‘This whole thing is hopefully going to net me SOMETHING,’ John thought. They had been stuck for an hour now and he was definitely not feeling that this was a worthwhile way to spend his time. The one they had killed so far had given him a whopping 2500 experience. He needed about three million. It wasn’t even worth it in that sense.

Theoretically, he should have been proud about the fact that he was removing something that could have either spelled the end for a less elite-packed ship or grown into a larger catastrophe. Instead he felt inconvenienced. If he had been out for a simple ocean trip with the girls, this would have been more acceptable, but he was going somewhere and so he was annoyed.

“Everybody ready?” John asked. The plan was quite easy: kill eels until the reactivated engine managed to move forward again. Whether this meant their complete annihilation or not, the Gamer didn’t care. All he wanted was to get moving again.

“I am bursting with mana, bursting, I say!” Sylph announced, having been charged up for a while now. While John wanted to get out of there as quick as he could, he was nowhere near in enough of a hurry to not dictate the terms of engagement as much in his favour as he could. The only thing that was mildly hurrying him along was an increase in the frequency of lightning bolts outside. Not that that would be a problem in a moment.

Everybody gave their go ahead and so John had Metra open the door. Not heroic whatsoever, but his pride did not overtake his definite gaming instinct that the casters should remain in the backline. They spilled onto the ship’s sun deck.

Several things happened in quick order. John’s Mana Protection shoved the fog away around him. Several girls’ hair stood up from the electricity. A massive blast of wind ripped outwards, originating from Sylph. The fog was blown into the far reaches of the barrier, gathering at the edge and leaving them in a world that ended in a milky white wall.

Flying through the air, John spied a different kind of eel. These were smaller and had thinner bodies; rather than spikes they had small tubes that stretched the membranes. Fog immediately started pouring out of them again, in an effort to hide their forms and continue this swarm’s hunting strategy. John had a moment to confirm their levels as non-threatening.

Their efforts to cover themselves were cut short. For a start, the powerful gust that had caused this situation also sent them tumbling through the air, leaving only a mediocre amount of fog quickly dispersing behind them. John also had made the easy guess that the fliers were responsible for the fog and thus each range capable person in the party had been given a sector on the clock to start murdering as many of them as possible. Securing their continued sight and disabling the mist as the conductor for the AoE electricity effect was the groundwork from which they could start cleaning up this mess.

John had conjured a whole bunch of Shardbound in advance and was absolutely over prepared for the level they were facing. With his Third Eye manifested, even if closed, he locked and fired in waves. The rule for Shardbound was that each shard of the same use of the skill fired at once. As long as he stayed aware which shard belonged to which group, which only grew hard at a seldomly reached number, he could stagger the releases to take aim each time. That was easily superior to throwing a rough swarm out there and hoping it hit something.

He was only the second most effective person in this regard. Armed with numerous Baelementium projectiles, quickly crafted from Aclysia’s body, Lydia was perfect at precision work like this. Able to readjust the initial flight path after launching each attack, she had accuracy and speed. Granted, she was more effective for middle than truly long range, as her control faded over distances, but given the weak enemies, this wasn’t a problem.

Rave would have been an even better sniper, but her training lay mostly in melee attacks. Although the magical light she shot out of her fingers, in the playful handgun pose, was unfairly fast (even if nowhere near actual light speed), they were neither powerful nor did they come in quick intervals. Barring headshots, Rave needed two attacks for each Foggy Noodle to get them out of the sky. That made her even less effective than Metra and placed the Lightbearer at the bottom of the barrel in place of effectiveness.

What Metra did could hardly be described as ranged combat. Using her ability to rip through space, she dropped on one eel before teleporting back, recovering a bit of mana and then repeating the game.

Sylph and Salamander soon took to the skies and cleaned up the remainders.

“So fa-“ Rave nodded and then turned to the group. “Aha…ahahaha…AHAHAHAHA!” laughing her heart out, she pointed at the metal quartet of the harem. All of their hairs were so charged with electrons that the tips assumed the maximum possible distance from each other. This led to varying degrees of funny appearances.

Lydia had a very bushy tip to her braid. Metra had a bit of a ball behind her head. Aclysia got away the easiest, the length of her hair making it weighty enough that there were only some audible discharges as she moved around. Beatrice, however, looked like a dandelion in full readiness to spread its seed at the next breeze.

