"Isn't this boat ride going a little too smoothly?" I turned to Seraph.
"No unintelligent creatures of the water like to go against one of the Merfolk... ," saying so she patted me as if to reassure that it would be okay, "well, unless they are one of the giant ones that is... oh shit!"
It was then that my senses warned me that something was off.
The boat upended and a huge mass of seaweed rose from the sea, water dripping down its gigantic body as two glowing red eyes stared at us.
'...unless they are one of the giant ones...'
If one were to describe it, it was a giant red-eyed tadpole someone had implanted a poor quality wig into.
I felt a warm grip under my arms. It was Seraph.
"That bitch Undine, I knew she'd send someone after me, but didn't expect it to be one of the Sentries," cursing more under her breath, she raised her left arm, shining concentric circles forming around it as she did so. Odd shapes formed within the circles and then a giant wave of yellow energy shot out of them.
It blistered across the skin of the Sentry where the energy touched it. Heat? From a mermaid?
In response it opened its mouth and began swallowing the water.
"It would be a good idea to swim as far away from me as you can right about now, Taeyang. Go!"
And I did, but not before I swung one of my daggers straight into the left eye of the Sentry and shot a bullet into the same location the dagger pierced.
Take that, you ugly tadpole!
Within seconds giant golden shapes formed upon the surface of the water around Seraph. Some concentric circles, others too jumbled together to make out what they were.
And these shapes expanded, expanded until the Sentry was in them. It was then that the giant screamed. It was a horrific sound. It's body started blistering at a rapid rate and the water within the giant diagram began evaporating.
And then Seraph let go, the diagram vanished and the Sentry sunk back into the sea. It wasn't dead yet, but definitely in great pain.
Seraph swam up to me, "I bet you have a lot of questions, but first we need to get ourselves a ride."
The keraks fortunately survived, apparently Seraph had sent them away as soon as the Sentry showed up. But our boat was done for.
"If you could summon this, why did we even use a boat in the first place?"
We were lying on top of a large snow white whale that had patches of light blue glowing across its body.
"The Aria don't usually move around the Mer island, and since this place is close to it's underwater nest, it was possible to summon it here."
The keraks weren't fit for riding, Seraph demonstrated it to me when I asked about just riding them instead. Their backs were rough and it was easy to fall off them. So here we were lying down on a large whale that would reach our destination within two days.
Most importantly though, I was running out of bullets and the dagger in my left sock was the only other weapon I had.