Six-Armed Serpent Demon

Page 77

"They're already here."

Chapter 89 Bloodbath in the Ship's Cabin

The rain poured down, and flashes of lightning made the sky and sea appear and disappear.

A three-deck wooden three-masted sailing ship sailed in, cutting through the waves. Countless long oars stretched out from under its port and starboard sides, rowing vigorously, making it look like a giant millipede crawling on the sea surface.

A deafening thunderclap pierced through the portholes, echoing the roars reverberating from the lower deck cabins.

In the dimly lit cabin, the lights flickered, and blood splattered everywhere. Rows of burly sailors of different races sat at the oars, four men rowing one long oar. The cabin was stuffy and hot; none of them wore shirts, their bodies covered in blood, their upper skin or scales glistening.

The lizardman boatswain brandished his nine-headed whip, the sound of which lashed out sharply against the sailors' bare backs. Each lash sent up a cloud of blood and a roar.

If you look closely at their faces, you will find that from the boatswain to the sailors, everyone's eyeballs have disappeared from their eye sockets, replaced by two pieces of red jade-like fragments embedded in their eye sockets, shimmering with a crimson light.

In the pouring rain, an incredibly strong Glendale held the helm.

The so-called Grendels are a hybrid of trolls and humans.

Glendale, his muscular upper body bare except for a pair of sailor's trousers, was soaked through by the downpour. Unlike the others on the ship, his sharp, crimson eyes were undamaged, staring straight ahead.

Only a large fragment of red jade was deeply embedded in his forehead. The fragment was shaped like a long cone, its tip piercing through the skull and into his brain. Rings of hard, fine red bumps emerged from his skin around the jade fragment, almost covering half of his forehead.

Glendale's deep brown skin reflected a dark green hue, radiating unimaginable heat. Steam rose around his body, as if he were enveloped in a white mist. It was a fiery magic surging beneath his skin.

Glendale felt himself changing constantly, gradually becoming more powerful than ever before, like the king of the world.

This Glendale had no name; everyone who knew him called him "Bastard."

His mother had been abducted by trolls, and was already pregnant when the rescue team pulled her out. Her frail body was unable to deliver the enormous troll baby, and she died from postpartum hemorrhage. From birth, he suffered endless scorn and discrimination. Those around him called him a "bastard," hurling insults and mocking him, making him aware of his shameful, ignorant, and dull-witted alienation, filling his heart with fear and inferiority.

Just a few days ago, "Bastard" was an ordinary rower on the salvage ship Albatross, which is the wooden three-masted sailing ship under his feet, accompanying the ship owner who wanted to make a fortune to search for treasure.

However, the ship's crew did not find the hidden gold. Glendale neither asked nor was curious about the specific reasons; he only knew that they had salvaged something unusual—hundreds upon hundreds of thin, hard ruby ​​fragments of varying sizes.

But none of this has anything to do with "bastard".

All he knew was to focus on paddling every day so he could fill his stomach. He was as strong as ten people and had about the same appetite.

Until that day, the commotion and noise on the upper deck alerted him.

Glendale watched helplessly as everyone around him went mad. They foamed at the mouth, spoke in languages ​​he couldn't understand, and killed each other with whatever weapons they had; if they couldn't find weapons, they used their teeth and nails. Glendale didn't know what to do, so he retreated to a corner of the cabin, anxiously wondering when they would stop fighting so he could continue rowing and eating.

Until today, the crazed ship owner has shown up.

The ship owner rushed into the hold, brandishing a large machete and cutting down several sailors, also wanting to kill the "bastard."

Glendale dared not fight back and was slashed several times by the ship owner, even chipping the blade of his machete.

The crazed ship captain, seeing that his machete couldn't cut through the "bastard's" thick hide, pulled out a long ruby ​​shard and pierced his head. Anyone else would have collapsed and died instantly from such a blow, but he was Grendel, a half-troll, with troll blood possessing powerful regenerative abilities flowing through his veins.

No one noticed that the ruby ​​shard piercing Glendale's head flickered slightly.

Amidst the excruciating pain, countless sparks flickered in the "bastard's" cerebral cortex, giving him an unprecedented emotion called "anger."

Glendale punched the ship owner in the upper body, breaking a cavity.

Strange whispers echoed incessantly in the "bastard's" mind, and a wealth of previously unheard-of knowledge surfaced in his memory as if it were common sense.

So Glendale learned that by eating other people's eyes and embedding the red shards into their sockets, he could silence their commotion and stop them from killing each other, restoring them to normalcy. So he walked into the frenzied crowd. The ruby ​​shimmered faintly on his forehead.

Within minutes, there wasn't a single person left standing in the cabin.

