"Should I dump the treasure?" Adam asked as they flew towards the cave where they'd parked their airship.

"No, we need those as the distraction," Emelia said. "The Whale Eaters teamed up with Fallow's Fallen, so we can use the treasure to get their attention."

"How much do you think we've got?"

"Altogether? At least 1500 Doubloons' worth."

"Is that a lot?" Adam asked, having no clue what value the currency had.

"We could buy two normal ship upgrades with that, or one really powerful one. It's also enough to buy an Epic Relic from a vendor."

As they reached their airship, Adam dropped the chests onto the main deck, before shaping the barriers into claws to grab them with and turning them upside-down. The Doubloons and jewels spilled out onto the deck, making it quite clear just how much had been inside the chests.

Carrying this without barriers would've been quite a challenge, he mused. There's gotta be like 80 kilos or more between the two chests.

While he'd prepared the bait, Emelia had started manoeuvring Thunder Rider out of the cliff-side cave, barely speeding up the propellers so as to not make their movement obvious. The Golden Slug was still on the horizon, but it was coming towards them with quite a lot of speed.

Those fins are a lot stronger than I realised.

He'd thought a vessel that enormous with only 'swimming' fins on the sides and no propellers and masts wouldn't be able to gain a lot of speed. That assumption was clearly wrong.

"Alright, I'm ready to send it off," Emelia said.

"Give me a moment," Adam told her, bringing out his wand and summoning a barrier with the spell he'd learnt thanks to Alepheria's Mandate. It took a fair bit of Mana out of him, but once the spell was formed, he sat down to recoup it quickly while fusing the wand barrier with one of his three spell-tome barriers. Then he fused the other two as well, leaving him with two double-fused spells. The one fused with the wand spell he shaped into their 'vehicle', while the other he boosted with Mana Infusion, doubling its stats. Taking a trick out of Arturo's book, he then shaped the infused barrier into as thin of a construct as possible, ending up with something that looked like a narrow rope made of midnight-blue glass.

Adam moved himself onto the sled-like barrier they'd be flying on. "Once my Mana has recovered completely, then we can go."

Emelia remained at the helm, since she'd have to activate the throttle for the propellers and fins to get it going.

The next half minute passed by very slowly, and it seemed as though the Golden Slug was speeding up, barrelling right for them. Since there weren't any shadows to speak of, he felt they were quite exposed outside of the cave, but the colour-scheme of Thunder Rider at least made them slightly less obvious against the backdrop of the island's cliff-side. The blue tint of nightfall was also somewhat working in their favour.

We should still be fine if they spot us, but we're screwed if they see us fly off on the barrier.

"Alright. Let's go!" Adam said, and Emelia pushed the throttle all the way down, making Thunder Rider immediately pick up speed.

The dumped fortune on the deck of the ship clinged and clanged as the airship surged towards the Golden Slug. Emelia quickly hopped onto Adam's barrier, sitting down behind him and latching her arms around his waist.

Without wasting any more time, Adam sent them flying down over the edge of the main deck, aiming them into a large fluffy cloud below that coasted lazily towards the northeast.

He pulled out the Navigator's Telescope to observe the giant airship as their bait flew towards it at max speed.

They didn't have to wait long for a response, as the loud snap of ballistae filled the air. A few seconds later, two strange projectiles struck Thunder Rider with uncanny precision. One exploded against the stern, leaving a massive glob of some kind of weaponised gelatinous slime that completely disabled the propellers and rudder, but the fins still paddled away. The other punctured the hull, penetrating far enough that its tip pierced to the other side. Then it unfolded like an umbrella before pulling back against the hull as the thin chain connecting it to the Golden Slug went taut.

Two more loud snaps proceeded slime bolts which struck the hull where the fins connected, incapacitating them.

Their precision is frighteningly good.

Just like that, their airship had been captured. Even as they watched, gold-skinned pirates used hooks to slide along the taut chain rope towards Thunder Rider, whooping and yelling like madmen.

"Those are Fallow's Fallen," Emelia remarked after Adam passed her the telescope. "They love boarding airships, since they're all about plundering. They'll even take care when they kill others, since many of the denizens of this world have expensive prosthetics and things like golden teeth."

"Lovely," he muttered and pushed their barrier down at a steep angle, hoping to avoid detection.

Emelia handed the telescope back and he returned it to the Spidersilk Sack, then switched his full attention to flying, though the wandering eye was firmly locked onto the giant airship, which made it a bit difficult.

"Be careful of the underside of the ship," Emelia whispered.

Adam found another cloud that was drifting towards the Golden Slug far below where it swam. Then he craned his neck back and looked up at the underbelly of the beast. To his dismay, there were a total of six ballista pods poking out from where the airship's hull dipped down in the M-like shape it had when viewed from the side. Each pod had two ballistae inside angled downward, and it looked like they could spin around to fire in any direction. With a total of twelve ballistae on the underside, there was almost perfect coverage against anything that'd attack them from below.

