"Captain, are you sure about this?" Quinn's first mate asked, "Do you think this is a good idea?"

  "I don't." Quinn shrugged lazily. "What other choice do we have, though? We are fucked anyway. The best we can do is win some minutes for the reinforcements and the King to arrive, hopefully, they can do something about this."

  Quinn was sure that if there were another captain in his place, they would be working on raising the morale of their crew with some strong speech or the like. His crew didn't need that, they were handpicked by him and were a good bunch who understood from the beginning that they would likely die in the line of duty, and they accepted it. Each of them left wills at home before each of their expeditions, even Quinn. For a crew like that, they only needed a plan to follow and nothing else.

  They had already sent an update with what they had realised to Admiral Kain and the Empire, they just had to hold on for like... a day or so. As anyone with a brain would realise, they weren't going to survive that long, but they wouldn't go down without a fight.

  "We can't go into a fight with them, not now," Quinn added.

  He really was lamenting his luck, a normal mission with the Admiral turned to a mission to track the new holder of the Title, and that eventually turned to a possible standoff against one of the scariest legends in the ocean, Sticky Reefs.

  There were few Behemoths that got the privilege of being named, and even amongst those, Sticky Reefs' situation was special. It didn't get a grandiose name by being worshipped by some primitive tribe as their deity like the Lightning Lord. Nor did it become folklore by terrorising a whole region like the Silent Reaper. Sticky Reefs had always been just that, a spot in the ocean where weird sticky weeds grew, for years it was just that, till it finally woke up and people realised what it truly was. A Behemoth, one of the biggest ever recorded

  The only bigger known Behemoth was the rumoured Drifting Island, atop which the Ocean Dwellers were said to have built their Kingdom.

  That had been the first time in recorded history that Sticky Reefs awoke, and it was a true disaster. From the records, the number of towns that were destroyed across the Empire and the Alliance was close to a hundred. Only after having its fill did it fall back into a slumber.

  It woke up a couple of times after that. Each one was so far removed from the other that everyone who had been alive the last time would already be dead, and civilians would have forgotten what it truly was.

  "You still can't see through their skill?" he asked his first mate as the mass of fog kept on getting closer.

  "There is more than one camouflage type skill on it." His first mate shook his head. "I can barely see a white surface at this distance, might be able to get more when the ship is closer."

  "We have a plan," the voice from the mass of fog sounded again after a long time, cutting Quinn's conversation short, "It might be the best course of action for both of us."

  "What do you have in mind?" Quinn asked into the Amplifier.

  He welcomed the conversation, they were after all already on the path to intercept the other party, the mass of fog wouldn't be able to run without a fight. Maybe the talk would lead to them actually helping.

  "If what you had said about Sticky Reefs locking into us and following us is true, then our plan should have a big chance of working," the voice continued, "We want to lead Sticky Reefs to the injured Kraken you have been keeping an eye on, that should work, no?"

  Quinn opened his mouth to speak into the Amplifier before closing it again and falling into deep thoughts. He hadn't considered using the Kraken as a way to feed Sticky Reefs really. Most of his plans were on the practical part of things; how to survive the swarm of monsters that was always with the Behemoth for as long as possible? How to pull the huge being away from land? And such things. He didn't think of using the little prize the nobles were eyeing hungrily to fill its stomach and hopefully have it return to its slumber.

  "Captain," his first mate spoke from the side, "The nobles might not like this, maybe we-"

  He stopped himself once he saw Quinn's smile grow at the second part of his words.

  "That's interesting," he said into the Amplifier, "That would need us to reach there though. The Kraken is near, but it's still going to take us hours before we reach it, it's going to be hard."

  Quinn was inclined to agree to the plan the other party gave, and unlike what his first mate might think, he wasn't going with this plan because it was going to mess with those rats in the Empire, at least not entirely because of that. As soon as the other party presented him with the plan, he started going through all the advantages that being next to the Kraken would have for them. There were always two to three ships keeping an eye on it at all times, just having those as reinforcements would be of huge help, without even taking into account whether they could get the two monsters to fight or not.

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  His mind kept moving as all other points that needed to be considered came to him. This plan would have never worked if Sticky Reefs had been awake for a long time, but just the fact that it was still awakening gave them a huge advantage. First, a fully awakened Sticky Reefs would never be satisfied with a single Kraken. Second, a fully awakened Sticky Reefs was too fast for them to lead anywhere, no matter how close the Kraken was. Fortunately, it was still waking up so those two points were already dealt with.

