Between its eyes!Barnabus’ voice had me snapping my head up as he circled above, no doubt trying to get a view of the creature as well.There is a particularly soft spot between its eyes, it's one of the Kraken’s only vulnerabilities. The rest of the skin is scale like, so that is where you need to target!
“By its eyes?!” I shouted in shock. “How am I supposed to get close enough to do that?”
Before he could answer, another two tentacles rose into the air before they came down in a hard slap against the surface of the water. I gripped the railing as a tidal wave slammed into our ship as we rocked so badly I felt like we would tip over.
Shit. If we didn’t handle this, it was going to sink our entire fleet and kill everyone from the force of its hits alone.
Elijah appeared next to me, his gaze sharp and focused. “What is he saying?”
“Its eyes. I need to stab between—” I noticed the Kraken’s appendages rising to the surface once more. “Hold tight! It's going to do it again!”
Except it wasn’t just the tentacles that surfaced.
As if hearing our words, the water began to churn in front of us, and a dark blue, bulbous head began to surface, an inhuman sound vibrating through the air. People yelled in warning as our ship rocked dangerously, the colossal creature’s action sending all the ships back with the force of the waves it created.
I watched in horror as the moon shone down on a creature of myths and nightmares…The Kraken.
As high as one of the masts, its skin was indeed dark and scaled, and its bulbous head nearly blocked out the sky as its set of four glowing-blue eyes locked onto the closest ship, which happened to be to our right. It let out an ear-piercing bellow, and I watched as four tentacles rose and churned the sea into a violent storm—one that could easily sink a ship.
Here is your chance!
Barnabus’ voice echoed through my head, but I was already in action—refusing to let the creature take down another damn ship. Doing what made the most sense to me, I broke away from my men and used my speed to sprint up to the elevated quarter deck before unsheathing one of my daggers.
I didn’t hesitate to cut my hand in a quick sharp movement before raising it high to gain the attention of the creature, sliding my weapon back into place, securing it until I could get close enough to sink it into the monster’s most vulnerable spot. One that I could now see clearly—there was a split between the kraken’s four eyes, an open fissure that seemed to contain a pulsating neon-blue organ that I instinctively knew was my target.
If my blood is what the monster wanted, then I was more than happy to use it to draw its attention to get what I wanted, the hot liquid dripping down my hand and wrist.
The creature paused its pursuit of the other ship, twisting swiftly in the water and nearly hitting the other vessel in the process as its gaze landed on me. My jaw tightened as I steeled myself, its form moving through the sea like it was nothing, far quicker than I could have thought possible. I examined the Kraken as it approached, evaluating the best way to get close to it.
I had a feeling that unless I wanted the ship to sink, it wasn’t going to be from here.
“Kyella!” Kolvar roared my name as he followed me onto the quarter deck. I could hear Dakath and Elijah commanding the men on the main deck, no doubt keeping an eye on the threat at hand.
“Try to have the other ships move away as much as possible!” I yelled out over the sound of crashing waves and wind hitting the sails. “I’m going to handle this.”
Because no other option was acceptable.
As the creature neared us, I used every ounce of my strength to catapult myself over the ship's railing and through the air with a battle cry. I tried to throw my body as close to the Kraken as possible, planning to latch onto it and use its body to save myself from the icy depths of the waiting ocean. I was taking a huge fucking risk since I couldn’t swim, but my actions would keep the creature from the others, and that was all that mattered.
A tentacle hit me off course, and I slammed into the cold depths of the Cursed Divide.
Survival instincts kicked in, and I pushed myself to the surface. With a ragged breath, I surfaced right as the limb came down and hit the water with the force of a tsunami. The force threw my body into a large wave, the turbulent sea around us like a whirlpool, pulling me into the body of the massive creature with crushing force.
Acting purely on instinct, I reached out to grip the creature—trying to grasp onto anything that would stop me from being submerged within the icy depths of the sea—but my grip slipped easily, unable to gain any traction on the slippery surface.Shit.
The creature didn’t hesitate to raise its tentacle again, and I immediately grabbed at one of my daggers, lodging it into the scaly surface. I hissed in surprise as the tentacle shot into the air, pulling me up and out of the water, a bellow of fury filling the space—the Kraken no doubt realizing that I’d been lost to the chaos around it but still smelling my blood.
I didn’t think for a minute that its cry was in pain—there was no way my dagger had actually hurt it.
Luckily, I managed to secure myself on the part of the tentacle that served as the apex joint between the limb and its large frame while out of the water, so while the cold sea water caused me to shiver, my ability to breathe growing harder by the moment, I could at least use the large limb to stabilize myself. Looking up, I saw that the tentacle I was latched onto led up to its head, putting me at a manageable distance from its eyes. The spot that Barnabus mentioned, my target, was a place that he could reach, so I needed to somehow get above them to do an attack from where it couldn't easily see me…
Turning sharply, I dislodged my weapon and used the tentacle that had risen into the air to climb, utilizing both daggers to secure myself in the process. It felt like I’d been submerged in pure chaos as waves crashed over me, making it harder to achieve my goal. I was faster, stronger, and far more agile than I had ever been before, and yet I still struggled to scale the mountain-like limb. The only thing I could hope for was that he was so damn big that it would be harder for him to detect me and pull me from his body.
When screams sounded, I realized that one of its other tentacles had crashed into the water nearby. I had to pray it hadn’t cracked another ship in half, but I couldn’t see that far. The night air filled with the panicked yelling of my people, and that noise pushed me even harder. I hoped the scent of my blood would keep the creature distracted despite not being able to see me.
Reaching high enough in the air that the vertical angle of the limb became too much for me to continue, I turned to face the Kraken head on—my breath catching at just how close I was to its face. Its glowing blue eyes were fixated on me, and I suddenly felt like a bug on a human’s finger, tiny and miniscule. With a sharp movement, it began to move the limb I was on toward the split between its two front tentacles…and its beak filled with razor sharp teeth. The action spurred me to immediately jump and soar through the air in an attempt to land on its head.
Another tentacle rose and hit me out of the air, and I let out a scream of frustration as I was thrown back into the sea. This time I sank further, the temperature causing my limbs to freeze up, and I had to work twice as hard to push toward the surface. My eyes widened at the sight of the creature from underneath, stomach bottoming out at the sight of how many other tentacles it had, allowing for its agile movement through the water.
