‘It happened again.’

As soon as he opened his eyes and saw the unfamiliar environment, Arthur knew that the strange occurrence from a while ago was repeating itself.

Unsurprisingly, the stoic girl, Isabella, was also present. The last time, she was the one who needed help to escape from the hideous demons.

Now, however, it was Lucy who was in danger. It wasn’t just Lucy, but also the people around her too.

Arthur smelled the salty air of the sea and saw the large waves coming toward the ship, making it violently rock back and forth.

Isabella stood there, dazed and surprised, her eyes jumping from Lucy to the half-excited and half-scared pirates.

Arthur too, scrutinized his surroundings and saw a recognisable face.

“It’s coming! Hahahaha! It’s a freaking huuuuuuge!”

Mort, the talking zombie, was atop the mainmast and staring at the massive monster rising from the sea.

It wasn’t a kraken, as one would expect, but a gargantuan worm-like creature with an equally massive mouth as a head. Its entire head was a circular maw with three layers of pointy teeth on top of each other.

It had a fleshy body, colored pink and oozing a disgusting black liquid from fresh wounds that it had sustained.

The cannonballs fired from the ship were effective in enraging it and forcing it to reveal itself.

“We meet again.”

Arthur’s voice startled the silver-haired demon, who had been staring at the monster.

She backed one step and looked at the two ghosts close to her. Isabella maintained silence, as was her wont, but Arthur had a smug smile as he gestured toward the frightening sea creature.

“You look like you need help.”

“I don’t.” She promptly and coldly replied.

Right after, Lucy ignored the two of them and joined the pirate crew in its fight.

Apart from the captain, who was capable of using magic, the rest were either managing the ship or getting rid of the hideous and short abominations that jumped on the deck.

These croaking creatures weren’t particularly strong, but they kept appearing one of the other.

The situation was dire, nevertheless, the muscular captain was laughing heartily as he leapt in the air, his body unleashing a powerful blast of fire right at the big monster.

The flames were like a wave as they cascaded on the creature, striking its open mouth and melting some of its sharp and long teeth.

Lucy, on the other hand, went to the front of the ship and extended one of her hands. She focused her energy into her hand and then unleashed a freezing energy.

Slowly but surely, the water underneath and around the pirate ship was turned into ice.

The entire ship shook for a moment before coming to turbulent halt. Unfortunately, the small frozen area lasted for less than 10 seconds before the sea monster dove down, causing tidal waves strong and big enough to break the ice.

The ship was swept by the water and was about to capsize. Through sheer luck, it managed to hold its own, but it kept shaking intensely as parts of it crumbled.

A misty and frosty energy burst from Lucy’s hand again, directed at the sea monster that revealed itself.

Simultaneously, Captain Buckrow leapt from the ship’s deck and right at the target. His body was covered in bright flames, which made him look like an unstoppable meteor.

Just as Lucy’s Ice-aspected Magic hit the sea monster and froze a third of its body, thus slowing down its movement, Buckrow crashed into it with full force.

A wave of heat and energy spread to all directions, causing the croaking and ugly small creatures to freak out and hide in the waters instead of continuing their assault on the ship and its crew.

The humongous worm let out an unpleasant cry, its thick and disgusting blood splattered everywhere, over half of its body burnt into a crisp.

Captain Buckrow fell into the water, though he quickly climbed on top of the sea monster, which had died.

With the fight finally done, Lucy turned to look at Arthur, giving him a look of triumph. She was silent, however, her expression conveyed her smugness. After all, she dealt with the danger on her own.

“These fish are delicious, guys!”

Mort was kneeling near a corpse of those sea creatures, munching on their meaty and smelly body with a look of absolute ecstasy. Out of the blue, however, he stopped and ran to the front of the ship, looking down with his big and round eyes.

“Oh shit!”

Arthur was the second to feel it. He was technically a ghost, but his senses warned him of a foul creature coming closer and closer.

“You better brace yourself and hold onto something.” He warned Lucy, but the Demon frowned and didn’t react in time.

From underneath the ship, you could see an absurdly massive shadow. Mort didn’t hesitate to jump into the water as the creature dove out of the waters and bit a third of the ship.

Lucy and all the crew members were thrown in the air before falling down, some crashing onto the broken deck while others either fell into the frightening mouth of the creature or into the sea.