"Will they be able to spot us?" he asked.

"Not if we're fast enough," she said. "The pirates of this world, especially those who'd operate such a massive airship, are not thinking about looking out for a small shape like our barrier. But they are prepared to defend against attacks from high above and far below, since those are usually the weak-points of other large airships, since they cannot utilise the upgrades to move up or down from the floating point. Except for Golden Fortress' flagship, but they're an outlier in that regard."

"So, we go in fast?"

"Exactly. Do you want me to punch open a hole for us?" she asked with a grin.

Adam eyed the infused double barrier in the shape of a rope next to him. "I've got something safer," he replied.

They stuck to the cloud until the Golden Slug passed over them. The Thunder Rider airship had almost been pulled all the way up to the giant vessel, and Adam just now realised that the front of it was opening up like a mouth to grab it.

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I had no idea it could do that… It really is like a giant Slug Dragon.

"They'll want to disassemble the airship for parts," Emelia guessed, her voice barely audible over the massive swoosh of the Golden Slug's fins flapping like wings. "Especially since it's made by the Cloud Skimmers."

I guess they can't really roll up to a White Flags outpost and get Herrman's crew to give them upgrades, particularly since they've become persona non grata. Scavenging other factions' ships makes a lot of sense in that regard. And it probably means they have quite a lot of non-combatants for the purpose of repairs and maintenance.

Adam squared his jaw. "Here we go," he whispered and sent their barrier almost completely straight up into the air, pushing it to go as fast as possible. He was aiming for the central dip in the strangely-shaped hull.

< < Optional Stage Objective > >

< Defeat the Golden Slug airship >

The offensive barrier that he'd Mana Infused was sent ahead to carve out a hole for them to enter through, and he intentionally shot it right behind one of the ballistae pods. Although the Slugwhale bone was tough, the thin rope-like barrier sliced through it quickly, dropping away a round segment of the underside just in time for them to fly up through the hole and drop into the bottom of the hull.

Since they'd entered right behind a ballistae pod, there were six crew members almost directly in front of where they entered, but Adam's Mana Infused barrier zipped through them in one continuous motion, like a deadly midnight-black serpent, piercing their simple attire and flesh with disturbing ease.

By the time Emelia had both feet on the floor, all six of them lay dead with holes through the middle of their torsos, their hearts pierced with precision and speed. Then three Winter Dancers appeared as their essences were absorbed into Adam's Wraith Lantern.

She cast him a surprised glance, but then quickly took off down the chamber they found themselves in, looking for a way to get around the wall that separated them from the other ballistae pod. The walls and floor inside the vessel were the same gold-veined off-white Slugwhale bone as the exterior. Instead of open floors, it seemed that the interior was filled with smaller chambers, and some of the ones on his right were quarters for the ballistae crew.

Adam followed behind her, but she was much faster than him. He shaped the transport barrier into a narrow lance as he ran, and sent the wraiths after her, since they could keep up. Emelia quickly found a doorway on the left that led through the partitioning wall, and no sooner had she gone through than Adam heard the sound of her punching someone. Then shouting came from deeper inside the other chamber as the crew were alerted to their presence.

Adam managed to catch up to her as she finished off the last crew member with the help of his Winter Dancers. Then she bolted for a nearby set of ladders leading up to the floors above. Given how many enemies were onboard the Golden Slug, they had to blitz them before they had a chance to mount a response and overwhelm them with sheer numbers.

At the top of the ladders was a common room with five off-duty crew playing some kind of game involving dice made from bones. With Adam and Emelia's terrifying strength and quick attacks, none of them were able to get up from their seats before they were dead. And with their deaths came three more wraiths.

While Emelia continued through to another room, Adam pulled out his wand and cast his Necromancy spell on the biggest of the five men they'd just killed. Although his head was gone from Emelia's devastating punch, his body pulled itself upright as the red-gold magic suffused him.

Don't attack me.

Don't attack me…

Adam's barriers and wraiths were poised to eliminate the pirate if he jumped at him like the Mad Captain had, but the headless man just stood there, his arms rigid by his side and his shoulders pulled back strangely.

With a gesture of his obsidian hand, Adam sent his new undead servant and dancers through the doorway and into the chamber in the opposite direction of where Emelia had gone.

Although they hadn't agreed on it, she'd floated the idea of them splitting up to kill as many of the crew members as possible before the alarms sounded, and given how big the ship was, it was clearly the best approach since there was just the two of them.

Yelps of surprise and then disturbing laughter came from the room he'd sent the summons into, and Adam quickly followed, commanding his undead servant to attack the largest of the pirates while he sent his barriers and dancers out to deal with the other seven.

