Godslayer Lysette: Chapter 275

Chapter 275: The Denizen of the Deep

Pandemonium reigned on the deck as the entire crew of the Night’s Reach scrambled to positions.  Curses from sailors flew through the air like leaves through a forest grove as teams of four prepared each of the vessel’s six harpoons— two on each side, and one each near the front and the back.  Lysette could not yet see any signs of their assailant from beneath, but the turbulent waters and the pelting mists of seawater falling back to the ground heralded the arrival of their attacker.

“Do we know what we’re dealing with?” Lysette asked.

Dennell whispered.  “Kraken.”

Lysette had no knowledge of exactly what that entailed, but a massive tentacle of sinewy muscle rising out of the ocean surface disabused her of any notions that the beast would be easy prey.  Her first instinct was to leap into the fray, sprouting wings and slicing the beast before it could deal further damage to the ship and its crew.  But her second urged hesitancy.

She did not need to eat or drink, but as far as she knew, demigods could still be drowned, and it was neither the time nor the place to test that conjecture.  Beyond that, she knew that where one tentacle was, several more were to follow.  Lysette tended to fight with four or six tentacles of wood at her back.  With a creature large enough to move that much flesh around as its own, though, there could easily be ten, a dozen, maybe multiple dozen if they were particularly unlucky.

And even that ignored the greatest threat from the creature, even more than its size.  It had been identified specifically as a Cultivation beast.  It therefore possessed some modicum of intelligence and command of godly power.  The raging vortices surrounding the Night’s Reach were testament to that.  The Water Cultivators aboard were canceling the largest of them out, but they could not do so forever.

A tentacle crashed down upon the deck, repelled by a pair of Wind Cultivators at the last moment.  The two worked in perfect sync, their knees buckling as their shield of air barely pushed back the writhing rod of muscle.  One of them fired a pair of light green arrows of solidified air that glowed slightly in the midnight sky.  It hit its mark, but the damage was minimal.

The Kraken’s second attack was only slightly slower than its first, but the human defenders were outmatched.  They defended the ship valiantly, rebuffing it just as they did the first time.  Everyone could see that they wouldn’t be able to hold forever.  Especially considering that the beast seemed to be almost… toying with the vessel.

Lysette turned to Dennell.  “Does this creature have any weaknesses?”

“It shouldn’t be attacking us at all.  This is a diplomatic mission, not a combat vessel.  I don’t understand!”

“Ciricu is at war with Terea.  With me specifically.  This is all part of a ploy by Thosse to eliminate me.”  Or at least weaken me.  Lysette smirked.  “Of course I have earned her ire.”

“I beg your pardon, Your Ladyship!  She would not deign to defy millennia of precedent and protocol and international relations?”

“Now’s not the time to worry about intent or protocol, Dennell!  Do you have a plan for how to slay this thing before it drags us to the bottom of the ocean?”

“I don’t know its weakness, or even if we have the means to kill it.  But I do know that it will not take kindly to having its limbs severed off.  If we deal enough damage to it, perhaps we can force it to retreat.”

“I see.  Can you fly?”

“I’m afraid not.  I’ll have to wait for it to attack in order to counter.”

Lysette sprouted her wings.  “Then I guess it’s just me.  I’ll leave you in charge of coordinating the defense of the ship.  Unless you have another idea.”

“I don’t, Your Ladyship.  But I must implore you to be careful.  It would not do for you to be injured upon your arrival.”

Lysette grinned.  She had a potent healing factor, and so far had managed to bounce back from injuries which would have killed most.  Though, she was unkeen on the prospect of testing the limits of both.

She hovered just above the top of the mast and surveyed the surroundings.  Mist thrown up from the ocean still wetted her tunic and pants, but the vantage point lit by stars high above afforded her greater insight into exactly what was attacking.  The creature was far larger than she’d expected— its main body was nearly as large as the Night’s Reach, and that didn’t factor in some sixteen different tentacles swatting about just below.

A tentacle flung toward her, followed by another from the other side.  A third shortly followed. Were Lysette someone else, were she limited by the senses of mortals or her flight constrained by natural physics, the cavalcade of appendages would have crushed her.  But instead, by closing her avatar’s eyes and focusing herself on her aurasight, she slipped between the first two, then backflipped over the third and scored it with a thorny whip she conjured in the midst of the assault.

Her attack dealt little more than superficial damage on the surface, but the plant she used also secreted a paralyzing toxin upon its thorns.  She had no idea if the venom would take— the creature’s physiology was bound to be far different than those of humans.  It was far larger than them as well.  And there was a likely possibility that it too had some sort of natural resistance to even the most pernicious chemicals, bolstered yet further by the power of the gods.

Another pair of attacks came as the behemoth’s colossal body rose out of the water.  A single eye, easily larger than her head, opened and fixed its gaze upon her.  It didn’t make a sound that Lysette could hear, but the bubbling of the ocean all around and the way the kraken’s arms motioned toward Lysette conveyed a sense of righteous, indignant anger all the same.

