Chapter 86: THIRD POV.

"Captain! What is it?!" the fat one asked. He was a large, sweaty man who was currently redder than a cooked lobster.

Both the skinny man and the fat man stopped rowing entirely now, looking at Douglas with curious and hopeful faces.

They were desperate for any kind of good news.

"Lads..." Douglas said. A slow, wicked grin began to spread across his face, stretching from ear to ear.

It was the first time he had since running into that demon, and it wasn’t a nice sight.

It was the smile of a shark that had just smelled blood in the water.

"I think we’ve found ourselves some supper that’ll last us till we reach land," he said.

The eyes of the two men shimmered like diamonds. They didn’t even know what he was looking at yet, but the word "supper" was enough to make their mouths water.

They hadn’t had a real meal since the ship went down, and the thought of food made them forget all about their tired muscles.

"Is it a merchant, Captain? A small one?" the skinny one whispered, his eyes wide.

Douglas didn’t answer right away. He was too busy staring through the glass.

Douglas collapsed the spyglass with a sharp click and pointed his finger toward the northeast.

"There! Row in that direction, and don’t you dare slow down!" he ordered. "If we can reach it before it escapes, we’ll be eating like kings tonight."

The two men didn’t need to be told twice. They grabbed their oars with a newfound energy that seemed to come out of nowhere.

The exhaustion that had been weighing them down vanished, replaced by the primal urge to survive and take what wasn’t theirs.

"Row, you dogs! Row!" Douglas shouted, standing up in the boat to keep his eyes on the prize.

The lifeboat began to cut through the water with much more speed than before. Douglas gripped the sides of the boat, his mind filled with joy.

He watched the small speck in the distance grow larger with every stroke of the oars.

"Faster!" he hissed, his eyes fixed on the glimmer. "We’re almost there."

The sun was beginning to hang low in the sky, casting long, golden shadows across the waves.

The two pirates groaned with the effort, their shirts soaked in sweat, but they didn’t stop.

They were driven by the same greed and desperation that had made them pirates in the first place.

Douglas reached into his belt and felt the handle of the small dagger he still had. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to slice through flesh.

The familiar weight of the weapon, giving him a sense of comfort.

Soon they reached the spot in the dusk where the faint glimmer had caught Douglas’s eye.

The sun had almost dropped below the horizon, leaving the world in a hazy, purple light that made it hard to see clearly.

The water was dark, and the small boat cut through the surface with a soft splashing sound.

There, just a few yards away, they saw a sea cow surfacing on the sea surface.

A large, gentle-looking creature with thick, greyish skin that shone under the moonlight.

The beast was bobbing peacefully, its head occasionally dipping beneath the water.

To a starving man, it didn’t look like an animal; it looked like a mountain of fresh meat and fat that could keep them alive for weeks.

"Hurry, get the net," Douglas whispered in a hurried manner. He didn’t want to make a sound that might scare the beast away. His voice was enshrouded in greed.

He could almost taste the roasted meat already.

Both the skinny man and the fat man scrambled to the center of the lifeboat.

In their excitement, they bumped into each other, their hands fumbling with the heavy, knotted ropes of the fishing net.

They dragged it toward the front of the boat, trying to be quiet but breathing heavily from the effort and the hunger.

Douglas quietly got up with the net in hand.

He moved like a shadow, creeping toward the very edge of the boat.

He planted his feet firmly on the wooden planks, feeling the slight wobble of the small craft.

Douglas held the weighted edges of the net, ready to throw it over the creature the moment they got close enough.

He couldn’t help licking his lips at the thought of finally getting something to eat.

His stomach growled so loudly he was afraid the sea cow might hear it.

But at the point he was about to cast the net, something changed.

The water around the sea cow didn’t look right. Usually, the ocean moved in small ripples, but now the water was rising in a smooth, silent mound.

Douglas leaned over the side, squinting his eyes to see what was happening below the surface.

His heart plummeted when he saw a massive shadow below their boat.

A dark shape that seemed to be growing larger by the second.

It was ten times the size of their lifeboat, maybe even bigger. With an ink-black color that made the rest of the ocean look bright.

"ARRRGH!!!" Douglas fell back in fright. He dropped the net, which tangled around his legs as he scrambled away from the edge.

He crawled toward the middle of the boat, his face twisted in pure terror.

"Captain! Captain! What’s wrong?!" Skinny and Fatty rushed to check up on their Captain.

They had never seen him look this scared. Usually, Douglas was the one shouting and acting tough, but now he looked like a man who had seen his own ghost.

"Hurry! Get us out of here!!" Douglas screamed. He kicked at the net, trying to free himself, his eyes fixed on the water where the shadow had been.

"What? But captain, the—" Skinny was confused. He pointed a shaking finger at the sea cow, which was still just floating there.

The creature hadn’t moved an inch, and it was now staring at them with its big, innocent eyes, looking confused by all the noise.