Nemo put his hands back in his pockets as he surveyed the scene.
"I've hunted my fare share of beasts in my day, the only way someone could kill this thing is with extensive planning and very specific, and very large equipment. Something we don't have. Face it Raiya, we're out of our depth here." Nemo replied, seeming calm despite what he was saying. Even going as far to inject a pun.
Just as he was prepared to speak again, the entire ship began to rock from a great disturbance in the sea. He was barely able to stabilize himself and prevent himself from sliding. Multiple shipping crates came loose, some banging against the ship, some breaking, and some just going overboard. The creature was rising. Tentacles of the sea monster began to lift out from the water all around the ship off in the distance. They were everywhere. There wasn't a single direction to go that wouldn't run into it, it was simply too massive to ever escape.
The tentacle appendages didn't stay for long however, all sank back down out of sight. Leaving Nemo to wonder why they had disappeared. The sound of the creature breaching the surface of the water caused Nemo to turn around. He was surprised to see that it wasn't close and about to break the ship in half with it's arms, instead it was far off in the distance.
This was the first time he got to see the whole creature as a whole, it was truly gargantuan. Anyone observing from a far off distance would probably presume it was just an even larger cargo ship. But closer inspection would reveal the hideous, barbed, barnacle covered goliath sea squid it was. The entire thing wasn't just mossy-black, it had a crimson maroon stripe pattern upon it's back that traveled down some of it's appendages as well. Even from Nemo's distance he could make out one of it's most striking features. It's eyes. It had mostly black eyes, except for lazer red dots for pupils. Nemo knew it was staring directly at them, not the ship. Even in his situation, and the threat the monster posed to them, Nemo couldn't deny that he admired the creature. For him it truly was a breathtaking sight to behold.
Before he could take in the sight anymore, all of the beasts limbs suddenly began to rise out of the water... straight up. They towered above like a fleshy skyscraper. The tentacles even grew in width as they got closer to the creature's body, making the size of the ends that hit the ship before look minuscule. Even with it's giant length, Nemo knew it wasn't close enough to hit the ship. But Nemo figured already that it had no intentions of hitting the ship...
directly.
Once the tentacles reached apex height, all sound besides the rain stopped. They held there for a while, putting an ominous feeling in the air, and then silently began to start falling back down all in the direction of the ship. Then they all crashed back onto the water to make a gargantuan splash. Moments later the sound traveled over from the incident, sounding like a supercharged thunder-strike nearly capable of deafening someone's ears. The point of the action made itself more than clear when a colossal wave began to form in the sea from the splash travelling towards the ship. By the point it had made it halfway to the ship it was about the same size as the creature that made the wave itself. The sound of the looming wave began to loom around the group as well, gradually growing louder in time.
Nemo let out a small chuckle, at a loss.
"Just how much do you hate swimming, exactly?" He asked rhetorically before busting out into a cackling laughter. Apparently nothing could truly shake Nemo's personality from him.
The wave grew in size till the point it loomed over the ship, appearing to double it's height. The sound of the impending rush of water made it harder to hear anything but their oncoming fate. It was almost there by now, just about to crash into the side of the ship. Nemo took the opportunity to do all he could, create a barrier to try to block the water from totally crushing them. It extending into a wall in front of the group. Unfortunately since it was made out of energy and mostly transparent, it did nothing to block out the ghastly sight of the wave about to collide.
The last thing Nemo saw was the side of the ship totally obliterate from the impact, the water immediately going onto collide with his shield...
and then everything went dark.
Nemo felt feeling in his body slowly come back to him, terribly sore. He had a hard time opening his eyes, but once he eventually pried them open he saw something truly unexpected. Light, bright sunny light. It was such a one-eighty of the dark storm they were experiencing before. It didn't make sense, and he already hated it. Nemo despised the light, it irritated him. He always worked much better in the dark, with his eyes it was actually
easier to see in that environment. Nemo wondered if he had died and this was his punishment, stuck in a sunny place for all eternity. A truly terrifying thought.
He let out a groan and started to get up, rolling onto his knees for a start. While he did so he got to feel the ground, it was sand. Nemo wiped his eyes and looked around. After taking a few seconds to fully adjust to the brightness he could see again. Nemo had no idea how much time had passed. He was on a sandy beach, on what seemed to be a small tropical island. He turned around to see the ocean, and bits and pieces of Seidon's ship that had washed up, totaling to what he guessed was nearly a fourth of the original vessel.
Maybe they had actually made it to the island? He pulled up his manadial, relieved to see it was still operational. Nemo made sure the device was as sturdy and reliable as possible. Unfortunately, while it was still powered, the map was completely distorted, making finding any of his teammates or knowing where they were impossible. He figured this could either be because the paragon was nearby, or he really was in purgatory. A light use of his manalysis shed some arguably positive light. A great source of mana and energy was located at the center of the island, possibly the artifact they went through all this for.
Nemo stumbled to his feet, looking for anything else of value in his peripherals among the wreckage. After dusting off as much sand as he could from his garments and hair he started off walking. Nemo wasn't really sure where he was going, but he needed to find the rest of his team. As he traveled he wondered how this could have happened. Nemo knew that there was way the squid beast had spared them, the only reason that he could come up with is that after the wave, they must have passed through the threshold into the paragon's anomaly zone, sealing them off from the sea where the monster dwelled. That or it was scared off by something even it couldn't understand, a testament to the paragon's power.
Before Nemo could think any further on the subject, he spotted something peculiar off on the beach. It didn't look to be a part of the wreckage. Nemo used his hand to try to shade his eyes from the sun to get a better look. As he got closer he was able to identify what he saw, it was Raiya, or at the moment, just her body. Nemo immediately picked up the pace to make it over to her. As soon as he reached where she was Nemo keeled down beside her and looked over her body. She was laying on her side, not moving.
"Raiya, are you alright?" Nemo asked, putting his hand on her shoulder and briefly shaking her.
"Raiya?" When she didn't respond Nemo started to fear the worst. He turned her on her back and pressed the side of his head up against her chest to listen for a heartbeat.
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