The Handbook for Completing Demi-Human Girls

Chapter 286: The Storm of the Queendom

Returning his gaze from the Eastern Ocean back onto the ocean journeying toward Sardin Woman's Country, this was already Fisher's twentieth day sailing on the Flying Fish. The further north he sailed, the gloomier the weather over the sea appeared. Swaths of gray hues formed by frost and dark clouds outlined half the sky, simultaneously sketching the foundational colors of the Northern Border.

In traditional legends, the process of entering the Northern Border was described as "crawling forward beneath blades and axes." The Northern Border was bitterly cold with rapid winds, bringing numerous variables and dangers to voyages.

Even if one didn't encounter danger on the ocean, whenever a piloting captain stood on the deck, gazed upward, and saw those heavy, seemingly viscous gray clouds, they would still inevitably feel a sense of trepidation. Because of this, in the ancient Sardin Woman's Country, piloting a ship out onto the ocean was always the ultimate challenge that tested a woman's courage.

But the Flying Fish, being a steam ship, held no such concerns. As long as the captain didn't back down, it wouldn't turn around. What's more, the person currently piloting it was a warrior from Naris, who held only admiration for the wind and snow of the Northern Border, and no fear whatsoever.

On the deck, a bare-chested man was stretching his limbs. All four limbs simultaneously gestured in an extremely bizarre motion, brimming with a sense of power just like the demons of legends.

This was the content of the first volume of Eliog's Demon Combat Method. It was primarily to maintain bodily coordination, emphasizing extreme strength while being somewhat lacking in technique, making it highly suitable for a beginner like Fisher.

His bare upper body was scalding hot. Amidst the freezing ice and snow, wisps of thread-like steam actually began to rise from it. Panting, he poised himself in the combat stance, then took a sharp breath inward. His palm thrust forward like a spiral, striking the frigid air around him to form a cyclone.

"Boom!"

That force penetrated all the way outward. The fierce air currents transmitted to the extreme distance in mid-air before slowly dissipating and dissolving into nothingness.

"I've pretty much mastered the first volume. The method Eliog provided is indeed very useful. It would be even better if it consumed a little less stamina..."In Eliog's eyes, the so-called "battle" wasn't simply winning through physical collisions. The most crucial point lay in one's imposing aura. The fundamental process of battle was the process of "guarding one's own aura while draining the opponent's." Therefore, the training methods were generally divided into two parts.

Any of one's own attacks, defenses, or movements would cause damage to their own aura. How to minimize the depletion brought by these actions was the content needed to be practiced in the first part.

Any attack would deplete the opponent's aura. How to strike, where to strike, and when to strike to maximize the damage to the opponent's aura was the content needed to be practiced in the second part.

Although explained exceptionally crudely, and Fisher had previously felt rather distressed by this purely talent-driven style of practice, on the Flying Fish, Fisher felt he was progressing rapidly. The reason was deeply connected to Emhart next to him.

"Emhart, how was my motion just now?"

At this moment, looking at Fisher who was lying exhausted on the deck, Emhart, sitting in the captain's cabin wholeheartedly... uh, maybe splitting his attention dozens of ways, furrowed his brows. His eyes stared at the dials and route inside the captain's cabin while occasionally glancing at the weather in the sky above. Without even turning his head, he cursed,

"How else could it be? You've practiced a single motion hundreds of times! If you still can't do it, you might as well jump ship! Your mom, why is your mind so sharp when it comes to engraving magic, but like a block of wood when it comes to hand-to-hand combat? What a waste of your excellent constitution!"

Indeed. Fisher had previously discovered that as long as he had Emhart record the contents of Eliog's combat method, Emhart could accurately identify whether the motions and training methods Fisher executed met Eliog's requirements. During this time, aside from Emhart being a bit foul-mouthed, in all other aspects, he truly acted as if Eliog had logged in remotely to guide Fisher's combat training. His progress was exceedingly swift.

Only at this moment did he feel that his stamina and combat style completely met the standards of an eighth-tier or even ninth-tier rank. Even fighting bare-handed against an adult Dragon-kin, or even the previously incompletely grown Whale-kin Jasmine, could be considered handling the situation with ease.

Fisher panted for quite a while before walking outside the captain's cabin and throwing on the shirt he had draped over the railing. Along the way, he glanced at Emhart keeping watch inside and asked,

"That's good then. Where are we now?"

