“Pirate ships ahead! They are in combat!”

  Julie shouted to the crew from the crow’s nest. The people on deck scrambled to get a better look. The distance was still far, and so only the likes of long-ranged Chosens like Julie and Alvine could see the battle clearly.

  “The pirates are engaging with an island fortress,” Alvine said as she squinted her eyes. “Judging by the stronghold’s flags, I’m pretty sure we have reached the Imperial Army’s logistics outpost we’ve been looking for.”

  “And just in time to find the enemy attacking them,” Dulcina noted. “What are the enemy numbers?”

  “Five artillery schooners, two corvettes, and one big ass frigate. Guessing that’s their flagship,” Julie called down. “Is that one of the Pirate Lords?”

  “Unlikely. A frigate is far too small to be a Pirate Lord’s capital ship,” Alvine said. “This might just be a raiding detachment.”

  “What of our allied forces?” Dulcina asked.

  “The fortress is still returning cannon fire, but I see no warships on their side,” Alvine reported grimly. “They are a sitting target. We are on our own in these waters.”

  “Great. So it’s just us against the entire fleet,” Bori cursed. “Even if we ignore the schooners, it’s three of their ships against one of ours. Should we run?”

  “Not an option. We are going in,” Eri said, appearing upon the deck with Deyara. “I was hoping to avoid a fight, but this works, too. The imperial logistic base has a working shipyard. If we manage to capture the pirate frigate with minimal damage, we can add it to our fleet.”

  “That’s a little optimistic, considering the damn thing is at least twice the size of our corvette,” Julie noted. “We are going into this fight outnumbered and outgunned.”

  “Outnumbered? Yes. But outgunned? No,” Eri smiled. “Captain Lauren and his knights will prepare for a boarding action. The rest of us will defend the ship once we get close. For now, everyone is to get below deck. It’s going to get messy out here, and the last thing we want is a stray cannonball hitting someone.”

  ~~~

  Once everyone evacuated the deck, Eri returned to the captain’s quarters, where Peythra was commanding the ship. His dwarven quartermaster, Kaz, was there as well.

  “Two of their corvettes are peeling off the assault on the island to intercept us, as you’ve predicted,” Peythra reported. The minstrel was sitting on the synaptic flesh chair, gaining complete control over the Biovore vessel.

  “Is the main gun ready?” Eri asked.

  “Checked her twice with the flesh witch watching over my back earlier,” Kaz grumbled. “My boys and I calibrated her as best I could, but elven biomancy isn’t our speciality. We have three shots at most before the magic within overloads, but the rounds will bloody well chew through anything. Just tell the Elgir piloting the weapon not to miss, or we’ll be in big trouble.”

  “I won’t miss,” Peythra promised. “Enemy ships entering weapon range in three minutes.”

  “Have the ship slow down to minimal power first,” Eri instructed. “I want them to underestimate our speed. Once we take out the two corvettes, we will then charge with everything we have before the smaller vessels can intercept us. I want us to head straight for the pirate frigate at ramming speed.”

  For the moment, the enemy’s flagship was focused entirely on bombarding the imperial island fortress. They likely believed that the two corvettes that were sent to intercept Eri’s singular ship would be more than enough to sink him.

  They might be right, in all honesty. For the moment, the Biovore vessel had one working artillery gun. If that failed, there wasn’t much they could do to defend themselves.

  But it was a pretty powerful gun. And assuming it functioned properly, their ship should be able to punch through the two corvettes ahead of them and then smash into the frigate flagship before it could turn its main guns around.

  It was the perfect situation, and Peythra knew it as well, judging from her smile.

  “The corvettes are turning around to present their broadsides,” Deyara idly noted. “They know we have to approach head-on if we want to save the imperial fortress.”

  “And in doing so, we will be running straight into their volley while being unable to return fire from our sides.” Eri nodded. “It’s the smart thing to do. They probably think to repel us first, then hunt us down later with the flagship.”

  “Alas for them,” Deyara laughed. “They aren’t facing some weakling human vessel. Let them have a taste of elven naval magic. It’s time the world is reminded why our biomancy was once feared.”

  ~~~

  On the pirate corvette known as Greed’s Folly, a different conversation was taking place.

  “Hey, Ron?”

  “Yeah, captain?”

