Rain pelted the bloodied deck, gradually cleansing it alongside the massive waves of water ripping through the hole on the right side of the upper deck.
The bodies of the dead men coasted along the waves, battering into the stairs that led to the stern of the deck and smashing into the companions of the dead sailors, sending a couple more men overboard in one manic scream.
Syllian stopped pulling on the sail, gazing at the chaos blankly.
'What can I even do?'
Nothing.
He had no knowledge of ships.
He had no leadership capability.
He wasn't strong enough to fight whatever that Mutant was.
He was weak, in every manner of the word.
"Finch! Do we go there instead?!" the young boy behind him tugged at his shirt, pointing to the now unmanned lines on the right side of the ship.
The boy was right, someone had to take over and continue raising the sail.
'But why are we even raising the sail?'
"Finch! Allen! Crude! You three! Take over!"
A commanding voice bellowed from the stern of the ship.
Syllian turned his eyes back, and there stood the Captain.
With one eye missing revealing the socket within as blood dripped down, he was aptly dressed in a dark-red long coat with fashionable golden strings running across the lining of his inner, now red, white shirt.
Planting one of his legs on the fence above, his blood-coated black pants shone eerily beneath the flashes of lightning.
"What are you staring at?! GO!"
Waking from his stupor, Syllian picked himself up from the bootstraps and rushed to the other side.
Glancing at the retreating tentacle, Syllian scoffed at his immature thoughts of hope once again.
If this was hope, then just how terrible must despair be?
"Gunners! Prepare for bombardment! Aim for the waters!"
"And someone bring me that Sailing Master!"
The uncoordinated crew almost seemed to transform into a war machine as they heard the words of their Captain speaking.
Observing the situation, the Captain pondered heavily over his next commands.
Not only were they attacked by an abomination of the oceans, but the ocean itself had placed their heads on its chopping block and had brought the storms along with it to bear witness to the execution.
As the man analyzed their options, the Quartermaster ran up to his side.
"Captain, the Sailing Master was killed by the abomination just now!"
Without sparing the Quartermaster a glance, the Captain thundered his next order.
Down below, Syllian, Allen, the younger boy, and Crude who looked to be in his late twenties all arrived at the other side.
With the open waters to their right, and the remnants of the flesh to their left, the trio swallowed their fears and did as commanded.
"One! Two! Pull!"
The rope began burning his skin with each pull.
As for the sails, they were only about 50% up.
'Only 50?!?!'
Pulling out every swear he could muster from his incomplete well of knowledge, Syllian fought through his exhaustion as he pulled and pulled.
Repeating the action an almost infinite number of times in his taut mind.
But, it was excruciatingly slow.
Most of the crew members were focused on repairs, and only 3 people stood on each side to raise the sails of which the majority were under 17.
The crashing waves of water washed over his feet repeatedly, threatening to drag him under with every passing moment.
Glancing over at the ocean, his nerves shook with trepidation, it wasn't there, but Syllian swore he could see a shadow moving beneath the waters. Seconds passed, and Syllian continued to pull, but similarly, his eyes were pulled in by the ocean.
'When are you going to appear, when...'
The fear of the unknown was an insurmountable fear.
Living in the ruined city, he feared for his life every night. And when looking at the walls surrounding the city, he also feared for the moment they would fall, drowning the Outer District with hordes of Mutants.
The unknown was the enemy of all.
Especially when it was less than a meter away and not blocked by a wall.
Oh, the irony.
He'd much rather face plant into the floor again.
"Come on! Pull!"
Syllian was losing strength rapidly, 'I would have lasted another minute, but...'
The bandages began leaking blood. The wound on his abdomen had torn open.
Biting his lips, Syllian glanced at the sails, praying for it to almost be finished.
70%
After what felt like a decade, they had only raised it by 20%.
'Curse this garbage, fuck, how am I meant to even survive.'
The searing pain in his abdomen stung like a hornet's nest, the salty water had mixed into his wound, further agitating whatever damage had been delivered to his body.
'I don't get it, this is my real body, so why am I wounded?'
Part of the scenario?
A penalty for something?
God knows!
...Literally.
'Assuming the Net of Ruin is a-'
CRACKLE-!
A flash of lightning roared down, striking the surface of the ocean with what felt like heaven's wrath incarnate.
"...Ah, shit."
Well.
It seems like the monstrosity in the water did not like it one bit.
And it couldn't attack the sky now, could it?
So, it picked the next best option.
Syllian, Allen, and Crude let the line slip through their fingers.
Shaking and with their teeth clattering, the doomed trio looked up, and up, and up...
Because the tentacle...
'Just how big is this thing...'
Syllian was in absolute awe, and fear.
