Standing at the very front of the crowd on the deck of the Black Tide Hunter was a burly, powerfully built middle-aged man.
He looked to be in his forties. Years of wind and sun at sea had left his skin dark, rough, and covered in sunspots.
He wore only a sleeveless vest tanned from the hide of some unknown sea beast, exposing his solid, bulging upper-body muscles and a vicious scar that emerged from his collar and nearly tore across his entire chest.
"Whale Anchor" Ode.
The captain of the Black Tide Hunter adventurer squad.
His most striking feature was his main weapon, enormous and intimidating, identical to the image on his fleet's flag.
Nearly five meters long, the heavy whaling harpoon made of oak inlaid with metal was held upright at his side in one hand. From afar, it looked like an extra mast on the ship.
Barbs protruded from both sides of its bladed tip, while a thick iron chain with a metallic sheen was attached to the handle at the other end, presently wound tightly around Ode's arm in coil after coil.
Such a heavy weapon had clearly been specially designed for hunting sea monsters.
Xia Nan could even picture the man standing at the edge of the deck, hurling his harpoon at a ferocious monster beneath the waves, then gripping the chain with both hands as he wrestled the sea beast amid wind and waves.
Of course, against humanoid adventurers, a weapon of that kind was far less effective.
Especially against someone like him, who valued speed and mobility, the man's broad, powerful fighting style was almost perfectly countered by Xia Nan. Even if they fought on the open sea, where his opponent could best display his strengths, Xia Nan would not be at any