82: Chapter 82 Escape from Alcatraz

Cecilia attacked from the side, her enchanted sword thrusting out violently, piercing through the flesh of the demon's flank where there was no metal coverage.

The tip of her sword impaled the writhing mass of muscle fibers and eyeballs.

The demon let out a shriek even shriller than before, violently jerking its body to the side, its six legs thrashing wildly on the deck as it tried to shake her off using its sheer size.

Cecilia gripped the hilt tightly, using her astonishing Vampire strength to drive the blade deeper and slash sideways.

She then pulled out the blade, and a jet of dark red blood spurted from the wound, sizzling as it splashed onto the wooden deck.

Richard quickly coordinated and launched his own attack.

Meanwhile, the other demon was slaughtering mercilessly at the bow.

Its metal forelimbs were not blades, but two rows of massive pincer-like structures, with the inside of each pincer lined with hooked barbs.

It caught a sailor who was trying to stab it with a spear, and with a gentle squeeze of its pincers, the sailor's body was snapped in two at the waist.

Several sailors' corpses already lay scattered across the deck.

Blood flowed across the planks, mixing with the seawater washed aboard by the waves, staining more than half of the deck dark red.

Selina threw the holy emblem into the air, and the eye of the storm holy emblem hovered at the top of the mast, spinning at high speed.

She clenched both fists, and silvery-blue arcs of electricity spread from her forearms to her fists, enveloping her entire body in a dense halo of static electricity.

Electric Claw!

She continuously channeled this close-combat spell into her fists and charged directly at the demon that was slaughtering the sailors.

"Damned beast! Accept the judgment of the storm!"

The demon's pincers snapped toward her head.

She ducked to avoid them, and her right fist, crackling with overflowing electricity, slammed hard into one of the demon's eyeballs.

The electric current surged from the eyeball into its skull. A muffled popping sound echoed from inside the demon's head, and its entire upper body froze for an instant.

Morpheus stood behind the mast, the amethyst on his staff already fully charged.

He didn't waste mana on low-level missiles that the demon's carapace could easily block, but instead chanted a complex and lengthy incantation.

After a moment, he cast a Mage Shield spell on Selina, and also cast Blessing on Richard, Cecilia, and the others.

Although Blessing could only affect three people, it could increase his teammates' accuracy and resistance to control spells, making it a very practical support spell.

Black Cat had already replaced her hand crossbow's string with a dry spare.

She climbed up to the mast's crow's nest, shooting crossbow bolts from above at the vulnerable areas where the demon's eyeballs were concentrated.

She specifically targeted the gaps in the flesh that lacked metal protection.

Each bolt pierced precisely into the depths of an eyeball, causing the demon to shriek in pain and repeatedly shake its head to avoid the arrows flying from above.

Jinbao hid to the side without contributing much; his methods were not suited for a cramped deck.

He slumped by the base of the mast, panting heavily, watching anxiously as Richard and the others fought in a chaotic melee.

The demon in front of Richard and Cecilia had been forced to the edge of the ship's railing.

Three of its eight legs had been severed by the battleaxe, and its flank had been pierced through, leaving two gaping holes from the sword.

Most of the once-spinning eyeballs on the side of its body had gone dark, with only a few still twitching weakly.

It launched one final pounce toward Richard.

"Die!!!"

Richard gripped his battleaxe with both hands, activated Charge, and used terrifying strength to cleave downward right into the center of the demon's skull.

The moment the Roaring Battleaxe made contact with the skull, an unprecedentedly brilliant red light erupted, and all the Abyssal Runes on the skull were simultaneously pierced by the magic-breaking power.

The metal carapace shattered, and the flesh was sliced all the way through by the axe blade, splitting the demon's entire head vertically in two.

What poured from the rift was no longer blood, but a thick cloud of dark gray smoke, which was quickly dispersed upon contact with the sea breeze.

The demon's legs lost all strength simultaneously, and its massive body collapsed sideways onto the deck, twitching twice before becoming completely still.

At the bow, under the three-pronged attack of Selina and the arriving Richard and Cecilia, the final demon finally collapsed.

One of its pincers had been blasted off by the Electric Claw, and its joints were bristling with Black Cat's crossbow bolts.

Finally, Richard split open its chest cavity with an axe strike, shattering the deformed, still-beating heart inside into pieces.

Silence finally returned to the deck.

Only the sound of the sea breeze whistling through the torn canvas and the muffled thuds of waves lapping against the hull remained.

Bloody water flowed down through the deck's scuppers, leaving several dark red streaks along the side of the ship.

Some of the sailors were still trembling, while others had already begun instinctively picking up the ropes and rigging on the deck.

They suppressed their fear through operational movements they had practiced countless times.

At times like this, the craft of sailing became a form of comfort instead.

Richard pulled his battleaxe out of the demon's body, its blade covered in dark gray ash and black blood.

He looked down at his steel breastplate; the front was marked with several deep grooves left by the demon's blades, and the left pauldron had been deformed by the pincers.

He sheathed his battleaxe back at his waist, walked to the ship's railing, and glanced out at the sea.

No demons were pursuing them; many were wandering aimlessly along the shore like mindless, low-level beasts.

Orion Island was gradually receding into the distance.

The sky-blocking giant hand still protruded from the rift, its five fingers propped against the ground, while the buildings around them lay in ruins like toppled building blocks.

But the giant hand itself did not move again, remaining stationary like a crimson mountain.

Perhaps the distance had exceeded its attack range, or perhaps it was restrained by some residual seal remaining inside the island.

Whatever the reason, Richard would not be foolish enough to turn back and check.

He stood by the railing, waiting until the island shrouded in dark red magic completely faded into a blurry black shadow on the horizon before turning around to lean against the banister.

The captain stood by the helm, his pipe no longer in his mouth, likely lost somewhere during the recent chaos.

He fell silent for a moment before saying to Richard, 'What on earth was that thing? An ancient demon god? What exactly did you do on the island...'

'It has nothing to do with us. It must have been those Adventurers and pirates who arrived first who awakened this monster, perhaps by breaking some kind of seal. Sigh, this is truly a massive trouble.'

Richard sighed and looked down at his hands.

His gloves were soaked in blood—both the demon's and his own.

The webs of his thumbs had split open from the recoil of continuous hacking, but they had already begun to slowly scab over under the effect of the Bloodthirsty Brand.

He took off his gloves, wrung out the blood, hung them on his belt, and said to the captain, 'Once we get back, I will immediately report this to the Guild. We can only leave it to them to handle.'