"We've reached the Phoenix Sea... Wait, your mom, I quit! For the past twenty days, it's been just me watching the dials and confirming the route every single day! Meanwhile, you're jumping around on the deck like a monkey, calling it combat training when you look ugly as hell doing it! I quit! What are you doing? Let go of me!"

Fisher, his face covered in black lines, pinched the foul-mouthed Emhart in his palm. Ignoring his struggles, Fisher walked over to the nautical chart. Resting on the chart was a golden compass; exactly the one carried by that old man from before.

"I've already set up the magic for you; you just need to stay here and keep watch... The Phoenix Strait, huh? It looks like we're almost at Sardin Woman's Country."

"Easy for you to say! I am a book, not your crew member! I need to rest too! You're simply far more disgusting than those factory owners in the suburban factories of Naris! You go to sleep and still need me to keep watch! You-you-you... do you even consider yourself human?"

Fisher glanced rather guiltily at Emhart, who was cursing incessantly in his hands. He had previously thought that since Emhart was a relic, he didn't need sleep, making him perfectly suitable to replace Fisher to monitor the ship day and night. Looking at it now, his actions were indeed somewhat heartless.

He coughed softly and patted Emhart's book body as an apology. His gaze swept over the Phoenix Strait on the nautical chart. Sailing just a bit further north from here, they would be able to see the southernmost coastline of Sardin Woman's Country. There were several vassal states toward the southwest of the Northern Border; docking at any of them would do. He decided that once ashore, he would sell the Flying Fish in exchange for funds, and then go look for Valentiina.

"Bang!"

At exactly this moment, the door of the captain's cabin slammed shut, emitting a massive noise that dispersed Emhart's grievances. He and Fisher simultaneously glanced out the window, only to see a coast faintly visible on the distant ocean surface, almost entirely merging with the horizon. That was the territory of Sardin Woman's Country.

However, what truly made Fisher's expression change was the sky over the ocean right now. The cloud layers in that sky seemed to be driven by some terrifying force, slowly descending toward the sea surface.

Fierce winds resembling frost blew from the depths of the Northern Border, blasting the already undulating sea surface into explosions. The glass of the captain's cabin shuddered incessantly under the gale. From the areas where the window frames were glued, cracks resembling tree branches slowly grew out, yet also looking as beautiful as the snowflakes symbolizing the Northern Border.

Fisher's pupils shrank slightly. Even Emhart was so frightened he hid in Fisher's coat.

"Fisher! A storm from the Northern Border is coming! Damn it, why now? We shouldn't have approached the coast at this time! It's all because this broken ship doesn't have communication magic! Sardin Woman's Country definitely sent evacuation notices to nearby ships; only this antique is acting like a deaf person and heard absolutely nothing!"

Fisher had read about the snowstorms of the Northern Border in books before. They were a violently destructive natural disaster. Their specific causes were related to the cold air currents descending south from the snowy mountains, but their specific manifestations in reality appeared incredibly terrifying.

That fierce wind force almost blew Fisher's Flying Fish into the sky, let alone the ocean carrying it. The undulating deep blue ocean exploded with its shocking destructive power at this moment, acting like towering mountain peaks blocking the Flying Fish's path forward. Before Fisher and Emhart's eyes, the bow of the ship abruptly hoisted up, pointing towards the sky.

The cracks on the glass grew more numerous. The wind outside couldn't wait to squeeze in from any tiny sliver of space that might exist above. Fisher fiercely grabbed Emhart in his coat to prevent him from falling out. Simultaneously, the black fluid sword hilt in his other hand slid down, transforming into a streak of silver light that extended outward.

"Emhart, hold on tight."

"I don't even fucking have hands, how am I supposed to hold on tight!! Tell yourself to hold onto me instead! Otherwise, Sir Book is going to sacrifice himself! Fisher!!!"

"Buzz buzz buzz!"

Fisher's expression was calm. He fiercely extended the fluid sword in his hand, piercing through the ceiling of the captain's cabin. The fluid sword that pierced the ceiling slowly solidified, turning into a grappling hook shape that anchored Fisher in place.

"Bang!"

"Crack!"

The next moment, the window suddenly shattered. His entire body was directly blown flying backwards uncontrollably by that fierce wind. He gritted his teeth, trying his best to control his posture, but inevitably crashed into the bookshelf behind him. The books on the bookshelf scattered all over the floor, and all the items began to slide towards the back due to gravity.

"Thud, thud, thud!"

