Eldritch Horror Theatre

How could it be this fast?

Watching his companion get swatted away by the tentacle and plunge into the black seawater without any power to resist, Lane stood there as if struck by lightning.

He was usually decisive and ruthless, yet for a split second, his mind went completely blank.

In fact, everyone on the ship seemed to share the same reaction.

That was absolutely no random sea monster.

Beyond its absurdly massive size, he had seen it clearly from this distance: the unlucky bastard who took the brunt of the hit had bent at an unnatural angle the moment he was sent flying.

He hadn't made a single sound before hitting the water. He was as dead as could be.

That was absolutely the power of a Divine Being!

Even the mermaid, swatted away alongside him, had suffered almost no real injuries. Once she hit the water, she broke free from her restraints and vanished in the blink of an eye.

It wasn't impossible for that lunatic Delanlai to secretly lure the Curse Abyss onto the ship, but there was no way he could have preemptively lured the Sea God into the area too, right?

Less than half a minute had passed between getting stained with the blood and the attack. It was simply too fast!

"Lane—"

His racing thoughts were finally interrupted by a scream.

The woman in the black mask had already rushed over, yelling right in his face to wake him up.

"What are you spacing out for?!"

The furious, panicked shout finally made Lane flinch, snapping him out of his shock.

Taking a deep breath, he narrowed his eyes and warily scanned their surroundings.

The deck was a mess, but there were no further casualties.

"Where did that thing go?"

He wasn't the only one asking. Three or four people spoke up in unison, clearly snapped awake at the exact same time.

"It's gone."

"It only launched that single strike, then pulled back," the woman said coldly.

"Under the ship?"

Someone immediately reacted, huddling against the gunwale to peer down carefully.

Unfortunately, there was no trace of the tentacle amidst the churning black water.

"I can't sense it either. There doesn't seem to be anything down there..."

Meeting the expectant gazes of the crew, Lane quickly shared his own observation.

"But if it really is a Divine Being, shielding itself from my senses wouldn't be difficult."

"Could it just be here for the mermaid, rather than the stuff we got stained with? After all, its method of attack doesn't quite match the legends of the Sea God..."

Lane's assessment clearly didn't offer much comfort. The group exchanged uncertain glances, and someone weakly offered the guess.

"Well, that would be just wonderful!"

The response he got was a cold sneer from beneath the woman's mask.

"Now we have two lethal threats to worry about."

...

This interpretation was distinctly horrifying, resulting in several long seconds of dead silence.

"But it really was saving the mermaid..."

After a moment of internal struggle, the optimist she had just mocked mustered the courage to argue back.

"Yeah, and conveniently snapped one of our men in half while it was at it."

Lane coldly interjected, recalling the scene he had just witnessed.

"Judging by that, I don't see how merciful it actually is."

"If it isn't going to let us go, then where did it disappear to?"

Clearly afraid to contradict Lane directly, the optimist just looked around.

It was indeed a profound question. If the creature lacked any mercy, why did it vanish after just one attack?

"The tainted blood of the Curse Abyss is a beacon for the Sea God's wrath..."

Answering him was a trembling mutter.

The speaker was the oldest-looking man among them, repeating the phrase to himself as he constantly rubbed the dark green spots on his arm.

Unfortunately, the gesture was entirely useless. The color and stench seemed to have seeped straight into his bones.

"Whether it came because we're stained with the blood of the Curse Abyss or not, there is a high chance it hasn't given up. It's playing with us..."

Seeing that the crewman's mind was already starting to fray, Lane gritted his teeth and summed up the situation.

"Turning back now is an absolute death sentence. If we keep going inward and find a place to wait for these marks to fade, we might just have a sliver of hope!"

"Are you crazy too? I'll die before I go to a hellhole like that!"

But the Ash Sea was clearly far too terrifying. The same man who had just argued with the masked woman suddenly shouted, his voice jumping an octave.

"Fine, then get off the ship and walk back. We'll thank you for helping to distract it."

Lane had obviously already made up his mind. He sneered, perfectly willing to leave the man to his fate.

...

The dissenter was clearly not that noble.

When Lane's words reached his ears, he looked back at the crashing waves. It felt as though a pair of massive, abyssal eyes were quietly waiting within the water.

Despite his confidence in his own ability to survive in the ocean, his feet felt rooted to the deck, unable to move another inch.

"You know nothing about the ocean."

Refusing to lose face, he opted to shoot the woman a disdainful glare instead.

"Yeah. Doesn't the title Burning Ash prove that already?"

Unexpectedly, she admitted it readily, even pulling off her right glove as she spoke.

Her five fingers were visibly twisted and deformed, covered in hideous scars as if they had actually been burned by fire.

"I just don't want to die."

That final sentence sounded so cold yet sincere that it left the man completely speechless.

"Time to move."

Lane watched the exchange until the woman slipped her glove back on, then gave the order.

"I don't think that thing has much patience."

...

A normal Sea God wouldn't be this fast, of course.

As the small ship sailed at full speed once again, Fu Qian—who had returned to his room and looked as though he had never left—nodded in satisfaction.

That single strike which had sparked such frantic speculation among the group was, naturally, his own handiwork.

They were still some distance away from their destination, but this group of poachers clearly didn't want to venture any deeper. He could only force them to buy an extension ticket.

Much to his gratification, that dear fellow named Delanlai had acted as a disruptive element in this hunting operation, saving Fu Qian quite a bit of effort.

At the moment the mermaid was netted, he had known clearly that the bizarre creature lurking from before had swelled to its absolute limit.

The reason he hadn't been in a rush to intervene was precisely because of that.

Right now, beneath the bed on one side of his room, not a single trace remained.

The splatter from the explosion of that strange creature known as the Curse Abyss seemed interested solely in organic matter.

And judging from the group's conversation, this seemingly ordinary presence could actually attract a divine entity of the sea. It was nothing short of miraculous.

Although he didn't know why Delanlai had done such a thing, after observing the group's reaction to the anomaly, Fu Qian hadn't let the lore go to waste. He had decisively dove underwater and delivered that single lash, successfully achieving twice the result with half the effort.

Very soon, a continuous stretch of dark silhouettes emerged through the torrential rain in the distance.

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