Chapter 802 802 (Spoiler, Title At The Bottom)

After the incident with the titan lobster, Marcus and Mrazivý's voyage on the Ascension was relatively peaceful.

They spent their days enjoying the activities the ship had and conversing with a few aquatics they had made like Domovoi.

Overall, it was a relaxing time for them, and things were going rather uneventfully until one evening right at sunset, something unexpected happened.

A soft but all-encompassing melody enveloped the ship.

It was a truly beautiful song, and at first Mrazivý and Marcus believed that it was coming from Recha, but when they felt that it was trying to put them under a status effect, they realized this was likely not the case.

All around them the people that had been eating dinner alongside them began to fall into a daze.

It was similar to the power that Recha had demonstrated when they first met her on the ship, but over a much grander scale.

In fact, the only ones that seemed to have been able to resist the effect were Marcus and Mrazivý.  Even Domovoi was struggling to keep conscious and eventually fell into a stupor like everyone else.

'What in the world is this?!' Marcus thought as he quickly checked his status log.

There he found something that immediately caused him to go wide eyed in shock and understanding.

Written in his log was the message, 'You have resisted a Queen Siren's song.'

"Mraz, we have a problem. Everyone here is under the spell of a siren. To put this many people to sleep and even affect Domovoi, it must be pretty powerful. We are likely the only ones onboard other than Recha that are not in a daze." Marcus said with a grim expression on his face.

However, while he expected Mrazivý to know what a siren was, she had never heard of them.

"I will give you a quick explanation on our way to the deck. It said it was a queen, so we may be facing more than one. I do not know why they just stunned everyone since in the stories I have read people affected by the song threw themselves into the water. But it is likely not good either way."

Swiftly they made their way to the top of the deck and Marcus explained the legends regarding sirens he had read back on Earth.

He also tried to reach out to Recha with telepathy but was unable to get through.

"It sounds like they were truly despicable creatures. But why do you think one or maybe more are attacking now? This ship takes the same route every year, but I have never even heard of sirens before, and it does not seem that they have any defenses against them."

"This is just a hypothesis, but it is possible that no one has ever escaped to report them, or they are really rare. We may have just gotten unlucky to cross their path here. Or maybe they specifically target this ship for some reason. All I know is that we should be prepared for a tough battle. We are the only ones that can protect the ship now."

A few moments after they wrapped up their conversation they burst onto the top deck and found that everyone there was similarly stunned.

Luckily it did not seem that anyone was throwing themselves off the deck and no entities had crawled up the side of the ship.

"Marcus, could you wake up some of the adventurers with your healing magic. You can cancel status effects, right?" Mrazivý suggested.

Yet Marcus could only shake his head at this suggestion.

"I could, but it would not last. The Queen Siren is still singing. Anyone I wake up will just be immediately put back under her spell. We are the only ones strong enough to resist it. My log is even telling me that every couple seconds the song is trying to put us under as well. If we did not have our resistances to such attacks, I imagine we would have already been affected." Marcus explained.

Once they had finished surveying the top deck for enemies or passengers in danger, they ran to bow of the ship and looked out into the water to try and locate any enemies.

Thankfully the sun was currently setting behind them and painted the surface of the water a bright orange and made the Queen Siren stand out.

She was not doing anything to hide herself and had created a platform of floating water which she was sitting on.

With one look Marcus felt a charm try to activate on him, but his still mind unique skill completely blocked it.

The same charm did not work on Mrazivý though and seemed geared only towards working on men.

"Well, she is not using any illusions like you theorized. That is what she actually looks like." Mrazivý said.

Her dragon eyes could see through any sort of illusions, and she was giving Marcus confirmation that Queen Siren was not what he expected.

He had honestly been imagining the type that had vicious fangs and a warped face that only looked beautiful when someone was under her spell.

However, the Queen Siren instead looked like a beautiful young girl in her early twenties.

Of course, she did not look exactly human and had a tail just like Marcus would expect from a mermaid.

Her skin was also tinged a slight blue and her hair was the same color as the scales on her tail, being an aquamarine green.

The upper part of her body was also surprisingly covered by a shirt that seemed to not get wet even when covered in water.

Overall, she did not look like a vicious monster that drowned the people of unsuspecting ships, and instead an innocent young woman.

Nevertheless, appearances could be deceiving, and Marcus held up his arm and prepared to launch a salvo of spells.

"Mraz, what is her status like? Do you think we can take her?" Marcus asked with a deadly serious glint in his eyes.

Except after appraising the Queen Siren, Mrazivý put her hand on his raised arm and lowered it.

Seeing this, Marcus assumed that Mrazivý thought that they could not win, but instead she began chuckling.

"Are we truly that screwed?" Marcus asked, wondering if seeing the Queen Siren's status had brought Mrazivý to despair.

"No, it is not that. We just got worked up for no reason. She is not our enemy. I mean just look. She is smiling and waving right at us. Plus, she stopped her song the moment she saw us." Mrazivý pointed out.

And as Marcus truly looked at the Queen Siren, he could see that she was giving them quite a friendly smile.

Still, he did not think this was enough to allow Mrazivý to know that she was not their enemy.

"What makes you so certain she is not dangerous?" Marcus asked, a bit confused.

He trusted Mrazivý, but currently did not have enough information to simply believe that the entity that had put the rest of the ship into a stupor was not an enemy.

"I cannot be one hundred percent sure, but I am pretty close to it. She is the surprise that Jaela and Ardea told us to look out for. The Queen Siren over there, is the Grand Witch of the Deep."

Hearing this, the tension left Marcus' body almost immediately, and he let out a long sigh.

He had thought they were under attack by a truly powerful enemy, but it was all just a misunderstanding.

Then, once it was clear that they no longer had any hostility, the Grand Witch of the Deep flew over and landed directly onto the deck.

Her lower half, which was a tail like a fish, began to transform, and when she landed, she had two legs and her shirt had extend into a long flowing dress.

"Hello. It is nice to meet the both of you. My name is Rosina, and as I am sure you already figured out, I am the Grand Witch of the Deep. Jaela and Ardea have told me a lot about the two of you and I am excited to meet you both." Rosina said with a bright smile

Marcus and Mrazivý then introduced themselves as well.

"Was it really necessary to blindside us like this? We could have launched an attack at you thinking you were hostile." Mrazivý eventually asked.

"Oh, I was sure it would be fine. I was told that you would be the only two onboard that could resist my song, and that you would come running to find out what was wrong. Jaela also mentioned that one of you would be able to see my status and I figured you would check before you attacked me. Which you did." Rosina said with a mischievous grin, like she had just successfully pulled a prank.

"Fine we get that you made an impactful entrance, I will not deny that. But was that the surprise that Jaela and Ardea told us about?" Marcus asked.

"Hehehe. That was only the opening. I have prepared a very special show for both of you. I have only ever done this for the other Grand Witches, so consider yourself lucky."

Rosina then raised her hands and looked out towards the ocean and prepared to do something else, when the third person that had managed to resist her song showed up.

"Now this looks interesting. I was wondering what might be going on when I heard such an interesting song."

Shocked that someone else was still awake, Rosina turned around and saw Recha standing behind her, with an amused expression on her face.

Chapter 802 A Grand Surprise