Zaaap!
A lightning bolt lit up the ship in a pale tone, contradicting the blue glow of the bioluminescent corals.
Hands covered in seaweed, fingers ending in black claws, clutched the edges of the upper deck.
The galleon began to slowly lean to starboard.
A young captain and his halberd stood calmly in the center of the upper deck. Waiting for the creatures of the underworld.
Soon, appendages with gray, wounded flesh began rising to deck height. The hands had meters-long arms and, in a way none of the crew could understand, they identified the humans on board and launched their attack.
"Save your ammo!", Talon shouted to the old man and swung his blade at the claws.
Splah!
Black blood soaked the deck, and dozens of hands were severed. The appendages withered and shrank.
But that was just the beginning.
More and more of those demonic hand-appendages emerged along the sides of the galleon.
The ship began tilting even more to starboard, and the twins almost fell from the sails. Simon fought with the wheel, turning it in the opposite direction.
"Simon! Follow the current flow! When I give the signal, switch everything to the opposite direction!" Talon spun across the deck, leaving behind trails of black blood, rotten flesh, and withered limbs.
The navigator took a few seconds to accept his captain's order. This was madness. If they kept going with the flow, they could sink deep into the sea.
Simon looked up and beyond the currents. The little galleon was spinning amid powerful waves and lightning. But what scared the nerd most... was the damn eye in the middle of the whirlpool they had entered.
A massive iris with glowing red pupils shone brightly, and from it, deformed creatures surged by the dozens, like an army straight out of the underworld. Now Simon understood the supposed joke his captain had made.
Several tense minutes passed with the captain bathing the deck in black blood, until something finally changed.
A familiar zombie-like groan echoed amidst the storm and lightning. The creatures had arrived. All of them were dressed in buttoned coats or female versions wearing formal clothing.
"These damn undead... Are they the other participants?????!" one of the twins screamed from the sails, loud enough for everyone on deck to hear.
And as if on cue, raindrops fell on the young captain's shoulders, just before turning into a violent storm.
Six daggers rained down on Talon, followed by dozens of clawed hands. His world slowed down and he was forced to accept he wouldn't get out unscathed.
Letting the hands tear through his tanned muscles, he focused on slicing the heads off the zombies. The upper deck was finally stained with red blood, and none of the crew was happy about it.
When the movement ceased, all six bodies lay on the wooden floor, and almost all the hands had withered above the deck.
Beep!
"What the hell does this bracelet want at a moment like this???" Talon glanced quickly, taking advantage of the brief truce.
[Custom fusion function is about to activate: Yes/No]
"Hahahahaahaah," Talon laughed, his head tilted toward the stormy skies. The sight gave his entire crew a chill.
The greedy eyes of a tyrant shone on Talon's face, and he realized something huge. If this entire army consisted of ex-participants... that meant each of them had a damn bracelet, with plenty of time stored in it.
How much could he evolve his own bracelet? Talon could bet that if he made it out of this literal hell alive, his bracelet would reach ungodly levels.
"Twins, prep for support on the next wave!" the captain's voice echoed like a demon's through the stormy waters and thunder.
"Y-yes captain," the boys looked at each other and replied in unison. When fear was involved, it was bizarre how in sync they became.
And then, another wave of undead jumped from the sea onto the upper deck.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
With every notification, Talon mentally ordered another "Yes". Not even caring if they were repeated effects his bracelet already had. Shiny silver surged like a river across his forearm from time to time.
But all this "farming" came with consequences. The galleon's deck was slashed all over. The toned body of the young captain was more blood-red than tanned by now, and the twins had long run low on ammo.
Raaaahooooooouuuuu
"Hahahaha, of course... It was time for the owner of those hands to show up. COME YOU CLUSTERFUCK OF LIMBS! FACE ME!" Talon had lost his sanity. They'd been stuck in that hell for countless hours. His muscles were contracting on their own and the static in the air made his hair stand up.
And still, he had refused to waste gunpowder on mere soldiers. If his crew couldn't survive a basic army, how could they serve a Tyrant?
The young captain didn't realize, but his mindset had already begun to shift. Ever since that damn tattoo was carved into his skin, he wasn't himself anymore.
He was the project of a devil. The forming shape of a damn Tyrant.
The being on his back let out a devilish grin, a disturbingly satisfied one.
When the young tyrant-in-the-making finished his roar, a great waterfall of flesh appeared. More specifically, kilometers of it cascaded from the depths of the Eye to the side of the little galleon.
The entire crew began to tremble in fear. Even the young tyrant shrank slightly, his blood running cold. Words were hard to find to describe what they were facing.
But when the waterfall finished crashing back into the sea, clusters of gray nerves writhed visibly in front of Talon. At the ends of each, claw-shaped black hands capped the optical nerves of the eye.
Talon's soul trembled...
"An island with a fist... Another with a skull... A whirlpool with an Eye..." the young captain muttered aloud, naming each of the clues he had gathered throughout this journey.
"This entire sea... belongs to a damn DISMEMBERED TITAN??!"