The Knight from the Fairytales-Chapter 50: Mermaid

The overwhelming tsunami, along with the violent weather, wind mixed with rain, nearly capsized the ship.
Beihai drew his blade, unsheathing his sword. It wasn't a silvery-white light, but a red one.
Remnant Red, the reward from the System, had at some unknown point replaced his original weapon in Beihai's hand. The red radiance emanating from the blade was exceptionally dazzling.
It seemed a change in mindset had begun to unleash some of the longsword's power. Then, a streak of red light shot into the sky.
The immense magical energy cleaved through the clouds, which were also creations of magic, shattering them completely. It forced the sky to clear and the sea to calm.
Under the force of that single strike, Beihai's consciousness seemed to empty out, as if he had arrived in a realm composed of ink and wash. There were other silhouettes here.
This place seemed like Wu, also a boundary realm.
Here, the concept of time seemed absent. The Boundless Realm was a very peculiar place; it lacked time because the concept of time was something proposed by humans, segmented by their own subjective consciousness.
The concept of time, in fact, never originally existed. It was simply defined by humans. This was also a place Demigods often frequented.
After staying for just an instant, Beihai returned to his own consciousness.
That scene just now was like an Excalibur blast. The sheer output would have been absolutely devastating if unleashed. Beihai could further sense that this seemed to be just a normal attack.
When Beihai gathered his chaotic thoughts and looked at this Remnant Red, it had already become utterly ordinary, as if nothing had just happened.
The joyful cheers of the sailors rang out beside him. Beihai realized this was no illusion. In other words, this blade not only doubled damage against Red Names, its inherent strength was even more heaven-defying.
On top of its original power, it could double again against enemy Red Names. This was a pure numbers monster.
Imagine a game where the highest stat value is ten. But here, a zero is added behind it. Then, on top of that number, if it encounters specific monsters, three more zeros are tacked on the end.
And the highest numerical value in the entire game is still just ten.
After figuring this out, Beihai waved Remnant Red a few more times, but it didn't release such immense magical power anymore. To use an analogy, it went from being an Excalibur blast to a broken wooden stick. The contrast couldn't be greater.
Apart from the faint red glow still flickering on the blade, it was practically useless.
"That's not right, how can this be? When fighting the dragon before, the opponent was certainly worthy. But the reality was it couldn't even pierce the dragon's scales."
Because of that incident, Beihai had indeed been somewhat disappointed with this sword given by the System. But judging by the scale of the release just now...
Forget sharpness, even if something was impervious to swords and spears, you could just wash the area with a beam cannon and grind it to dust.
But the reality was, coming back to his senses, this blade was completely like a broken stick, no different from an ordinary sword.
Beihai was slightly disappointed. He had almost managed to not need to eat beef, but after all that, he was knocked back to square one.
"Elsa, do you know what just happened?"
Elsa's somewhat dazed eyes were filled with white spots. The light just now was too bright; that single flash had left Elsa unable to see anything.
Now, slowly recovering, there were still some afterimages in her eyes.
"Just now, Sir was standing here, then drew his sword and released a spell. Everything calmed down."
"I don't know magic. So, what the hell are the conditions for using this sword?
Damn it! That one strike left my mind in chaos, and I inexplicably went to some broken place."
If he couldn't figure it out in this situation, then he wouldn't think about it. He'd know eventually.
"Compared to doing good deeds, I still prefer power. With power, you can do anything."
Beihai clenched his fist. The more he thought this way, the more his heart closed off again, returning to his original personality. The glow of Remnant Red weakened another fraction, but it was so slight it was imperceptible.
The sea surface was now completely calm. The ship sailed upon it, almost as steady as on land, without any significant bumps.
Moreover, the dark clouds had been scattered, and the sunlight was bright and clear. The Prince, leading some of his retinue, finally emerged from the ship's cabin.
Beihai still stood in his original spot. Looking down, he actually spotted people?
And not just one. Suddenly, those heads moved. With a flip, fish tails breached the water's surface.
"Elsa! Look! Mermaids!"
Beihai couldn't help but call out. These were legendary creatures, from myths or stories. This was his first time seeing such a magical thing.
The Golden Scale Dragon, nestled in Beihai's arms, was still sleeping greedily. Because of that Ring, according to the story, it would have a drowsiness effect, slowly transforming itself into a dragon amidst a pile of gold coins.
But hearing his old master's words now, it felt a little sad. I'm a legendary creature too, you know. I'm a dragon. You weren't this excited when you first saw me.
Elsa rubbed her eyes and quickly opened them to look upon hearing the words. But the sea was calm. Besides the rolling waves, there wasn't even a single fish.
She didn't see it. She completely didn't see it.
Elsa suddenly felt some regret. Although the bright light had temporarily discomforted her eyes, the allure of mermaids was far more important than her eyesight.
Elsa felt dejected, leaning on Beihai's shoulder as if life had lost all meaning.
At that moment, the Prince also walked over to Beihai to express his thanks. Beihai naturally accepted the other's words of gratitude and then returned the courtesy.
"No need for thanks. It's what I should do. And there was an unexpected bonus—I saw mermaids."
"Mermaids? Knight, you do love to jest. Could it be you saw sea monsters? They are the best at disguise."
The Prince didn't believe it. In fact, Beihai's single sentence reignited a tense atmosphere.
On this vast sea, everyone knew of the Sea King, for every voyage indeed required his protection.
The rest was rather chaotic, mostly involving sea monsters and the like. The most fundamental misunderstanding causing this concerned the mermaids' innate abilities.
For example, a mermaid's original intention might be to come out for a look, sing a song, and then the sea would begin to celebrate. In the mermaid's eyes, this was her playing with the waves. But in human eyes, it looked more like mountain floods and tsunamis.
When the mermaid discovered this crisis, she would want to help and save them. But humans can't breathe underwater. And thus, the misunderstanding was born.
The Prince even had a Servant paint a picture: the upper body was a somewhat ferocious fish head with arms growing out, holding a trident; the lower body was the much-anticipated fish tail.
"Knight, look. This kind of sea monster is the most dangerous. They might even cast illusions on you."
"You've misunderstood. The mermaid I'm talking about doesn't look like that. It's half human, half fish body."