Down With The Gods

After a series of arguments, the team heads straight for the sea. For the sake of having some fun, they decide to bounce all the way there, avoiding creatures if possible. To stop bouncing without Anish's help, they need to land on top of a hut and then make their way inside. Once inside, they get beamed down slowly from the underside of the isle. The crowd follows Wyn and the team closely, not wanting to miss the two teams go at it. Finally, they arrive at the sea, standing on sand-colored, non-bouncy clouds, and look for Gimli.

“Woah! Look! A school of sukois!” Yu exclaims, pointing.

“It’s called a fish of sukois, not a school,” James corrects him.

A number of sukois are flopping and bouncing on the clouds, hoping to make it into the sea. To their demise, enemy flyers swoop down on them like easy prey. Only one makes it to the sea, where it shines brightly before evolving into a kuso sukoi. As a trivia note, the evolved creature can’t swim; once it evolves, it must use its ice abilities to deliver itself out of the water. In this case, it overshoots and bounces endlessly on the clouds.

“We can actually see the island from here! Technically speaking, five or six cyclone dashes should get us there,” Wyn says.

“Come on! What’s the fun in that!” Yu retorts.

“Yeah! What’s the fun in that!” James chimes in.

“Right! Come on, Oppa! What’s the fun in that!” Mira adds.

“Errr, like, I’m never gonna say it,” Christine says, shaking her head.

“Come on, Christine! What’s the fun in that!” Anish says.

The crowd locates Gimli and guides Wyn and the team to him. Busy fighting several UMFs, he tells Wyn to talk to a cat on a nearby dock and wait for them there. As they reach the dock, they notice two wooden ships berthed on either side. In the middle are two regular demon cats wearing pirate costumes, complete with hats, eye patches, hook gloves, and peg shoes seemingly glued to their feet.

“Are you here for the hunt?” one of the cats asks.

“What kind? Is it not a competition?” Wyn responds.

The hunt is indeed a competition. Ships sailing the sea compete in a hunt to slaughter the strongest creatures they can find. Each round lasts for three hours, with ships returning to their original docks when the bell sounds. The winners are decided by the amount of essence the creatures they slay drop.

“So there can be more than one winner?” Wyn asks.

“Yes! The winners will be rewarded with five hundred catnips each.”

“Wait…just to be clear, how does the essence get distributed?”

“You get only catnips; I, I mean we, get the essence.”

Apparently, demons with over ten thousand essence can, for now, apply to become moderator guards, grim reapers, get reborn, or simply gain an elite status if they choose not to relocate. Due to their superior intelligence compared to those demons on other levels, becoming a regular level guard isn’t an option for them. These demons, like the elite souls, have a special place to train. The cat refuses to elaborate any further, despite Wyn's bombardment of questions.

“Again with ten thousand essence…,” Wyn mutters.

To set sail, Wyn can either join the hunt now, with less than an hour remaining, or wait for a new round. The obvious choice is to wait – not for the hunt, but specifically for Gimli.

“While you are waiting, do the following: find a total of ten crew members and come up with a name for your crew. Most teams with fewer than ten tend to perish, sometimes along with us cats.”

“You don’t count right? Then, we have six now, including the MF here,” Wyn says, referring to James, who’s too occupied researching the creatures of the sea in the bestiary.

“Pick meee!” a female soul shouts.

“Not to be rude, but what the fuck face? S…sorry, I mean, what the fuck is up with your face???” Wyn replies.

The white-skinned female soul, likely in her early forties, has very thick, maybe swollen lips, pronounced cheekbones, and a pointy nose. The lady introduces herself as Annie, and with her are her triplets, Anthony and Ava. The trio claims to have experience sailing the sea and know which creatures reward the most.

“We still need one more,” Wyn says.

Looking perpetually dazed, a dark-skinned man raises his hand. He foams at the mouth now and then as he speaks – Hell’s special punishment for his idiocy. Dakarai, a man of South Afreakan origin who moved to the USA, only to die from the laundry detergent pod challenge.

“No one else wants to volunteer? Anyone at all? I need four more. Please?”

Wyn’s plea is answered with dead silence from the crowd. On the bright side, his crew is now complete. Back with the actual members, they’re arguing over outfits.

“I own these costumes! I get to be the king of pirates,” Yu declares, wearing a red sleeveless vest, blue shorts with cuffs, a yellow sash around his waist, and, of course, a hat made of strawberries.

“I should be king!” James argues with Yu and Anish.

“You’re skinny, tall, and boring. You should be the chef,” Yu retorts.

“Ugh! I’ll have you know I like deep-fried sushi and sashimi!”

“NOW YOU JUST CROSSED THE LINE!” Yu gasps.

“Says someone from a country that celebrates child’s vomit called poutine and pineapple on pizzas,” Wyn chimes in.

“Pu…tin?” Yu asks, puzzled.

