On His Command

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"

Heon fell on his butt the moment three gigantic red tentacles surfaced from the sea. If not for the rows of suckers on its sides, he'd thought it was humongous snakes with a vengeance against the boat.

"It's a fucking kraken, you idiot!" Sunny shouted back in a hurry. Even so, his red eyes were covered in crazed glaze. A manic grin broke on his face.

"And what are you going to do? Stab it with your small knife?" It was Azran's voice – calm, despite the sea monster that suddenly appeared as if summoned by Heon's grumbling.

The blond healer mage slash murderer merely winked at the earth mage before he lurched forward with the intent to go against the Kraken. With a very small knife, similar to a steak knife he could find on a restaurant table.

"He really did lose his mind, didn't he?"

Heon didn't, couldn't even comment on Azran's remark about their resident crazy maniac. He was far too busy hyperventilating at the first look of what was supposed to be a legend – an epic story of a monster and the destruction it could bring to a ship on the sea. Just like how he was at the moment.

"Hey."

His brown eyes were glued to the view in front of him.

Sunny was going to die. He was sure of it. How would he not?

Could someone even go against a Kraken – a real live one with tentacles as big as the central pillar he saw on the city's train station?

On the brink of seeing his so-called friend's death, Heon couldn't tear his eyes away.

The three tentacles had grown into four and then five. Rippling in the sky, surrounding Myron's boat as if it was ready to swallow them whole. Shrieks and screams bellowed immediately, making a cacophony of tragedy with him, and about thirty or more people boarded the boat as victims.

It dawned on him, then. Not only Sunny but all of them were going to be dead.

They would die, and it was all because of his flippant comment. What a ridiculous notion.

If it was indeed because of his words that the Kraken appeared, then it should be easy to banish it away, right?

Heon opened his mouth, but the words stuck in his throat. He was scared. Truly scared.

"Hey!"

The boy with white streaks in his hair looked up and saw Azran's face – with rippling gigantic tentacles behind her.

"Are you going to sit here forever and let the kraken smack you dead?" The green-haired girl asked, seemingly bored in the midst of this horror. "Or you can follow me and hide. Let the others do the work, for once."

He didn't really get what Azran meant, but once he could tear his gaze away from the monstrosity behind her, Heon caught the highest authority on this boat, commanding people around.

Myron was shouting left and right, ordering his two subordinates to hold off the Kraken with their control over the seawater. It was like a scene straight out of that animated show about elemental benders with a bald kid and his flying bison.

The bodybuilder-like, ruddy-skinned man with thin lips himself was busy using his magic power to control the water. Myron's magic was more fantastic than his subordinates. He could morph the water to look like a Chinese dragon. Its water body coiled against two of the Kraken's tentacles.

Sunny, too, was jumping here and there with such agility he didn't know before. The small knife he had didn't look like it did any damage to the tentacles, but the red-haired murderer was crafty enough to use it and made slashes inside the big suckers.

Aside from those four, there was no one else who dared to go against the Kraken. At the second look at his surroundings, Heon became aware that the other passengers were drunkards who fell face first at any given moment and slaves who cowered in the dark corners.

"You want us to hide with them?" Heon asked as Azran took his hand and pulled him up.

"Yes."

"But you have power. You're a magic user–"

"Earth magic user, remember? Because as far as I look, the only thing I can see is water. Which is very different from earth, if you don't mind me saying."

He could hear the heavy sarcasm in her tone, but Heon was too occupied with his imminent death if he hid and did nothing about it. "Sunny is a healer, and he dared to fight with a small knife."

Azran huffed impatiently, "He's a madman who murdered people and have healing magic. He did crazy things and was always so reckless because he can heal in no time. Don't put me in the same pedestal as that manic murderer."

On second thought, she was right. Having the power to instantly heal one's injury would make anyone as reckless as Sunny. That was the only reason why he went against the titan Kraken with only a small knife as a weapon and manic glee on his face.

"I don't want to hide, knowing I left my life in the palms of one crazy murderer and three slave smugglers' hands." Heon made himself clear, standing with his back straight and a determined look in his brown eyes.

But the boat tipped to the side due to the Kraken's rippling tentacles, making him stumble on his feet and almost make a joke of himself.

Azran sighed, grumbling, but she didn't do anything else. She merely said, "And what are you going to do? Wave your hand around and say, begone, you Kraken?"

Heon huffed, clenching his fists, and vehemently denied, "Of course, I won't say begone, you Kraken. Who do you think I am? A delusional loser?"

The next second, another unexpected thing happened.

As if obeying his command, the Kraken ceased its movement. All gigantic tentacles slowly retreated, disappearing back under the water. Slipping without a sound to the darkness of the sea.

Sunny landed on the boat's bow pulpit with a thud. The grin slipped from his handsome face. He sent a glare to Heon. "What the hell? Did you order it to go?"

Heon looked down at his left hand. The black color was back, along with the painful throbs that always accompanied it.

The Kraken really did obey his command.