Everyone except the guy he'd sicced his undead on were basic crew members, but the large pirate was clearly part of the Whale Eaters, since he had a metal brace around his jaw that extended up over his lips to give him serrated shark teeth. His right arm was also covered in a thick metallic sleeve and gauntlet, carrying the same bear-trap-like mechanism as the Snap Gauntlet Relic Adam had seen earlier. He was also laughing.

With a punch, the Whale Eater's crazy gauntlet took a huge chunk out of the undead, immediately triggering Last Stand's Fervour. Adam's headless pirate, who was unarmed, simply returned the punch, hitting the Eater hard enough in the face with his meaty fist to snap his head back violently and sending him staggering to the floor.

Adam seized on the opening and shot his thin barrier through the downed pirate's torso, piercing his armour and killing him. Then he switched to his wand and cast Necromancy a second time.

[Warning! Mana below 15%.]

A sudden wooziness made Adam stagger, but the revived Whale Eater slowly got to his feet, while the headless undead expired and collapsed back down onto the floor, dead yet again.

Okay, I overdid it a bit…

Adam sat down to recoup, while his now six lantern summons and one undead regarded him with blank stares, three of the dancers glowing red from Fervour. With a wave of his obsidian hand, Adam sent them further down through the chamber to whatever rooms lay in that direction. He was fairly sure he was heading towards the stern of the ship, but it was impossible to tell from inside the ship.

While Necromancy is cool, I think I have to consider when I use it a lot more prudently. It would maybe be a good idea to unequip the Wandering Eye necklace, since it's a waste to spend 100 Mana on resurrecting a strong enemy, only for them to die to one hit.

When Adam's Mana was back to full, he went the same way he'd sent his summons, finding a chamber with bunkbeds that was full of torn-apart pirates and crew members. The Soul Harvester effect that increased the speed and duration of summons with every kill was clearly paying off, since it seemed to increase the duration of Last Stand's Fervour, given that more than half a minute after they should've expired, one of the Winter Dancers was still going crazy two rooms down, moving like a spinning top and sending cascades of blood and flesh in all directions.

"That looks like a sentient blender," Emelia commented.

Adam jumped at the suddenness of her voice behind him.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine," he replied. "Come on."

Emelia ran towards where Adam's remaining summon was fighting its way through a room with a stairwell leading up to the floor above, which Adam suspected was where most of the broadside ballistae would be. He did his best to keep up as his boosted summons tore through the pirates streaming down the steps towards them, their arrival no longer a secret.

Emelia had little trouble matching the speed of Adam's Soul-Harvester-boosted Winter Dancer, and to add to the mayhem, he commanded his two barriers to fly through the enemies trying to overwhelm them. As the first trio of new wraiths were summoned from the many kills he was racking up, Fallow's Fallen pirates joined the fray. They were much faster than the Whale Eaters, who relied more on physical strength and size, as well as terrifying mechanisms and tools. The Fallen were actually quick enough to be able to avoid some of his barriers.

But Emelia was someone they couldn't contend with, and although they were able to avoid Adam's spells if they saw them coming head-on, they were powerless against her.

In short, it was an absolute bloodbath, and with the many deaths came more of the summons from Adam's Wraith Lantern.

Soon enough they had pushed up to the top floor of the hull where most of the broadside ballistae were mounted. They made quick work of the few crew members and pirates there, before taking the next set of stairs up and emerging out onto the main deck near the stern of the massive airship.

Towards the stern of the Golden Slug, the helm was raised, even though the back of the ship dipped down like the middle and front, and there was something like a podium onto which a large wheel and six throttles were mounted. Upon it stood an enormous man covered in overlapping plate armour and crazy spring-loaded weapons on the braces of his arms, as well as something like mechanical spring boots on his legs. His face was covered by a metal helmet that had a shark-fin on top like a mohawk and metal jaws with a protruding underbite showing serrated shark teeth.

It was the Whale Eaters' captain, of that there could be no doubts.

Adam had a horde of wraiths with him, and he sent them all towards the boss. Emelia ran at the front of them, looking like a vengeful queen and her army of ghosts.

Just as he had the thought that they would easily defeat the captain, the man lifted his right fist into the air and a loud snap came from behind Adam, further down the deck.

He whirled around, just as a ballista bolt smashed into him.

His right shoulder was obliterated by the massive projectile, tearing off his arm and flinging it towards the back of the airship. Since his Potion Belt was strapped around the severed limb, it failed to activate.

[Warning! Health below 10%. You are close to dying.]

[The attack dealt 225 points of damage, which was reduced to 102 thanks to your Defence rating. That means you now have 8 Health or 7% remaining.]

Adam blacked out.

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