Shrouded Seascape

Staring at the Levitation Fiends in the air, Charles knew that their bodies were tough and they were also incredibly strong. As such, he decided not to engage with them directly. Flapping his wings, he propelled himself toward a nearby slope.

The gigantic bat immediately caught the attention of the Levitation Fiends, and they changed their target of pursuit.

Charles initially thought that everything was going according to plan. However, in the midst of his flight, a glimmer of light flashed ahead of him, and a Levitation Fiend suddenly materialized in front of him.

A man with his face covered in skull tattoos was perched on its shoulder. A smug smirk appeared on the man's countenance as he adjusted his single-lensed brass glasses. It seemed like the Levitation Fiend's sudden materialization was his doing. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

At this point, it was too late for Charles to dodge. The heavy stone pillar swung toward him and struck him with a heavy impact.

Charles spat out a large mouthful of blood as he spiraled toward the ground. He was instantly thrown into a stage of crisis. During his descent, he noticed the Levitation Fiends swarming toward him in all directions. He knew that if he didn't save himself now, he would die here.

He clenched down hard on his teeth and flapped his wings vigorously to suspend himself in mid-air once more. By this point, the Levitation Fiends had encircled him and raised their stone pillars, ready to strike.

Charles inhaled a deep breath and opened his monstrous maws to let out an ear-piercing screech.

The Levitation Fiends drifted away in an attempt to dodge the sonar attack. One of them was slightly slower than the rest and suffered the consequences—its air sac burst instantaneously.

A flicker of hope ignited in Charles' heart. He seemed to have found the creatures' weakness.

However, he didn't have time to exploit it as the pirates had already caught up. One of them even took out a Mirrorbox.

Spotting the glaring light leaking out from within the Mirrorbox, Charles instinctively felt a wave of terror washing over him. He turned and retreated at full speed.

However, his diversion had been successful. Using the time that he bought, he saw that his two human companions and the mice had already reached the seaside.

At the same time, he received bad news, too. He noticed several spots of light approaching from the sea—they were the searchlights of the pirate ships!

Charles swiftly descended toward his companions. Turning back into a human, he took out a plasma bag and fed on its contents.

"We need to get back to our ship immediately. The pirates' warships are coming!"

"We probably won't make it if we were to retrace our way back. We should just swim back from here," Feuerbach suggested as he pointed to the sea.

"Are you crazy? Do you know how far it is?"

"Don't worry, Captain Charles. Please trust me. The sea is my turf. Also, I don't wish to be captured by the pirates either," Feuerbach said and flashed a brilliant smile at Charles.

Seeing the lights on the sea drawing nearer and nearer to them, Charles gritted his teeth and plunged into the water.

It was dark and oppressive under the water. With his night vision, Charles could vaguely discern something swimming toward them in the darkness.

Just then, Feuerbach's deep green hair swiftly flared and swayed with the water as though they had transformed into aquatic plants.

Using his hands, Feuerbach signaled with a flag semaphore for Charles and Tobba to wait. His lips then parted as if singing a tune. Sound didn't really travel well in water, so Charles couldn't hear anything.

A few moments later, the water surface above them brightened. The pirate ships had reached overhead.

Just as Charles was signaling with flag semaphore to Feuerbach to ask what he was doing, the dark waters stirred. Something was causing ripples as it charged toward them.

Under the illumination of the lights overhead, Charles quickly recognized the creatures. They were six giant sharks with dark red skin and measured almost seven meters long.

Feuerbach gently caressed the fins of one of the sharks before turning to Charles to flash a triumph thumbs-up.

Seeing that something was entering the water from above, Charles swiftly climbed onto the back of one of the sharks.

Once everyone had a firm grip on their mounts, the sharks swayed their powerful tails and propelled forward at an extraordinary speed.

The immense water pressure distorted Charles’ facial features. The shark was astonishingly fast. He felt as though he was riding a high-speed torpedo.

About a minute later, Charles struggled to open his eyes and saw that the illumination overhead had disappeared. Within such a short time, they had already left the coast behind.

Charles noticed Lily with bubbles escaping from her mouth. Her face twisted in agony as she struggled to breathe.

Charles grabbed her and stuffed her into his mouth before signaling to Feuerbach to ascend to the water's surface.

"Are these your fish?" Charles asked Feuerbach as he panted from the quick burst of oxygen.

The green-haired young lad nodded with a smug grin. "I told you, I have some tricks up my sleeve when it comes to the sea. These little guys are named Tricks."

After briefly surfacing to the surface for air, they submerged into the water again, and the sharks carried them further into the dark waters.

As the coastal lights slowly faded into the distance, darkness soon enveloped them. The water's temperature seemed to have significantly dropped as well. Just then, Charles' senses warned him that something was approaching.

The next moment, a black, viscous, humanoid mass lunged at Tobba's thigh from below. However, two sharks swarmed in from the side. Their fearsome jaws dug into the mass and violently tore at it.

The mass was shredded into pieces in no time.

Charles stared at Feuerbach's green hair in the distance. He was now certain that the man was lying. Anyone capable of taming so many ferocious sharks could not possibly be a novice.

Regardless of Feuerbach's true intentions, at least he was on their side, for now.

After another thirty minutes, Charles emerged to the water's surface for oxygen again. This time, he spotted ships on the sea. It was his ship, the Narwhale.

Dragging Tobba, whose eyes were turning white and was continuously spitting out water, Charles swam toward the Narwhale.

By the time he climbed the soft ladder and landed on the deck, the captains from the other ships had heard of the news and gathered on the Narwhale. Right at the forefront was, as usual, the agitated Kord.

"How did it go? Did you find any clues to the resources?"

Accepting the towel from Dipp, Charles dried his wet hair as he walked toward his resting quarters.

In the dimly lit captain's cabins, everyone watched with apparent nervousness as a drenched Charles rapidly sketched a map of the island on the paper with both hands.

Soon, a detailed map of Skywater Island appeared on the paper. Charles tapped on the left edge of the island with the tip of his pen.

"This is where they get their fuel. According to my investigation, there's enough fuel for all of us."

Charles then dotted several dashed lines across the map.

"I've marked a few freshwater waterfalls. The closest one to the fuel point is about five kilometers to the left. We can replenish our freshwater supply on the return trip while transporting the fuel back."

"Great! We shall proceed with that!" Kord then rose to his feet, ready to leave the cabin.

"I'm not done yet! Why the hurry?" Charles immediately called out to call Kord.

"Now, I'm going to talk about the enemy pirates' combat formation," Charles said as he drew a circle around the docks of Skywater Island.

"A large number of warships are docked here. Based on my previous encounter, they’re extremely fast at providing reinforcements. If they obstruct our path while we are replenishing our supplies, every single one of us will meet our end on this island."

1. Scientifically speaking, sound travels faster in water compared to air. However, human ears are not good at picking up sound in the water as we evolved to pick up sound in the air.