  “Tell me if I’m seeing things. Is that ship still heading straight for us, even though we got two broadsides facing them, ready to blast them to smithereens?”

  The pirate named Ron laughed. “Yeah, captain. It is.”

  “Well, why the hell would they do that?” the captain asked his first mate. “They aren’t even turning around to present their side-facing cannons.”

  “Who knows? These northerners can’t sail for shit. Maybe they are just stupid?”

  The captain grimaced. Even stupidity had limits. Charging straight ahead when you had two corvettes’ worth of guns aimed at your ship wasn’t just foolish. It was suicide.

  While it was true that the northern invaders were terrible at naval warfare, even they weren’t usually this inept. “Tell the men to get ready. Something is up.”

  “You really think so, captain? There are no other ships around.”

  “It’s just a feeling. I want our guns firing the moment they get into range. Keep an eye on it, I’m going to contact the admiral and tell him we are in position.”

  The crew laughed and jeered as they brought the cannons and mortars to bear, loading magical shells and rune-etched ammunition. From afar, the enemy ship looked like a strange, barnacle-crusted hulk. Slow, sluggish, and ill-kept; not a threat at all.

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  But then the minutes passed. The stray ship, once a dot on the horizon, was slowly coming closer into view. That was when the men started to get uneasy.

  “Hey, captain, am I seeing things, or are those… tentacles attached to the side of the damn thing?”

  “Are you smoking those sweet leaves on the job again, Ron?” the captain grumbled. “Stop bothering me with nonsense! Keep your cool!”

  More unease. Silence fell across the pirate deck. A minute later, the shouting began.

  “W-what in Saint Elizabeth’s name… C-Captain! CAPTAIN!”

  “Ye-yeah?!” the captain said, alarmed at his first mate’s panic. He stalked out of his cabin. “What are you shouting for?!”

  “LOOK!” The first mate pointed out to sea hysterically, waving his spyglass.

  The captain grabbed the monocular telescope and peered through the tube.

  The moment his eyes locked onto the enemy, he nearly dropped it.

  From the seas came a ship not of human make.

  It might have been, once. The captain could see the familiar signs of a wooden hull, sails, and the vague shape of a corvette warship. But there was no way to mistake the vessel’s monstrous and alien nature.

  The nightmare from the depths pedalled six massive tentacled limbs against the waters, churning the waves into foamy mists with its powerful strokes.

  The monster-ship’s hull was more flesh than timber, animated with rippling pinkish skin. At first glance, the captain thought it might only be some grotesque ornamentation; some sick admiral’s idea of a joke to staple human bodies onto his ship’s hull.

  But then the prow of the creature-ship stirred. What the pirates had taken for a carved figurehead and warped wood began to move. Flesh-like plates rippled, flexing like ribs.

  A wet, sickening tear rolled across the waves.

  The prow peeled apart, revealing the jaws of some colossal leviathan. Wooden bone-fangs jutted from the opening. The crew watched in horror as a grotesque but unmistakable tongue writhed between them, slick with brine and ichor.

  It was a mouth. The ship had a human mouth — Parodied with buck-shaped jagged teeth, blackish gums covered with bloody slime, and a fat tongue that lolled within, writhing like a swollen, purple maggot.

  The pirates stared, muskets slack in their hands.

  “Sweet merciful goddess…” one muttered in horror. “The demons of the Maelstrom have come for us…”

  From inside the monster’s gullet, something shifted. Its enormous tongue curled back. There was a revolting gurgle, one that made the men empty their stomachs at the sound.

  Fear, and a terrible foreboding… Long-buried animal instincts were roused, pervading their minds.

  It told them that a sickening death approached.

  The pirates watched, paralysed, as a massive organ pushed itself forth from the monster’s throat. Shaped like a cannon, the organ was still unmistakably alive, its sinewy surface pulsing with veins that throbbed with sickly light.

  A guttural groan shook the waters. The cannon heaved once, like a beast retching. The ‘cannon’ shifted its point towards the pirate vessel, even though they were still far out of conventional weapon range.

  It shuddered. Once, twice.

  Then it fired.

  A torrent of searing green light came screaming from the cannon. The blazing projectile crossed the waves in a heartbeat. There was no time to dodge or brace.

