rapid succession, striking from an impossibly precise angle.

Thanks to the unique property of force magic, which ignored almost all defensive resistances, the very first missile left the creature completely dazed.

The subsequent two delivered catastrophic injury and then death.

By the time the impact of the Magic Missiles blasted the fishman guard to the floor, its hideous face had been reduced to a mangled mess of blood, spraying minced flesh and gore.

The caster, of course, was the druid Hein, the sole core Spellcaster on the field.

To provide maximum support to her teammates, she hadn't shapeshifted into an albatross to hide in the sky. Instead, surrounded by a protective ring of sailors, she stood near the stairs leading to the stern, raining down spells to aid the crew.

An archer, a Ranger, a bard, and a druid.

Even with their main melee fighters having abandoned the ship to plunge into the ocean, these four Class Holders synergized well enough to lead the crew in holding the deck against the sahuagin onslaught.

"Swish!"

Another fully charged, silvery-white energy arrow tore across the deck, helping the tabaxi Sasha finish off an elite fishman guard.

Lashed to the mast, Sarissa was panting heavily. Her chest heaved, and strands of her platinum-blonde hair clung messily to her sweat-drenched cheeks.

While the [Silver-Vein Longbow] had the convenient perk of lacking a physical string and conjuring its own arrows, this came with a hidden drawback: drawing it drained far more physical stamina than a regular bow, constantly sapping the user's mental fortitude and focus.

Under normal circumstances, Sarissa would only fire at critical moments to create openings for her teammates.

Right now, however, she couldn't afford to hold back.

Her former comrades had all been dragged into the ocean by these cursed fishmen and sea monsters, their very corpses reduced to sacrificial offerings.

Every arrow she loosed was vengeance for her fallen crew.

The Blade of Vengeance Fleet had rescued her from the thoroughly demolished Black Tide Hunter Ship and trusted her enough to return her weapons; if they fell in this battle, she highly doubted she'd be lucky enough to survive again, much less stumble across another adventurer party willing to save her.

Logically and emotionally, she owed it to them to give this fight everything she had.

However—

Gasping for breath, Sarissa cast her amber, slit-pupiled gaze toward the churning ocean near the side of the ship.

There, amid the unnatural swells of the water, the silhouette of a colossal shadow loomed, flickering in and out of sight beneath the fleeting flashes of lightning from the heavens.

This woman with dragonborn blood knew perfectly well that the sahuagin they were currently fending off were not the primary threat.

If the teammates who had dove into the sea to intercept the beast failed, no amount of effort on deck would matter; they would inevitably be dragged into the abyss by the Wind-Seed Octopus's tentacles.

"Aaaargh!"

Lost in thought, she was snapped back to reality by the furious roars of the sailors fighting below.

Ignoring her severely depleted stamina, Sarissa gritted her teeth. With a trembling right hand, she drew back the energy string once more.

But before she could aim, the sharp whistle of parted air from a blind spot behind her head sent a chill down her spine.

Without even looking to see what was coming, her survival instincts took over. She instantly yanked the slipknot on her waist strap, pushed hard against the mast with both hands, and threw herself backward.

"Swish-thwack!"

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a glowing, energy-forged trident grazing past her shoulder.

—2nd-Circle · Evocation · Spiritual Weapon!

If she had reacted even a fraction of a second slower, she and her bow would have been pinned dead to the mast.

However, her hasty, instinctual dodge cost her the high ground, sending her plummeting from the mast.

Just then, a massive wave struck, tilting the ship violently.

It was hard to say whether it was a stroke of luck or sheer misfortune.

Her landing zone wasn't the deck, which meant Sarissa didn't have to worry about fall damage.

But at the same time, as a Ranger and archer whose primary expertise lay in ranged combat, falling into waters swarming with vicious fishmen was nothing short of a nightmare.

"Splash!"

Water erupted around her.

The freezing ocean swallowed Sarissa whole.

Still gripping her Metal Longbow, she held her breath and forced her eyes open underwater.

Entering her vision was a sahuagin priest just a short distance away, swimming directly toward her under the protection of two four-armed elite guards.

The spectral trident that had followed her down into the ocean now hovered beside it, proving that it was the one who had attacked her.

Though a surge of dread filled her heart, Sarissa didn't abandon her will to survive. Raising the longbow to her chest, she tried to draw the string.

But even faster was the spectral trident rocketing toward her through the water.

Her crystalline amber eyes reflected the magical glare flashing through the sea. It was a foregone conclusion: even if she loosed her arrow, the trident would impale her chest in the next instant.

As for dodging—

She wasn't a fish. Humanoid limbs simply couldn't provide the rapid mobility needed to evade effectively underwater.

In that fleeting moment, Sarissa's eyes filled with absolute resolve.

As an adventurer, she had long since accepted that she might die in the middle of a mission.

Desperately drawing the string, she prepared to fire the final arrow of her career as a Class Holder before death took her.

But just then, for some inexplicable reason, the seemingly empty water violently churned as if stirred by an invisible force, sending up a flurry of bubbles.

Sarissa felt what seemed like an intangible hand grab her waist and yank her hard to the side.

Though the jolt ruined her aim, sending her arrow shooting harmlessly out of the water, it also pulled her clear of the spectral trident meant to impale her.

'Why!?'

Bewildered, Sarissa had no time to dwell on it.

A low, resonant wolf howl from her flank snatched her complete attention.

The underwater environment was already incredibly dim, and the churning bubbles from the ocean currents made it nearly impossible to see what was happening.

All Sarissa could make out was a blurred, ferocious silhouette of a wolf beast lunging alongside the howl.

Its speed was terrifying, implying some sort of innate aquatic mobility.

It had been quite a distance away just a second ago, yet it closed the gap and appeared right in front of the fishmen in the blink of an eye.

Bizarrely, under the pall of that howl, the fishman guards and priest—who had been eyeing her like prime prey just moments prior—fell into total disarray. Their previous bloodthirst and savagery vanished, replaced by an overwhelming panic and deep-seated terror in their movements.

Some even completely lost their will to fight and immediately turned to flee.

Awooo— The wolf's howl echoed hauntingly through the water.

Accompanied by a crimson arc that exploded like a firework, the fishmen's shrieks abruptly ceased.

In their place were several mutilated heads spinning through the water, their faces frozen in terror.