For three days, the Mare Thalassion sailed deeper into the Aegean's open waters. The air grew colder, the wind sharp enough to sting, and the songs that once filled the decks had dwindled into low chants or silence. Men spat into the sea and touched their talismans more often. Even Caspian's booming voice, once the ballast of the crew, had thinned into gruff orders.
Then, at dawn on the fourth day, the sea changed.
The horizon was a smear of gray, the waters strangely still. Even the gulls, ever their companions, had vanished. Theseus stood at the helm of the Black Trident, Poseidon's weapon propped against his side, when the lookout's cry shattered the uneasy quiet.
"Shape ahead! In the water!"
The fleet surged to attention, sailors swarming the rails, captains shouting commands as sails shifted to slow their approach. And there it was—emerging from the fog, massive, unnatural.
A leviathan of iron.
Its hull gleamed black and slick like a beast risen from the depths, rivets like scales, its length dwarfing even the largest of their warships. The sea hissed as waves broke against its metallic flanks, and rows of strange ridges—no gills, no oars, no sails—cut along its spine.
Murmurs rippled across the decks. To the old raiders, it looked like some godless serpent wrought in steel. To the younger sailors, it was worse—a thing beyond their imagining.
"Theseus…" Caspian muttered, gripping his axe until the knuckles whitened. "It's the Iron levathian."
The Serpent Prince said nothing. His eyes narrowed, steady on the monster in the water. Then, with a grinding hiss, a section of the leviathan's back split open. Metal peeled away like a wound, revealing a hollow dark within. From that abyss, a figure rose.
The armored being stepped onto the leviathan's spine. Black plates caught the meager light, helm smooth and faceless save for two burning slits of pale fire. Its cloak whipped in the wind as it stood above the sea, a silhouette of iron and shadow.
The Mare Thalassion fleet fell into stunned silence. Even across the water, they felt it—the crushing pressure, as though the depths themselves had risen to stand against them.
On the Black Trident, Theseus gripped his trident tighter. The serpent carved into his prow seemed to hiss in reply, as though recognizing its rival. The abyss had come to meet them.
The armored being strode to the prow of the iron leviathan, its boots clanging against metal that hummed with unnatural life. For a breath, it stood still, a silhouette against the pale horizon. Then, without hesitation, it stepped down from the beast.
And did not sink.
The figure walked across the water as though the sea itself were solid stone beneath its feet. Each step sent ripples rolling outward, but the armored weight never broke the surface. The spectacle rippled through the Mare Thalassion like a shiver. Sailors gasped, some fell to their knees, others whispered prayers or clutched talismans as if against blasphemy. Fear, awe, unease—every ship groaned with it.
Theseus's chest tightened. His blood screamed against the sight, but his senses, sharp as the sea's own currents, caught it—the subtle glow of aether laced under each step, bending the waves to bear the intruder. Clever. Controlled. Dangerous.
And yet… something about this being unsettled him more than its mastery. The air around it felt wrong, its presence pressing against him in ways no mortal power should.
But he understood what had to be done.
Gripping Poseidon's trident, Theseus vaulted from the deck of the Black Trident. Gasps erupted from his crew, but he did not falter. His lineage mystery—Serpent of Okeanos—rose within him, threads of power coiling through his veins. The sea buckled and then steadied beneath his boots, a mirror-plain solid under his command. He walked, every step stirring the water with serpentine ripples.
The men of Pelagia watched him go, hope and fear warring in their eyes. Gratitude too, that their prince bore the weight none of them could.
Closer he came, until he could see his enemy clearly. The armor was like nothing forged in Erytheia: black plates fitted with seamless precision, edged with faint lines of silver that pulsed faintly as if alive. Divine, perhaps. Or something greater still.
He gritted his teeth, lifting his trident. But before he could speak, the being moved.
The helm slid back with a hiss of unseen gears, folding into the armor's collar. What it revealed stopped him cold.