  The bolt of magical energy struck the Greed’s Folly broadside, dead-on. Anything the blast touched was vaporised instantly. Reinforced oak and iron platings were torn through. The explosion ripped through the ship, hurling wood, sail, and screaming men skyward in a rain of burning debris that showered over the other side of the vessel.

  The world was white flames. Men caught in the initial blast had vanished in a flash, reduced to ash mid-scream. Those were the lucky ones, for the men further back were hurled off the ship, the waters below proving little use as the eldritch flames caused their flesh to melt like wax.

  The pirate captain watched in dazed horror as he saw his first mate screaming while engulfed in the white flames. The eldritch fire did not burn like a regular inferno. Instead, it was stripping Ron layer by layer, flesh peeling off as if he were clawed apart by vengeful wraths stirring in the heat.

  The captain thought he heard a song in the air, pleasant and gentle as a siren, as Ron’s body was unmade to liquid right before his eyes.

  He was laughing, he realised. The captain was not the only one. The crew had turned uncontrollably manic as the fumes entered their lungs. Even those caught within the flames stop screaming as they die, their throats screeching in deranged amusement instead as they liquify to puddles of primordial ooze.

  There was a groaning sound as the Greed’s Folly began to come apart. The blast had carved through the ship’s hull, splitting it in two. Flames devoured her masts as water surged into her belly. Half the vessel sagged, sliding into the sea, while the other half teetered upward, hurling burning men into the waves. In another minute, the entire warship would sink, leaving nothing but a charred wreckage.

  Suddenly, there was a cacophony of cannon fire. The pirate captain dazedly looked up, smoke stinging his eyes, as he realised the pirate corvette sister-ship had just opened fire.

  The black sails of the Iron Marlin rocked back as her broadside cannons roared. Hope bloomed for a moment, but it was pointless. The corvette’s defiance failed to connect as her iron shots splashed harmlessly against the water, far short of the monster-ship.

  They outrange us, the captain thought with horror. To the other ship’s credit, they began to move immediately, hoping to close in quickly, or at least attempt evasive manoeuvres.

  It was all for nought. The beast stirred once more. Its prow-mouth flexed wide open, the cannon-organ within swelling with sickening light once more.

  He had a clear view this time. The bolt came too quickly, faster than any cannonball and magic missile the captain had ever seen. It crossed the vast distance between the two ships instantly.

  The magical projectile lanced clean through the Iron Marlin’s hull, vanishing for a heartbeat. The captain realised dimly that it had hit the spot where the munitions cache would be stored.

  The world lit up. The ship’s belly erupted, her powder magazines cooking off in a single, catastrophic blast. The Iron Marlin was blown out of the water, its decks and masts hurled skyward as the body ruptured into a thousand pieces.

  There was little room for consciousness after that. The shockwave blackened his vision and deafened his ears. The next thing the captain felt was water rushing into his mouth.

  His ship had sunk. The sea was ice in his throat. The pirate captain kicked weakly as the waves pulled him under. Splintered wood and charred bodies bobbed around him — the fresh graveyard of two ships. His lungs burned for air, but still, he fought to keep his head above water.

  Then, within the murky shadows ahead, he saw the darkness shift.

  At first, he thought it was just another large piece of debris sinking through the water, but no, the shape was moving towards him, vast and purposeful. The waves were trembling.

  The captain saw an open mouth — A maw yawned wide, impossible so. Wide enough to swallow a boat.

  Wide enough to easily swallow him.

  He tried to swim, though his legs would not respond. He tried to scream, though no sound could be heard underwater.

  He kept trying anyway. The pirate captain did not stop screaming even as the maw of the monster ship swallowed him whole.

  There was darkness. Heat. Pressure. Pain. Wetness. A Song. He was pulled in deeper, squeezed down a tunnel that never ends. He felt his flesh slough from his bones as he was assimilated into its walls.

  He never stopped screaming.

  ~~~

  Eri received a notification.

  [Side Quest updated! ‘The Om-nom-nom Super-Ship’]

  [Upgrade to Tier 2 (Requirement: 1/250 Living Humans)]

  He blinked. “Huh.”

  “Hm? Did you say something?” Peythra asked.

  “No. Keep going, full speed ahead. We still need to take out that frigate before it turns its guns on us.”

  Eri soon ignored the notification. It must have been just an error.

  He had bigger things to worry about.