Chapter 435: The First Encounter

“Oh, they also did a great job upgrading their ship,” Rid murmured while pointing at the horizon, where they saw a ship the same size as theirs moving roughly in the same direction.

Thalion couldn’t say what the big upgrade of the ship was supposed to be. To him, it looked pretty much the same as theirs. The sails weren’t white but black, and above the crow’s nest was a red flag. There were symbols on the sails and the flag, but Thalion had no idea what they meant—probably just the crest of the faction or the captain.

“Hm. We’ll have a bit of time until we catch them. Cover my rune too. I’ll go and get the replacements. We need to be ready for the fight.” Rid was still quite relaxed, which was impressive given that a fight was on the horizon.

Thalion just nodded and began to infuse more mana into the sail while Rid simply jumped down. He landed in a smooth roll and hurried toward the captain’s quarters. All the other sailors immediately stepped aside. It annoyed Thalion that he hadn’t noticed this behavior sooner—or maybe it was only happening now with the mood shifting.

With Rid gone, Thalion noticed the mana drain quite a bit more, but hopefully it wouldn’t take long until the replacement arrived. In the meantime, Thalion observed what the crew was doing. Fighters were carrying heavy cannonballs onto the deck. The cannonballs looked like the ones Thalion had seen in films, with the only difference being the red runes on each one that glowed ominously.

Compared to the skyships, this one didn’t have any mana shields or ballistae. There were a few elevated positions behind the railing for archers, but that was it when it came to fortifications. Okay, there were all the cannons on deck and on the levels below, but besides that, Thalion couldn’t see many more weapons.

Most sailors were hurrying around, which reminded Thalion—up on his elevated position—a bit of an anthive. The only one who stood out was the E-grade water mage. She looked completely lost in the middle of it all. It almost seemed like she had PTSD. Her head was snapping from side to side, and her eyes were wide open like a deer staring at an oncoming car. Losing her entire party likely hadn’t happened without leaving scars. Not that it bothered Thalion right now.

He turned his attention back to the ocean and the ship in the distance. The wind mages were clearly intensifying their skills as their ship sped up quite a bit. The other vessel didn’t look like it was trying to outrun them either. The only reason it hadn’t stopped completely was probably fear of being rammed. Thalion had no idea how robust those ships were or if they were even built for ramming.

Thinking about the coming fight, he concluded that there had to be a few trial takers on board, which also meant killing them would be his highest priority. Maybe there was even a chance to kill the water mage in the scuffle. Either way, he would wait. The captain would definitely kill him if he ignored a direct order. No—if he wanted to get rid of her, it would have to happen when no one was watching and after he had more experience with these kinds of fights.

The water mage had six million credits, which would already be over half of what he needed to reach the next stage. On second thought, Thalion probably needed a lot more points to stay on top of the leaderboard. In the last stage, all the Chosen had caught up, and in this stage they would likely gain even more.

As the other ship drew closer, the replacement arrived, and Thalion could finally stop infusing the rune, which had already drained thirty percent of his mana pool.

Thalion followed Rid’s example and jumped from the yard, over thirty meters above the deck, then made his way to the bow of the ship where the rest of Rid’s group had assembled. None of the members looked especially dangerous. Many didn’t even carry weapons or wear armor. To Thalion, they looked like fairly normal sailors. The only standouts were the two brothers with shark fins growing from their backs.

“Okay, listen up, everyone. It’s time again, and we’ll use the same tactic as last time. We also have a new member. This is Thalion, a trial taker of the treasure hunt,” Rid began.

He then assigned everyone different tasks to focus on. From what Thalion gathered, they were some kind of sabotage-slash-assassination group. Rid gave orders like damaging the main mast or killing the cannoneers. Then he turned to Thalion.

“Okay, spread out and get into position. It’s not good if they spot us all in one place. Thalion, you’re staying with me. We’ll dive under the ship, climb up the other side, and go up the rigging. The goal is to kill those who are infusing the sails.”

This was very simple, but Thalion still had questions because a lot of things were pretty weird.

“How do we get up there? Don’t they have mana shields? Also, wouldn’t it be smarter to just burn the sails or destroy the runes?”

Rid just smiled at those questions before answering.

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“These ships are different from most you must have encountered. Everything here is focused on toughness and repair runes. Same goes for the sails. Our goal is to eliminate the sailors who are steering the ship. Destroying the sails or blasting a hole in the ship is almost impossible, and even if you manage it, it will repair itself in no time.”

This was interesting, but with the size of the ship it kinda made sense. A bit sad that simply cleaving the ship in two with a powerful attack wasn’t possible.

“So this fight will go on for quite some time until someone wins,” Thalion concluded after thinking it through.

Rid just nodded at that, pointing at the ship that was coming closer and closer.