Rave was unable to pull herself back together, therefore John took it upon himself to finish her sentence, “So far so good.” Metra was ruffling through her hair in a desperate attempt to get it to settle down. “Now to deal with the things in the water,” he continued on, walking up to the railing and peeking over. An array of lightning bolts clashed against his Mana Protection; individually they were harmless but together they took a fair chunk of the pre-charged layer.

Having just murdered several targets with an arcane skill, John’s mana regeneration was at its maximum bonus through Whisper of Mana, putting it at fivefold the usual insanity. He was therefore not particularly afraid to just stand there and take the pounding, throwing Arcane Echoes in the water in retaliation. Soon enough, the monsters realized that their attacks were having no visible effect and they were getting hit by counter attacks that were potentially lethal in return. The sensible thing in such situations was to dive deeper and wait for the situation to change.

Given time, however, the being with sapience would win over that which has only sentience. “Alright, now to deal with the remaining situation,” John stated, wondering how to best approach the underwater. He had originally thought there were only two different monsters, the Foggy and the Thunder Noodles, but the Observe had told him there was a third kind. Looking at the individual roles the already known monsters fulfilled, this third kind must have been the brawn of the swarm, responsible for keeping the ship from moving on.

The problem with the ocean was that they had only two fighters that were specialized for the environment, one was a healer and the other had a maximum of four stat points per level, depending on whether or not John had cleared a goal or not.

There was always a third way, but John didn’t quite like this one. However, it was the most effective, and as he was facing animals that were trying to hunt him, it wasn’t immoral to use this particular combination. “Undine, Stirwin, combine with Sylph and Siena,” he told them.

“Aaaah, yes,” the shadow spirit was deeply pleased by that announcement. Her lips were curved into the merciless smile of a predator. Sylph didn’t particularly care, neither did Undine, but Stirwin himself let him feel some unhappiness about the situation. The crocodile had probably looked forward to fighting by himself, but John wasn’t dropping him in an ocean with an unknown number of enemies when he was, effectively, 30 levels lower than the number indicated. If John had known how many eels there were, in other words if there hadn’t been a risk, then there would have been a chance.

As it stood, the combination was the more sensible option, and even in his current state, the golden crocodile understood that. Soon enough all four of them swirled together on the board of the ship and formed a new creature.

It was a reptile, about the size of a puppy. Unlike Stirwin or a puppy, there was very little cute about this thing, however. Murky bronze scales covered the top of it under a thick hide, while its underside was of an almost white silver. From its sides grew a total of four fins, with edges sharp enough to serve as blades. The same could be said for the muscular tail that extended far behind it, three lines of spiky outgrowths leading from the main body up to the tail and uniting into a flat line on the second half.

The head of the creature sat on a medium length neck. Two pairs of eyes, golden, slit shaped pupils resting in an entirety of red, looked around in a skull whose outline could be seen easily under the hardened scales. Needle-like teeth reached out of the closed jaw, curved to prevent any prey from escaping once caught. Swirling around its left side, like a bright warning, were Undine’s red scars, beginning at the point where the maw curved into the neck and ending behind the back fin.

Despite it being John’s familiar, the Gamer felt creeped out by Dendepthr. The mixture of a crocodile and a pliosaurus had no feelings or thoughts radiating from its mind. Only cold, predatory instinct. It was like being mentally connected to a hungry shark, ready to move at the first sight. Despite its size, that was an attitude it bore even towards the nearby Gnome, opening its maw and revealing a secondary jaw inside. Although jaw was maybe not the right word, as the teeth inside were not set on any bone but instead on a malleable mass of slime. Once Dendepthr bit anything, it would have the flesh rent within moments.

The only being that it was ‘friendly’ towards was John, who it accepted orders from. “Alright, I need you to kill everything,” John carefully picked the nightmare pliosaurus up, careful not to cut himself on the fins or sharp scales, “in the water. You are good at that, right?”

A gurgling growl left the extinguisher elemental’s throat, something that John took as agreement. The second John raised Dendepthr high enough over the railing that it could see the water, it rather violently shook itself inside the Gamer’s grip.

John half threw, half dropped the elemental at that point, his right palm basically turning into mincemeat, as only the left was protected. He watched the bleeding stop but still shook out his hand.