A ravenous maw emerged from within the deep and with nary a sound, a jet of water–.  No, a jet of some inky black fluid befitting the titan’s size blasted out at her at speeds that left a loud whistle in their wake.  Lysette dodged the first without trouble, but the second came even faster and with even more force.  Still, she dodged, bobbing and weaving and scoring superficial wounds where she had the opportunity.

Five minutes later and the aquatic beast showed no signs of relenting or even slowing down in its attack.  Lysette wasn’t short of breath just yet, but her stamina had declined by a fifth with no progress to show for it.  Even the ship’s harpoons, bolstered by Wind Cultivation to fly straighter and faster, failed to do more than irritate the titan.

Lysette abandoned her plan of attack, willing her thorny whip back into a seedling which she stashed in a small pouch in her tunic.  She closed her eyes and dove down at the beast.  Tentacles whipped at her and a few even managed to land glancing blows along her waist and arms and thighs, but she sustained no serious injury.  She waited, and she waited more until she stared Thosse’s servant at point-blank range.

It opened its maw to fire another jet of pitch-colored ink at Lysette, but for a split-second, its insides were visible.  Lysette struck, launching a spear of flame directly into its lowermost set of teeth.  Her attack hit home and the creature staggered for a moment.  But it wasn’t enough damage to stop the acrid fluid from launching forth.  Lysette evaded the worst of it, but still took a blast of the viscous goop upon her left hand.

It reeked of the Infernal realm and numbed the entire hand in the span of three blinks.  No wonder her previous venom strikes had no effect; its resistance to toxins must’ve far exceeded her own for it to create such a pernicious substance. Worse still, it was slowly leeching away at Lysette’s strength and stamina.  Her own poison resistance was fighting it off and slowed the drain to a trickle, but trying to stall out further would only serve to her detriment.

She danced around hundreds of flailing attacks as she searched for another opening.  But the creature seemed intelligent enough to both recognize her as a threat and to assume a more defensive position.  The facsimile of a heart within her shell quickened and her breathing shallowed as she tried to come up with a better plan.

She was nearly smacked out of the sky and into the ravenous mouth of the Kraken but for a razored tentacle of purest black that intercepted the ones of flesh and sinew.  It cut at the others and even managed to slice one of them clean.  The creature didn’t roar— it didn’t possess the physiology to do so, though the rumble of the water conveyed its pain and ire perfectly.  Lysette turned in the split second of reprieve and saw Dennell triumphant but winded, retracting his attack and doing what he could to rally the crew of their ship.

“We’ll do what we can to help you!” he said.  “You do what you must!”

The rest of the crew responded to their diplomat’s warcry.  Blasts of stone and ice and wind and the metallic whoosh of arrows and harpoons all filled the air.  The crewmates fought together, launching coordinated assaults combining water and even lightning.   It was but a crude facsimile of the combination techniques Serrena and Rayleigh had been working on the past several months, but still gave her some ideas to try for her own.

She focused back on what she could do to turn the tide of battle.  But she could think of no clear path to victory.  Her agility in the water was far from sufficient to dive after the behemoth.  And even solidifying its insides with ice did little more than irritate the creature and stun it for a few seconds.  She lacked the ability to dissolve herself, and Dennell lacked both her supernatural perception and regeneration necessary to dive inside and tear the Kraken apart from the inside.

But, when she surveyed the battlefield, she noticed that the Kraken had done very little damage to the Night’s Reach itself, and seemed content to ignore the attacks from its crew.  That made no sense.  The ship was well-constructed, made of hardy wood and treated with Essence to improve its waterproofing and durability.  But not nearly so impervious to such overwhelming might.  It was almost as though it were intentionally trying not to harm anyone but Lysette.

It seemed impossible to believe, but as Lysette continued her duel with Thosse’s servant, it seemed far less than impossible.  Maybe not even improbable.  It hadn’t attacked the ship during the trip from Ereill to Ciricu.  And from Dennell’s reaction, it didn’t seem as though it often attacked diplomatic vessels.  To the point that he was indignant that it had done so.  That meant either Thosse was directly controlling her aquatic titan, or the creature possessed enough intelligence to act in such a matter.

In either case, there was a chance at least for some dialogue, to reach some sort of understanding or at least to broker some sort of agreement between all of them.  Not via words, but via telepathy, maybe.  It might not be able to understand the common tongue but…

Lysette had a sudden epiphany.  According to Aurie, Celestial tongue was a language of pure intent that allowed a deity to communicate directly with another.  And as far she knew, there shouldn’t be any other precondition for being able to communicate in that manner.  She wasn’t sure how the Kraken would respond or if it even could, but it seemed the best option.

She opened a mental connection to the creature and communicated a desire to parley.  And to her shock, the tempestuous seas calmed.  Lysette held out a hand and ordered a ceasefire.  A pair of crewmates disobeyed, but when she scattered their meager attacks away from their target, they got the message.  They remained on high alert, ready to resume the battle at a moment’s notice, but they otherwise went quiet.  Eerily quiet.

And thoughts echoed into Lysette’s mind.  “Defiler…  Why do you speak to my mind?  What treacherous purpose do you have for this?”

Chapter 274: https://www.patreon.com/posts/116230966

Table of Contents: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101896170

Chapter 276: https://www.patreon.com/posts/116367284