[ Congratulations, you have awakened ]
[ You successfully killed a Devil Piranha and forced your awakening ]
[ You are now a Tidehunter ]
A series of notifications appeared over the face of a boy who was laying lifelessly on a canoe, head up to the sunny sky.
It was normal to take a rest after successfully killing a Sea Beast, but the young man had overdone it at this point. He was taking an eternal rest.
Yes, this young man was dead.
After losing a hand to the Piranha, it had filled him up with adrenaline, driving him into a frenzy against the Sea Beast.
He plunged his weapon into its skull again and again until the creature finally died, and in that savage victory, his human core was forced to awaken.
But his excitement caused him to stumble on his canoe. He fell backward and crashed the back of his head on the edge of the boat, dying instantly.
[ Unfortunately you are dead ]
[ New identity is being infused into body ]
Two seconds later, the young man gasped awake. His eyes were bulged wide and his shoulders raised and fell with each hefty breath he took.
After he had regained his senses and his breathing, he narrowed his thick white brows. Slowly, he looked to his right, and shock-stared at the vast blue that expanded as far as he could see.
What the hell?
He turned to his left. There, he found the dead Sea Beast leaking purple all over his feet.
"Ngyahhh!"
The young man shouted and sprang over to the other side of the boat. He stared at the bleeding fish monster like he hadn't just killed it two minutes ago. Like he didn't even know what it was.
"What the hell is that?" he muttered. His ocean-blue eyes raised to the expanse of sea that continued even to his left. "And where the hell am I?"
Like an answer to his question, a profound pain stabbed his head. "Arrkkkk!" He clutched his head with one hand, eyes squeezed as the pain increased faster than he could keep up with.
It was a strange kind of pain. Like his cranium was being hammered, forced to burst open. And when it did, an even stranger kind of pain followed.
This one felt like a current of information was being poured into his skull; faces he didn't recognize, objects he had never seen and ideas he had never imagined filled up his head, crashing with the memory and knowledge he had prior.
"Nghhhh!" He pierced into his cranium with his fingers, begging the pain to stop.
Alas, it did.
Panting softly, the boy lowered his hand, trying to understand the situation he had found himself in.
Just some minutes ago, he had been taken off life support, mourned only by his sister who was moving to the city to live her best life while his own ended.
Now, somehow, he was here. And where was here?
Well, from what his new memories told him, this was the Ocean World, a name plainly given to a nameless realm.
This world had survived an apocalypse that was known as the Great World Storm. A flood that lasted for months came and the oceans of the world rose, swallowing ninety percent of land, leaving humanity to survive in segregated islands.
But the flood wasn't the end of it. After the world was covered with water, massive rifts manifested from the seas. These were called Water Gates; portals that birthed Sea Beasts, creatures of unimaginable horror.
Creatures like the dead fish monster on the ship with him.
The boy remembered now how the monster had died. He had killed it.
Well, not exactly him. But the person who inhabited this body before him.
Fjord Seastorm.
The boy decided then not to regard himself by his own name. He'd always hated that name and now the opportunity had arrived for him to be fully rid of it.
He was Fjord from now on. Fjord Seastorm.
Good name, he thought.
But there were other things more important than names. Fjord remembered that the former owner of the body had managed to awaken just before he died.
That was incredibly good news.
When the Great World Storm came, a gift swept some of the surviving humans. The gift of awakening. Humans received this gift at random; most times by killing a Sea Beast or by experiencing a great emotional event.
Very few received it by doing something as insignificant as being born.
Whatever the case, these people were called Tidehunters. And they ruled the Ocean World.
Tidehunters possessed a variety of abilities, from elements to abstracts, and they used these abilities to sail the seas, enter Water Gates and hunt down Sea Beasts.
Excited, Fjord decided to check his interface and find out just what abilities he had awakened.
He thought of the word 'interface' and glowing letters suddenly lit up in front of him, written with a font that reminded Fjord of pirate movies.
He wondered what ability it could be. Combat abilities were greatly preferred — being able to fight meant being able to kill Sea Beasts and survive this dramatic world.
But he wouldn't mind some abstract abilities either. Something like mind control would be really overpowered wouldn't it?
Yeah, Fjord wouldn't mind that at all.
He read his status with avidity, but in a few seconds, all his joy disappeared to shock.
"What the fuck?"
[ Name : Fjord Seastorm
Core : Awakened
Ocean Rank : Unknown
Gift (Ability) : Bound - Your journey is influenced rarely by your decisions but by the decisions of others around you. You are simply a catalyst to manifest their choices. Some loath you, some adore you, very few are indifferent ]
Fjord stared at his interface for seconds too long. How is this a Gift?! It's more like a curse in my opinion!
