Sail Shadows in the Sea of ​​Fog

Chapter 179 The Truth from Vanhart's Mouth
Beneath the dam, the battle between the geoduck monster and Vanhart continues.

Who knows if Vanhart had some other plan or was simply at his wit's end? The mech he was piloting neither moved forward nor backward, just stood there like a stationary tank, enduring the onslaught of monsters that came flying at him like peas being pulled from a clam.

The geoduck seemed to have no other tricks up its sleeve either. Seeing that Vanhart didn't move, it stayed in place, munching on the minced meat and also swallowing the mushroom along with it.

"What's going on between those two?" Cheng Lang asked, puzzled. "Are they just chickens pecking at each other?"

"Van Hart is hard to say."

Yun Ji spoke first, “Look around him carefully. It seems that the monsters that have been killed are about to be devoured by the giant crab that is on his lower body.”

“That disgusting sea monster named Yuanyan is probably really out of strength,” Yun Lan added. “He’s eating very fast.”

"A monster? Is that a sea monster?" Cheng Lang looked at the disgusting geoduck clam in astonishment.

"Without Poseidon, sea monsters that come ashore are just seafood."

Yun Ji scoffed, "And look at the carapace on both sides of his body. There's a broken chain securing each of them. I bet he's been locked here for a long time."

"Perhaps he was sent here by the pirate queen Eleanor and Van Hart."

Yun Lan then guessed, "I suspect he fell into a deep sleep after Vanhart and Eleanor had both perished."

"yes"

Yun Ji nodded in agreement, "He must have been starving for a long time, so he couldn't wait to devour those disgusting pieces of meat to replenish his energy. He must also want to eat Vanhart."

"Should we help Vanhart?" Yun Lan asked, "Or perhaps help Yuan Yan?"

"That mushroom was the most help we could offer at the moment."

Cheng Lang said bluntly, "Whether you need help or not, we'll talk about it later."

As he made his decision, Yuan Yan's eating speed suddenly increased.

But no matter how fast he was, he couldn't keep up with the speed at which mushrooms sprouted from the minced meat!
These mushrooms, which had just grown on Poseidon's arm, had an exceptionally good appetite. Naturally, they consumed the minced meat at an astonishing rate, as did their own growth, decay, and regeneration.

Where these poisonous mushrooms, whose toxicity had no effect on the Nightmare, had grown, the fleshy mounds were visibly collapsing and changing color.

What particularly terrified Yuan Yan was that not only could the minced meat, whose nutrients had been absorbed by the mushrooms, not replenish his strength, but the lush mushrooms were doing the same thing!

Often, when he takes a bite, half of the mushroom he eats has already rotted into black mud, while the other half, after absorbing all the nutrients from the meat mud, also sprays out a large number of spores and then rots into black mud as well.

This is why Yuan Yan ate faster and faster, but besides his mouth full of black mud with a strong rotten mushroom smell, his only gain was a large number of spores that kept spraying out of his mouthparts as he swallowed.

Some of these spores landed on the constantly gushing flesh and grew into more mushrooms, while others landed on the Abyss Nightmare and similarly grew into more and more mushrooms!
"What the hell are these awful mushrooms?!"

Yuan Yan finally gave up eating the meat paste and shook off the mushrooms on his body with a roar. He had to do it because he felt himself getting weaker and weaker as the mushrooms grew!
"It can even transform?" Cheng Lang, hiding on the dam, exclaimed in a low voice.

He could see clearly from here that as the monster called Abyss Nightmare moved its body, he was also shaking off more and more mushrooms that hadn't had time to grow, and at the same time, he "grew" from a geoduck clam into the shape of a kangaroo.

His previous tentacles, which were covered with those of elves, orcs, or monsters, became the fur on the kangaroo's back.

"Eleanor, Van Hart, I'm going to eat you!"

As the Abyss roared, it charged toward Vanhart, who had not moved an inch from the beginning.

Unexpectedly, the mech where Vanhart was hiding moved nimbly and retreated first, making way for the space that was almost filled with monster corpses, while at the same time bombarding them with a dense barrage of steel arrows fired from crossbows.

Unfortunately, the kangaroo-like Nightmare simply raised the carapace attached to its arm and easily blocked all the arrows.

