Terrors of The Great Blue

Solara walked around the deck, bored out of her mind. "Hey… I say we do Baron's idea."

Alvira, who was resting nearby, looked over at her. "Yeah, we should. Beats sitting around here and suffering a sunburn."

Baron, half asleep on the deck, suddenly awoke hearing this. "Hell yeah, let me get Abraham."

He stumbled to his feet and dashed into the lower deck.

He opened the door and saw Abraham and Starrk in a sword fight. He was kind of mesmerized looking at it. 'Woah…'

Abraham, despite his poor skill, was somehow grabbing the gist of using Daylight way more than before. He almost seemed like a different person, granted he was just only learning sword fighting basics and nothing special.

Baron shook his head. "Pfft, Abraham! Look at you not dying! I feel proud."

Starrk clapped his hands together, pausing their training.

Abraham pressed his hands against his knees, dismissing Daylight. 

"Hey Abraham, we're gonna go diving you down?"

"N-"

"Great! Let's go." Baron grabbed Abraham by the arm and forced him upstairs.

Abraham, slightly stumbled. "I haven't even rested yet…"

Baron rolled his eyes. "Just think of the water as a relaxing massage."

They reached the upper deck, Starrk following behind them.

Kassi appeared on the other side of the deck, her hair tied up. "What's the game?"

Baron thought for a moment. "Whoever uh… finds the coolest item wins eternal glory and personal respect from yours truly."

He tapped his chest.

"Which is worth, like, infinite points."

Kassi smirked. "Guess I'm losing on purpose now."

Xander seemed uninterested in the game. "I'll stay up here and stay on guard."

Leon yelled from atop the mast "I'll alert us if anything is coming."

They all attached a rope around themself which was attached to the ship, except Kassi because she's part fish.

"Guys… I didn't even get a chance to change." Abraham called out, staring at the clothes Purdeeg had given him back when he was at the village of York.

"Who cares, I'll get you new ones if you win."

Solara stood on the railings, staring into the moving ocean and took a deep breath before jumping in.

Baron looked over at where she once stood. "Guess she's eager to win."

Kassi then followed, then followed by Baron. Abraham glanced over at Alvira. "You coming too?"

Alvira shook her head. "I'm a bit afraid of the ocean… sounds stupid considering I'm a pirate."

Abraham gave her a soft smile and an acknowledging nod before diving into the water himself.

Starrk stood nearby, wrapping an arm over Alvira's shoulder. "You should go down. you know."

She looked up at him, slightly confused by his kinder demeanour. 

"You can't afford to be afraid as you get stronger."

Alvira looked back into the water. "Maybe I'll join mid-game…"

Under the waves, the ocean was a clear blue. The surface light filtered through in golden ribbons, illuminating a kingdom of peace and quiet. The sea floor was a long way below but Abraham paused a moment, taking in the serenity of the ocean.

All kinds of fish swam by him, as if oblivious to the big human beside them. Some fish had two fins, some had four, some even had snake-like bodies. Abraham was in awe. He marvelled at the ocean's beauty.

He looked down, noticing the ropes of the other's stretching deeper down. 'Ah guess the rest are in the lead. But hey, Baron was right, this feels good on the muscles.'

Suddenly, as Abraham swam down, he got tackled. He had just barely managed to keep his breath held. Kassi held him in a lock and started laughing. 

"The look on your face," she said, dying of laughter, "that was priceless!" She let him go.

Abraham stuck the middle finger up at her. It's not like he could've said anything anyways, he was underwater, after all.

She winked at him, smile widening.

Abraham had slight trouble swimming — he never really learnt as a child, he's been travelling around on foot since as far as he could remember.

"You can't swim… can't you." Kassi smirked.

'When I get out of this water… I'm gutting her…'

Abraham nodded in defeat. 

Kassi grabbed him by the hand and pulled him deeper into the water.

***

Solara was busy scouring the sea floor. It was kind of difficult considering the fact that she was tied to the ship and so as the ship moved forward, she would too, potentially leaving behind any hidden treasures. She looked up and noticed Baron tweaking on the seafloor.

She saw him pull out a medallion of sorts. 'Ah shit, he's found something.'

Baron was struggling to dance under the water in celebration of his finding.

The sand however moved below his feet. Then, it rose. A huge azure crab appeared from the sand. Its carapace was sharp and ridged and it had four claws.

Baron squealed (in his mind of course) and swam upwards. The crab however, grabbed Baron by one of the legs. He struggled to free himself. It began to pull him down. 

'Fuck… how do I get out of this.'

The crab tightened its grip around his leg, causing the bones to crack. The pain was excruciating. He looked at his hands and realised he had dropped the medallion somewhere within the struggle.

Baron took a deep breath. And then he… twisted his leg. Muscles and sinew ripped open and bone cracked into pieces. The sheer pain caused his face to shrivel in agony. Blood gushed out everywhere until his leg finally snapped from below his knee, freeing him from the crab's grip.

He swam upwards, albeit very slowly due to only having one leg now. He noticed Kassi and Abraham swimming downwards. 'No way these two were on a happy ocean date while I'm losing my leg.'

***

Solara swam up from the seabed, locking eyes with the crab as she summoned the Murderous Frog. The crab started eating Baron's leg entirely, blood spewing over its face.

She charged her pulse into the staff and from the head, it released a ghostly frog head that locked onto the crab.

It managed to connect with the crab's face, pushing on it to go backwards. However, the crab was just a bit stronger and managed to push forwards, much to Solara's dismay. Kassi finally appeared with Abraham, shocked by the sudden attack and the blood in the water.