A boom sound snatched his attention away. It sounded like a cannon exploding into the air.
He whipped his head to the left only to see that that was exactly what it was.
Out of nowhere, just a mile away, the ocean had become a warzone. Two ships that looked very much like pirate ships were the ones engaged in this warfare.
A literal cannonball, trailing thick, gray smoke, tore through the sky and smashed into the hull of the smaller ship, exploding in a shower of splintered wood and fire.
The one that had fired the cannon was ten times bigger.
It had a crimson hull that sliced through the waves like a Sea Beast itself. Emblazoned across the mainmast was a massive Jolly Roger: a skull with crossed bones, wearing a golden crown. Strangely, clustered around the skull's teeth were painted bundles of bright pink berries.
"What the—" Fjord gasped, scrambling to get a better look.
He threw his weight forward to push himself up off the bloody wooden floorboards, planting his hands down.
Except, his left hand didn't join his right to hold the wood.
Losing his balance, Fjord pitched forward and crashed face-first into the bottom of the canoe. "Arghh!" he groaned, rolling over.
He instinctively reached to grab his left arm, and that was when his brain finally caught up with his body. He looked down.
Where the hell was his arm!!!
Right after his elbow, there was nothing but a giant wound and blood. He remembered now. That Devil Piranha had eaten his hand just before he killed it.
"Fuck!" Fjord screamed, scrambling backward until his spine hit the edge of the canoe. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! What kind of horrible transmigration is this?!"
He was stranded on a piece of driftwood. He had a useless ability. He was in the crossfire of a pirate battle. And he was missing a limb.
"Hey! Look over there!"
Fjord saw a man on the deck of the bigger pirate ship, pointing straight at him. "That scrawny rat killed a Sea Beast!" the pirate roared to his crewmates. "Let's kill him and take the creature for ourselves!"
Terrified, Fjord scrambled onto his knees, raising his one good hand frantically into the air. "You can have it!" he shrieked, his voice cracking. "Take the beast! Just take it!"
He didn't know if the wind carried his voice, he just kept yelling.
Just then, smaller boats were expelled into the ocean and heavily armed pirates climbed down rope ladders and dropped into them. They began rowing toward Fjord with supernatural strength.
Fjord started to panic. He thought of rowing to escape, but he knew he couldn't outrow pirates, and he certainly couldn't fight them. If he jumped into the water, he'd likely get eaten by whatever else was lurking below.
His best chance was staying put, letting them have what they wanted and hopefully leave.
Within minutes, the rowboats slammed against his canoe, nearly capsizing it. Three pirates had surrounded him. One of them, a lanky one grinning through rotting teeth, jumped into his boat.
"Well, well, well," sneered the pirate. "A fresh kill. The core of this beast will fetch a heavy purse of silvers." He turned his cruel eyes to Fjord, laughing maliciously. "And to think a one-armed, shivering little guppy like you managed it. Must've been a fluke."
"Take it," Fjord breathed, pressing himself against the far edge of the boat. "It's yours. Just let me live."
"Live?" The pirate drew a serrated dagger from his belt. "Dead men don't report stolen goods to the Imperium, boy."
Fjord saw the man lunge and he squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for pain.
But nothing happened. Apart from a clang sound. The main thing was Fjord was still alive.
He opened his eyes and saw that the pirate's dagger had been intercepted by the cutlass of another pirate, one with a stitched scar across his face.
"What are you doing?" the lanky pirate asked his mate.
The scarred one lowered his cutlass, though he didn't sheathe it. He looked down at Fjord, then at the massive dead Sea Beast, and finally back to his crewmate.
"We should take him to see Captain Adelpha," he declared. "If someone like him could kill a Sea Beast alone, then the Pirate Queen should decide his fate, not us."
'Pirate Queen?' Fjord echoed in his thoughts.
The lanky pirate agreed tentatively and hid his dagger. "You're always the one who kills strays first! What's so special about this one?"
The scarred pirate frowned, as if the question confused him just as much. He looked at Fjord for a short time, then expanded his scarred face into a smile.
"I don't know. I just... find myself liking the kid." He turned away, gesturing to the rowboat. "Now let's go. Get the beast. Kid, get on the boat."
A minute later, Fjord was sitting frozen on the scarred pirate's boat as they rowed back to the giant ship of this Pirate Queen.
Fjord looked away from the ship to the scarred pirate who had just saved his life even though it was seemingly out of character for him to do so.
'Is this... an effect of my Gift?'