Back on the island, Henry's arms were coated in flames, coldly watching the pirates trying to flee.
Tightening his jaw, he threw a fireball at one of the ships, large enough to engulf half of the ship. As soon as it made contact, the fireball dispersed explosively, blowing the pirates off their feet.
Boom!
In just a single strike, an entire pirate crew was taken down in an instant. Henry watched as the ship was engulfed in flames and slowly sank into the ocean.
He then turned his gaze to the rest of the pirate ships, the people on board watching him in fear.
Henry raised his hand, and two small fireballs came to life, coalescing into a larger one. He doesn't even need to increase their temperature, a slightly above average heat of the flames is enough to cause destruction.
However, before Henry could make his move, there was a brief movement in the water. At first, it came as just ripples before eventually evolving into huge waves that started rocking everyone's ships.
"T-There's something on the water!" Among the pirates, one noticed something unusual.
His words caught the attention of the others, and even Henry stopped to look.
Sure enough, the man was right. There was a huge shadow emerging from under the ocean. However, not just in a single spot.
Not far away from it, to the further left side—there was also a similar shadow, almost the same size if not, bigger than the first one. And only Henry with his sharp eyes noticed this.
Recalling the marine creatures that he's seen more than a single time during the past few days, Henry had a bad feeling about this.
Boom!
There wasn't any hint or tension building up. One moment there was a huge shadow and the next thing everyone knew, an enormous creature emerged from the ocean's depths, its body similar to a fish except for having more than two eyes.
The most distinctive about its appearance is its fleshy nightmare-like look. As if a thousand random fish and other marine creatures were crudely slapped together to form a single one.
What truly caught Henry's eyes were the open mouth, almost as if Henry was looking at a black hole filled with razor-sharp teeth.
During its emergence, three unfortunate ships fell victim to its gaping mouth, falling deep inside without even an ounce of cry.
As soon as it landed back down on the ocean, the shock didn't end there. Because on the other side of the ocean to its left, another creature emerged.
Its appearance was no less scary than the first one. It's like staring at a massive disfigured Medusa but instead of small snakes as a hair, all of its limbs were made out of anaconda-sized snakes, not only that but the woman's lower body was even more disfigured than the upper one—it consists of an octopus's body with tens of tentacles along with two notable feral dog heads attached near her waist.
"What the hell is going on!?" Henry couldn't help but curse. There's no doubt about it that whatever is happening right now, it can be blamed on King Triton.
Only someone like him could possibly command these two creatures.
If that were the case, these two monsters are too much for simple pirates! Each one of them is capable of erasing an entire civilization off the map!
Doesn't matter if it's a massive Kingdom or even an Empire. The two monsters are obviously capable enough to drag countless islands from the surface!
In layman's terms. Sending these two monsters is a massive overkill!
Without further waiting, Henry immediately turned around to run, dashing towards Frank's ship before yelling at him, "Get off the ship!"
The ocean is not safe and everyone knows that. So as soon as they heard Henry, they wasted no time jumping off the ship, swimming back to the shore after.
The former enslaved people, together with Frank and his crew, huddled together behind Henry.
Frank stuttered, staring at the ocean that looked like something that came out of a nightmare, "W-What do we do now, Lord Henry?"
With gritted teeth, Henry wanted to answer with 'I don't know' however, seeing the hopeful looks on their faces, he knew he couldn't stop now. These people are now leaning on him, expecting him to save them from this predicament.
"Let's stay off this side of the shore for now. We'll try the west coast of the island." Henry answered, leading the way to it.
The rest nodded their heads and followed.
———
Back in the Pirate's Paradise village, the blue flames had already subsided after reducing the entire place to the ground.
However, in the middle of it, stood a charred corpse but what's unusual about it is that the person is standing straight, holding a small basin made of stone and filled with water.
Her mouth was muttering gibberish, eyes bloodshot staring at the calm surface of the water.
Eventually, it didn't stay that way any longer, a ripple started in the middle before converging into a large one.
Soon, the calm surface turned chaotic before transforming into a familiar image of a woman.
"Lady Ursula. I lost her. I'm sorry…" The charred person spoke, her voice carrying a familiar womanly charm and a hint of anguish. It was Siren, now burned to a crisp and almost unrecognizable.
Ursula's face from the basin turned extremely dark, "Are you saying Triton's daughter was killed?"
Siren immediately shook her head in denial, "N-No, Lady Ursula! S-Someone came and saved her! It was a mage, a powerful one with his flames. He burned the entire village and I can't find Ariel, she must've been rescued by him."
There was a hint of relief on Ursula's face. If Triton's daughter were to truly die, then it doesn't matter if their father himself comes knocking, Triton would really drown the world for his daughter.
"Describe him to me," Ursula commanded, her tone sharp, and made the siren flinch.
"Y-Yes, Lady Ursula."