An hour later, Glendale watched with satisfaction as the ship's captain, his chest bulging and eyes studded with ruby ​​fragments, rose from the ground, grumbling and nitpicking at everything he saw, just as he always did. Then, one by one, the others rose listlessly and began to act as they always had, just as Glendale remembered.

The red fragments gleamed in their eyes, even though they were no longer breathing or having a heartbeat.

Glendale was satisfied with everything.

—No, you're not satisfied.

The voice whispered in his ear.

“I’m not satisfied,” he muttered to himself.

He then realized that the madness and chaos were all-encompassing; while everyone in the cabin was fighting amongst themselves, the battle on deck was no less intense, even fiercer. Many of the defeated were captured and thrown into the sea. Among them were the treasure hunters hired by the ship's owner.

Glendale remembered her as a brash woman who used dark magic, with snakes growing all over her head. She could turn anyone who looked her in the eye to stone.

Now, the ruby ​​fragment inserted into his brain presented him with a vision:

The lizardman boatswain and the others raided the snake-haired woman in the captain's cabin. To prevent being turned to stone or bitten by the venomous snakes on her head, they put a sack over her head and threw her into the sea.

He saw the snake-haired woman break free of the sack and restraints underwater, pull out some kind of device from her body, attach herself to the carapace of a passing leatherback sea turtle, and then be carried away by the leatherback sea turtle into the distance.

Most importantly, through the ruby-like fragments, he also saw that the Medusa had stolen a large number of ruby ​​fragments from the captain's cabin before the attack and stuffed them into her boots.

You should be angry.

Anger inexplicably filled his chest.

—Take me back.

He then knew that the piece of metal that the snake-haired woman had taken belonged to him, and he had to take it back!

Glendale's eyes were bloodshot as he gritted his teeth and turned the rudder.

His gaze pierced through the layers of wind and rain, fixed on the trimaran sailboat that appeared and disappeared in the darkness ahead.

"Hand over the scales!"

Glendale roared to the sky in the torrential rain, his roar even drowning out the rolling thunder: "My scales!"

More red bumps radiated out from around the ruby ​​fragment, vying to burst from Glendale's skin, covering his head, face, and neck. These red bumps were thick and hard, all keratinized skin, making his head look like a red lizardman.

The wind and rain were fierce, and thunder and lightning raged.

Ivy Beatrice emerged from the cabin, carrying a greatsword, and came to the deck, which was tossing and turning with the waves. She was wearing a black bikini meant for sunbathing, and besides a dimensional bag hanging from her waist, she also had a large floral towel tied below her navel into a thick skirt.

The rain soaked her fiery red hair.

Ivy-Beate heard a faint roar and looked up to see a huge ship breaking through the darkness, like a floating iceberg, silently heading straight for the starboard side of the trimaran.

Ivy Beatrice raised her hand to the three-masted sailing ship.

In an instant, the "blade barrier" composed of countless rotating force field blades resembled a 360-foot-long giant sword, which, starting from Ivy-Beate, hummed and extended straight forward, piercing into the darkness.

In the lower deck of the three-masted sailing ship, the lizardman boatswain, completely unaware that his life form had changed, continued to follow his old habits, harshly whipping the sailors who were a little slow in rowing.

Suddenly, the ship began to rock violently, as if it had struck something.

The lizardman boatswain lowered his whip and peered ahead curiously. The ruby ​​fragments embedded in his eye sockets gleamed.

Before the boatswain could figure out what was going on, the hull at the bow suddenly burst open!

"Varied--"

Before he could finish speaking, large chunks of ship hull wood exploded and pierced the neck of the lizardman boatswain, sending him flying backward. Two other lizardman sailors were also killed by the ship hull wood, and seven or eight others were also seriously injured, falling down with screams.

The other uninjured sailors' thoughts of gloating were quickly extinguished by what followed.

The "sword-blade wall" runs through the second-floor cabin.

Their positions have completely reversed.

On the left side of the cabin, the sailors were sitting in groups of three or four, rowing. In less than a second, the upper bodies of dozens of people were turned into a splattered mess!

The wooden bulkheads were covered in a sticky, crimson substance flowing downwards.

The injured man, who was writhing and groaning between the seats, was doused with water by his companion. He forgot to continue screaming and lay on the floor, trembling and in a daze, clutching a severed hand and fragments of internal organs that he didn't know who belonged to.

In the chaos, someone screamed: "Get down!"

The man's voice cracked from shouting.

Before the shout had even faded, the second and third "Blade Barrier" missiles pierced through the bow of the ship once again!

The cabin was filled with flying wood chips and spinning force field blades.

Fortunately, the sailors had already abandoned their oars and lay down on the spot with their heads covered as quickly as possible, so few people were injured.

On the deck of the trimaran.

