Chapter 99: Broken Guns

  The main deck of the Leviathan's Rib instantly descended into absolute, unmitigated chaos, but it wasn't the mindless, feral frenzy Lyra had initially expected.

  The Abyssal Sirens did not attack with standard martial strategy, but they possessed a terrifying, highly coordinated biological intelligence. They were the hunting hounds of a much larger master, and their objective was clear.

  The moment their thick, heavily scaled shark tails slammed against the wet wooden planks, they abandoned the agility of the water. They dragged their massive, heavily muscled humanoid torsos violently across the slick deck using their thick, highly clawed hands, moving with a terrifying, erratic, serpentine speed.

  But they didn't swarm the crew. They actively ignored the terrified sailors armed with simple boarding pikes.

  Instead, the Sirens surged directly toward the ship's primary defensive emplacements. They swarmed the massive, heavy iron harpoon cannons lining the port and starboard rails. Their unhinged jaws snapped viciously, their razor-sharp teeth easily tearing through the thick hemp ropes securing the weapons. They used their massive, heavy tails to violently smash the firing mechanisms and crush the nearby barrels of explosive alchemical powder.

  "They aren't trying to eat us!" Captain Thorne yelled, his voice cutting through the din, dropping its clinical calm for the very first time. He stood tall on the steering quarterdeck, raising a massive, highly complex, multi-barreled alchemical flintlock pistol. "They are actively disarming the ship for their master! Protect the cannons!"

  Zeno and Lyra emerged onto the main deck just as a massive, twelve-foot Siren violently ripped the heavy firing crank off the closest starboard harpoon cannon, rendering the massive weapon completely useless.

  "They are incredibly aggressive fish," Zeno noted, his amber eyes scanning the tactical destruction. He ignored the heavy, rolling motion of the dead ship. "And they are breaking the boat's toys."

  Lyra didn't hesitate. She didn't draw her heavy Void-Iron stiletto; the Sirens weren't wearing iron plate armor, and she needed pure speed to cover the distance between the cannons. She drew her incredibly fast, razor-sharp Elvarian dagger.

  She engaged her pale green wind Tena, moving like an absolute, lethal blur across the pitching deck. She didn't try to engage the massive beasts in tests of strength. She utilized her flawless Flowing Step, dancing incredibly quickly between the snapping, venomous jaws. She targeted their exposed, highly vulnerable bioluminescent gills located on the sides of their humanoid necks, delivering rapid, surgical slashes that instantly bled them of their magical energy and forced them away from the remaining cannons.

  Zeno took a completely different, entirely direct approach.

  He didn't run. He walked calmly directly into the center of the chaotic melee.

  A massive, particularly aggressive Siren, its jaw dripping with black oil from a ruined winch, spotted the unarmored boy in the red tunic approaching a functional cannon. It let out a horrifying, high-pitched screech and violently launched its entire massive body directly toward Zeno, intending to swallow him whole.

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  Zeno simply raised his massive, heavily spiked Rock Serpent gauntlets. He engaged his D-Rank control, pulling a highly concentrated surge of brilliant blue Tena directly into his fists.

  He didn't dodge the flying monster.

  "Heavy Punch!" Zeno roared.

  He delivered a devastating, perfectly timed straight right exactly into the absolute center of the Siren's unhinged jaw as it descended.

  The impact was catastrophic. The sheer, overwhelming kinetic force shattered the creature's massive, tooth-filled jawbone, violently throwing the heavy beast backward. It crashed heavily through the wooden railing of the ship and plummeted back into the freezing ocean with a massive splash.

  The massive harpooner, who had previously mocked them in Murkwater, stared in entirely stunned awe from the rigging.

  "More fish!" Zeno cheered, wiping the gore from his gauntlet. He cracked his knuckles, turning his absolute attention to a second Siren actively trying to tear a cannon from its mount.

  Zeno became an unstoppable, heavily armored wrecking ball. He utilized his monstrous Strength stat of 26 to completely neutralize the beasts' massive physical power. When a Siren tried to lash out with its venomous, jagged spinal fin, Zeno caught the thick fin perfectly between his heavy obsidian spikes and simply violently ripped it off the creature's head.

  The crew, seeing the massive teenager effortlessly dismantling the terrifying predators and protecting their only heavy weapons, rallied instantly around him. They reformed their defensive line, utilizing Zeno exactly as an unyielding, heavy iron anchor point to drive the remaining Sirens back into the sea.

  Within ten intense, highly violent minutes, the main deck was cleared. Dozens of dead or dying Sirens littered the slick wooden planks, their bioluminescent blue blood mixing with the salt water.

  Captain Thorne lowered his smoking alchemical pistol, walking slowly down the wooden stairs to the main deck. He didn't look at his dead crewmen. He looked at Zeno, who was cheerfully wiping a smear of blue blood from his dark red Crimson Spider-Silk tunic.

  "Your heavy assault capabilities were accurately advertised, Vanguard," Thorne stated, his icy grey eyes filled with a terrifying, absolute pragmatism. "However, their tactical objective was partially successful. We have lost sixty percent of our harpoon cannons. And the pod has completely retreated into the deep water."

  "That is good," Zeno smiled broadly. "Now you can fix the magical engine and we can stop rocking."

  "We cannot fix the engine," Thorne corrected, his voice heavily laced with a sudden, absolute urgency. "They didn't just sabotage the displacement runes. They dragged the primary intake manifold into the ocean. We are completely dead in the water. We are sitting ducks."

  Thorne ignored the cheering crew. He looked up at the main mast.

  "Look," the Captain commanded.

  Lyra and Zeno followed his gaze.

  The incredibly dark, freezing water of the Southern Ocean surrounding the heavy galleon began to change. The choppy swells smoothed out into an entirely unnatural, glassy calm.

  And then, the water began to violently, aggressively boil.

  It wasn't heat. It was absolute, massive biological displacement.

  A colossal, terrifying shadow began to rapidly rise from the crushing depths of the ocean floor directly beneath the dead ship. It was so massive it completely eclipsed the entire galleon.

  "The Sirens were merely the hunting hounds," Thorne stated, his voice completely chilling in its absolute certainty. "They disabled our engine and destroyed our heavy guns specifically to pin us in place for the master."

  A massive, incredibly thick, dark purple, entirely suction-cupped tentacle, larger than the ship's main mast, violently erupted from the boiling ocean surface. It slammed brutally onto the main deck, instantly crushing three of the remaining functional heavy cannons into scrap iron.

  "The Abyssal Kraken," Lyra whispered, sheer terror washing over her.