“They’re slowing down a bit to get into firing range. From there on, both ships will try to find the best angle to land a full broadside. The cannons are our greatest weapons and will deal the most damage. Our job is to make it as easy as possible for our captain to outmaneuver the enemy ship and land multiple rounds. While the captains are constantly steering the ship, we and the other fighters will try to board the enemy vessel. You need to be careful with that, because no one will stop for you if you take too long. For example, do you see how we’re already starting to move to the right? That’s only to make it harder for their fighters to board our ship. They are in front of us, which means it’s easier for them to board us right now.”

From there on, the two watched as they slowly caught up to the other ship, which also tried to position itself directly in front of them to give its fighters a chance to board. Multiple other commando leaders checked in with Rid from time to time, asking what he was planning this time and wishing each other good luck. Every sailor’s nerves were on edge as they waited for the inevitable fight. The captain on their side seemed to be having quite the fun behind his steering wheel.

“Haha! This will be a good first kill. Wind mages, what are you doing? Do you think this small breeze is enough to let us catch up? Blast those sails with everything you have! I don’t want to stay behind them for too long, haha!”

Thalion couldn’t quite understand why the captain was so certain that this fight would go well. They had no idea who was on the other ship. If the First Daughter or any Chosen were on the other side, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Haha, there they come. Prepare yourselves and give those bastards a warm welcome,” the captain laughed from behind—and he was right. In the distance, Thalion saw a few sailors jump into the water, but they must have been the last ones, as there were already shadows zooming toward them directly under the surface.

“This is not our fight. We’ll wait until we’re roughly at the same height as the other ship,” Rid said calmly, observing what was about to happen.

Thalion watched the shadows disappear beneath the ship. He had to admit, it was frightening how calm Rid remained. What if someone jumped out of the water and decided to board the ship from the front? Or fired a skill from below to kill the almost lazily waiting Rid?

From behind and along the sides of the ship, the battle erupted as the invaders jumped out of the water. Some clung to the hull, others reached the rigging, and a few landed directly on the deck.

It also seemed that almost everyone on the ship was fully focused on water affinity, no matter what type of class they had. Skills were flung from both sides, and weapons clashed on deck. There were only a few attackers, but they were extremely skilled compared to most of the defenders. This had to be some kind of elite party, Thalion concluded.

Besides that, he hadn’t noticed anything amiss—until he spotted someone boarding the ship wearing very different clothes. Instead of the usual sailor outfit, this man wore a long blue robe covered in runes. An

Identify

later, Thalion’s suspicion was confirmed.

The man was a trial taker with four million leaderboard points.

“Rid, it still is a bit until we need to act, right? So would you mind if I help out the others for just a moment?” Thalion said while keeping his Killing Intent contained. No one was really blasting out their auras, which meant his Killing Intent might have been noticed by the attackers.

Rid stayed calm and just said, “You have about one minute. Then I need you here.”

That was fine for Thalion as he used Telekinetic Dash to rush toward the fighters in quick succession. The kill itself wasn’t as important as getting the spatial amulet of the fellow. The man was clearly a water mage, directing a small river that circled around him. Thalion didn’t want to engage in a direct fight with the man and the others and instead planned to assassinate him quickly before returning to Rid.

With his human form, such a sneak attack likely wouldn’t work, so he used it to dash up into the rigging, which would allow him to ambush the water mage more easily. The dying had already started on both sides, and the fight was intensifying with every second. High above in the rigging, Thalion shifted into the Crippled Eclipsari, keeping his aura restrained. He would only have a single shot to kill this E grade.

Thalion slowly reached out and began to fill the shadow beneath the water mage’s feet with power. Letting spikes of darkness emerge from the mage’s own shadow would work far better than firing them from his position. Thalion waited for the right moment, until the water mage stood still for a brief second instead of dashing around like a maniac. He didn’t have much time with Rid waiting for him.

The first opportunity he got, Thalion unleashed the spikes. They impaled the water mage and lifted him off the ground. The mage died instantly, his entire health gone in one blow. The fighters beside him looked baffled by what had just happened, but they couldn’t react as the defenders didn’t let them off the hook.

Thalion used the moment and let a dark tendril shoot out from his arm. It pierced the mage and pulled him—along with all his belongings—into Thalion’s spatial amulet. Then he shifted back into his human form and used Telekinetic Dash to jump back to the bow where Rid was waiting.

“Pretty cool form you’ve got there. Maybe you should’ve shown us your forms earlier so we know it’s you,” Rid chuckled.

“Okay, it’s about time. We’re about to enter firing range. Then both ships will fire at each other, and it’ll all come down to who reloads faster. We’ll jump off board right before that, dive under the enemy ship, and attack from behind. Ready?” Rid said, now getting more serious. His aura slowly rose as he moved closer to the edge.

Thalion followed, waiting for the moment he would have to dive into the cold water and swim toward the other ship as fast as he could.