Blood Shaper

Book 5: Chapter 14

The fast movement of Eleniah sprinting toward it drew the kraken’s attention, and it lazily swung one of it’s many tentacles in her direction, aiming to crush her down into the wooden deck. Equally as lazily Eleniah swung a casual backhand into rubbery flesh and knocked the limb away from her. The shock in the giant monster’s eyes was momentarily amusing before they narrowed in anger and the sea began to froth. Three more strikes were sent Eleniah’s way in quick succession, the kraken moving much faster than anything that large should be able to in Kay’s mind and Eleniah fended them all off before stepping up onto the rail without losing speed and launching herself like an elven missile and slamming a fist into the kraken’s shell. Cracks appeared where her blow landed and she pulled back to slam a second punch into the monster.

The kraken’s attention was suddenly diverted, but there were more than enough tentacles waving around the seriously damage the ship even as several of them were pulled back and the monster tried to batter Eleniah off of it’s body. Kay threw out a pair of wedges formed from his blood and diverted two big swings that came toward the deck of the ship off into the ocean and the crew, momentarily stunned by Eleniah’s charge, jumped into action to help. Nautiloids were extinct back on Earth, and while they were distantly related to squids and octopi, Kay didn’t know if they had ten tentacles or eight. He was certain they didn’t have the more than two dozen that ringed the ship, the smallest of them being as wide around as he was ranging to four of them being wider than an SUV. The thinner ones were relatively easy to block but the largest of them had to be deflected as they were heavy enough to power through any attempt to fully block them. They only had to deal with two of the most massive limbs, as the kraken was worried enough to use two of the four biggest ones to try and smack Eleniah off of itself, but two was two too many. It was only thanks to the crew and having the Blood Guard as backup that the ship managed to stay intact during the fight.

Sailors grabbed whatever weapons were close to them, some using normal tools as makeshift clubs and spears, and beat back the smaller tentacles that were trying to grab people. The Water Manipulator lashed out with bladed water whips drawn from the sea that shredded bits of flesh and the monster began bleeding a deep blue blood. Kay grabbed the new material and began drawing it out only to jab it back in, creating new holes that bled even more. Keeping an eye on the rest of the battle while he multi-tasked at both keeping larger tentacles from crushing parts of the ship and lacerating any smaller ones that got too close to him, he easily recognized that the battle would be going a lot differently if it weren’t for Eleniah. The sheer mass the kraken had to bring against the ship combined with the surprise of its attack would have easily carried the day for the monster if Eleniah hadn’t immediately gotten in its face and started being a threat. Even that wouldn’t have been possible if the kraken started destroying everything as soon as it could. The moment it had taken to savor the shock and fear of the crew had given them the time needed to start fighting back.

More of the crew flooded up from below decks and with the tentacles generally in hand thanks to Kay and the Blood Guard, those with ranged attacks started peppering the kraken’s main body. There were a pair of sailors with crossbows and their bolts stuck into the rubbery flesh of the monster with little effect. A few others released magical attacks, including a swirling tornado-like spear of wind launched by the Wind Mage in charge of keeping the ship moving if necessary, but they all splashed off of the kraken to little effect, with even the powerful wind attack doing minimal damage.

“I hate kraken.”

Kay sliced the tipoff of one of the smaller tentacles and it reared back, leaking blue blood like odd rain. He looked to the side where the sudden voice had come from and found Captain Rogers standing there, glaring at the kraken and ignoring the sudden shower of vital fluid over his hat.

“Damn things are complete asses all the time. Regular octopi? Very cool. As soon as they get this damn big they all turn into asses, every one of them. And they’re all resistant to magic, which makes fighting them an absolute pain.”

The level of calm the captain was putting off was surprising. Rogers had been one of the prisoners captured by the pirates and had volunteered to work for Avalon after being rescued. Before the ship he’d been on was attacked he’d been a junior officer and ended up being the highest ranking survivor of his ship. After coming to work for Avalon he’d worked incredibly hard and eventually proved himself not only to his superiors but also to the System and earned captaincy of the Royal Avalon and the Ship Captain Class. However, even with all that, he was still young and fairly inexperienced, so being calm enough to walk over to Kay and start up a conversation at that moment was impressive. Then Kay noticed the sweat drenching the man’s face and how pale he was and Kay ratcheted his measure of the captain up another several degrees.

“I’ve already sent the gunners to load and prepare to fire, but do you have any orders your majesty?” Captain Rogers asked, still staring at Eleniah slamming her fists into the gigantic nautiloid’s shell as she tried to smash massive cracks into it.

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“No, I do not. I’m not too self-centered to think I know better than someone with much more experience than I do. Fight your ship, captain.”

