Chapter 34 Abundant Harvest

A sudden roar of waves startled Duncan awake from the Dreamscape.

His eyes flew open, and the visions from his half-asleep, half-awake state had already faded to mere thin silhouettes. He could only remember seeing fish swimming through the air, and the fish that surrounded him seemed exceptionally delicious—but what did those fish look like again?

Fish… can swim through the air?

Duncan blinked, feeling a bizarre sense of reality and Dreamscape tearing and blending. For a short moment, he felt confused. He looked towards his three fishing rods fixed on the stands but saw no sign of fish being hooked. Meanwhile, the distant sea had begun to heave; wave after wave was slapping against the hull of Homeloss.

Then, the waves grew larger. Within visible limits, one wave stronger than the next began to surge continuously from afar, rocking the massive body of Homeloss amidst the wind and waves. The sound of the tumultuous sea filled his ears.

Duncan looked up at the sky and found the weather still fair. It seemed to be just a few more waves, but there shouldn't be any extreme phenomena like great storms brewing.

"This might not be good weather for fishing…"

He muttered, contemplating whether to reel in the rods when, out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly saw the tip of one rod bend sharply!

The robust fishing line prepared for sea fishing instantly tightened. The stout and sturdy sea-fishing rod seemed to have caught some big creature, bending the entire front half like a bow, accompanied by a screeching, grating sound. The rod holder, too, creaked under the strain of the forceful pull, signaling to Duncan:

There's a fish! A big one!

He instantly abandoned the idea of resting and drew upon the fisherman's passion burning in his chest. In two strides, he reached the "productive" rod, grabbed it with one hand to prevent it from falling off the stand, and with the other hand, he began to adjust the tension of the fishing line bit by bit.

"I knew it! How could I come up empty-handed!"

Duncan excitedly talked to himself, beginning the struggle with whatever massive entity was on the other end of the line. It was a tough battle; the thing at the end of the line didn't seem inclined to give itself up easily. It pulled at the rod with such force that even with Duncan's strength and the support of the rod holder, the standoff still seemed perilously close to collapsing.

The wind and waves around Homeloss grew a bit more intense, but for Duncan, this slight rocking was hardly worth noting.

He was only irritated by the stubborn "prey" and worried about the opportunity to improve their food rations slipping through his fingers.

The tension in the fishing line was nearing the breaking point; the big fish was about to break free.

After an indeterminate period of stalemate, Duncan finally steeled his heart, and suddenly a cluster of eerie green flames diffused outwards from the hand grasping the fishing rod.

The green fire blazed fiercely, spreading like water, and quickly flowed along the rod and the line. The Spiritual Body's flame burned a path along the line, shaping a trail of fire straight into the water. In the next second, the deep water around Homeloss abruptly lit up with an illusory outline of green flame, and under the glow and delineation of the ghostly green fire, a massive shadow surfaced in the water.

The shadow resembled an undulating mass of flesh, nearly overshadowing the sea surface around Homeloss for hundreds of meters. Its edges extended out into countless shifting, growing tendrils of darkness, writhing and waving like thousands of arms in the ocean, stirring the water around Homeloss and controlling the invisible tidal waves that churned.

Duncan heard some unusual noises beneath the sea; while maintaining the standoff with the "prey," he curiously peeked outside.

He saw nothing, just the waves rolling as before, with no significant change.

But he distinctly felt the opposing force transmitted through the rod had weakened slightly.

The prey's strength was waning—a fact that brought a radiant smile to his face.

He began to pull in the fishing line with force, bit by bit, drawing his catch out of the sea…

…

Alice jerked awake from the booming and howling coming from outside the cabin, with violent shaking traveling up from the floor, causing a clink and clatter of the room's furnishings. Quick to react, she grabbed onto a nearby railing, preventing herself from falling, the expression on her face marked by uncertainty and surprise, "What's happening?"

Homeloss was rocking as if a tremendous storm was raging outside. Deep within this ancient Ghost Ship, there came some sort of deep, oppressive strange sounds, as if it were growling and roaring, resisting the horror brought by the deep sea and something trying to engulf it.

Everything in the cabin was clinking and clattering, and at first, Alice thought it was all just a collision brought on by the rocking of the ship, but soon she realized many of these noisy objects were actually buzzing in place—they were making noise and talking to each other, but Alice couldn't understand this language that only Homeloss itself could comprehend.