However, he did not give chase either. Instead, he swung his mouthparts, which served as a "kangaroo's tail," and began to devour the monsters' corpses at top speed.

He has been asleep for too long and he desperately needs energy. Although he just released these monsters, they can still serve as emergency food!
However, while these monsters did provide energy when he ate them, Yuan Yan gradually realized something was wrong—he was choking!

"What have you done?" Yuan Yan roared.

"Petrochemical foam beads"

Vanhart explained in a voice that was both male and female, while at the same time, a small ball fell from his hand.

When this unassuming little ball hit the ground, it immediately produced a large amount of foam, which expanded and solidified into stone at an extremely fast speed.

"Furthermore, it also contains powdered island-swallowing armor plates and a large amount of iron powder."

"Even if you were a sea monster, you wouldn't be able to digest these things easily," Vanhart said.

"You despicable dwarf!"

As Yuan Yan spoke, he swung the carapace attached to his other arm and swiftly severed the mouthparts that served as his tail!

When that thick, disgusting mouthpart was severed from his body, a large amount of blue blood gushed out of his wound.

"I'm going to kill you and then eat you."

As Yuan Yan spoke, he reached several tentacles into his wound and forcefully pulled out a large chunk of solidified stone!

"I have the same idea!"

Vanhart seemed to have been waiting for this moment. Before his voice, which was a mixture of male and female tones, had even faded, he had already rushed over at an astonishing speed.

"Boom!"

Vanhart slammed the massive hammer on one of his arms into the Abyss Nightmare's carapace, while the enormous drill on his second arm spun rapidly and pierced the Abyss Nightmare's chest cavity.

That wasn't all; Vanhart had two more arms! A long, thin scimitar suddenly appeared from somewhere on the arm that had been holding the crossbow.

"laugh!"

With a series of sparks, the scimitar pierced the edge of the carapace attached to the other arm of the Nightmare, and with a swift slash, it actually shaved off that huge piece of carapace!
"You dwarf insect! I'm going to eat you!"

As the Nightmare roared, Vanhart repeatedly swung his hammer, striking the remaining carapace of the enemy.

At the same time, Vanhart's enormous crab claws on his lower body, like two giant scissors, cut open the wound that Abyss Nightmare had created.

Despite the risk of having his chest pierced by the drill, Yuan Yan roughly grabbed Vanhart's upper body. New armor grew on his arms, which had been stripped of their armor, and the two armor plates quickly closed together, completely enveloping Vanhart's upper body.

Even the monsters growing from the tentacles of the Abyss have begun to try to tear open the gaps in the mech!
"The snipe and the clam are fighting."

As Cheng Lang spoke, he cracked his whip and jumped off the dam. It was time for this fisherman to make his move!
Under his lead, Yun Ji was the first to flap her wings and follow, followed closely by Yun Lan, who creatively wove a slide from the top of the dam down with thorns.

"We might fall to our deaths!"

Excited, Yun Lan hurriedly reminded them before jumping onto the slide. Two long thorns, resembling skateboards, sprouted from the soles of her boots—an inspiration she drew from the sailboats and sleds on the icy seas of the Arctic.

Looking down at the long spikes growing from the bottom of her boots, Yafso quickly shook her head. "Forget about it, I'll help you here!" As she spoke, she drew her spider bow.

"You coward!"

As Shenba spoke, he jumped onto the slide and charged out, brandishing his enormous scythe amidst piercing screams and cries!

“You’re the coward!” Yafso replied, releasing the bowstring.

Before the arrow could hit Yuan Yan's cut wound, Cheng Lang, who had already landed, lashed out with his whip, which had already pierced Yuan Yan's wound and injected all the poison into Yuan Yan's body.

"hiss--!"

As the poison was withdrawn, Cheng Lang shuddered uncontrollably, then gritted his teeth and poured all the poison from the whip back into Yuan Yan's body!

Under the massive amount of toxins, even Yuan Yan's vision went black for a moment, but what was even more serious was that the elves, orcs, and monsters on his tentacles lost their vitality in an instant!

"puff!"

At the same time, the arrow that Yavso fired also pierced his body and released the poisonous mushroom spores hidden inside the arrow!