Lydia looked into the water, “Is that small thing going to be enough?”

“That ‘small thing’ is a two-kind combination with two extras,” John informed her, “and it won’t be small for long.” His mind followed Dendepthr into the water, looking through its eyes.

The nightmare pliosaurus was anything but stealthy, with its hide and the way it dropped into the water, and as such immediately attracted the attention of a whole bunch of eels. Electrical discharges, aimed through magic, immediately came for it. They hit its hide and did some damage, but nothing that it couldn’t shrug off immediately.

Used to prey that was paralyzed by such an attack, the Thunder Noodles immediately went ahead and stormed for it. In their defence, they could swallow the small thing whole. Or rather, they could have when it had dropped into the water.

Dendepthr, from the second the salty embrace of the ocean had encapsulated its form, had begun growing. Rapidly, if that word wasn’t an understatement. “See,” aboard the ship John explained as the water around the ship began to murk with purple blood, “Dendepthr has a passive unleash that increases its size each second it is in the water.”

“How big does he get?” the queen immediately questioned.

“Up to half its current level in metres,” John’s mental eye followed as the pliosaur chomped the head of an eel as if it was nothing. “Over the course of five minutes and at its current level, that makes for a growth of 25 centimetres per second.” As if to prove the Gamer’s words, a giant tail ripped through the surface. It sent an eel flying dozens of metres into the air. “And the bigger it gets, the higher its Strength and Endurance.”

Dendepthr disposed of the last few of the pesky eels by doing to them what they wanted to do to him initially. A minute since its combination, the extinguisher elemental was now a massive fifteen metres and even as it opened its jaw, it still grew larger to more easily swallow the entire thing. Unlike normal elementals, it had a bottomless stomach that could eat as much physical matter as it desired. The eels may have been natural creatures of the Abyss, but the true monster down there was now the nightmare pliosaurus.

With a nimbleness such a large body didn’t seem to capable of, Dendepthr made a sharp turn, having strayed away from the boat. Its side was hit by four enormous heads, ramming into it. With a swipe of its massive tail, the elemental quickly dashed away from its assailants. Respecting the sharp teeth and scales too much to mindlessly follow, Dendepethr and the attackers entered a short-term stalemate. They eyed each other up.

They were the third kind of enemy, large fish, probably around twenty metres each, with metal-plated foreheads, horns perfect to hook into the nose of a ship and immense tailfins. They circled each other, Dendepthr growing bigger and bigger. John spied scratches in the lacquer of his yacht, where these fish must have hooked in and began their herculean task of swimming against the engine.

While that did give John a massive amount of respect for their strength, he was absolutely livid at this damaging of his property. His anger must have rolled over into Dendepthr, who suddenly attacked. Either that or it became aware that it wasn’t much longer for this world.

The maw of the beast opened, a few moments passed and then the water around him boiled, then evaporated as a white beam of blinding light shot out at the group of metal-headed fish. On the yacht, the group was subject to seeing that laser suddenly tear through the air, hot steam sending the waves below into turmoil as it rose.

The fish miraculously all dodged the attack. Thinking they got an opening, they dove underneath Dendepthr to attack the less armoured belly. A good strategy in principle, especially against a target that was quickly approaching seventy metres of length, but the pliosaurus was a step ahead. Beating all of its fins at once, it moved forwards in a burst of speed at the last moment. The fish all got caught up in the result drag of water, being violently pulled sideways. Given the nature of water compared to air, this was much worse than what their partners in crime had to endure earlier at the hands of Sylph.

In a fluid motion, Dendepthr swam down and then accelerated upwards, maw wide open. Like a great white, it both crashed into and bit down on its targets. “Holy shit,” Rave shouted out as the speed carried the monstrosity of an elemental a third out of the water. All four of the fish were reduced into scattered guts, before gravity claimed the nightmare pliosaurus again. It crashing back into the ocean caused a wave so large that it breaking against the yacht actually sent water raining down on all of them.

“You said half his level right?” Lydia looked at the bronze outline under the water. He wouldn’t exist for much longer and as such was incredibly close to its maximum size, spanning almost three quarters of the yacht’s length. “Do I comprehend correctly then, that at your maximum level this being would be five-hundred metres?”

“Yes,” John stated. “Ridiculous, right?”