“W-wait... I’m spent, the tide’s run out, and time’s almost up—we’re nearly there...”

After two days of being wrung like wet cloth, Cerqin wriggled over the game room carpet like a wounded cub, squirming in a mock crawl to escape.

Aileaf hung upside down across Cerqin’s back; from the front, her small feet looked like twin swallows perched on Cerqin’s shoulders.

The ache in Cerqin’s lower back wasn’t the storm Silver Luan could summon; it came like a gentler swell against shore.

It had been relentless—pressure like a monsoon, a Half Dragonkin tail weaving techniques like a serpent, and a body amped with Seventh Rank might.

Even with the Love God filling her stamina like a spring refilling a pool, Cerqin felt her limits biting like cold wind.

More than that, the sand in the hourglass was almost gone, a shadow crossing noon.

The Black Dragon Battleship had slid into deep water, gliding like a whale toward their marked stretch of sea.

The deep reef belt waited ahead like a jagged, sleeping dragon.

It lay on the fringe of Eastern Sea City’s coastal reach, near the fishery grounds and the ocean trench, where sea monsters flickered like shadows at dusk.

So the Sanctuary ran regular purges there, brooms sweeping tide-lines clean.

In the game room, Cerqin counted the minutes like beads on a cord and finally coaxed the two besotted with her to stop.

Silver Luan dressed with a wistful look, and right then knuckles tapped the door like sudden rain.

Cerqin looked up on reflex, took the clothes Aileaf passed like a dove delivering a ribbon, and called out, “Hold on a sec...”

“Okay...” The answer came like an echo rolling over still water.

“Huh?” Her question rose like a kite tugging its string.

The reply from outside didn’t pause, as if no wall stood there, a voice slipping through like mist.

“Hey—hold it! Isn’t there a soundproofing ward on the door? How can you hear us through that?” Cerqin’s voice pricked like a needle through silk.

“The ward can be shut off from outside,” Baili’s voice drifted in, clear as a bell over a calm lake.

“Wha—?” The word popped like a bubble.

In three brisk moves, Cerqin slipped into the Spring Tide custom swimwear, the second skin tracing her lines like ink on jade.

The taut fabric pulled her muscles into perfect form, a bowstring drawn to its sweetest note.

They traded a glance like flint sparks; by pure proportion, tiny-for-other-races Aileaf was the most balanced of the three, a jade carving in perfect scale.

Cerqin opened the door with a sheepish look, a smile like a paper fan half hiding her face.

“Baili, you didn’t hear anything, right?” Her voice tiptoed like a cat on a railing.

Two minutes ago, without the ward, the room’s noises would’ve carried far, drums rolling across water.

“Uh... hear what?” Baili’s baffled face soothed her like cool shade under a tree.

Cerqin seized the chance and changed the subject like turning a page in sudden wind. “We there yet?”

“Yeah, and a sea beast is attacking the battleship,” came the answer like a gull’s cry on a hard breeze.

“Huh?” The floor thrummed under Cerqin’s feet, a whale’s back rolling once beneath the hull.

The Black Dragon Battleship barely swayed even in storm-waves, so a shake that clear meant trouble breaking like thunder.

“What’s the situation now?” Her words cut like a knife testing silk.

“...” Baili’s silence held like a held breath before rain, making Cerqin frown.

“Don’t tell me it’s bad...” Her worry crawled like frost along glass.

“Not exactly. It’s the species and numbers that are odd, like fish schooling against their nature.”

“What is it?” Silver Luan stepped out then, eyes narrowing like a blade, gaze angling toward the wall as if listening to tides in stone.

“This is...” The word hung like a gull on the wind.

“The sea beasts hemming us in are giant black sharks you see only in the far sea, over a hundred strong, a dark ring like a noose,” Baili said, voice steady as a mast.

Giant black sharks were common, schooling ocean monsters, yet they disliked these depths with reefs and sly currents that twisted like mazes.

That labyrinth of hidden flows made most sea beasts lose their sense of direction, a fog without fog.

So each side of this zone only saw scattered, solitary hunters wander in, like stars pricking a thin cloud.

“This is unusual—maybe a far-sea territory shifted, and they got driven here, like a herd flushed by fire; the sweep will take time,” Baili added, a map unfolding on his tongue.

“I see...” Cerqin’s answer fell like a pebble into deep water, ripples small but spreading.

With over a hundred giant beasts in the water, diving now would be risky, a candle in a gale; the safest way was to drive them off first.

“So do you need help?” Cerqin asked, her brow lifting like a sail catching wind.

“No. I figured it’s almost over, so I came to ask if you want to watch the battleship brawl with black sharks—like watching thunder from a cliff.”

“...” Cerqin exhaled, a laugh like a fish slipping the net; good thing she’d called a stop, or with the ward shut, shame would’ve poured like ink.

“The Black Dragon Battleship versus a hundred ocean giants...” Her eyes lit like lanterns.

“Sounds fun,” Silver Luan said, a smile like a crescent moon.

They shared a glance and headed for the control deck, steps quick as gulls over foam.

Up top, the battleship’s shudder was sharper, like a drumbeat underfoot.

Glyph-etched arrays along the corridors blazed to full glow, white as frost on steel, while crew and knights clustered to steer shields and sidesteps like dancers.