The siren then proceeded to explain everything in detail. The blonde hair, blue eyes, sharp facial features, and even the body figure hugged tightly by his shirt, which she described as nothing short of akin to having been shaped by the gods.
Ursula was not amused by this and raised her hand, "Stop it. I already get the gist of it." She then murmured silently to herself, "So he's also a mage, hmm? A prince and a mage at the same time? Huhu~ how interesting."
She turned to the siren and coldly said, "Alright. Go back now. My brother is on his way there right now and never let him see you."
The siren frantically nodded her head after hearing that the King of Atlantis was on his way to the island. She's a siren, a natural nemesis of the mermaids. Her kind is one of the reasons why humans have a bad impression of mermaids.
———
Oblivious to the survival of the siren, whom Henry thought he burned into smithereens. He along with the rest of the crew and the formerly enslaved people, ran across the shore, trying their best to ignore the screams and destruction happening behind them.
When Henry slightly turned his head to take a look, he couldn't help but gulp his saliva in fear as the two towering giant monsters of the sea had taken the left and right sides of the ocean respectively.
Some tried to sail to the left, only to be met with the gaping maw of the Charybdis, swallowed to death. While the others tried the right side, directly meeting with Scylla and her snake-like tentacles.
Unlike Charybdis the swallow entire ships, Scylla was more like a human when eating dinner, picking off the humans one by one using her tentacles and then bringing them to her pear-shaped mouth to feast. Only once the ship is empty she would smash it into pieces by coiling her tentacles all over the ship and tightening its grip.
There is no escape from them. Even taking the middle way would result in being a 50-50 victim between the two gigantic monsters.
One can only hope that they would be distracted by other victims so they can sail past them. But to no avail, with today's ship-building, their ships aren't even as fast as a jogging human.
"H-Help!" Yelled a certain someone while falling into the depths of Charybdis's gaping mouth.
Henry resisted the urge to belch after seeing this scene. He can't just fathom the experience of dying from those monsters. His earlier thoughts of wiping out every pirate on the island disappeared.
Because from the looks of it, someone else is going to do the job for him.
"What now?" After arriving at the west side of the island, there was nothing in sight, aside from the two distant monsters that they could still see from their peripheral vision.
Now that they're this far, those monsters start to look small and less scary. But that's not enough to erase the horrors that they just witnessed earlier.
"For now, let's think. As long as we're far away from those monsters, we still have a chance of survival." Henry answered, sweat dripping past his eyebrows as he struggled to think of a way out.
There are no ships on sight and they couldn't go back to the shore earlier to grab one.
Thankfully, as if the heavens had decided to show mercy on them, there was a bubble on the ocean before a familiar redhead emerged.
"Henry!" Ariel beamed in happiness as soon as she saw him. And so is Henry. Perhaps with Ariel here, she might be able to help!
Henry approached her, "Ariel, we have a problem at hand." To his surprise, Ariel nodded her head and replied.
"I know! It's Scylla and Charybdis!"
"Who?" Henry tilted his head in confusion.
Ariel shrugged her shoulders, "I have no idea. I just heard of them from dad."
'Well, that's not helpful at all.' Henry mentally sighed.
"Is there anything we can do to escape this hell?" Henry rubbed his temples and hopefully asked, the others also bearing the same expressions.
Ariel fidgeted. She couldn't just tell Henry that she came here to see if he's doing fine, right?
"I'm…not sure. But—" Before she could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by a splash of water behind her, indicating someone just surfaced.
"What the!? Huh? Dad?!"
It was King Triton and from the expression on his face, he seemed relieved and angered at the situation. Though Henry finds it fascinating that the man can change his body size at will because currently, he's almost twice as large as Ariel—looking more human compared to the last time he saw him.
"Come on, Ariel. Let's go. We're going home." He calmly said, scanning his eyes around and lingering on Henry the longest before grabbing her arm and starting to drag her towards the ocean.
Ariel, wide-eyed, protested against it, "W-Wait! Dad, Henry needs us! They're going to die if they stay on the island!"
However, King Triton wasn't having it and quickly snapped at her, "Didn't you learn your lesson!? Humans are bad! They're barbarians and they'll do anything they can to tarnish and destroy everything they set foot on and touch! Ariel, have mercy on yourself!"
Ariel's face turned into shock, then settled into hurt.
Henry and the others were also surprised. To Henry, this is his first time seeing the King mad. He wasn't this mad even in the film.
King Triton's lips quivered. He doesn't like seeing her daughter like this. He doesn't want to yell at her like that. But the consequences of her action are greater than her previous ones combined.
Steeling his resolve, King Triton said no more and dragged her to the ocean. This time, there was no resistance from Ariel as she simply looked into Henry's eyes and the latter watched as she shed a single tear that mixed with the ocean.
Before he knew it, they were already gone.
——————————
[Poor Ariel…]