***

Meanwhile on top of the deck, Starrk, Alvira and Xander were playing cards.

Alvira looked towards the ocean. "You wonder if they're having fun?"

Starrk, looking at his cards, responded, "I'm sure they are, they have my student to look after them anyways."

Alvira giggled. "You place too much responsibility on Abraham, y'know?"

Starrk sighed. "He has a lot of potential—he needs to get used to being burdened by immense weights."

***

Abraham let go of Kassi's hand and summoned Daylight. Its blade seemed to slightly boil the water around it enough to see some bubbles form around the blade. He grabbed Kassi's hand again and tried to gesture to her to throw him towards the crab.

Kassi, more serious now, understood the gesture and threw him towards the crab.

Abraham outstretched Daylight above his head as his body flew through the water.

Daylight collided with the crab's carapace causing it to pierce through. The crab shrieked in pain and tossed Abraham off of its body. Abraham's grip loosened on Daylight and he eventually went flying, the sword still stuck in the crab's carapace.

Yellow blood leaked from its wound where Daylight was still stuck. Kassi swam towards the spinning Abraham, who was now dizzy out of his mind. She grabbed him by the head and slapped his face, seemingly getting rid of his dizziness. 

Kassi, letting go of Abraham dove under the crab summoning a pair of crimson jagged daggers which she used to slash at the crab's underbelly. A frown formed around her face when she realised she couldn't even crack the crab's underbelly, which she had presumed to have been the weak spot. 

Abraham looked around, noticing a shimmer in the sand. He kicked his legs in the water violently to push himself towards it. After crashing into the seabed, Abraham scurried about in the sand and eventually picked up the medallion. He examined its insignia. He noticed the head of a woman on the insignia with the sun appearing above her head. 'Wonder what this means…'

He placed it into his inventory before rejoining the fight. The fight was beginning to look like a stalemate. Solara was essentially rendered useless as her staff had no effect on the crab and her fiery magic was essentially cancelled out by the water. Kassi had landed very few and barely noticeable little cuts on its carapace. The only major wound the crab had suffered was from Daylight which is currently stuck on the crab's back. 

Abraham then dismissed Daylight and recalled it from his inventory back into his hand. 'Oh cool, didn't expect that to work.'

Solara's energy seemed to diminish—presumably from the fact that she was running low on oxygen. Abraham gestured for her to swim upwards, but she denied, eager to get the killing blow on the crab—that is if they did kill it…

Abraham gestured at Kassi again to help him attack. Being underwater made this fight extremely difficult for him so he had to constantly rely on Kassi and her attribute to make himself at least somewhat useful.

Kassi swam up to him, yellow blood covering her body, presumably from the leak caused by Daylight's previous wound.

Kassi grabbed Abraham, this time by his shirt. "Where'd you want me to throw you now?"

Abraham stared at the crab for a moment. He observed its entire body carefully.

'The outer carapace is too tough, sure Daylight can pierce it but we don't have the oxygen left to bleed out the bastard.'

Solara barely managed to push the crab back away from her, her movement becoming more sluggish. 

'The underbelly is also quite tough… would be a nice way to kill the crab in style but that's out of my skill level.'

Abraham grabbed Kassi's arm and pointed at Solara and then pointed upwards. Kassi nodded her ahead, understanding the fact that Solara needs to be forced upwards or she might kill herself.

Looking back at the crab, he continued planning where to strike the crab. 'I guess the only spot we haven't tried yet is the eyes, huh.'

He locked eyes with Kassi and then pointed into his eyes. Kassi let out a smirk. "You wanna get face to face with the thing? You're brave and crazy." With a sudden burst of power she threw Abraham and dashed towards the almost unconscious Solara, forcibly dragging her to the surface.

***

Meanwhile, Baron had finally reached the ship and pulled himself aboard, blood gushing out from his leg. Alvira dropped the cards in concern and hurried over to his leg and began to heal it.

"Alvira, please… don't regenerate my leg… please." He coughed out some blood. "Just close the damn wound."

Starrk shook his head. "You pirates are all the same—crazy maniacs."

Xander and Leon seemed undisturbed. They glanced over at their captain, slightly proud that their captain's dream of getting a pegleg was finally being realised. Of course he could've just cut his own leg off but where's the fun in that?

***

Abraham was swirling through the water at frightening speed, Daylight braced ahead of him. A sudden notification popped into view.

[Oxygen levels severely diminished. Two minutes of oxygen remain.]

'Ah great… guess I gotta make this the killing blow.'

Abraham put all of his energy and pulse into the blade, brightening it to a noticeable degree. Unlike igniteds, dormants had very limited control over the pulse they have (barely any actually get a pulse due to the difficulty in killing a monster) which makes it very difficult to actually channel it effectively into a weapon.

Despite that, Abraham tried his hardest and channelled as much as he could the best he could.

The crab stared at the torpedo man and braced all four of its pincers to cover its face.

A crash. The ocean around the crab shook violently, leaving massive ripples.

Abraham's head spun due to how he was thrown. Kassi returned to the battlefield with her jaw dropped.

"Damn… you really did it." 

She stared at the crab which was frozen in place, all four of its pincers had a massive hole through them

The crab's face had blown open from the sheer force of the strike.

[Congratulations Dormant Abraham! Despite all odds you have slain the mini-boss "Seaspawn, Azure Decapod."]

[Accept Rewards Now?]

[Thirty seconds of oxygen remain. Performance significantly hindered.]

Abraham's vision slowly blurred. The last thing he saw before blacking out completely was Kassi appearing before him grabbing him.