The "Conch" quietly floated on the sea surface.

Unnoticed, the time had already reached the early morning hours, and the white fog on the sea grew thicker, so much so that the nearby small island was no longer visible.

At this moment, in the captain's cabin.

Aiven, who was submerged in a meditative state, gradually lost the initial calm and comfort on his face, and instead looked as if he were controlled by a nightmare, with his brow twitching, showing signs of struggle and urgency.

This was the instinctive resistance of extraordinary spirituality, after the suppression of the surface consciousness!

Aiven persisted in this nightmare-like state for several minutes, finally reaching a certain critical point.

"Beep beep beep! Warning! Mental state shift!"

"Huff... Huff..."

Aiven, suddenly awakened from his meditation, was breathing heavily, his forehead drenched in cold sweat.

He sprang up from the bed, and with the strong physique of an official knight, he almost lost his balance, reaching out to steady himself by grabbing the edge of the bed.

"Enemy strike!"

Aiven quickly realized that some continuous attack effect hadn't ceased; he had merely temporarily escaped the state thanks to the reminder of "data visualization."

He had once encountered the spiritual induction of the "Ocean Treasure: Elegy of the Sinking Ship," falling into a deep-sea hallucination, and the ever-monitoring "data visualization" had helped him escape from that state before.

Now, his spiritual power value had already reached 0.55, which was incomparable with when he hadn't yet become a wizard, and naturally, the speed of freeing himself from mind control should have been faster.

However, the facts were otherwise.

This unknown attack was, evidently, unusual, its intensity several levels higher than the "Elegy of the Sinking Ship."

He swiftly extracted an antidote for the "sleep potion" from his waist-pack, gulping it down; a cooling and refreshing stimulus immediately spread throughout his body, dispelling much of the haze.

The attack effects were similar, and the antidote proved effective indeed.

Clang—

Drawing his sword, Aiven finally had a bit of a sense of security and took the chance to observe what was happening on his ship.

In the captain's cabin.

Bess, who had returned from its outdoor frolic, was standing on the wooden perch prepared for it, and unbeknownst to anyone, had fallen into a deep sleep — for a nocturnal bird, this scene was simply unbelievable.

The entire cabin was shrouded in a milky white mist from who knows where, not too thick but still allowing visibility; but given that this was the interior, what would the outside look like?

He listened intently, the outside was eerily silent, except for the crashing of the waves, there were no other sounds.

Gripping his longsword, Aiven quietly pushed open the cabin door and peered outside through the gap.

As expected, the entire ship was enveloped in dense fog, coupled with it being the darkest time before dawn, visibility was extremely low.

Suddenly, Aiven glimpsed a sly, shadowy figure tiptoeing along the corner of a wall in his direction.

The eerie scene on the ship had already made Aiven one hundred and twenty thousand times cautious; he ardently suppressed his racing heartbeat and started towards that shadow.

As the captain, he bore the responsibility of finding out what was happening on the ship!

As the distance closed, the figure's outline gradually became clear, and Aiven finally recognized the person's identity, exclaiming in surprise:

"Milan?!"

"Shh!" Seeing Aiven "safe and sound," Milan was equally thrilled, knowing he wouldn't have to fight alone, but understanding the urgency of the situation, he could only signal Aiven desperately to remain silent.

He reached out and pulled Aiven, whispering urgently into his ear: "It's a relief you're alright! Come with me, we're in big trouble again!"

With Milan's reminder, Aiven noticed that the "Conch" was now speeding along the sea surface.

'Even with all sails lowered, it could still move!'

Suppressing his inner doubts, Aiven followed Milan, crouching low as they edged along the "Conch's" gunwale towards the bow, cautiously climbing onto the forecastle to look down.

Gasp—

"Sea monster!!!"

Aiven gasped.

On the dark sea surface, a massive sea star with rainbow fluorescent glows slowly extended twelve tentacles, desperately spreading milky white fog into the air, enclosing a large space like a cocoon.

The main body of this "sea star" was as big as a house, with an eye that resembles a black pearl at the center and at the end of each of the twelve tentacles, especially the central body, almost as large as a round table.

Five of the tentacles clung to the ship's bottom, singlehandedly dragging the heavy battleship, moving swiftly amid the crashing waves!

Seeing the cause of the ship's strange happenings, while shocked, Aiven's heart relaxed a bit.

At least "sea monster" was much better than the various unresistible horrors in the outer seas as per legends: battleships with all personnel mysteriously disappeared, merchant ships caught in a vortex appearing later with all personnel aged ten years, demon first mates consuming the entire crew....

Moreover, based on its features, Aiven judged this was a wild, small species of sea monster: Mirage Sea Star!

The fortunate thing was, it did not belong to the Mother of Sea Monsters Echidna's faction (who would attack humans without any delay upon sighting them), and its purpose for attacking the ship should be simple, most likely for... feeding?

The "Black Sea Sea Monster Atlas" describes its abilities simply: stirring up whirls of fog with hallucinogen components to draw other creatures into illusions before working them into its "reserve food".

Even after hypnotizing all the navy personnel, it dragged the battleship along, perhaps treating everyone onboard as portable reserve food....

Truly, karma works swiftly.

Just after using the "mist silver lamp" to release white fog that utterly defeated the "Eagle Spirit," instantly they were attacked with similar tactics by a sea monster, which were more vicious.

Had he and Milan not woken due to the wizard's unique activated spiritual power, it's possible, unnoticeably, nearly two hundred crew members could have been swallowed into the sea monster's belly.

Identifying the enemy, even as a horrifying sea monster, was overwhelmingly better than unknown fears, what remained was how to "escape the monster's jaws"!

Before that, Aiven shot a stern look at Milan:

"When we have a prophet, how can anyone tower-steal us? What use is there for a slacker like you?"

Milan returned an even more innocent gaze:

"I didn't want it either, never mind I'm only Tier 2 now, I wouldn't even dare to claim omniscience at Tier 4!"

Not daring to linger here fearing the sea monster's possible attention, they stealthily slipped off the forecastle, heading into the concealed lower deck.

"What to do?" Milan, keeping his voice low despite the thick cabin boards, asked.

"What else but to find a way to slay it!"

Having walked from the bow, Aiven had long discovered, apart from himself and Milan escaping due to activated spiritual power, none others on the ship were spared.

Even the five-man team supposedly on deck duty was nowhere to be found, undoubtedly they became the sea monster's appetizer for sure.

After having bested a notoriously famous pirate ship without any losses, it's impossible that Aiven wasn't even a tiny bit proud; yet, in merely a day's span, this "Mirage Sea Star" slapped him squarely in the face, burning with sting and... more with heartache!

The current crew were his future backbone, losing five to this bizarre situation as if they were snacks, why wouldn't Aiven feel indignant and enraged?!

However, seeing the slumbering crewmates still snoring in hammocks, like pouring icy water on him.

Now the ship's battle-ready force comprised Aiven and Milan alone; although Aiven had a little stock of antidote for the "sleep potion," considering the number of sailors, it was merely a drop in the ocean.

Having the battleship regain combat strength was not achievable by just a few people.

Recalling the first sea monster battle encountered on the Silver Wings during opera, Aiven muttered, "If only we had alchemy bombs... huh?"

Before finishing, Aiven noticed Milan eyeing him with a peculiar gaze.

"What's up?"

Watching Milan walk silently to the end of the cabin, he opened the ammunition room's door, dragging out a red wooden box.

Bam—

Seeing the golden, round things inside the box, Aiven's eyes opened wide:

"When did you get these dangerous things aboard without my knowledge as captain?!!"

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