“Leave poutine out of this, eh! And how do you know so much about my country?”

“Eh? Oh, I wonder how, eh?”

“I fucking hate you.”

Wyn returns to the ships with the temporary crew members. Seeing how his original members and James can’t settle over something trivial, he forcefully chooses outfits for them. Yu is to be the pirate king. James is designated as the chef. Anish is set to be the deer creature, equipped with deer antler props and a red clown nose. Mira and Christine are to be the two ladies but refuse. Mira, especially, doesn’t want to change from her pirate captain costume. Lastly, Wyn gets to be the swordsman, wearing a green wig but without a sword.

“The rest of you are more like the expendable crew in movies,” Wyn says.

Gimli’s team arrives at the dock. He ridicules Wyn for his outfit before proceeding to take one of the ships. A pole rises, and instead of a flag, a bell showing the timer sits atop. The two crews make the next round personal, competing only against each other to see which one gets more essence. It’s the Ring Bearers versus the Strawberry Hats.

Each cat calls upon a bunyip, a large water-dwelling mythical creature resembling a seal. Its sleek body is covered in dark, glistening fur. Its large, rounded head features expressive, reflective eyes. A pair of elongated whiskers protrudes from its snout, twitching as it senses its surroundings. The bunyip's flippers are powerful while a tuft of coarse, mane-like fur runs along its back.

The cats ride on the bunyip and then jump into the sea. A thick rope is tied to the base of the bunyip’s tail. The cats proceed to summon hawkians, who latch onto the bells. As the bells from the ships in the sea ring, returning to the docks, their bells echo in response. The hawkians blow cyclones at the back of Wyn’s ship while the bunyip pulls it forward, sailing across the crystal-clear water, revealing creatures near the surface.

Despite wearing the swordsman costume, Wyn remains the leader. The strong breeze from the hawkians’ cyclones evokes a sense of adventure akin to sailing on an actual sea. The Strawberry Hats' strategy is straightforward: Wyn, Anish, and the other wind user Ava are tasked with elevating the creatures from the sea, while the rest of the crew finishes them off. This strategy works so well that the Ring Bearers begin to mimic it.

The Strawberry Hats’ first kill is a mermaid, whose body resembles a manatee but has human breasts covered by seashells. Upon its demise, the demon cat breathes in the essence, seemingly collecting it.

“One hundred essence. The total is now at one hundred essence,” it announces.

Wyn directs the cat toward the sail, trying to stay clear of Gimli’s crew, who keeps following.

“You know, you and I can swim underwater, right?” Annie, the water and fire user, says.

“You guys stay up here at all times, okay? Otherwise, I’ll let you know when to dive,” Wyn interjects, interrupting Yu, who is eager to go below.

The crew’s next target is a group of sirens, creatures resembling no-bra mermaids with the lower bodies of serpents and fish tails. These beings lure ships with their beautiful singing and bouncy breasts – too bad those are wasted on a manatee. Anish and Ava lift them up before the rest of the crew mercilessly slaughters them.

“I still would…,” James says, capturing Mira’s intrigued stare.

“Two hundred and fifty essence. The total is now at three hundred and fifty essence.”

“Ha! We’re already over five hundred, losers!” Gimli shouts.

“The party ain’t over yet, little child,” Wyn retorts, which prompts Gimli to throw a tantrum on the ship floor like a child.

Suddenly, Annie spots an odd creature floating on the surface of the sea. Perusing through the bestiary, she identifies it as a baby gorlock. “These are the daughters of the champion gorlock, the destroyer of worlds, who is also a creation of Gluttony.”

“What ‘creation’?” Wyn asks the cat, who seems to be ignoring him.

The baby gorlock has the face of a slanted, round-edged triangular mochi dessert and a double chin. Its neck blends in with its gooey blue, slimy body. It stands about as tall as Christine. The gorlock shifts its liquid mass, creating a hole in the middle of its body to avoid Mira’s fireball. It opens its mouth, firing a stream of smelly water at the ship. Disgusted, Wyn conjures an ascending cyclone below the creature, sending it flying, its mass splattering everywhere across the sea.

“You mad? We need essence!” James comments.

“Daddy, chill. I wanted to gain some info on the champion.”

“Da…’daddy’? What the hell is even that?” James is at a loss for a comeback.

“To basically see how to kill it, if we were to face off against its mother,” Wyn continues.

While the crew dispatches deep-sea creatures whipped up into the air by Wyn’s cyclones, they hear distant screams.

“Is that…!?” Mira says.

The ship can’t sail backward, so Wyn commands the cat to turn it around. Inching closer and peering into the middle of the sea, they see another ship being wrapped and dragged down by large tentacles. No other ships dare to venture in that direction.

“No, no, no. That kraken has awakened from the depths! I am not risking my life for that!” the cat exclaims.

“You don’t want a grilled hentai?” Wyn asks, seriously considering approaching it.