novelbest Chapter 202: TRAINING IN OPEN WATER (2)
Chapter 202: TRAINING IN OPEN WATER (2)
[Deck — 6:15 AM]
Seraph with a wooden staff one and a half meters long.
Alex looked at her.
"Phase three."
"Taking damage, you said."
"Yes." Seraph held the staff. "Activate F1 at thirty percent. Maintain a conversation with me. I strike. You hold the Fragment."
Alex activated F1.
The pressure. The familiar pain.
"Tell me what you’re thinking about the training," said Seraph.
"That talking costs more than—"
The staff struck his left shoulder. Not hard — enough.
F1 pushed at the impact.
Alex held it. He lost half a second of the sentence.
"Continue," said Seraph.
"—more than walking, because your thinking has to be fully present."
Strike to his right side.
F1 pushed harder this time — the pain of the impact plus the pain of the tense channel plus the boat’s movement, all at once.
He held it.
"Why does damage activate the Fragment more than movement?" asked Seraph as she prepared the next strike.
"Because the survival instinct tells the Fragment there’s a threat." Alex. "And the Fragment responds to—"
Strike to the knee. Alex stumbled. The boat tilted slightly.
F1 climbed to forty percent on its own.
Alex brought it back down to thirty.
Blood came at seven minutes.
At twelve minutes, Seraph lowered the staff.
"Stop."
[F1 — deactivated]
[F1 Corruption: 95% — unchanged]
Alex breathed.
*Twelve minutes,* he thought. *Yesterday fifteen minutes talking. Ten with damage. It will balance out.*
"Next time the Fragment rises above thirty," said Seraph, "don’t bring it down immediately. Observe how long you can hold it at thirty‑two before it keeps climbing on its own."
"Why?"
"To understand the difference between the Fragment pushing and the Fragment responding." Seraph. "They are not the same. One you can stop. The other you have to redirect."
---
[Noon — deck]
The sun at its highest point.
Maya with the updated map on the main deck table. Kira sitting across from her. The two with the problem of the clouds and the southeastern movement on the table — literally, with the routes drawn and the times noted.
Max arrived, looked at the map, looked at the two routes.
"The northern one," he said without hesitation.
"Why?" asked Maya.
"Because the southeastern movement Kira read this morning has had that pattern for four days. I saw it before Kira measured it." Max. "It’s a territorial creature. If we cross its direct route, it will notice us."
Kira looked at him.
"Why didn’t you say so before?"
"Because I wanted to see if you’d find it on your own." Max. "You did."
Maya looked at him for a second.
*He’s been sailing for twenty years,* she thought. *And he still tests us like we’re beginners.*
*Though I suppose in the ocean we are beginners.*
"North route, then," said Maya. "Four hours extra."
"Correct." Max left.
---
[Afternoon — side deck]
The Void Shark pack appeared without warning.
Twelve. A‑rank. The first indicator was the change in the water — a darkening beneath the surface about thirty meters from the boat, moving fast and in formation.
Kira saw it first.
"Twelve contacts! A‑rank! Right flank!"
The boat moving, the ocean below, and twelve A‑rank creatures approaching at forty kilometers per hour.
---
Void Sharks were not normal sharks.
They were longer — three meters in length, with their fins turned into blades of dark energy that cut through the water and would cut through the deck if they managed to leap. They attacked in formation — four groups of three, each group with a different target.
Four from the first group jumped at the same time.
---
Alex activated F1.
Not at thirty percent — at exactly thirty percent, the threshold he had spent two weeks learning to hold, the point where the Fragment was present without dominating.
The spectral scythe in his hand.
The first shark leaped toward the left deck. Alex cut at its ascent point — the scythe’s edge meeting the creature in the air before it touched the deck.
[Void Shark — eliminated]
The second came from the right with its fin‑blade active. Alex turned, the boat’s movement complicating the angle, the deck giving way under his feet at the wrong moment.
The fin‑blade cut his left forearm.
[Alex HP: 26,300 → 25,100]
F1 pushed upon taking damage. It climbed to thirty‑two percent.
Alex held it at thirty‑two — what Seraph had said this morning. Not to bring it down immediately. To observe.
Thirty‑two did not climb on its own.
He brought it back down to thirty.