And even worse, violent knocking sounds continuously transmitted from beneath the ship's bottom, as if countless creatures were fleeing toward the rear.

It seemed the snowstorms of the Northern Border were disasters not only for terrestrial creatures, but even more so for marine life.

Yet unexpectedly, the Flying Fish was a wooden ship to begin with. Coupled with the fact that it had long fallen out of repair, this singular ramming by the fish actually produced an intense shattering sound.

The ship's hull was breached!

"Fisher! There's a breach at the bottom of the ship! Water is pouring into the cabin! This ship is going to sink!"

"I know..."

Fisher tightly gripped the fluid sword in his hand. He was already trying to leave the captain's cabin as quickly as possible. But the speed at which the Flying Fish was sinking far exceeded his imagination. Because of the undulating sea surface, in just a mere moment, that water current spread past the deck, heading straight for his captain's cabin.

He had only just finished training, and the strength in his arms was insufficient. Even exerting all his power, he couldn't withstand the incoming seawater. He swallowed several mouthfuls of freezing seawater, but his mind remained lucid. He calmly watched the increasingly abundant seawater, then gritted his teeth, let out a violent exhale, and retracted the fluid sword in his hand.

The torrent surging fiercely into the cabin pushed his body backward, but relying on this force, he reached the end of the captain's cabin. Giving a forceful kick against the wall with both feet, he darted out of the captain's cabin like an agile fish.

But what greeted him head-on wasn't rescue and liberation, but overwhelmingly bone-piercing gale and ocean.

This situation was exceedingly difficult. The structure of the Flying Fish was too fragile to block the storm at all; it would fall apart very soon. But coming out was the same. He had originally thought about diving into the sea to evade the storm; after all, he could breathe underwater. Entering the water to seek shelter, and worst-case scenario, swimming to Sardin Woman's Country after the storm passed wouldn't be impossible.

However, Fisher was a Naris citizen after all, having never personally experienced what a true storm in the Northern Border was like. His memory solely consisted of a simple summary from textbooks: "piercing frost, rapid winds and tsunamis." He had only just experienced the latter half of the sentence, which was why he had forgotten the meaning of the former.

He saw that just as he exited the cabin, following a cold wind assaulting his face, that seemingly boundless ocean surface actually began to slowly freeze and burst with a frigid whiteness under the cold wind from the snowy mountains. Yes, the entire ocean was actually slowly freezing at this moment.

Fisher, enveloped by the seawater, felt a life-threatening danger. Within his astonished sight, the seawater around him abruptly stopped, completely encasing his body in solid ice. Breathing air and space to move could entirely be ignored.

At this rate, even if he wasn't frozen to death, he would suffocate to death alive.

Fisher didn't sit and wait for death. Following the critical moment when even his face was about to be covered by frost, a ring in his hand suddenly burst with profound purple light. An eerie fluctuation formed by mana pried the world's echo, bringing the surrounding frost invasion to a halt.

Within that purple light, the [Gravity] Head-Ring was exceptionally conspicuous. It was precisely the magic ring seized from the Nazarene Development Company at the Patroshen Islands.

Eighth-Ring Gravity Magic, [Gravity Sky Ring]!

As the world's echo was pried, the gravity in this patch of heaven and earth abruptly reversed. Countless invisible forces pushed the already frozen sea surface to fly backwards into the sky. Even the continuously assaulting cold winds were pushed by this eerie force into a temporary standstill.

But the power of an eighth-ring magic was still somewhat insufficient in the face of a natural disaster's destructive power. The cold winds pervasively pierced the gaps of the Gravity Sky Ring, disrupting the power of the world's echo. Yet, even a moment of time was already enough for Fisher.

Gritting his teeth to the point of death, he used his final strength to push away the solid ice wrapped around himself. Amidst the cold and gale once again surging into his ears all around him, Fisher regained his freedom, temporarily escaping from the fate of being frozen to death.

His body fell powerlessly toward the pitch-black ocean. That sea surface was just like a giant gaping maw filled with blood opening wide toward Fisher. Accompanied by the testimonies of countless fierce winds and frigidity, he fell faster and faster, his vision turning increasingly dark.

"Fisher! Fisher! Stay awake!"

Emhart's voice transmitted over, making him grit his teeth and adjust his falling posture in mid-air, falling safely into the freezing ocean.

Fisher weakly lifted his head in the water, looking toward the direction of the coastline.

He had to rely on himself to swim through the storm to Sardin Woman's Country.