Surviving as the Captain of a Mad Cthulhu Deep Sea - Chapter 20

chapter 20

The God

Chapter 20: The God

Charles froze in place for a full three seconds. It was the sound of Bandages’ prayer that finally jolted him back to his senses.

When he looked down, First Mate Bandages was already beside him, endlessly bowing toward the massive eye in the sky.

Gritting his teeth, Charles yanked Bandages and stumbled into the control room.

His face pale, Charles closed the door without a word. With both hands, he rapidly manipulated the controls. The lights on The Narwhal vanished in an instant, and the Exploration Ship merged with the darkness.

At that moment, the Second Mate’s voice crackled through the speaking tube:

“Captain, what’s going on up there? Why did you turn on the emergency lights—”

The next instant, the Second Mate’s voice was filled with extreme terror.

“My God, have we met the ‘God’ in the darkness? We’re finished, utterly finished!”

“Second Mate! Shut up!”

Veins bulging on his face, Charles roared at the Speaking Tube.

Beside him, the First Mate trembled uncontrollably. His bandaged body was curled on the floor, muttering incomprehensible prayers.

Charles rushed to the source of the sound, clamped his hand over the man’s mouth, and whispered, “That’s not your Shell God! Can’t you see it’s in the sky?”

Tension filled the cabin, thick as the pitch-black darkness. The only sounds were ragged breaths.

After a few minutes, Dip’s low voice came from beside him, strained as if he were holding something back.

“Captain, what kind of deity was that we just saw? Shouldn’t we pray to it as well? I heard that even if you encounter a ‘god,’ it will spare you if you pray with reverence.”

Charles remained silent. He didn’t want to know what kind of god it was. All he wanted now was for that thing outside to disappear as quickly as possible.

Grrr…

A low, guttural resonance echoed through the dark sky.

The sound sent shivers down the spines of everyone on the ship. A moment after the sound faded, strange noises began to emanate from the outer deck, growing steadily louder.

“Damn it! Something’s boarded the ship!”

Charles’s heart sank. He knew he couldn’t stand idly by any longer. If this continued, everyone on the ship would die.

Gritting his teeth, he rushed to the control panels and switched on all the lights.

Outside the glass, crimson masses of flesh, their origins unknown, writhed and squirmed on the deck, ravenously devouring the bright yellow “eyes.”

“Chief Engineer! Turbine overload! Full speed ahead, get us out of this hellhole!”

The Narwhal, which had been dormant, let out a low groan and rapidly accelerated.

Charles watched the grotesque monsters on the deck leap into the sea, but felt no relief. The true danger lay in the sky. He dared not look up, afraid of what he might see. One of the eyes was large enough to cover half the sky; imagining the size of its owner was impossible. All he could do now was flee at full speed.

The Narwhal suddenly lurched violently, sending Bandages and Dip crashing against the wall. Immediately, a cacophony of noise and screams erupted from the speaking tube in the Turbine Room.

“Captain! Something’s embedded in the Turbine Room! The Second Engineer is dead!”

A ear-splitting screech of metal grinding against metal filled the air. Outside the windows, massive, finger-like pillars descended from the sky, gripping the hull in their grasp.

Charles soon realized his ship wasn’t just immobile—it was slowly rising into the air. Something had seized the Narwhal.

“Damn it! This is my ship home! You’ll have to step over my corpse to take it!”

Furious, Charles had no time to look back. He yanked the searchlight upward, igniting its beam, and sprinted onto the deck, ignoring everything else.

Reaching the deck, Charles tilted his head back and finally saw the true nature of the thing in the sky. It was a butterfly monster, tens of times larger than The Narwhal.

The creature gripping The Narwhal was its insect leg, and the eyes he had seen earlier were spots on its butterfly wings. Each flap of its wings sent yellow powder raining down from the sky.

Though the monster before him exuded an overwhelming pressure, a smile spread across Charles’s face. The thing in the sky was no damned god. He had almost been fooled by the people. No matter how large, a monster was still just a beast.

A low-frequency hum resonated again, and the giant moth monster’s auxiliary legs jabbed toward the searchlights. It seemed to hate the intense light.

Charles raced to the deck cannon.

“Lily, load the cannon!”

By the time the shell was loaded, The Narwhal was already 7 to 8 meters above the sea.

We couldn’t let it hold us any longer! Charles aimed the cannon at the massive leg embedded in the ship’s side.

“Everyone, brace for impact!”

Boom!

The chitinous insect leg exploded in a deafening roar, spraying red and green ichor across the sky.

The Narwhal, suspended in mid-air, crashed back onto the waves with a tremendous splash, sending a massive wave crashing over the deck. Had it been a wooden ship, it would have shattered instantly.

