Above the chaos, the blue horse let out another haunting howl. Its body dissolved into rain once more, droplets scattering like shattered glass in the storm. Thunder cracked the sky as it reappeared silently—this time at the very front of the ship, standing atop the figurehead, rain streaking down its glowing water-formed eyes. Silent. Watching.
Down below, the battle twisted into a nightmare.
Sea creatures surged from every corner, their watery forms slamming into wood and flesh alike. The guards—already spread thin—were forced to split their attention between the monsters of the deep and the rebellious prisoners, who fought like demons, chasing redemption.
Aura clashed in the air like lightning meeting steel. Weapons shattered. Flesh tore. Screams were drowned by thunder.
A prisoner lunged forward with his fist wrapped in deep green aura, only for a guard to intercept him with a sword slash that sprayed blood into the storm. That same guard was tackled by a creature shaped like a squid made of knives, which pierced his armor in seconds.
The deck turned crimson—blood and rain pooling together, indistinguishable in the chaos.
Despite their training, despite their formation, the guards began to fall. One by one. Skewered by coral blades. Dragged into the sea by serpents. Torn apart by roaring prisoners consumed by rage.
Ten minutes passed. Or maybe an eternity.
Only two remained standing.
At the center of the blood-soaked deck, with corpses littering the wood and monsters circling like wolves, the commander stood in pristine white armor, barely scratched, his greatsword coated in both black ichor and crimson blood.
Back-to-back with him was a woman clad in flowing white, her hands glowing faintly with layered aura sigils, and a long silver-bladed spear held in her grip.
Their backs pressed together, they scanned the enemies surrounding them: prisoners—wild and victorious—on one side, and monstrous sea creatures glowing with eerie cores on the other.
And still, the blue horse stood above them at the ship's front, silent and unmoving, as if waiting for something.
The woman exhaled slowly.
"Commander… what now?"
The man gritted his teeth, adjusted his grip on the hilt.
"We die… or we make them remember why we wore white in the first place."
The woman didn't answer the commander's words.
She simply stepped forward—just one, precise step.
The instant her foot touched the soaked deck, the air cracked with pressure. Sigils spun around her spear as her white cloak fluttered, rain slicing across her like knives but never once disrupting her stance.
The commander moved at the same moment.
Their motions were not separate—but a dance. Deadly. Devastating.
The first creature lunged toward them, a hulking crab-beast with barnacle-ridden fists and glowing red eyes. Before it landed, the commander sidestepped left and ducked down, the woman vaulted off his back. She twisted mid-air, rain spiraling around her like a cloak, and drove her spear directly through the beast's skull, the impact cracking the wood beneath them as it burst into a pool of steaming seawater.
She didn't land.
Because the commander caught her ankle mid-fall, swung her like a blade, and hurled her horizontally toward a line of approaching prisoners.
[Blinding Rend]
A blinding arc of light-infused aura surged down her spear as she spun in midair, cutting through four prisoners and two creatures in a single flash of radiant death. Blood and mist burst in the air like fireworks.
The commander moved, slamming his greatsword into the deck and causing a shockwave that sent splinters and bodies flying back. As she landed on the pommel of his blade, perfectly balanced, the two spun again, her spear twirling above her like a halo.
More creatures surged.
Tentacled beasts. Crawling eel-forms. Mask-faced horrors fused with rusted anchors and bones.
They didn't hesitate.
The commander lunged forward, his left hand flinging a chained aura ring that wrapped around a beast's leg—pulling it toward him. As it came flying, he twisted and kicked it mid-air, redirecting it toward the woman.
Her spear glowed once more. She raised it overhead—and thrust downward with the force of a collapsing tower, obliterating the creature as it exploded into glowing shards of mist and aura.
Another prisoner came from behind.
The commander's blade moved in a tight upward arc, severing the man from hip to shoulder. Blood sprayed across his white armor, but none of it stained—the fabric itself repelled blood like it was cursed.
Their backs touched again. Breathing, calm, and focused.
The storm screamed around them.
They moved again. She leapt over his shoulder, stabbing downward at a snake-creature crawling from the side. He turned in a blur, bisecting a charging brute. They spun through the chaos, weaving between bodies, anticipating each other's movements with a perfection born from battles fought countless times before.
She twisted and flung her spear—he caught it mid-spin and impaled a prisoner from behind without looking and threw his greatsword into the air. She reached out, caught his falling greatsword, and used it to block three strikes in a blur before tossing it back to him—blade-first.
He caught it and slammed it into the deck, sending out another shockwave.
Creatures flew. Prisoners stumbled.
The battlefield froze for a breath. The world went silent, save for thunder and the ceaseless downpour as she reclaimed her spear.
A sound—if it could even be called that—shredded through the rain and wind.
It was laughter.
Sick. Twisted. Inhuman.