Knights manned the main cannon and the secondaries, sights and triggers moving like constellations clicking into place.

At the observation gallery of the core control room, the three stepped into a view that hit like a breakwave.

Every black mass breaching the surface was as big as the Black Dragon Battleship, a mountain of muscle, jaws wide enough to bite half the hull like bread.

They walled off the sea around them, a ring of night around a lantern.

The day was glass-bright, but the weight those beasts threw down pressed like a storm front, and Cerqin’s chest tightened like a clenched fist.

Their strength varied wildly—smaller ones only about Fourth Rank, minnows among whales by measure.

The Black Dragon Battleship’s hull alone could shoulder them aside like an ox nudging goats, but some matched Fifth Rank and were almost battleship-sized, fangs to prow.

Against those, the ship yielded like water, using its nimble turn to slide past a charging bulk like silk evading a spear.

At times the black sharks spat mana turbulence that churned like rip tides, heaving up waves like low hills, and the ship’s shield blinked on at precise beats to save power.

It looked hair-raising, but the ship moved like a sword dancer—risk on the edge, control at the core.

“Amazing...” Cerqin breathed, awe rising like dawn.

A vast white beam lanced past the window, sunlight turned spear.

The Black Dragon Battleship’s main cannon fired, one shot spearing a giant black shark through, a verdict like lightning.

Each blast hit like a peak Sixth Rank attack spell thrown with both hands, thunder without thunder.

The only flaw was the long reload, a heartbeat stretched into a song.

That was why, after half a day of sea monsters, they were still tangled like nets in kelp.

The pierced giant black shark sank slow as a moon setting, while smaller ones swarmed and tore the corpse like piranhas at a flood.

Teeth worked and flesh vanished, a red cloud in blue water.

“This school has about three individuals around Sixth Rank,” Baili said, voice cool as streamwater. “We nailed one with the main cannon at the first surround; the other two went dark, guiding the pushes.”

“Records rarely show stronger ones among giant black shark schools, but with a hundred-plus and three elites, a higher monster isn’t impossible,” he added, a storm map in his eyes.

That’s why Baili called them during the stalemate; the fight would run long and look like fireworks on black water.

And with Silver Luan here, even a deeper terror wouldn’t matter; a blade could flash before a wave could fall.

“A super-beast that can match high-rank fighters?” Cerqin asked, voice low as a drumbeat.

“It’s possible,” Silver Luan said, nodding like a tree in wind.

“At Fourth Rank they’re half the ship; at Fifth they’re about the same size; so how big are the three at Sixth?” Cerqin’s curiosity flickered like a fish darting.

In the ocean, the stronger the monster, the bigger it got, mountains that learned to swim.

That split from land beasts, many of which grew smaller and leaner as they climbed, knives honed from swords.

Most land monsters bulked up first, then refined; slimes, for instance, swelled from small to big in the early tiers, like raindrops swelling to puddles.

But once slimes kept evolving, most chose to go smaller or specialized, a bead turning into a needle.

Deep-sea monsters were different; almost all of them got stronger by getting larger, storms piling into mountains.

Only a handful of species barely changed in size, pebbles that stayed pebbles.

“In length, over twice the Black Dragon Battleship,” Baili said lightly, like tossing a stone into a brook.

“Terrifying...” Cerqin whispered, breath like mist. “Then how big is Seventh Rank?”

She frowned, picturing a deep-sea leviathan coiling like night around a city.

“I haven’t seen one, but records say a big individual is at least five times the Black Dragon Battleship,” Baili said, words dropping like anchor chain.

Even so, the Black Dragon Battleship wasn’t helpless; its arcane shield could take several Seventh Rank blows like a cliff taking waves.

And the main cannon, equal to a peak Sixth Rank strike, could still tear flesh from a giant, a thorn in a dragon’s side.

“It’s a pity,” Baili added with a sigh like wind through rigging. “Sixth Rank beasts drop good materials, even if sea-beast yields trail land beasts; Sixth Rank is Sixth Rank.”

“Shame we couldn’t recover the one we killed—others tore it apart; after we drive them off, I hope we can salvage magic crystals and shark bone, anything the sea will give back.”

“Why would a school that doesn’t live here come this far inshore?” Aileaf asked, eyes fixed on the window like a hawk on a field.

Of the three, Aileaf knew monster lore best; alchemy drank monster parts like rain drinks earth.

“If a far-sea territory got invaded and they were driven here, then what kind of monster could push a school this big?” she murmured, the question a cold current under warm water.

Silence fell for a beat, with only the knights’ calls rising and falling like oars.

“It is strange,” Baili said, voice thin as a blade.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this adventure,” Cerqin muttered, humor like a candle guttering in wind.

Memory flicked—whenever the Holy Maiden’s sacred tour hit a new city, something grand cracked open like thunder; whenever they didn’t sit still, fate threw a stone.

They fell quiet again, and Silver Luan and Aileaf wore looks like fireworks swallowing laughter.

“How long to reload the main cannon?” Silver Luan asked, chin propped like a cat watching rain.

“About thirty minutes,” Baili said, glancing at gauges like stars. “At this pace, a day to finish; once we kill the Fifth Rank ones, the rest should retreat; the two Sixth Rank likely won’t surface again—”

“No... a Sixth Rank is coming up,” Silver Luan cut in, voice cold as a blade drawn over ice.