The First Mate could no longer stop the crew from falling into fanaticism.
According to the flagship's chronometer, a full Hala year had passed. The captain had not once left his room—and the First Mate had never delivered food. Yet every crew member could still hear the captain's breathing and heartbeat echoing in their ears.
After enduring nightmares and mutations, the captain had granted them a method to resist the madness. Fear drove them to embrace this salvation with a zealot's frenzy. Only a few ever succumbed to mutation or insanity—those who had refused the method. These outliers worshiped a twisted entity, a fusion of serpent and cephalopod, a being with a name so foul it could not be spoken. Cultures across the stars had given it many names: the Sacred Serpent, the Wielder of Endless Black Magic, the Bridge Across Chaos.
After quelling one such rebellion, Alex investigated the quarters of the mutineers. The moment he opened the door, everyone—regardless of species—vomited violently. The stench and gore were overwhelming. Laughter echoed in the room, but it was inhuman, deranged, and endless.
There, on the wall, the protection runes had been scraped off. In their place stood a grotesquely lifelike statue—crafted from rotting flesh, stuffed with slick, wet organs. The limbs of different species had been fused into its form, their mangled parts twisted into unnatural shapes. The demon's face was a mosaic of agony—dead expressions fused into a single tortured visage.
It was a blood sacrifice. A savage, primal ritual to invoke a phantom faith through pain and soul-binding. The fleet never lacked corpses—after every battle, the dead were countless. Damaged ships were salvaged, patched together with debris and bone. No one had time to burn every limb, to bless every corpse. The captain had ordered the fleet remain clean—how one "disposed" of the bodies was left open-ended. If someone ate them? Well... that wasn't off the table.
Though the captain ensured food and supplies were steady, to many pirates, intelligent alien species weren't very different from meat. And no one protested the method. The reactor's heat vents had nearly been clogged with dead matter during those days, reducing efficiency.
The statue—crafted from fetid flesh—shattered the minds of those who saw it. Even fully mechanized species went mad after witnessing it. Only those devoted to the captain were spared. This further entrenched their fervor. To them, the captain's impossible resilience became holy legend.
In moments of dazed contemplation, the First Mate realized—he was chanting the captain's name under his breath. Not the Supreme Intellect of the Kree, not the mighty Celestials or Xorrians. No. He, too, was beginning to worship the captain.
The catfolk, the biomechanical androids—they had all once had faiths of their own. But now they abandoned them, embracing a new, unintelligible, and terrifying religion.
They took up arms not just against the mutated and the mad, but against heresy.
Alex, a son of science from Hala, couldn't understand it.
The Kree had long expelled religion through scientific development. Though a few still believed in their creators, the Xorrians, open worship was rare. They had dissected the Xorrians' genetic engineering in labs. To the Kree, creation was a chemical formula, not a miracle.
Alex had never believed in anything.
But now, he sensed the rise of an "information cocoon"—an echo chamber. There was no reaching these people. Even as First Mate, if he voiced opposition, he might be attacked.
He suspected the captain knew.
And allowed it.
Alex understood the logic. These fanatics were suppressing rebellion. They kept the fleet stable. In any pirate fleet, chaos was normal, mutiny a daily occurrence. But now? Rebellions were rare, small—and swiftly crushed. The faith united the crew. It gave them purpose. It steeled them against the dark of the void. It drove them to root out corruption themselves.
That alone made Alex curious.
What exactly were they worshiping?
He began reading the crude, hand-written pamphlets the crew had made.
Meanwhile, Lara Croft was falling from a cliff.
Her fingers clawed the air, the ice pick in her hand flashing as she swung it wildly. Wind howled past her ears like the roar of an avalanche. Her heart pounded like a war drum.
I'm going to die!
I'm definitely going to die!
And yet—Lara remained calm.
She could even feel the numb itch of frostbite spreading in her fingers.
No sane adventurer would attempt to scale a frozen Siberian cliff during a snowstorm. One gust was enough to fling a grown adult to their death. But Lara wasn't ordinary.
She knew Kitezh lay hidden somewhere within this mountain range, cloaked in snow and myth. And Trinity was already on the move.
They had resources. Power. Reach. Lara didn't want to imagine how fast they could move. She had no choice but to press forward.
She had already said goodbye to the guides.
This next leg of the journey—she would face alone.
"That mountain looks like the Paramount logo," Jonah quipped, bundled in a thick parka.
"You never lose your sense of humor," Lara replied with a smile, thankful his spirit hadn't frozen over.
It had taken them two days by plane and car just to reach this place. Twelve more days of climbing.
From here, the path ended. The locals wouldn't go any farther. Too dangerous.
"You should stay with the guides," Lara told him. "You don't have to risk this."
"No way," Jonah said, his smile warm and unshakable.
Lara knew he wouldn't turn back.
They'd survived the Dragon's Triangle together.
This—
Was just another mountain.
The climb was brutal. Inevitable, but brutal.
Waterfalls frozen into sheets of eternal ice coated the cliffside. The ice paths were the fastest way to the top—but also the most treacherous.
The ice had fractured over centuries of geological stress and extreme weather. Each patch was a silent deathtrap, veiled in white.
Lara fell into one such trap more than once.
The first time, she landed on soft snow.
The second time—
An avalanche cut her off from Jonah completely.
The radio signal was jammed.
She was alone now.
No path back.
Only forward.
------------------
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