Rogers turned and gave him a firm nod. “Thank you your majesty.” He strode to the closest stairwell and bent down to shout into it. “Simpson!”

“Sir!” A loud voice called back.

“Ready?”

“Ready!”

“Fire at will!”

“Aye captain!”

The sound of heavy wooden flaps swinging open and slamming into the hull of the ship was just enough to be heard over the din of battle and Kay imagined the row of cannons rolling into position on the deck below. There was a faint pause, and then the ship exploded. Not literally, but it definitely felt like it as a cacophonous roar rang out and a billowing cloud of smoke erupted out over the ocean. The alchemists working under Cindy as part of Avalon’s munitions development program had made an upgraded alchemical gunpowder that was not only more powerful, but generated less smoke, so there wasn’t a massive wall of it that blocked out sight of the enemy, but it was still a struggle even for Kay’s enhanced tier five senses to keep track of the dozen or so cannonballs as they flew out and slammed into the kraken.

A few of them missed, bouncing off the waves and careening out of sight, but most of them hit, ripping gaping holes in the kraken’s body and tearing thick tentacles clean off where they impacted. The monster’s two large eyes which were rife with annoyance at the tenacity of its prey in trying to fight back flashed with true fear as the young kraken realized that they actually could hurt it. It’s flailing attempts to drive Eleniah off of it’s shell became focused attacks to get her away from it as it stopped trying to toy with the ship and its crew and instead started fleeing. The handful of tentacles still assailing the ship disappeared under the water and a burst of water from underneath the ship propelled the kraken away. The thick trunks of its largest limbs swept across the top of it’s shell like car wash rollers and it finally succeeded in knocking Eleniah loose as it ran away. Eleniah skipped across the water three times before she sank. Seconds later she popped back up and started swimming toward the ship, restarting Kay’s heart which had frozen for that brief moment.

Captain Rogers walked back over as the crew began cleaning up from the battle which had ended as suddenly as it had started. Wounded sailors were dragged toward the ship’s doctor and bits of tentacle started to get picked up from the deck. The captain looked across his domain and nodded in appreciation of his crew’s work before looking up at Kay. His eyes were still a little too wide and his hands were shaking, but he was keeping it together. “I hate kraken, but I love cannons. There are too many dammed sea monsters that are resistant to magic, and having an option to actually fight back against them without needing to mount ballista on my decks or hire high tier fighters…” He trailed off with a wide grin. “Also, thank you for helping, your majesty.”

“I’m on the ship captain, letting it go down isn’t in my best interest, even ignoring things like my duty to my citizens and being a good person.”

“Oh, I certainly agree with you your majesty, but never let it be said that Captain Vinik Rogers doesn’t give credit where credit is due! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go head praise on my gunners for those shots.”

“Of course.”

Both in an effort to help and to get a hold of a new material, Kay began gathering up the dark blue kraken blood from the deck and off of the sailors who’d been coated in the stuff. Blue wasn’t part of his established color scheme, but the focus of that specific kraken on camouflaging itself made it worth it as an experimental material at a minimum.

We’ve already got the camouflage blood, he thought to himself as he pulled the liquid out of the Water Manipulator’s hair, can I use this to make it even better? The item I used to make the camouflage blood in the first place was something that talked about cephalopods, wasn’t it? I tried that test with temporarily bringing monsters magic into my body to boost it and blew up my arm, but can I use monster’s blood to add their magic to items? I never even thought of trying that!

“You look excited.”

Kay looked up and found Eleniah standing nearby with the Water Manipulator drawing the seawater off of her and out of her clothes similarly to what Kay was doing for the Water Manipulator.

“I had an idea that might help with some of my Classes. It could even get me a new one!” He paused as he thought through that and frowned, “Maybe not. But it should definitely give me new options for melding if I’m right.”

“That’s great. And the kraken even left behind the ridgehead’s body so we’re going to be eating good tonight. I got some good exercise, you got a new idea, and we’re getting food food. All in all this has been a great day.”

“It did?” The Water Manipulator rushed toward the railing to start recovering the body.

“Hey, I’m still wet!” Eleniah complained.

Captain Rogers popped up on deck and came over to Eleniah to start thanking her for charging the kraken, and Kay went back to gathering blood and generally assisting in clean up on autopilot as he ruminated on possibilities with monster blood.

I can’t start using monster blood, or other highly magical blood I’m assuming, as a temporary boost for my own body, or someone else’s, until I get that tier five Class. But experimenting with items doesn’t have the same risks like death or dismemberment, as long as I’m careful. Oh! Can I try using monster blood to make stronger simulacra? Would that even work? He grinned wildly as a flow of blue kraken blood floated over his shoulder and vanished into his Inventory. This trip is already paying off and we’re not even to our destination yet!

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