---
Raven on the boat’s left flank.
[Army of Bones — marine skeletons — activated — 8 units]
The eight sea creature skeletons she had built this morning entered the water from the boat’s left side. Not from the deck — from the water directly, the skeletons emerging from the bottom to flank the sharks attacking from below.
Horizontal movement was natural for them. The creatures attacking from under the boat found themselves facing skeletons operating on their same plane.
Four Void Sharks were redirected toward the skeletons instead of the hull.
[Army of Bones — 4 sharks contained]
Raven at the railing with F3’s scythe active, cutting down those that leaped toward her flank.
*Marine skeletons work,* she thought as she cut down the third. *Tomorrow I’ll build twelve.*
---
Emily was not in direct combat.
She was at the stern with Purifying Light in reading mode — not to heal yet, to map the spiritual plane of the shark pack. The formation had a specific logic, a coordination center that was not any individual creature but a shared frequency among the twelve.
*If I disrupt the frequency,* she thought, *the formation collapses.*
She activated Purifying Light in directed mode toward the pack’s shared frequency — not purification, spiritual interference. The blue‑white light found the coordination channel among the twelve sharks.
[Purifying Light — formation interference — active]
The pack’s formation fragmented. The twelve sharks lost coordination for three seconds.
Three seconds was enough.
---
Kira in the crow’s nest.
[Predator’s Sense — active — combat mode]
Twelve targets. The formation collapsed by Emily. The angles of each shark visible on the reading plane — where it would leap, when, from which point in the water.
Eight arrows in four seconds.
Eight Void Sharks with enchanted arrows at the exact points where the dark energy armor was thinnest — at the junction point between the fin‑blade and the body, the spot Predator’s Sense had found in the first three seconds of combat.
[8 Void Sharks — eliminated]
---
The last four in the water.
Raven’s marine skeletons and Alex’s final strike with F1 at thirty percent.
Four cuts.
[4 Void Sharks — eliminated]
[Void Shark pack — eliminated]
[Combat time: 14 minutes]
---
The deck was silent.
The water alongside the boat held the dissolving dark energy remains of the twelve sharks. The cut on Alex’s forearm was still bleeding — minor, nothing critical.
Emily came to his side.
She activated Purifying Light in healing mode.
[Alex HP: 25,100 → 26,400]
"F1?" asked Emily quietly.
"At thirty throughout the fight." Alex looked at the cut as it closed under Emily’s light. "It climbed to thirty‑two when I was cut. I held it there for a moment before bringing it back down."
Emily looked at him.
*He held it,* she thought. *He took damage and he held it.*
"Did it hurt more?"
"Yes." Alex. "But it worked."
---
Seraph from the railing.
She had watched the entire fight without intervening. F1’s numbers legible to F2 the whole time — the thirty percent, the climb to thirty‑two, the controlled reduction.
She looked at Alex.
"Good."
Alex looked at the numbers.
[F1 Corruption: 94%]
One point less.
"One point," said Alex.
"Points add up," said Seraph.
She went to her cabin.
---
[Deck — 8:00 PM]
The night arrived calmly.
Raven at the gunwale with the twelve marine skeletons in the water below — not moving, just present, F3 keeping them in latent mode for the ocean.
*Twelve marine skeletons,* she thought. *And tomorrow I can start building from B‑rank creatures if we find remains on the north route.*
*The ocean has more dead than any dungeon.*
*Grim was right.*
Kira came over. She leaned on the railing two meters from Raven without saying anything.
The two looked at the water.
*Kira has been coming here at the same time for three days,* Raven thought. *She doesn’t say anything. She just stays.*
*It’s fine like this.*
---
Maya in her cabin with the updated map.
The north route marked. The southeastern movement recorded with Max’s note. The Void Shark pack as the first piece of ocean combat data.
*First sea creature in real combat,* she wrote in her notebook. *The boat’s movement changes all the angles. Emily disrupted the formation before Kira fired — without that, the fight would have lasted twice as long.*
*We function better here than I expected.*
She closed the notebook.
*When was the last time we functioned poorly?* she thought.
*I don’t remember.*
Akari jumped onto the bed and settled on the closed notebook.
Maya looked at her.
*I need to stop thinking about these things before I sleep,* she thought.
She turned off the light.