Chapter 580: Captain Hook (4)
The colossal cannon, matching the ship’s size almost one-to-one, boasted its might.
Thrown off balance by the cannon’s blast, Oliver plunged into the sea.
Splash!
As he hit the water, two thoughts struck Oliver.
First, the seawater was saltier than he’d expected.
Second, Hook was using a rather unique form of black magic.
Bubbling, bubbling...
Initially, Oliver assumed Hook had created his crew and strengthened the ship using his specialty in creation-type black magic, but it was more than that.
Hook had gone beyond merely overlaying the ship with creation magic; he had recreated it entirely, using the ship itself as raw material.
The split deck and the massive cannon, larger than should logically fit, were proof.
Simply overlaying magic wouldn’t make this possible.
In other words, what floated on the sea before him was no ordinary ship but a massive creature—a small world under Hook’s control.
It was like the Sleeping Forest, home to the Princess in Slumber.
Though the scale was far smaller, the unique maritime environment made it no less formidable.
“I’ll need some help,” Oliver judged, underwater. At the very least, he needed a foothold.
Hardly had he thought it when a green fish appeared in his line of sight.
As soon as the fish spotted him, it tried to flee, but Oliver used targeting magic to pull it toward him and caught it.
“This alone… won’t be enough.”
After a quick examination, Oliver instinctively concluded this and took out a vial from his coat.
Inside was a piece of red flesh—a fragment from a summoning beast called forth by a prince candidate of the White Swan Sect, saved for research.
Trusting his instincts, Oliver opened the vial, fed the flesh to the fish, and activated his creation-type black magic.
[Mimic-Fish Man]
...
A living fish.
Summoned beast flesh.
Creation-type black magic imitating Pan’s creature, the fish-man.
Combining these three elements produced a remarkable result.
For a brief moment, Oliver couldn’t be entirely sure, but it seemed intelligence flickered in the fish’s eyes. Then, it began to sprout hands and feet, its skeleton twisted, and flesh bubbled until, as though exploding, it rapidly grew into a giant.
It transformed into a giant with the fish as its base.
Griiiiiiing—!!
With a loud, strange cry and a great surge of water, the fish giant appeared, flippers on both hands gripping the wendy.
the wendy rocked, losing balance under the pressure.
Standing atop the giant’s head, Oliver looked down at Hook, who was struggling to steady himself, and commented.
“That ship is truly impressive.”
Said with genuine admiration, without a hint of sarcasm.
Hook, however, did not respond. He swung his rapier in a dignified manner, issuing an order to his crew.
“Destroy him.”
As soon as the command left his lips, Hook’s crew regained their footing on the shaking deck and each aimed their firearms.
From ordinary pistols to submachine guns, rifles, a hand cannon attached to a prosthetic arm, and cannons—the array was diverse.
Naturally, these weapons, like the crew, were creatures and would unleash abnormal power.
Considering this, Oliver signaled to the fish giant.
“I’m counting on you.”
Griiiiiiing—!!
The fish giant let out an ultrasonic sound that made the air tremble and raised one flippered arm, sweeping it across the deck from left to right.
Boom!!
With a loud crash, the massive arm, covered in tough scales, struck, sending most of the crew on the deck plunging into the sea.
A simple yet devastatingly powerful move.
But the fish giant didn’t stop there. It lifted its arm high, aiming to bring it down on Hook, who wore a red uniform.
Whoosh!
The ropes lining the wendy—on the deck, mast, pillars, and sides of the ship—moved like live snakes, wrapping around the giant’s body and halting its advance.
Griiiing…
The fish giant, now bound around its wrists, arms, shoulders, neck, and face, struggled and cried out in frustration.
Under normal circumstances, regular ropes would have snapped by now, but as part of the creature, the ropes only tightened, constricting the giant even further.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Following this came the deafening sound of cannon fire.
Hook had fired the cannons mounted on the ship’s side, striking the fish giant’s abdomen.
Fortunately, the giant’s tough scales held, preventing a fatal blow, though it did feel intense pain.
Enraged, the fish giant shifted its tactics and tried to flip the entire ship over.
The c tilted to one side. It was then that...
The ship’s bow opened like a puzzle coming apart, and from within emerged a massive claw that stabbed into the fish giant.
Thwack!
Screeeeech!!
The excruciating pain made the fish giant scream, scales, water spray, and drops of blood scattering through the air.
With a rasping cry, a massive crab emerged from the wendy’s bow.
Even amid the pain, the fish giant roared back at the crab to intimidate it, and the crab, in turn, roared back.