A golden flame came out of Lucy’s hand as she targeted the creature's long and pointy teeth, which she was about to fall towards. Her flames dealt absolutely no damage, much to her surprise.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Arthur’s body fly inside her, followed by an uncomfortable sensation. It was as if something was wrestling control of her body and mind.

As she had no way to deal with the current situation, she wasn’t stupid enough to resist it.

Almost instantly, she was ‘ejected’ from her body as Arthur took control.

The Mist of Decay came forth and enveloped Lucy’s body, allowing her to smoothly glide away from the creature, which was literally munching down on the ship.

As he got away from the danger, Arthur saw the appearance of a monster. It was an anglerfish, a truly scary and colossal anglerfish.

“I don’t suppose you want to kill it, right?”

Arthur, using Lucy’s voice, talked to her as he landed on a broken piece of wood floating on the turbulent waters.

Lucy bit her lower lips as she gazed at the ship. There was still a chance to save it from the anglerfish, but just by looking at the anglerfish, she knew that it was going to be difficult, if not impossible.

The anglerfish was five to six times the size of the sea worm and at least three times bigger than the ship.

The cries of the crew members lasted only for less than a minute as the lucky ones swam away and used the wreckage to not drown. Even Captain Buckrow, brave and strong as he was, couldn’t help but feel fear and astonishment at the anglerfish’s arrival.

“A sad sight.” Commented Arthur as, within a couple of minutes, the ship was entirely gobbled up.

“Boss!”

Mort rapidly swam toward Lucy and exclaimed as his eyes stared intensely at her.

“Hm?”

“It’s you! What are you doing here?! I-I was going to hide, you see…”

Arthur remembered that he instructed the Undead to hide and not attract attention.

“You seem to be having fun.”

Mort let out an awkward laugh as he submerged himself in the waters before resurfacing,

“I-I’m not a good swimmer, b-boss… I might drown… heelp…”

Arthur rolled his eyes at the zombie’s bad acting. Alas, Lucy forcefully took back control of her body and snorted.

“What a precarious situation you found yourself in.”

He glanced at the stone-faced Isabella, who had not done or said anything. She just stood there, looking at the wreckage and the anglerfish, which dove back down not long after.

Arthur was a bit curious on how things would proceed. With the ship gone, Lucy and the rest were stranded in the middle of the sea.

Unfortunately, he felt as if his consciousness was pulled back into his body. His vision blackened and a wave of dizziness washed over him.

When he opened his eyes, he was back. Chris and Evelyn were resting, the former lying on the ground and turning left and right uncomfortably, the latter was soundlessly leaning back against a tree trunk.

Only the Minstrel was awake and thoughtfully looking at him.

“From one surprise to the other.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the ‘adventure’ you’ve just been through. No offense, but you are not stupid enough to think that it’s just a lucid dream, yes?”

“Of course not.” The parasite stared back at the smiling Aerin. “Do you know anything about it? What happened?”

“I’m not Omniscient, Sir Arthur. I may not know what it is, but I understand it. It has to do with Souls and it’s definitely not something that occurs naturally. Ten times out of ten, it’s the machination of a God.”

“If it’s a God, why would he do it?”

“Why, to achieve something, of course! It has to be a God especially good at Soul Manipulation. Hmm… if I have to explain it plainly…”

Aerin stroked his chin as he pondered for a bit,

“Gods, often arbitrarily, give blessings to mortals. They have their own objectives and they either go about it directly or indirectly, and said objectives are usually things they cannot do. Why can’t they do it? Because they cannot interfere with the majority of worlds. I mean, they can if they wanted to, but they’ll get killed as they have certain laws to abide by, but I digress. In your case, a God has bound your soul to two other people, which means…”

He clasped his hands together and stated, “That each of you has something special, and when put together, you three will be able to do something that God wants.”

“What makes God think that we’ll do it?”

“That’s the trick, since you don’t know what the God actually wants, you might unwittingly achieve that unknown objective.”

Arthur frowned and maintained a very brief silence before posing another question,

“Can Gods manipulate mortals however they want?”

“No. They have more influence on individuals that do not belong to the world they are in. Otherworlders.”

“So the two people I’m bound to are…”

“Highly plausible but not certain. Some Artifacts weaken or change the souls, thereby allowing Gods to directly affect some people. That’s the most straightforward and used method, by the way. Old nations or cults use artifacts that are directly connected to a God, so they could receive blessings or powers easily. That way, the mortals benefit greatly and God would be able to affect the world through the artifact.”