  The other thing that needed to be considered is the Kraken itself, why would it remain in one location if it saw a huge monstrosity like Sticky Reefs coming towards it? The answer to that question came through something that was known to only a select few, and it was also the reason the Kraken wasn't hunted by the Empire yet; it wasn't an injured Kraken, but a female Kraken protecting her eggs. That mother wouldn't leave that location before her eggs hatched, after all, she was going to die anyway.

  "We have to do it," The voice answered, dragging him from his many considerations, "We only need you to keep the little things away from us as we head there."

  This time, Quinn didn't answer straight away, he started going over how to get all of them to the Kraken as fast as possible. Watching the fog-enshrouded ship move, he again had to hold back his amazement at how fast it was, it was almost half the theoretical limits of his three ships under the Flagship's Command skill.

  That thought made an idea he would have never ever in a normal situation considered spring into his mind. He didn't even have time to look deeply into the feasibility of that idea before his first mate said,

  "The bigger ones are moving, they are leading the charge."

  Their mystery ship must have noticed the change happening behind them, because the one he had been talking to spoke soon,

  "You need to give your answer soon, we don't have much time."

  "We accept," Quinn said without hesitation, "Change your course towards the Kraken, we will join you soon. We will use a diamond formation, you take the lead, my ships will take your wings and your stern, understood?"

  "Understood," the voice answered.

  "Once we are in that formation," Quinn continued as he watched the mass of fog start changing course, "I will use a skill that combines the speed of all the ships in the fleet, hopefully that should keep us faster than the monstrosity behind us."

  "Does your skill also work on living creatures?" Quinn blinked as he was asked a question he never expected to hear.

  "What?" he couldn't help but ask.

  "We have a swarm of Swarmers with us and I need to know if your skill would also work on them," the voice clarified as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  Quinn understood the true purpose of that question, it was said both for the stated reason and also as a deterrent for them, few would dare act rashly under the threat of Swarmers. And Quinn had to admit, their veiled threat worked.

  "Just keep them close to you," he finally said, "It should do the trick."

  "Would 60 meters be alright?" the voice from the mass of fog asked.

  "For a big enough ship, it should be enough," Quinn answered cryptically.

  He hoped that the other party would bite and ask how big, but they didn't, which might have been an answer in itself. If you had the biggest ship in the world, you wouldn't fear if you were big enough.

  "I can make them out," his first mate said after they got closer to each other, an undercurrent of horror in his voice, "Oh God, they truly have Swarmers with them."

  Quinn gave his first mate a glance that forced the man to calm down. He could understand the shock really, only an idiot wouldn't feel even a bit of fear towards those monsters after seeing them in action. That didn't mean that he accepted such a loss of control over one's self, they were the best of the Imperial Navy, and they were going to act like it.

  Time passed and the two parties got closer to each other, Quinn had his people be ready for anything that might go wrong, and he was sure that the other party was just as ready for anything that might come from their side.

  "Be careful not to provoke the Swarmers," the voice spoke again. Quinn noted how, now that they were close to each other, it wasn't as focused as it seemed to be before. "Even we can't hold them back if you trigger them."

  "Good to know," Quinn said flatly.

  The fact that the other party had Swarmers was like a blade on their throats, Quinn was sure that if their swarm wasn't that big, they could maybe focus all their power on eradicating it before moving to the ship itself, but that's where the problem lay, the other party wouldn't be waiting for them to finish with the Swarmers.

  The reason he had chosen the other party to be the leading ship for Flagship's Command was because, at the tier he had it at, tier 8, it doubled the lead ship's current speed and added to it half the combined current speed of the other vessels.

  At that tier, he could have 8 ships under the skill, he never used that skill with 8 other ships if the Flagship wasn't the King Of The Oceans though. After all, the Flagship didn't only need to be fast, it needed to handle the resulting stress from that speed. The other ships would be protected by the skill, the Flagship too to some extent, but a badly built ship would explode under the stress of the mind-boggling speeds that the skill could achieve.

  He hoped the new biggest ship in the world was just as strong as the King of the Oceans, or they were all in for quite the surprise. Of course, he would start with a lower output of his skill, only raising the speed after getting confirmation from the other party that everything was good.

  Watching the mass of fog get closer and closer, Quinn glanced at his first mate. The man, understanding what Quinn meant, started,

  "I can see a bit clearer." He squinted, even though Quinn knew that it did nothing to affect how his skill worked, just a force of habit. "I can see more clearly now, it-it's really as big as the fog is making it up to be. At least 350 meters. The top half of it is shiny, almost as if... glass? And the body seems to be almost metal?"

  Quinn controlled his expression not to appear how his first mate was at that moment, full of puzzlement and confusion, even a hint of fear, all in all, not that flattering of a look.

  "We are in position," the voice suddenly said.

  "Okay," he replied as he hid his inner turmoil, "Let's go."

  He activated his skill.