"laugh!"

As Yun Ji descended silently, she mimicked what Vanhart had just done, plunging her dagger into the interior of the Abyss Nightmare's still-growing carapace and accurately severing the muscles that were attached to the carapace.

"Stop me!"

Yun Lan, who was rushing over at high speed, let out a cry of surprise. Then, Yun Ji grabbed one of her arms and she was narrowly thrown over Yuan Yan and Fan Hart's bodies.

In that very instant, Yun Lan waved her small hand, causing thick thorns to grow on Vanhart's body!

"Someone come pick me up!"

With a sob in his voice, Shenba rushed over, and in the chaos, he plunged his large scythe into Yuanyan's back.

Thanks to Vanhart's modifications to his broken scythe, the undead attached to it, while unable to cause the powerful Abyss Nightmare to lose his focus, could not help but distract him for a moment.

"hiss--!"

Cheng Lang, who was almost driven mad by the drug, couldn't help but shudder again, but he forced himself to push the increasingly potent poison into Yuan Yan's body once more!
Just as everyone was kicking him while he was down, Vanhart, whose upper body was almost completely devoured by the Abyss Nightmare, placed his hand, which was now imbued with the spark of fire, onto the Abyss Nightmare's heart.

"laugh--"

In that instant, everyone felt the intense heat, and even Cheng Lang, who had just summoned the toxin back once again, smelled the rich aroma of grilled seafood.

"I am noble."

"You're just a sea monster that's come ashore, a stinking piece of seafood."

As Vanhart's mocking remarks overlapped between men and women, his seemingly extremely hot metal arm plucked a still-beating heart from Yuan Yan's body.

Then, he actually stuffed the heart into his chest cavity!
"Pfft!"

The Nightmare's body was tossed aside by Vanhart and then completely enveloped by mushrooms.

"Dear Captain, thank you and everyone else for your help. Without you, obtaining this heart would not have been so easy."

Van Hart's tone was exceptionally earnest, and he adopted an extremely humble attitude.

"So he's dead?" Cheng Lang asked, trembling, as Yun Ji helped him up.

“He’s dead, he’s dead.” Vanhate nodded.

"So, can we explain now?" Cheng Lang asked.

"certainly"

Van Hart bowed with his hand on his chest. "Before that, let's get to know each other again."

I am a combination of Vanhart and the former pirate queen Eleanor. The monster body you saw was Vanhart, and this cicada-molting multi-purpose armor is Eleanor.

Our souls share the same body, and we cooperate to control this armor.

"Where is Yuanyan?" Yun Ji asked.

"As you can see, the Nightmare is a sea monster. Fortunately, since Poseidon was killed, Panini is almost the only sea monster that has maintained its sanity, which is why he was captured and locked up here."

"Did you capture him?" Yun Lan asked in surprise.

"It's Valkyrie Luo."

Vanhart explained, "He and that arm of Poseidon were both rewards given to the dwarves."

“He knows you,” the perceptive Yun Ji reminded her.

"We've used this water-powered blacksmith's workshop more than once."

Vanhart replied, "I was the one who reinforced the seal on him the last time, but he was still too powerful at the time, and there was no way to kill him."

"So you've kept it until now?" Cheng Lang asked.

"That's right, it's been saved until now."

Vanhart's tone was full of relief, "Although it took a long time, we finally killed him."

Before he could finish speaking, Vanhart had already walked to a piece of carapace, picked it up, and said, “My esteemed captain, Eleanor and I don’t have much time left. I will now forge some useful weapons for you, and then we will be leaving.”

"Leave? Where?"

Shenba asked instinctively, "You promised to teach me forging! You even said I have the talent to become an armorer!"

"We have some things to do that must be done, but we will definitely meet again."

Van Hart sighed. "After Eleanor awoke, I learned the truth."

After much struggle, Vanhart continued, "Friends, it was the dwarves who betrayed Loth, and it is the dwarves who want to revive Poseidon."

"So the dwarves didn't die out?" Yun Ji asked, frowning.

"They've hidden themselves, they've just hidden themselves."

Van Hart sighed, "But nobody knows where they're hiding."

(End of this chapter)