Griiiiiiing—!!
Gagagagagaga!!
The resonance between the giant monsters’ roars stirred the waves, their flippers and claws clashing.
Only the fish giant’s cry filled the air.
It was inevitable.
The giant had sharp claws and scales sturdy enough to withstand cannon fire, but its opponent was a crab.
Its claws couldn’t pierce the crab’s thick shell, nor could they withstand its massive pincers.
In short, the fish giant was at a disadvantage.
Meanwhile, the Wendy’s ropes tightened even further, and the crab’s spider-like legs gripped the fish giant’s sides, pulling it in tighter.
Growing wounds, increasing blood loss, and a worsening situation…
As the fish giant’s defeat seemed inevitable—
Bang!
A bone-shaking, gut-rattling sound echoed.
It was like two massive iron rods colliding.
The sound came from a quarterstaff wrapped in black armor and black suit, fashioned into a hammer, which shattered the crab’s leg.
“Pardon me,”
said Oliver, who, by using targeting magic, had attached himself to the fish giant and raised the hammer with one hand.
Bang!!
The hammer came down hard on the crab’s leg, causing a bone-rattling echo that shattered the crab’s limb.
The result of a quarterstaff that was virtually unbreakable, reinforced several layers with black armor and black suit, combined with the strength Oliver had acquired from the flesh chef.
Oliver used the fish giant as his platform, slashing and smashing the crab’s pincer hand as it tried to stab and cut him.
Bang!!
Bang!!
Two shockwaves rippled through the air.
However, the pincers, much thicker than the legs, didn’t shatter; they only cracked, and parts of the shell broke.
But that was enough. The crab recoiled in pain.
Hook tried to seize Oliver by controlling the ropes that bound the fish giant.
Ropes descended from above, below, in front, and from both sides, attacking from all directions.
In response, Oliver drew a blood-colored dagger from his waist and swung it wide.
Shhhk━!
With that slash, the ropes converging on him, including those binding the fish giant, were all severed.
“...!!”
Hook’s eyes widened in surprise, but the real shock came from the rapid spread of disease along the severed rope edges.
Panicked, Hook cut away the contaminated sections, freeing the fish giant, who once again grabbed the ship, trying to flip it.
“Obey my command!!”
The Wendy tilted, spraying white water as it leaned to one side. Hook stabbed his rapier into the deck and shouted.
With his authoritative voice, control over the Wendy strengthened, and the frightened crab emerged again, attempting to sever the fish giant’s arms with its cracked pincers.
As Oliver raised his quarterstaff, with its black hammer attached, to strike the pincers once more, gunfire and cannon blasts erupted.
The sailors who had been swept into the sea by the fish giant’s attacks were now summoned back onto the deck by Hook’s command to intercept Oliver.
Curiously, those who had fallen into the sea and were then re-summoned took on mixed appearances of fish, crustaceans, and shellfish, with their weapons now part of their bodies.
Strengthened black magic emanated from their altered forms.
Some of them, now with superhuman agility, even used the crab and fish giant as stepping stones to launch close-range attacks.
In response, Oliver summoned his magic to create a towering wave that swept away the oncoming sailors, then froze the Wendy with ice magic before bombarding it with intense magical and black magic attacks.
As a result, the Wendy released intense heat that melted the ice, freeing the sailors, who sliced through flames and lightning with their swords and defended themselves with shells like crustaceans.
The fish giant and crab clashed in a chaotic melee...
Oliver, after freezing the ship, unleashed a barrage of bullets charged with flames, lightning, and hatred...
With heat radiating off the Wendy, melting the ice, sailors fired guns and cannons and swung swords and hooks.
The ocean, which became their chaotic battleground, surged with waves so powerful they outmatched natural tides, scattering water in all directions.
Raindrops fell like a deluge, and mist formed as the surroundings became shrouded in vapor.
Perhaps influenced by the intensity, or perhaps simply driven by hunger, Oliver’s shadow began to stir once more.
After all, Hook’s ship would indeed be a veritable feast for the shadow.
At that moment, two things simultaneously came to mind for Oliver—a fact he had momentarily forgotten and an idea.
He immediately calmed his shadow and took out an item he had stored within it.
A vest-like Greedy Pouch, an item he had seized from a dense forest.
Its previous owner was the Bomb Merchant, a back-alley dealer of corpse bombs, an apprentice of Puppet, and an ally of Claude. After Puppet killed him, Oliver had collected both the Bomb Merchant’s body and his items.
Now was the time to use it.
Holding up the vest-shaped Greedy Pouch, Oliver made a polite request.
