Charles froze in place for a full three seconds before he was awakened by the prayer of the First Officer's bandage.
He looked down to see that the First Officer's bandage had somehow come beside him, constantly kneeling in worship toward the colossal eye in the sky.
With clenched teeth, Charles grabbed the bandage and stumbled into the cockpit.
Charles, his face ashen, didn't answer, and he slammed the door shut. With rapid movements of his hands over the control equipment, the lights of the Unicorne quickly went out, merging the exploration ship with the darkness.
Just then, the Second Officer's voice came through the communication pipe, "Captain, what happened up there, why did you start—"
The next second, the Second Officer's voice turned to sheer panic, "My God, have we encountered the 'God' in the darkness? We're finished, we're totally finished!!"
"Second Officer! Shut up!" Charles roared into the pipe, veins bulging on his face.
Beside him, the First Officer's body would not stop trembling; his body, entwined in bandages, curled up on the floor, mumbling indistinct prayer words.
Charles rushed over following the sound, covered his mouth forcefully with his hand, and whispered in a low voice, "That's not your Futan God! Don't you see that thing is up in the sky?"
Inside the pitch-dark cabin, a tense atmosphere began to spread; apart from rapid breathing, no other sound was heard.
After a few minutes, Deep's deep voice came over, sounding as if suppressing emotion.
"Captain, which deity did you just see? Maybe we should pray to it, I've heard that if you encounter a 'God' and pray devoutly, it will let us go."
Charles said nothing, not knowing which God it was, nor wanting to know what that thing was; all he wanted now was for it to leave quickly.
"Hum…" A deep resonance sounded from the dark sky above.
This sound made everyone on board shiver and their scalps tingle; the sound continued momentarily, then strange noises started coming from the deck, and they grew more and more frequent.
"Damn! Something's boarding the ship!"
Charles's heart clenched; he knew he couldn't just sit and wait to die. If this continued, everyone on board would perish.
With a determined heart, he dashed to various control instruments and instantly turned on all light sources.
Outside the glass, red fleshy masses were crawling, unknown where they came from, preying on the bright yellow "snow" on the deck.
"Chief Engineer! Turbine overload!! We're getting out of this hellish place at full speed!!"
The dormant Unicorne emitted a low hum, its speed rapidly increased.
Seeing the grotesque monsters jumping into the sea from the deck, Charles felt no joy. The true danger was above in the sky; he dared not check if that thing was still there; one eyeball alone could obscure half the sky, and he could hardly imagine how large its owner might be. Now all he could do was flee with all his might.
Suddenly, the Unicorne violently shook, the bandaging, and Deep harshly slammed against the wall. Then, a chaotic noise and a scream came from the turbine room's pipes.
"Captain!! Something's breached the turbine room! The Second Chief Engineer is dead!"
A metallic, grating noise rang out, and outside the glass, several columns like gigantic fingers stretched down from the sky, gripping the vessel.
Immediately after, Charles discovered the ship was immobile, and it was slowly rising, grasped by something that had seized the Unicorne.
"Fuck! This is my ship to get home! You'll have to step over my dead body to take it!" Furious, Charles no longer cared about anything else and suddenly pulled the searchlight up, rushing recklessly to the deck.
Upon reaching the deck, Charles abruptly looked up, and finally saw the true nature of the thing in the sky—it was a butterfly monster, more than ten times bigger than the Unicorne.
The thing gripping the Unicorne was its insect leg; the eye he had just seen was a speckled pattern on the butterfly's wings. As the wings flapped, specks of bright yellow scale powder fell from the sky.
Despite the oppressive presence of the monster before him, a smile appeared on Charles's face. It wasn't some damn God above, he was almost deceived—a monster, no matter how large, was merely a beast.
A low-frequency resonance sounded again, and the giant moth's other sub-legs jabbed towards the searchlight, apparently disliking the bright light.
Charles quickly rushed to the deck gun, "Lily, load the shells for me!"
By the time the shells were loaded, the Unicorne had already drifted seven or eight meters away from the sea surface.
He couldn't let it cling to the ship any longer! Charles moved the gun barrel towards the giant leg that was embedded in the side of the ship.
"Brace yourselves!" There was a loud explosion, and the insect leg, formed of black chitin, burst instantly, with red and green insect juice splashing all around.
The Unicorne, mid-air, smashed forcefully onto the water, stirring up waves. If it had been a wooden ship, it would have broken apart by now.
Ignoring his chin that was bashed and bleeding profusely, Charles shouted excitedly toward the cockpit, "Start the ship! Quick, start the ship!"
"Captain! Look behind you quickly!!" Deep in the cockpit stood in front of the glass, frantically waving his arms in panic.
Charles turned around and saw the giant butterfly, now with one leg severed, appearing right in front of the bow; the two antennae on its head were vibrating, and the droning sound got louder and louder, seemingly enraged.
"You want more, huh? Fine! I'm all in!" With a hint of madness, Charles adjusted the gun barrel toward the vicious insect head of the giant butterfly.
Just as the atmosphere around tightened to the utmost, a massive column of water, three times larger than the giant butterfly, surged up between them.
The water burst open violently, and a translucent, giant hand with sinister patterns, as large as a mountain peak, appeared on the water surface.
At the sight of that hand, Charles immediately heard a deafening whispering in his ears, and everything in front of him began to distort while his sense of self rapidly dissipated.
With a howling wind, the sky-darkening hand slapped toward the giant butterfly. The giant palm contacting the water caused massive waves to rise high, evolving into a severe tsunami covering the Unicorne.
In a daze, Charles saw a giant walking between heaven and earth, its whole body glowing green, with a soft head covered in numerous tendrils, forelimbs resembling droopy claw-like appendages, and a ferocious mouth dripping with mucus stretching from its chin down to its belly.
"Boom!!" The overwhelming wave crashed onto the deck, sweeping Charles, who stood in place, into the sea, while Deep inside the cockpit ine who witnessed this scene, dived down after him.
"Captain! Wake up, wake up! Captain!"
Charles slowly opened his eyes, only to find himself somehow back in the Captain's Room.
"Sigh~" Seeing Charles open his eyes, the crew members around him all sighed in relief, and Lily even burst into tears.
Ignoring the stabbing pain in his brain, Charles asked the Second Officer beside him, "Are we safe now? Where are we now?"
The red-headed young man showed a bitter smile, "It's safe for now, but I'm not sure where we are..."