"I saw something on Titan… the Giant Dam."
The voice sounded relaxed—too relaxed for something that shouldn't be possible, as if the speaker had either long accepted the impossible or simply refused to acknowledge the weight of what he had just witnessed, letting the words drift casually into the air despite the quiet tension coiling beneath them.
Taylor Osbourne squinted, hands blocking the sunlight reflecting from above, his posture loose but his eyes sharp—trained not just by habit, but by instinct honed from surviving things that rarely left witnesses behind.
"If it was just a bird, I'd be very disappointed," he muttered, half joking, half hoping it wasn't true, the humor acting as a thin veil stretched over a far more dangerous curiosity.
In the distance—too high, too far for logic—a shadow moved, not bound by distance nor scale, existing in a place where perspective itself seemed to fracture.
Not just lurking.
But… keep an eye out, as if it were aware, as if observation itself was mutual.
Above the titan—too high, too far away for logic—a shadowy head lurked, suspended in defiance of reason, its presence neither fully material nor entirely illusion.
"That's not a bird," he continued quietly, his voice turning thin, stretched by a realization he didn't quite want to complete. "And definitely not something I have permission to have on The Sealess."
The shadow stretched for a moment—its shape was unnatural, like something had been forced into the ground, compressed into existence rather than born into it. Faint, hazy, almost like an illusion… but real enough to make the air heavy, pressing against the lungs, turning every breath into something deliberate.
"Gigan…" he whispered, the word slipping out less like a statement and more like a recognition—ancient, reluctant, undeniable.
The wind suddenly stopped, not gradually, but abruptly—as if the world itself had chosen to hold its breath.
And like a joke that lost its punchline—the image just disappeared, leaving behind not relief, but an emptiness that felt even more suspicious than the presence itself.
Taylor took a deep breath, then grinned slightly, forcing normalcy back into place like a man patching a crack in glass with bare hands.
"Good. Gone."
He turned to the fishing crew behind him, the shift in his demeanor almost theatrical in its ease.
"If anyone wants to say I'm hallucinating, now is the time."
Nobody answered, not out of confusion—but because silence felt safer than agreement.
The lake remains calm, its surface deceptively smooth as if nothing had disturbed it.
The sky remains empty, wide and indifferent.
But something—or someone—just saw them first, and that imbalance lingered like an unseen weight pressing down on the moment.
"I swear…"
Taylor Osbourne's voice is almost drowned out by the crashing waves of the lake, low—but sharp enough to stick in the air, cutting through the ambient noise with quiet resolve.
"…I will sail Oceanus…and hunt down those Gigans."
For a moment, he was silent, the kind of silence that follows a vow too large to take back.
Then he sighed, like he had just finished making the worst decision of his life—and somehow, also the most sensible one, the contradiction settling comfortably within him.
He turned around, the motion simple, but final.
His expression changed drastically. From hunter of legends… to captain of a fishing boat who is too relaxed for a world that is too dangerous, as if he could switch roles at will without ever fully committing to either.
"Okay!" he exclaimed suddenly, clapping his hands once, the sharp sound snapping the atmosphere back into motion.
"Come on everyone, continue working!"
The crew on deck looked at each other, their uncertainty passing silently between them like an unspoken agreement that none of this was normal anymore.
One of them raised his hand in doubt, hesitation visible in every small movement.
"Captain… just now you said you wanted to hunt giant mythological creatures in the cursed sea, right?"
Taylor raised an eyebrow, casual, almost amused by the question.
"Yeah. And?"
"…and now we continue fishing?"
Taylor nodded firmly, without even a hint of irony.
"Priorities. We still need to eat before we become legends."
Some of the crew took a deep breath, trying to ground themselves in something practical.
Others are starting to return to work—though now with the feeling that they may not retire as normal, their routines quietly overshadowed by something far larger than nets and tides.
Taylor stepped to the edge of the ship, looking out at the vast horizon of The Sealess, where distance swallowed certainty and the unknown felt endlessly patient.
His smile was faint.
A little crazy.
A little too sure, like someone who had already accepted an outcome no one else could yet see.
"After all..." he muttered softly, almost as if joking to himself, though the weight behind it suggested otherwise,
"It's easier to hunt monsters if they think we're just stupid fishermen."
The wind blew again, returning as if nothing had happened—yet subtly different, carrying with it a quiet tension that hadn't been there before.
And far out there—where the sea meets myth—something may have just heard that oath, and perhaps, just perhaps, it was already beginning to respond.