“Could you lend me a hand?”
Though not its owner, the terrified pouch responded to Oliver’s polite request, bringing forth its contents.
Hundreds of corpse bombs poured from its massive mouth.
Controlling them, Oliver directed the released corpse bombs toward the crab’s cracked claw and the ship itself.
“Graaaargh!”
The corpse bombs, filled with life force and emotion, obeyed Oliver’s command, clinging to the crab’s cracked claw and detonating.
Boom!!!
The massive explosion shattered the already weakened pincer.
With its claw freed, the fish giant glared fiercely at the crab, gripping its black eyes, crushing them, and pulling them out. Then, it pried open the crab’s split jaws with brute force.
Crack... snap... snap!
The crab’s thin shell broke apart, its dying cries drowned out by the waves.
The Wendy tipped to one side. It seemed the clash of these titanic creatures would soon reach its conclusion.
Seizing the momentum, the multitude of corpse bombs spilling from the Greedy Pouch raced up the fish giant’s body, seizing the Wendy’s deck and grabbing hold of the sailors who tried to block Oliver.
Hook’s sailors wielded superhuman strength, resisting the corpse bombs, but the sheer numbers overwhelmed them as the corpse bombs clung to them and detonated.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!
The ship erupted as if scattered with dynamite.
Even from the distant harbor, people of Bin City felt the tremor and assumed the Wendy would be obliterated beyond recognition. But at that moment, a short, clear gunshot rang out.
Thunk!
The sound of a whaling gunshot—a giant harpoon shot straight through the smoke, hitting the fish giant squarely between its brows.
The fish giant, which had withstood ropes, claws, and the crab’s pincers, began to slowly collapse from this sudden, lethal blow.
Standing atop the giant’s head, Oliver tried to draw out its life force to revive it as a zombie.
But Hook quickly fired a barrage from a cannon-stitched Gatling gun and a sniper-cannon hybrid, bombarding Oliver to prevent this.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!
Flames erupted from multiple barrels, piercing the fish giant’s lifeless body with large holes.
Now, the fish giant’s body was so damaged that reviving it was almost impossible.
Thus, Oliver abandoned the wrecked giant and moved to the only platform left—the Wendy.
To his surprise, despite the hundreds of corpse bomb explosions, the Wendy had kept its shape.
This endurance reflected the extensive materials Hook had used to build it, his black magic skills, and his dedication and willpower poured into the creature’s maintenance.
“That’s an incredible creature. I thought I’d at least render it incapable of fighting,” Oliver remarked with admiration.
This time, Hook replied.
“It’s barely holding together.”
Oliver understood what he meant.
The Wendy, once full of sailors, now stood empty—they’d likely been temporarily sacrificed to sustain the ship amidst heavy damage.
“Impressive, all the same,” Oliver said.
“And you are impressive too. It’s been a long time since I was pushed like this at sea,” Hook said earnestly.
“So tell me, how many times have you fought at sea?”
“This is my first,” Oliver replied.
Hook showed no outward reaction but seemed to process this.
“The fish giant was also a first. I managed it with some special materials… Thought you might be curious,” Oliver said, reading Hook’s emotions and offering an explanation before he could even ask.
Hook chuckled at this.
“Haha… I can’t deny it. You’re strong. Truly. But that’s the problem.”
“How so?” Oliver asked.
“Maybe you’re too strong? Seems like you’re not giving it your all.”
“…”
“Whether it’s kindness, arrogance, or carelessness, doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason, it all leads to the same result… allowing a fatal strike… like this!”
Hook slammed his rapier into the deck once more.
A fairy emerged from Hook’s coat, dusted him with red powder, then set itself ablaze and landed atop his rapier.
When the fairy touched down, crimson fire spread from the rapier throughout the entire Wendy.
[Fireship]
The Wendy, previously a floating fortress, transformed into a massive blaze, sparing nothing but its master, Hook, intending to incinerate everything else.
This was the hidden technique that had sunk even a military ship with scores of accompanying war mages.
Intense heat rose, black smoke from the explosions cleared, and in its place, steam filled the area as the seawater boiled from the heat.
It was like watching red-hot metal plunged into water.
In that burning heat, Hook looked forward.
“Surely you couldn’t have—huh?”
He’d been marveling at Oliver’s skill, even if somewhat disappointed, but now Hook made a dumbstruck sound.
He had been certain Oliver would have been reduced to ashes, but instead, there he stood, unharmed except for his singed clothes.
Standing amidst the inferno.
“This… is a bit unexpected?”