The sound carved through the storm like a blade dipped in malice, echoing from the direction of the front of the ship. Every pair of eyes—beast, prisoner, and guard alike—snapped toward it.
The horse stood there.
Perched atop the shattered prow, body slick with rain, muscles taut like coiled wire. Its eyes turned from water to hollow pools of glowing black mist, and they stared directly at the two guards with hatred, and amusement.
Its mouth opened, and it howled.
The sound didn't just resonate—it pulsed with Aura, a physical vibration in the air. Mist spiraled outward as the howl became a stream of raw energy, surging skyward before suddenly condensing—twisting, spinning, cracking.
The aura coalesced into a massive spear of storming energy, thirty feet long and jagged with shifting veins of stormlight. Lightning slammed into the spear with a deafening CRACK, splitting the sky. The spear glowed a deep, electric blue, veins of lightning running through its core.
Then—It dropped.
The spear plunged into the ocean.
For a moment, there was silence. Suddenly, the sea boiled.
From the impact point, a burst of electrical energy detonated outward, turning water into steam and mist—and from it, new horrors emerged.
Eels, long and serpentine, surged over the rails, their bodies glowing with static arcs. Their jaws twisted unnaturally wide, teeth like shattered glass.
Bears, but not normal—massive, hulking beasts with fur made of flowing water and ribs that sparked like living wires, hauled themselves on board, the deck groaning beneath their weight.They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, eyes flickering like faulty lanterns, and roared in unison.
And then the sky darkened further.
The rain twisted unnaturally as a massive dragon emerged—a beast made entirely of water, wings rippling like crashing waves, with scales that shimmered like ocean glass.
It took flight, rising high above the ship, its vast wings dispersing clouds with every flap. Its eyes glowed like ancient beacons as it opened its monstrous maw. And screamed.
The scream was a signal, and the ocean answered.
A massive whirlpool formed within the ocean, and the rain seemed to curve unnaturally, spiraling into the dragon's open mouth. Even the ocean below began to rise in pillars, sucked upward as the beast began to charge a blast—a growing sphere of compressed water, pressure, and lightning forming between its fangs.
The horse vanished, dissipating into the storm once more—
—only to reappear atop the Godcrab, its soaked mane whipping around its face as it stared down at the two guards with unblinking, gleeful hatred.
A pulse of aura surged from the horse's body—a declaration.
It had brought judgment from the ocean's below.
The commander gripped his greatsword harder.
The woman in white readied her stance, spear leveled, heart pounding.
Neither spoke.They didn't need to.
Because in the next breath—the creatures charged.
The prisoners broke from the charging creatures.
Their courage—barely held together through the chaos—crumbled at the sight of that massive beast absorbing the sea into its jaws, flanked by electrified eels and monstrous water-bears, with the shadow of the horse riding the Godcrab like some apocalyptic omen.
One by one, they turned and ran, slipping through gaps in the deck, vanishing into the mist, diving into the lower hull—anywhere that might offer even a moment of shelter. Some, even chose to drop into the sea below to end their suffering quicker.
"Run! You want to die, go ahead, but I'm not staying for this!"
"I'm not fighting that! Not for them!"
A flood of shouting, fear, and desperation.
Only two remained.
Surrounded by the carnage, by the mist and the blood and the distant glow of storm-charged beasts, stood the Commander and the Woman in White.
He watched the prisoners flee, his sword tip resting against the soaked deck, water running from his helm. He laughed.
A low, guttural, almost amused laugh. Not of madness, but of a man who knew the truth.
"Sorry... about dragging you into all of this. Silva."
His voice was calm, and cold.
The woman beside him, her pristine armor dirtied by blood and water, cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders. Her spear hummed with aura, the tip glistening even under the storm's gloom.
"If we make it out of here alive... I'll kill you for this." Her voice was sharp. Deadly. But even now, even here—it carried a smirk.
They both laughed. Not because it was funny. But because it was real.
They both knew.
This was the final battle of their lives. And so they embraced it.
In the next breath—Silva's white aura erupted, not like a flame, but like a blast of divine light. It cracked the soaked deck beneath her, splintered the wood, even pushed back the encroaching mist.Her body blurred with streaks of light, her eyes glowing like molten ivory.
"I'LL PUT EVERYTHING I HAVE ON THE LINE!"
The Commander raised his head, eyes flaring.
His aura, once a proud emerald green, deepened—drowned—into a shadowed forest green, flickering with an intensity that felt ancient and unrelenting. It surged outward in an explosion of pressure, snapping nearby metal fixtures and slamming against the ship's rails. The air around him hissed with raw density.
As the two stood side by side, they chuckled and they charged.
The deck shattered underfoot. Aura thundered in their wake.
The dragon shrieked. The eels twisted. The bears roared. And the guards—the last guards—raced into the storm of monsters with a final laugh on their lips and fury in their hearts.
If death was coming, then they would meet it head-on, spear to fang, blade to bone.
And they would make it bleed.