Chapter 34: Harvest

Chapter 34 The Bountiful Harvest
A sudden sound of waves woke Duncan from his dream.

His eyes snapped open, the visions he had seen earlier in his half-asleep state having left only a few thin silhouettes, and all he could remember was that he had seen fish swimming through the air, and that the ones ringing him seemed extraordinarily tasty – but what did those fish look like again?

Do fish …… swim in the air?
Duncan blinked, an eerie sensation of reality and dreams ripping and mingling that left him a little confused for a short time, and looked to the three rods he had secured to his rod holders and saw no sign of a fish taking the bait, while the sea had begun to heave in the distance, and wave after wave was lapping at the hull of the Lost Country.

Immediately after that, the waves became bigger, within the range visible to the naked eye, a wave stronger than a wave began to continuously come from the distance, the huge hull of the Lost Country ship rocked in the wind and waves, the sound of the waves filling the ears.

Duncan glanced up at the sky and realized that the weather was still fine, there seemed to be just a few more winds and waves, but it shouldn’t be extreme enough to cause any major storms or anything like that.

“This might not be a good day for fishing ……”

He muttered, considering whether or not he should put the rods away, but just then, out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly saw the front end of one of the rods bend violently!
The strong fishing line specially prepared for sea fishing instantly tightened up, the short, thick and tough sea fishing rod seemed to have grabbed some big guy, the whole front half of the rod bent like a bow all of a sudden, accompanied by a squeaky and ear-piercing sound, and the rod holder used for fixing the fishing rod also made a sound of wood friction under the pulling of this huge force, and all of this conveyed a signal to Duncan:
Here comes the fish! Big fish!

He instantly dismissed the idea of closing the rod and resting, the enthusiasm of the fishing man in the chest burning, he two steps to the “shipping” rod in front of the rod, one hand to grasp the rod to prevent it from falling from the rod holder, the other hand began to adjust the tightness of the line a little bit.

“I told you! How could I possibly be in the air force!”

Duncan muttered excitedly to himself as he began to battle with something huge at the other end of the line, it was a tough fight, what was at the end of the line clearly wasn’t going to give in, a huge force was pulling on the rod and even with Duncan’s strength and the support of the rod holder the stalemate still seemed shaky.

The wind and waves around the Lost Country grew a little stronger, but for Duncan, this little rocking was nothing.

He was only angry at the stubborn “prey” and worried that the opportunity to improve his diet was slipping away.

The line had reached a critical point and the fish was about to break free from his grasp.

After an unknown amount of time, Duncan finally gave in, and a green flame suddenly spread outward from his hand on the fishing rod.

The green fire burned fiercely, spreading like water, and quickly flowing out along the fishing rod and fishing line, the fire of the spirit body burned all the way, forming a “fire line” along the fishing line that went straight into the sea water, and in the next second, the depths of the sea water around the Lost Country ship suddenly surfaced a piece of illusory outline of the green flame, and under the reflection and outline of the green flame, a huge shadow emerged in the seawater.

The shadow was like a fleshy ball that rose and shrank, almost covering all the sea surface within hundreds of meters around the Lost Country, and its edge extended a large number of dark things that kept changing and growing, as if it was like a thousand arms writhing and waving in the ocean, stirring the sea water around the Lost Country and controlling the invisible waves to undulate and roll over.

Duncan heard some strange movements in the sea, he maintained a stalemate with the “prey”, while probing curiously to look out.

He didn’t see anything but the waves, not much changed from what he had just seen.

And he clearly felt that the force of confrontation coming from the fishing rod was a little weaker than a moment ago.

The prey was starting to run low on strength, a fact that brought a wide grin to his face.

He began to tighten the line hard, dragging his prey out of the sea a little ……

……

Alice was startled by the roar and whine coming from outside the cabin, the violent rocking came from under her feet, causing the furnishings in the cabin to emit a series of clinking and crashing noises, she quickly grabbed a nearby railing with her quick eyes, which prevented her from falling, while her face revealed an expression of disbelief and wonder, “What’s happening?”

The Lost Country was shaking, as if a great storm was raging outside, and there was some sort of low, depressing, strange sound coming from the depths of the ancient ghost ship, as if it was roaring and snarling in anger, fighting against the horrors that the depths had brought with them, and against some huge beast that was trying to devour itself.

All sorts of things in the cabin were clanking about, and at first Alice thought it was all a collision brought on by the rocking of the ship, but she soon realized that many of these noisy things were actually chattering in place – they were making noises to communicate with each other, but Alice simply couldn’t understand the language that only the Lost Country itself could understand .