...had torn the surface of the water asunder, soaring up over two dozen meters into the air.
Its fleshy, squirming surface pulsated with every beat of the abomination's heart. The tip of the tentacle thrashed around, attempting a fruitless assault on the sky.
Then, whatever muscles that made up the tentacle tightened like rolls of unbreakable steel.
Finally, it swung down.
It looked slow, so slow in fact, that the illusion that the ship could escape its reach before it attacked them was created.
Syllian wasn't fooled though.
It was rapid, appallingly rapid.
Exactly like a guillotine.
...Except a thousand times more powerful.
Death itself was approaching Syllian, and there was nothing he could do but watch.
The silence rang in his ear like a bell, drowning out the screams of terror of the crew, the crashing noise of the waves, and the pelting rain.
The thunder above had gone quiet too.
For a time in the past, Syllian believed that he wouldn't care when faced with death.
But only now did Syllian realise just how wrong he was.
Oh so horribly wrong.
He was scared.
He wanted his mother.
Most powerfully though, he wanted to kill this thing.
He was frustrated.
A smothering, suffocating frustration had him gripped by the neck.
Click-
From above his right ear, the noise of the cocking of a gun shattered his silence.
The sweltering heat of pure immolation radiated from nearby, drawing in and encircling the edge of a simple-looking revolver.
And holding the revolver, with a missing eye, and a blood-soaked visage, was the Captain.
Opening his mouth:
"By the Captain's Order..."
With his finger over the trigger, the Captain's eyes burnt with blistering red flames that swam through his pupils like rampaging Mutants.
"...I command you, Burn."
Click.
And he pulled the trigger.
The world returned to silence for a moment.
Only to be accompanied by a noise produced by pure devastation.
A thin line of radiant red flame lit up the night sky, carving a path through the rain and crashing waves as each droplet boiled into steam instantaneously.
Colliding with the tentacle, an outbreak of destruction ransacked the night, a towering wave of heat, blood, and shockwaves blasted outwardly at the moment of impact.
Syllian absorbed the beautiful scene with pure awe, unaware of the approaching shockwave.
Fortunately for him, the Captain wasn't done yet.
With his left hand, the Captain raised another revolver, this one a beautiful azure colour.
Speaking again, but this time with a hint of unrestrainable weakness:
"By the Captain's Order..."
A lustrous kaleidoscope of blue colours drew into the tip of his revolver, radiating a sense of peace and quiet.
"...I command you, Protect."
Click.
Gentle aqueous colours rippled from the muzzle, surging outwardly in a hemispherical manner as they covered every corner of The Adler.
It separated the ship and the ocean like the hand of a graceful god.
The barrier absorbed the shockwave like a sponge with only a few ripples spreading through it.
Two shots.
That's all it took for the Captain to deal with the threat.
However, those two shots had completely drained him.
His skin was pale, and his breathing ragged. Moreover, the bleeding from his empty eyesocket increased profusely. He had been using his powers to prevent the bleeding, but now, that was no longer possible.
If the abomination decided to attack again, it would truly be over for them.
But, the crew members did not need to know.
Picking up a cloth from the floor, the Captain hoisted it around his eye and turned to face them with a calm facade.
"What are you doing? Get to work!" stepping past his awed crew, the Captain returned to the stern of the ship to helm it again.
Syllian was close enough to see that moment of weakness, and that...
That reduced the awe he felt by a monumental amount.
And increased his fear by an even more monumental amount.
If the Captain, who was that powerful, had to use everything just to keep the abomination at bay for a brief moment...
How powerful was the abomination then?
Allen, who was beside him and in awe like the rest of the crew patted Syllian on the back:
"See, that's our Captain for you Finch, told you!"
"Don't get complacent Allen, we still have work to do." Crude, the older member, threw an illusory bucket of cold water over Allen's head as he pointed at the water that was still only a meter away from them.
"Oh, sorry." Allen was unsurprisingly obedient to the older male.
Crude had an unpleasant frown on his face, perhaps he too knew that the Captain wasn't as powerful as he made himself out to be.
Syllian, who stood quietly beside the two, covered his face from the unceasing shower with one hand while gripping his abdomen with the other.
Sure, the immediate threat was averted, but he was still bleeding and weak.
'I need treatment.'
His vision had gone blurry a long time ago, and it was only going to get worse from here on. Plaster the intense physical labour on top, and he ended up with a recipe for disaster.
'And the two Trials, what does the first one even mean, and the second one, is there going to be a civil war on this ship soon...?'
None of it seemed good.
He was weak, tired, and about to die, and he had yet to finish even 1% of the first two Trials.
Most crucially, the Net of Ruin hadn't revealed his Third Trial yet.
"Just how difficult is this going to get..."