A woman's face, bronze-skinned and elegant, as if sculpted by gods with cruel perfection. Her features were oval, youthful, framed by long strands of obsidian hair that clung to the breeze. Her golden eyes caught the dim light, burning not with warmth, but with piercing certainty. She was beautiful—inhumanly so—but beauty only sharpened the danger that radiated from her.
When she spoke, her voice was melodic, measured, carrying across the waves with unnatural clarity.
"Theseus Pelagia," she said, each syllable wrapping his name in a weight he had not expected. "Son of Acastus, king of Pelagia. Blood of Poseidon and the Nereids."
Theseus tightened his grip on the trident. "You know who I am."
Her lips curved, though it was no smile. "Nova Roma knows all."
The words rolled out like a verdict, and for the first time in years, Theseus felt the sea around him grow colder.
The sea between them stretched wide and silent, the armored woman's reflection rippling faintly below her feet. Theseus stood tall, trident in hand, the serpent of Okeanos thrumming through his blood. Yet even with the sea under his command, something about her presence unsettled him, like a shadow stretching beyond reason.
His voice cut across the water, hard and clear.
"Nova Roma. You speak its name as though it crowns you sovereign. What are you? Who are you, that you trespass in our waters? And what is it you want from Erytheia?"
The woman did not move at once. She regarded him, her golden eyes calm but piercing, as if measuring the marrow of his soul. Then she stepped forward, the water bowing beneath her boots, and her voice rang out with practiced precision, carrying to every deck of the Mare Thalassion.
"My name is Valeria Dravon Severina," she said, her tone both elegant and unyielding. "Captain of the Praetoria Aetherion Division, commander of the Subjugation Front."
A ripple of confusion and fear spread across the Pelagian sailors. Captains muttered to one another on their decks, repeating her name like a bitter taste.
Valeria continued, her words woven with the authority of empire.
"Nova Roma is not a rumor, nor a shadow. We are the heirs of what your gods abandoned. When the divine fled, we endured. Where your continent splintered into pirates and feuding kingdoms, we built an empire. We forged law from chaos, strength from ruin. We are the future Erytheia has denied itself."
She raised her hand slightly, the gesture precise, almost ceremonial, before pointing past Theseus toward the assembled fleets.
"You cling to fragments—Mysteries, relics, the bones of a forgotten age. You worship the absence of gods and call it freedom. But freedom is anarchy. Freedom is weakness. Nova Roma brings order. We will liberate your seas from superstition, from piracy, from false thrones propped upon divine scraps. We will unite Erytheia under reason, under strength, under us."
Her words carried like iron across the still waves. To some sailors, they struck as blasphemy; to others, as prophecy. But none were left untouched.
Theseus's jaw tightened, his knuckles whitening against the haft of his trident. The serpent inside him writhed with fury, but his voice, when it came, was steady as the tide.
"You call this liberation," he said, each syllable sharp. "I call it conquest."
Valeria's lips curved faintly, her beauty as inhuman as it was dangerous. Her golden eyes gleamed like twin suns on the horizon.
"There is no difference," she replied, her tone almost gentle. "Only in who survive it."
The sea held its breath. The Mare Thalassion's fleet, stretching wide across the horizon, waited for the clash—but Valeria did not raise her hand to strike. Instead, she stood poised upon the water, her golden eyes locked on Theseus.
"You wonder why you yet live, Serpent Prince," she said, her voice as calm as still tide. "Your last encounter with us should have ended in your death. Yet it was by the will of our Emperor—the Deus Factus—that you were spared. He decreed that Pelagia's prince would be shown mercy once, so that you might carry back word of our arrival."
Her words rippled through the crews like thunder. The sailors murmured, exchanging fearful glances. Mercy. No raider, no pirate, no king gave such mercy—save to bait a trap.
Valeria's voice sharpened. "But mercy is not infinite. My goal is clear. The royal family of Pelagia will surrender themselves to Nova Roma. They will acknowledge the new order. Refuse, and the sea will drink your kingdom until even its name is forgotten."