For all she knew, something might be going on out there.

Ms. Doll decided to check out the deck – she stumbled out of the cabin, holding onto a nearby wall to avoid falling as she ran in the direction of the deck.

After several close calls of tripping over jostling cables and rampaging barrels, she finally reached the end of the steps, and she pushed open the wooden door, which was constantly swinging in the wind and waves, to see that amazingly huge waves were rising from the infinite sea.

The sky was as black as ink, and the unsettlingly thick clouds almost condensed into heavy masses, the clouds blackened close to the surface of the sea, while the rampart-like waves rolled and ran under the dark clouds, undulating like an encirclement around the Lost Country!
Alice saw such a sight for the first time, and she wondered if this was normal for the sea, but she knew that she had to find the captain at this time. She looked around the deck and with little effort she found Captain Duncan who was standing at the edge of the deck.

……

The wind and waves around her were a bit annoying, but for Duncan, who was on the verge of success, it was just a minor “disturbance”, and with the feedback from both the line and the green fire, he could clearly feel that his prey had stopped resisting, and that the giant was being pulled out of the water a little bit more and a little bit more.

“Come on up you!”

He shouted cheerfully, giving the rod in his hand one last sharp tug.

A big fish leaped out of the sea – really big, almost as big as half his man.

For a brief moment, Duncan was eye-to-eye with the mid-air fish.

“…… Pretty ugly.”

This was the first emotion in his mind.

It was indeed an extremely ugly fish, the surface of the black body seems to be covered with some kind of increased biological rugged bumps, there are also strange gray-white patterns spreading haphazardly along the two sides of the fins, the fish’s head position can be seen in many bone spikes like structures, a pair of hollow white eyes in those bone spikes underneath the eyes of the stare at Duncan.

Duncan felt very uncomfortable, he actually felt that the fish was gazing at him with ill will.

But in the next second, he saw that the fish jerked violently, and its pair of eyeballs gazing at him burst out of nowhere for some reason, and blood flowed out instantly.

The fish dropped heavily onto the deck, jumping and twisting wildly as if electrocuted, and quieted down after a few short seconds, blood seeping outward from its mouth and burst eyes, falling bit by bit onto the deck.

Duncan watched with some amazement as this strangely ugly fish rapidly lost its vitality at his feet, and he vaguely remembered what he had read in a book: most fish in the deep sea are indeed ugly, and due to the long term living under water pressure, they do indeed rupture their blood vessels due to the change in pressure after they are fished out of the sea surface, or even die quickly as a result – -Is that what happens to fish in this world?

Just as he was so stunned, a crackling sound suddenly came over again.

Duncan curiously looked at the sound, but saw several smaller “strange fish” also followed on the deck.

They looked similar to the half-human-tall fish, but were only about half a meter in size, and like the larger fish – they were already bleeding violently and quickly dying as Duncan watched them.

Duncan was a little stunned, and it took him a long time to respond, “Gourds to save grandpa? One sends a bunch of them?”

……

Alice gripped the railing next to her tightly, nervously watching the not-too-distant scene of a ferocious fight that was enough to drive ordinary people crazy.

She saw Captain Duncan standing at the edge of the deck, a monstrous burst of ghostly green flames blazing from his body as he faced the sea like a blazing giant, with three hooked locks extending out from the deck at his feet, one of which burned with horrific flames.

She saw a huge shadow suddenly appear in the infinite sea, followed by a tentacle almost thicker than the main mast of the Lost Country reaching out from the sea water, the surface of that tentacle opened countless eyes flooded with malice, and there were uncountable sharp teeth rubbing and chewing between the eyes as if it was going to bite the whole ship into pieces in the next moment.

Alice almost cried out in shock, she wanted to warn the captain to dodge, wanted to rush up to help, but before she could act, the tentacle smashed down towards the captain.

She saw Captain Duncan look up, and under the burning flames, the captain’s face actually wore the joy of the harvest – he gazed into the countless eyes on the tentacle, and the countless eyes on the tentacle gazed back at him.

In the next second, all the eyes on the tentacles burst open, and hundreds of sharp teeth issued a piercing and painful hiss, and immediately after that, the tentacles broke off in thin air – as if some huge body hidden under the sea level had taken the initiative to cut off the connection with the tentacles, and discarded the end of the tentacles, which had already suffered a serious injury, directly on the deck. The deck.

The tentacle fell to the ground with a thud, and the dirty, sticky flesh and blood that spilled out from the severed end crackled and fell all over the place, landing at the captain’s feet.

(End of chapter)