Chapter 227 – Beasts of the Deep

As soon as the leviathan surfaced, the crew started moving into action.

“Leviathan off the port bow!” one of the lookouts shouted.

Baracueli cutters were designed for speed, but the archipelago was full of barely-submerged rocks and small islands, so the ship had been forced to slow down. Still, despite Xipuatl’s insistence the water was too shallow for leviathans, there were deeper areas they could navigate. Clearly.

This cutter had a single turret, a force catapult for launching depth charges, and a spellward repellent engine. As the crew cranked the spellward up to full power, another group manned the turret while a third started hauling ammunition up from below decks. The deck became a mad scramble as everyone ran in different directions to different stations.

The chief hunter of the ship—the ranking crew in charge of myrvite attacks—burst from his quarters still buttoning his shirt. “Hold fire until we know it’s coming for us,” he commanded the turret crew. “Mages, port side, ready sonic spells. Lookouts, remember your job isn’t to all stare in the same direction! Eyes out! You three—get the charges up as soon as the shells are prepped.”

The pilot on the bridge had her hand on the wheel, fingers gripping it like a vice. Her assistant had his hand just over the glyph to the remote voice spell engine that would communicate with the engine room.

Mirian kept her hands on the railing and watched the creature.

This one was especially big, about twice as long as the cutter. As it swam along the surface, its rows of thin spines cut through the air like so many rows of knives. Flocks of gulls soared around the beast, crying out. Below the water, she could make out the bulk of it, the dozen or so pairs of fins, plus the trails of tentacles. It was too bright to see the myrvite beast’s bioluminescence, but she knew from Viridian’s lectures that the beast would appear at night as if a sea of stars were swimming below the surface.

“Get to the cabins,” Mirian told Xipuatl. “Help with repairs if you can.”

“Repairs? We don’t know if it’s going to attack. You said you haven’t—”

As the leviathan approached, she could feel the faint edge of its aura. “It’s definitely going to attack. It’s communicating with its aura. And it’s… angry. Go.”

Xipuatl headed for the aft stairs and scrambled below decks.

The spellward pulsed out mana. One of the gulls in the air was a chimeric variant that had a thin snake instead of tail feathers. It peeled away from the leviathan as the spellward repelled it, crying out as it fled in a direct path away from the cutter.

The leviathan turned right for them.

“Sonic spells! Now!” the chief hunter cried. Meanwhile, the captain had joined the pilot on the aft deck, and the cutter was banking hard to starboard.

Mirian felt the rumble of the sonic spells as they went off. The leviathan repellent spells were detonated under the water, the sound waves at a frequency that the leviathans hated, but that humans couldn’t hear. Usually, this chased them away. Leviathans were smart enough they seemed to know that there were morsels to eat on ships, but that the morsels were small and not very nutritious. A bit of discouragement, and they’d usually go after some other prey.

Usually. Unless they were especially hungry.

Or, apparently, unless they were angry.

The leviathan suddenly surged forward, spines laying down flat as the water churned.

“Flank speed, beach her if you need to!” the captain cried out, and Mirian felt the ship lurch forward as the spell engines below decks pushed their force spells to maximum. “Turret, fire at will!”

In an instant, Miran’s soulbound spellbook was in her hand, flipped to her page of combat spells. She gathered her mana, let it swirl and coalesce, then cast her most powerful greater lightning directly at the leviathan’s head. Light flashed as the spell thundered.

The leviathan thrashed in the water as the bolt struck. Violent waves smashed into the ship a moment later. Mirian cast levitation simply so she wouldn’t be distracted by the rocking motion. She summoned another full power lightning bolt. This one smashed into the bulk of the creature, and electricity danced through the waves and across its colossal body. More waves battered the cutter, and she heard shouting behind her.

The leviathan dove, sending huge waves crashing out, its spines vanishing below the waves. Mirian quickly levitated higher, moving back towards the ship that was now leaving her behind. An artillery shell smashed into the water, bursting open in lightning and force blades, but the shot had missed.

Then, two tentacles burst from the water where Mirian had been and the leviathan’s head breached the surface, both its inner and outer jaws open. Its head came crashing back down, and this time, the waves that followed threatened to capsize the boat. She heard the shouts of the sailors behind her.

Miran continued to fly backward, now bombarding the leviathan with flurries of force blade and force drill spells, sending up spatters of its dark oily blood. Any sane myrvite would have backed off by now. Something else was going on.

A second artillery shell burst open near the leviathan, catching it in the edge of the explosion. The leviathan dove again. Mirian used force detonation spells beneath the water, hoping the pressure it caused would still do damage. She looked behind her. The crew was readying a proper depth charge near the aft of the ship, putting it on a force catapult to fling towards the leviathan. Meanwhile, the cutter was aiming towards the nearest island, passing dangerously close to the spits of rock. They need more time, she thought.

This time, as the leviathan began to surface again, Mirian felt a shift in the ambient mana.

Oh shit, she thought. She had time to raise prismatic shield, and then the wave of force smashed into her. Her shield shattered and she was sent careening through the air. She gasped for air and everything hurt. Bursts of light splashed through the air, blinding and disorienting her. As she stabilized her levitation spell and recast her shield, Mirian thought the blasts didn’t even feel like proper natural spells, but more like raw spells. What leviathans lacked in spell control, they made up for in power. She’d heard of them using light spells to daze and blind sea serpents they were hunting, but not of the force blasts.

She drew soul energy to heal her wounds. The aches and pains she felt died down as she cast another spell to shield her eyes from the blinding light bursts the creature was putting out. Mirian let loose more spells as she ascended, peppering the parts of the leviathan she could see. It was diving again, this time, heading for the cutter.

She looked back. The cutter had also taken part of the raw force blast. The starboard railings near the rear had been smashed apart and several sailors and mages were lying sprawled out on the deck, possibly dead. Worse, the ship had taken damage below the waterline. That, and it was rocking back and forth violently, the powerful waves battering it. The depth charge they’d been preparing had been knocked off the launcher. The glyphs on the force catapult had also been damaged and were sparking. The ship slowed to a crawl.

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Another hit like that and it sinks, Mirian realized.

And it seemed the colossal myrvite had the same idea.

The leviathan charged forward, leaving a massive wake behind it. The artillery piece landed a miraculous shot directly on the beast’s back. Black ichor fountained in the air. Mirian cast the most powerful hold beast she could manage, but her grasping claws of force simply shattered. She might be able to wear down this creature given enough time, but there was simply no way of stopping it quickly enough.

They hadn’t even slowed it down.

There was a thundering CRACK! as the leviathan rammed the ship. The center of the hull was smashed, the wood splintering out in an explosion of boards, and sailors went flying in every direction. The ship rolled over onto its side, rapidly taking on water.