Chapter 211: Open Ocean in the dark
The ocean was a vast, beautiful place...when the waves weren’t rocking the ship like crazy, and when the sky didn’t turn black out of nowhere and storms started raging like crazy.
When the first left the port of Ashenfall, they sailed gracefully in the open water, passing through Gracia’s barrier with ease as they entered the open ocean.
But the moment they left Gracia’s, well, grace, all hell broke loose.
"Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!"
"Make it stopppp!"
"I-I think I’m gonna be-BLEUGGGHHHHHH!!!"
"I-I’m an elf! I like trees and grass! Not water!"
"Kai! You mother fucker! I’m gonna kill you!"
Hearing Nadya curse was still something Kai had to get used to.
"Hold on!" Kai steered the helm as best as he could, even purchasing skills and knowledge to help him.
Thankfully, Kai was unaffected by the anti-magic zone, and so was his ship, so all of the protection he put in place worked wonders. Unfortunately, this didn’t apply to his girls, so they weren’t able to use mana to make themselves comfortable.
"I got this! I got this!" Kai, in fact, did not have this.
He kept steering into waves that crashed into his ship, made stupid turns that nearly flung Amaya overboard, and the craziest thing about all of this, they were still barely even a mile away from Gracia’s barrier.
According to the goddess, each continent is an average of 12,500 miles apart, separated by open ocean. Kai nearly fainted. That meant he had to travel an entire Pacific Ocean’s worth of distance while battling against raging water, constant storms, and the threats the ocean had. This didn’t even include the fact that the ocean was an anti-mana zone.
"We’re fucked! We’re so fucked!" A massive wave crashed against the ship, knocking it away. But surprisingly, the water shifted upward against Gracia’s barrier and pushed Kai’s ship further into the open ocean, helping him out.
"Alright! Let down the sails! It’s time to get this show on the road!" The sails dropped, and they blasted off into the ocean. Thanks to one of Kai’s customizations, he made it so that the sails generate wind, allowing them to travel without wind or water currents.
"Here!" His power touched his women, allowing them to use mana again.
"Oh, thank god!"
"The ocean scares me."
"T-Thank you BLEURGHHHHHH!!"
"Kai, I love you!"
"D-Don’t worry, Kai, I didn’t mean what I said earlier." Nadya smiled.
"It’s fine. I know everything was just stressful and weird. Don’t worry about it." Kai set the helm to auto steer and sat down in his reclining chair.
Nadya came and sat on his lap, laying her head on his chest as they relaxed. The storm was still brewing over the ocean, but the sailing was smoother than it was when they were still close to Gracia’s barrier.
"I’m going below deck." Gwen waved.
"Me too." Amaya followed.
"Ughh! Oh god! Blerghhhhhhh!!! I hate this already!" Sasha passed out.
"I’ll take care of her." Kyana cleaned up Sasha’s puke and picked her up, taking her below deck as well.
"Can I stay with you?" Nadya asked, looking into Kai’s eyes.
"Of course." He kissed his beloved Nadya, placing a hand on her cheek as he kissed her again. "Anything for you, babe."
She smiled and nuzzled his chest, eventually falling asleep.
Kai, too, closed his eyes and got some rest. He had made sure his ship came equipped with everything it needed to traverse the seas and oceans. He even added extra things that weren’t needed, but were a cool addition to have.
As he rested his eyes while holding Nadya in his arms, he drifted off, thinking about how different the continent they were traveling to would be. He hoped it wasn’t the same old thing that he was used to.
While he expected civilization to a similar or equal scale to Sarkylla, he hoped it would feel different.
A few hours passed by without anything happening. The water was still rough, storms were still raging, and waves were still crashing against their ship. But other than that, nothing happened...until now.
Although Kai didn’t need to sleep, he still loved doing it, so having Nadya in his arms made him pass out quickly, but because of his abilities, he was quick to wake up and know if something was wrong.
It was subtle, but Kai felt it, the stopping of his ship. To someone not as sensitive as him, they wouldn’t have even felt that the ship had stopped, especially with the waves still crashing into it, but Kai could feel it.
He thought that maybe the boat reached a wave that were equal on both sides, making it so that they weren’t moving, but he didn’t even know if that was possible, so he threw that theory out the window.
He was about to scan the entire ship to check if anything was wrong when he saw a big black ray grab his ship. At first, he thought he was seeing things, but after rubbing his eyes, he realized that what he was seeing was actually there.
"I-Is that an arm of a starfish? A ray?" He asked himself, leaning forward to get a closer look.
"H-Hmm?" Nadya stirred on his chest, waking up from his movements.
"Baby?" She asked in a sleepy voice. "Is everything okay?"
"I...don’t know. Rest here for a bit while I investigate this situation." He rested Nadya on his reclining chair and approached the ray.
"Okay, I’d better not see a-OOOOOOOOOOOF!"
The ray attacked Kai, knocking him over the side of the ship. Then, as he fell into the water, four more rays attached to the ship, dragging it down into the dark ocean.
"Kyaaaaaaa! Kai! What did you do to my Kai?!" Kyana fired a blast of pure mana at the starfish, blasting one of its rays off the ship’s hull. Since she was mainly a support mage, her attack specialty came in the form of pure mana attacks.
Just then, the ray of the starfish that was severed broke into hundreds of regular earth-sized starfish that hopped around, blasting anti-mana at Kyana.
"Stay back! Stay back!"
"Kyana! What’s going on?!"
"Where’s Kai?"
"What are those things?!"
"Are you-Blerghhhh!"
"I’m fine! Help me kill these things. Kai was knocked overboard, and we need to save him!"
Upon seeing them fight, the starfish regrew its massive ray, attacked it back to the ship, and continued to drag it underwater.
A/N: [A ray is the arm of a starfish, by the way]