"This is... a Thornback Iron Whale?!"
Even Gegal's spiritual fluctuations carried a trace of fear: "How is this possible? For this kind of deep-sea predator to exist in these coastal waters?"
The Thornback Iron Whale was a massive creature unique to the deep ocean. Every adult specimen possessed tremendous power, but what made them truly terrifying was their temperament—once they fixated on a prey, they would pursue it day and night without ever giving up.
The horrifying aura emanating from this Thornback Iron Whale actually surpassed that of Gudolic, and this was enough to make Gegal tremble with fear.
"Be careful!"
With Leilin's warning, the Thornback Iron Whale charged forward violently, and the iron thorns covering its enormous back plunged deep into Gudolic's body.
"Mooo—!" Gudolic howled in agony as the two colossal beasts collided, sending violent tremors through the massive sailing ship above.
Bang! As if a magnitude-nine earthquake had erupted without warning, the entire hull shuddered violently. At one point, it was flung completely off the water's surface before crashing back down with a heavy splash.
"Ah..." Gegal's numerous tentacles could no longer hold on either, and it collapsed onto the deck. Its many tentacles clung tightly to a mast, wrapping around it like creeping vines.
Its situation was actually fortunate compared to others. In truth, at the instant of the collision, several fishman sailors standing near the edge of the deck had been careless. The tremendous inertial force hurled them clean off the ship, and after letting out sharp shrieks, they plunged straight into the sea—only to be swept up alongside their still-submerged kin into the battle between the two monsters. In the end, they were reduced to shredded flesh and chunks of blood, dyeing the ocean surface a faint shade of red.
"Sever the chains!"
The iron chains anchoring Gudolic had been enormously helpful during normal sailing, but now they had become a complete liability.
Upon realizing this, Gegeduor immediately barked out orders.
Several burlier fishman guards, their eyes bloodshot, lunged toward a control valve and cleaved it open with heavy axes.
Clang-clang-clang! The massive chains connecting to Gudolic snapped apart all at once, and the violent rocking of the ship decreased dramatically.
"Full rudder! Get us out of this area!"
Gegeduor's voice had somehow appeared at the bow of the ship. Its entire body hovered in midair as enormous spiritual waves swept outward, forcibly commanding the fishman sailors and driving their bloodshot eyes to start working at a frantic pace.
Creak! Creak!
The massive sailing ship made a sharp turn, abandoning this stretch of sea to the two battling colossi.
Waves surged skyward, and from time to time terrifying sounds rumbled up from the ocean floor. Even with the enhancement of wizardry, the fishman sailors still shivered uncontrollably.
"Man the bow cannon! We must kill this Thornback Iron Whale, or it will keep following us and drag our ship to the bottom of the sea!" Gegeduor flew toward the site of the naval battle. Meanwhile, Gegal seemed to have recovered somewhat, driving the trembling sailors to bring out the massive cannon mounted at the ship's prow.
"Hurry! Get it ready!" Gegal's enormous vertical eye was shot through with blood-red veins, and even the tentacles it had sprouted had transformed into powerful whips that lashed relentlessly at the fishman crew, driving them to mount a harpoon more than five meters long and impressively heavy onto the cannon.
"The Thornback Iron Whale possesses 【Iron Skin】and also has an effect similar to 【Physical Weakening】. We must use this!"
Gegal pulled several black-and-white stones from its body and struck them together like flint.
A layer of black-and-white light spread across the steel harpoon.
"Oh? Temporary enchantment technique? And this kind of carrier—is it a priest's ritual or a scroll?" Leilin's eyes, watching from the side, suddenly flickered with a peculiar gleam.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, the roars of the giant beasts never ceased. The colossal waves they generated kept the ship swaying back and forth.
The fleet's Gudolic was clearly no match for the Thornback Iron Whale. Even though it possessed the potential to grow to Morning Star level, years of being driven as a slave and deliberate sealing restrictions prevented it from fully unleashing the power of its bloodline.
The Thornback Iron Whale, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. It had grown up from the very beginning in the perilous deep-sea environment, and its combat experience was as rich as could be.
As a result, almost from the very first exchange, Gudolic had a huge chunk of muscle torn away by the Thornback Iron Whale. And that was not all—its razor-sharp iron thorns had riddled Gudolic's body with countless wounds.
Great gouts of blood gushed forth continuously. Compared to this, the earlier spray of blood from the fishmen was nothing at all. The surrounding sea had been stained a deep crimson.
"Mooo..." Gudolic's roars grew weaker and weaker, now tinged with something like a plea for mercy.
"Damn it!" Just then, Gegeduor, Gudolic's reinforcement, arrived on the battlefield. The moment it saw this scene, its enormous vertical eye turned blood-red in an instant.
This Gudolic was the shared property of the Yidong Trading Company. If something went wrong under its watch—if it actually perished—then the compensation Gegeduor would have to pay would be an astronomical sum, enough to drive it into bankruptcy and send it, along with Gegal, to the frontier wastelands or the dark territories to toil as a convict laborer. And on the sailing ship, there was a portion of extremely important cargo that absolutely could not be lost.
In a fury, Gegeduor struck without hesitation. Invisible whips of spiritual force came raining down from the void in enormous quantities.
The seawater on all sides converged as well, forming massive walls of water.
"Hmm?" At that moment, Leilin, standing on the deck, stiffened—clearly, he had noticed something.