She only knew something might have gone wrong outside.

Alice decided to go up on deck to take a look—she staggered out of the cabin, running toward the deck while holding onto nearby walls to avoid falling.

After nearly getting tripped up by randomly flying ropes and wildly rolling barrels several times, she finally reached the end of the staircase. She pushed open the wooden door that was swingin wildly amidst the waves and saw astounding huge waves surging atop the Endless Sea.

The sky was as dark as ink; the ominous thick clouds had almost solidified into heavy clumps, pressing close to the sea's surface. The towering waves rolled and surged under the dark clouds, undulating and surrounding the Homeloss nearby!

This was Alice's first encounter with such a scene; she didn't know if this was normal for the sea, but she knew she must find the captain at this time.

She scanned the deck and with little effort, soon found Captain Duncan standing at the edge of the deck.

...

The winds and waves were somewhat annoying, but for Duncan, on the brink of success, they were just insignificant "disturbances". With the dual feedback from the fishing line and the green flames, he could clearly feel his prey had ceased its struggle, the massive creature was being slowly pulled out of the water by him.

"Come on up!" he shouted jubilantly, pulling the fishing rod with all his might for the last time.

A big fish leapt out of the water—it was really big, almost half the size of a person.

In that brief moment, Duncan met eyes with the fish suspended in mid-air.

"...Pretty ugly," he thought as the first impression.

Indeed, it was an extremely ugly fish, its blackish and slippery body covered with growth-like bumps and protrusions, with strange grayish-white patterns sprawling along both sides of its fins. At the fish's head, many bone spikelike structures were visible, and a pair of hollow, pallid eyeballs gazed at Duncan from beneath those spines.

Duncan felt quite uncomfortable; he even felt the fish was watching him with malice.

But in the next second, he saw the fish suddenly convulse, and for some reason, its staring eyeballs burst spontaneously, instantly bleeding profusely.

The fish landed heavily on the deck, writhing and thrashing as if electrocuted, and quieted down within mere seconds. Blood seeped from its mouth and burst eyeballs, dripping onto the deck drop by drop.

Duncan watched the hideously ugly fish rapidly lose its vitality by his feet with a bit of astonishment, vaguely recalling knowledge he had read in a book: deep-sea fish are indeed very ugly, and due to living under high pressure, their blood vessels would burst upon being brought to the surface, leading to swift death—so the fish in this world are the same?

While he was briefly lost in thought, a crackling sound suddenly came again.

Curiously following the sound, Duncan saw several smaller "strange fish" landing on the deck one after the other.

They looked quite similar to that half-person-tall strange fish but were only about half a meter in size. And just like the bigger fish—upon Duncan's gaze, they had already started to bleed heavily from their bodies and were quickly gasping for their last breath.

Duncan was a bit stunned, it took him a long while to react, "Are these like progeny following their parent? In succession?"

...

Alice gripped the railing tightly, watching the ferocious fight unfolding not far away that could drive ordinary people mad.

She saw Captain Duncan standing at the edge of the deck, with ghostly green flames blazing fiercely around him. He, like a giant ablaze, confronted the sea. Three chains extended from the deck at his feet; one of the chains was burning with a terrifying flame.

She saw a massive shadow suddenly appear in the Endless Sea, followed by a tentacle, almost thicker than the Homeloss's mainmast, stretching out from the water. The surface of the tentacle revealed countless malevolent eyes; innumerable sharp fangs grated and chewed between the eyes, as if the next moment they would crush the entire ship into pieces.

Alice almost screamed out loud; she wanted to warn the captain to dodge, and to rush over to help, but before she could act, the tentacle slammed down toward the captain.

She saw Captain Duncan look up; under the raging flames, a look of harvest joy was on his face—he watched those countless eyes upon the tentacle, and they watched him too.

The next second, all the eyes on the tentacle suddenly burst open, emitting a shrill and agonized screech from the hundreds of sharp teeth. Following that, the tentacle was severed out of thin air—as if a huge entity hidden beneath the sea surface had actively cut off its connection with the tentacle, discarding the severely damaged end onto the deck.

The tentacle landed with a thud and the dirty, viscous blood and flesh spilling from the severed end splattered all over, landing near the captain's feet.