Clutching his bleeding jaw, Charles shouted excitedly toward the bridge, “Set sail! Set sail now!”

“Captain! Look behind you!”

In the cockpit, Dip panicked, waving his hands and feet in front of the glass window.

When Charles turned his head, a massive, one-legged Giant Butterfly had appeared directly in front of the ship’s bow. Its antennae quivered, and a low wail grew louder, sounding increasingly enraged.

“Want to play again? Fine! I’ll play with you!”

A glint of madness in his eyes, Charles adjusted the cannon’s aim to target the Giant Butterfly’s horrifying insect head.

At that moment of extreme tension, the sea between them suddenly erupted into a pillar of water three times the height of the butterfly.

Water exploded violently, and a translucent palm, three times the size of the butterfly and marked with sinister patterns, rose above the surface.

The moment Charles saw the palm, a deafening whisper tore through his ears, and everything before his eyes began to twist and distort. The very essence of his self-awareness rapidly vanished.

With a furious wind, the palm slammed down towards the Giant Butterfly. As the colossal hand struck the water’s surface, a massive wave surged upward, transforming into a violent tsunami that crashed over The Narwhal.

In a fleeting instant, Charles glimpsed a colossal giant standing between heaven and earth. Its entire body was green, its flexible head bristled with countless tentacles, its forelimbs hung limply with blunted claws, and its horrifying, slimy mouth stretched from jaw to belly.

Boom!!

A mountain-moving wave crashed over the deck, sweeping Charles, who stood rooted to the spot, into the sea. Dip, in the control room, witnessed this and threw himself after the captain.

“Captain! Snap out of it! Captain!”

Charles slowly opened his eyes and realized he was back in the Captain’s Cabin.

The crew members present let out a collective sigh of relief, and Lily burst into tears of excitement.

Ignoring the throbbing pain in his head, Charles turned to the Second Mate beside him and asked, “Are we safe? Where are we?”

The red-haired youth forced a bitter smile. “We’re safe enough, but I’m not entirely sure where we are…”

Just as he threw off the covers and was about to get out of bed, a piercing ringing filled Charles’s ears, followed by an overwhelming surge of whispering voices.

This situation was far more dire than anything they had faced before. Charles was even beginning to hallucinate. The sailors’ bodies began to rot, grotesque tentacles erupted from their flesh, and they all transformed into monstrous creatures of flesh and blood.

He had no time to worry about anything else. Charles hastily retrieved the box Elizabeth had given him and swallowed the lump of green jelly inside.

The whispers in his ear quickly faded, and the sailors’ forms finally returned to normal. Drenched in cold sweat, Charles stood panting at a distance.

Ignoring the others’ concern, Charles spoke.

“Inform everyone to gather in the Captain’s Cabin.”

Soon, the remaining crew of The Narwhal convened in the Captain’s Cabin for an emergency meeting.

“Where are we now?”

“Hmm… it’s impossible to determine our current position. The Narwhal seems to have been swept very far away by the massive waves. Fortunately, the First Mate’s experience prevented the ship from capsizing.”

“Any crew casualties?”

“Two deckhands are missing—they were likely swept overboard. The Second Engineer was impaled by the Butterfly Monster’s claw and died. Cook Fred’s left arm is dislocated.”

After the Second Mate Krona finished her report, the Chief Engineer spoke up.

“Captain… the creature’s forelimb pierced directly into the Turbine Room. We’ve sealed the hole, but the turbine power is damaged. The Narwhal’s speed is now only one-fifth of its previous rate.”

Bad news followed one after another, and Charles felt the weight on his shoulders growing heavier.

He took a deep breath and said, “First Mate, adjust the crew’s shifts to cover the vacancies. Cancel the original mission and set course south. Human Islands are most numerous in the south, so our chances of encountering one are highest there.”

The crew members received their orders, and The Narwhal, which had been paralyzed for half a day, finally began to move.

After the crew had dispersed, Charles pulled a bottle of liquor from below and took a rough swig. The calm captain he had been moments before was gone, his eyes now filled with deep terror.

Could that arm, larger than a mountain, truly have been the giant’s arm he saw in his dream? What was its true nature?

He had heard of the Gods of the Earth Sea before, but he had never cared whether it was true or not. It wasn’t until he saw a god with his own eyes today that he truly understood the insignificance of humanity for the first time.

“Is this really Earth? There’s no way such a colossal creature could exist on Earth! Its own weight should crush it under the gravity!”

For a moment, Charles felt an overwhelming urge to sell his ship, return to the islands, and spend the rest of his days there.

But as the faint images of his family flashed through his mind, his gaze gradually hardened.

“I can’t give up. Not even a god can stop me!”

Charles raised the bottle, took another fierce swig, then set it aside, his expression returning to its usual cold detachment as he strode out of the cabin.