"Ancestral Spirits! Ancestors!... This... Ah, this!..."
The narrow strait surged with violent tides, cold reefs standing firm above the water, and the urgent cries of the whale were right before their eyes. Letian, the Cloak Hunter, stared wide-eyed in astonishment at the "ice-and-snow banshees" hunting the whale before him. He remembered his fear from moments ago, glanced at the smiling leaders on the boat, and his old face immediately flushed red.
"Uh... so... they're actually... some strange tribe from who knows where, whaling around the coast!..."
"Eh! Main God! This whaling tribe... is really impressive!"
Exploration Captain Zuwaro stroked his chin, surprise on his face as he watched the mythic battle unfolding before him. On the sea ahead of the fleet, a band of forty or fifty Tribal Hunters were hunting a hulking creature more than ten meters long—the immensely powerful gray whale of the northern ocean!
At this moment, these strong sea hunters had split roughly into two groups around the ramming, crying whale.
They had built a wooden whaling platform on the coastal reefs, essentially a very large raft. Seven or eight hunters stood on the raft, using extremely long harpoons to stab desperately at the whale in the sea, splashing up flowers of blood. The sharp bone-tipped harpoons pierced through hide and sank in, sometimes getting dragged away by the frenzied whale. When that happened, the hunters on the raft pulled on the leather ropes attached to the harpoons, retrieving them and tearing open another bleeding wound.
On the floating raft, several strange little drums had been tossed aside for the moment. Not far from the raft floated a wooden carving several meters long; at first glance, it looked rather like another "whale" bobbing and swaying its head.
Most of the hunters sat in groups of several