Amidst the raging wind and rain, Ivy Beatrice wiped the rain from her forehead and eyebrows, shielding her eyes from the storm, and saw the three-masted sailing ship opposite her, its hull pierced by the "blade wall," making a sickeningly loud noise as it slowed down.

Just then, she heard a thunderous roar from above.

Ivy Beatrice looked up and saw a towering figure leaping down from the top of the mast opposite her!

In the rush, she saw a flash of red light above the dark figure's head.

Ivy Beatrice quickly reached out and grabbed the mast next to her.

The next second, the enemy landed heavily on the starboard side of the trimaran.

The black sea surface churned up towering white waves.

The immense force lifted the middle and port hulls of the trimaran out of the water, almost flipping them over.

Before the ship could regain its balance, Glendale roared and leaped a second time, landing on the deck of the central trimaran and appearing in front of Ivy Beate.

Ivy Beate glanced at him and saw that he was a two-meter-tall, dark-skinned, red-haired giant. His arms were covered with bronze gauntlets, and he carried a heavy tower shield and a scythe-shaped sword. It was hard to imagine that anyone could carry such equipment and still jump and run as nimbly as before.

What chilled her to the bone even more was that this guy had a broken red dragon scale stuck in his forehead, exuding an aura of corruption and pollution, just like the two-headed evil dragon Hesladi that destroyed the port!

Before she could ask.

Glendale opened his mouth wide and spewed out a stream of fire as hot as lava!

Chapter 90 The Sword of Military Strategy

Faced with the overwhelming torrent of fire, Ivy Beatrice pushed off the mast. She immediately tumbled off the deck and plunged into the icy sea.

The flames ignited the trimaran's masts and sails, illuminating the night sky and the purple deck.

Glendale peered toward where Ivy Beatrice had fallen into the water, but before he could find her, a soaking wet Ivy Beatrice teleported onto the bow deck and knelt down behind Glendale.

She stood up slowly.

The blazing sails and masts were reflected in her emerald green vertical pupils, and Ivy Beatrice's eyes twitched, her expression incredibly interesting.

—Holy crap, my beloved ship! It can't be repaired!

She was so angry she was trembling, and filled with remorse.

—Damn it, if I had known it would turn out like this, I should have teleported directly to the enemy's three-masted sailing ship and started a brawl. I would have burned their own ship instead!

Without a word, she unleashed the silver-blue light of "Mand of the Slayers" straight at Grandel's nape.

The sharp whistling of the sword cutting through the air jolted Grandal into alertness. He bent slightly, his massive body instantly becoming completely covered by the tower shield he carried.

With a loud thud, the heavy tower shield blocked the thrust.

Glendale deftly removed the tower shield and scythe, then turned to face Ivy Beate, who was wielding swords with both hands.

In that instant, the section of the trimaran's mast that was directly hit by the fire stream broke first.

Glendale's fiery breath is a supernatural power; its magically powerful flames cannot be extinguished even by torrential rain and raging storms.

Ivy-Beate's gaze passed over Glendale, who was holding the tower shield, and she saw the upper half of her ship's mast engulfed in flames and thick smoke, creaking and groaning. The massive, burning sail tilted to one side and crashed into the sea with a thud. Water splashed several meters high.

She took a deep breath to suppress the anger in her chest, stepped forward barefoot, and raised her greatsword to strike down hard.

The greatsword collided with the tower shield, producing a deafening roar.

Ivy Beatrice did not reveal her true six-armed serpent form. Her demonic body weighed a full four thousand pounds, and increasing the ship's weight by such a large amount was not a good idea. This would prevent her from unleashing the true power of her demonic form.

However, this sword strike still sent Grandel, who had troll blood, staggering and his arm went numb.

Silver-blue sword light swirled, and the deafening sounds of swords striking shields echoed continuously.

Glendale roared as he held firm, and as Ivy-Beate's offensive weakened, he suddenly lunged forward, raised his shield, and pushed it toward Ivy-Beate's face.

This is a sneak attack move that combines the sword and the tower shield.

In the hands of a swordsman skilled with tower shields, a massive tower shield serves as both a barrier to obstruct the opponent's vision and weapons, and a heavy weapon in itself.

Glendale raised her shield forward, using its wide shaft to block her opponent's view, forcing her to be wary of thrusts from the left, right, and top of the shield, thus forcing her to step back.

Then comes the real trump card:

Just as the opponent stepped back and shifted their weight from their back foot to their front foot, the tower shield suddenly and stealthily slammed down with its base edge.

If that hits solidly, it would be enough to crush one of Ivy Beatrice's feet!

However, after Glendale's tower shield had only pushed forward halfway, he felt a tremendous force blocking the shield's surface, making it impossible for it to advance even an inch!

Long before Glendale raised his shield, Ivy Beate, as if she had foreseen it, raised her front foot and kicked the shield face with her long leg.