Theseus's grip on his trident tightened until his knuckles bled white. His voice rang out across the waves, unbending. "Pelagia does not bend. Not to kings, not to pirates, not to phantoms crawling from the deep. Tell your Emperor: we will never kneel."
The faintest smile touched Valeria's lips. "So be it."
She turned slightly, her cloak of black plates shifting with the motion, and raised her hand toward the leviathan at her back. At her gesture, its iron body groaned and split open along hidden seams. Panels slid apart, revealing the yawning mouth of a cannon unlike anything Erytheia had ever known.
Inside, a silver glow gathered—pure, cold, unnatural. A hum filled the air, sharp enough to rattle bones, until the entire sea seemed to vibrate with its resonance.
"Observe," Valeria said softly. "So that you understand the power of Nova Roma."
The cannon flared.
A beam of argent light ripped forth, lancing across the horizon with impossible speed. It did not strike the fleet. Instead, it carved into the distant mainland—one of the jagged mountains that loomed as a sentinel over the Seven Kingdoms' coast. The mountain, known to all sailors as a landmark older than their histories, erupted in a silent blaze. For a heartbeat, it glowed white-hot. Then it was gone.
Evaporated.
Only drifting vapor and falling ash remained, carried by the wind.
Every deck fell silent. Sailors gripped their rails in mute horror, eyes wide. Even the captains who mocked Theseus days ago stood frozen, their bravado stripped bare. They had seen cities burned, fleets sunk, monsters slain—but never a mountain erased from existence.
Valeria lowered her hand, her golden gaze returning to Theseus. "That is the fate awaiting your thrones, your fleets, your seas, if you resist. Bow, and Pelagia will endure. Defy us, and Erytheia will be remade without you."
The silence that followed was heavier than any storm.
Theseus's heart pounded like the war drums of his ancestors, yet his voice cut through the dread like a blade. "Then you will learn, Valeria Dravon Severina—Nova Roma may wield the abyss, but Pelagia commands the sea. And the sea never surrenders."
The silence shattered with the crack of iron striking water.
Theseus slammed the butt of Poseidon's trident down onto the sea, and the Aegean roared in answer. Ripples raced outward from his feet, turning to waves as the relic drank the ocean's aether and pulsed with light. His veins burned with it, the serpent of Okeanos coiling tighter through his blood until he felt the sea surge inside him as though he himself were tide and storm.
The fleet roared behind him, but his eyes never left Valeria.
His voice cut through the wind like thunder, each word a Logoi incantation, a fragment of truth etched into the bones of the world:
"Logoi Thalassa—Truth of the Sea's Serpent!"
The water beneath him erupted. From the depths coiled a colossal serpent of shimmering tide, scales glittering like silvered waves, eyes alight with wrath. Its body wound around Theseus, protective and fierce, before lunging toward Valeria with a roar that made the air tremble.
The armored captain did not flinch. Her golden eyes narrowed, hand rising in a measured gesture.
The leviathan vessel answered. Its flanks split, rows of ports glowing with argent light before spewing a storm of silver beams. They cut the air in jagged lines, hissing as they tore through water and sky. One struck the serpent full in the chest—its tide-born flesh exploded into spray, half its body unraveling into mist.
Still, it pressed on.
Theseus leapt with it, carried by the serpent's lunge, trident raised high. The relic burned white-blue, aether spiraling down its prongs until it shone like a fragment of dawn. He thrust downward, aiming straight for Valeria, the sea itself howling with him.
She raised her hand, and her armor flared with black aether. A shimmering barrier snapped into place, geometric patterns etching across its surface like living runes.
The trident struck.
The sea split from the force, waves rising on either side like walls. The barrier screamed under the impact, shards of light scattering as the trident's prongs sank an inch, then two, threatening to pierce through.
For the first time, Valeria's expression flickered—not fear, but recognition.
"You carry a god's tooth," she said evenly, her voice carrying over the clash. "But gods are ash. And so shall you be."
Her other hand clenched into a fist. From the Leviathan's spine, another cannon flared, its silver beam screaming toward Theseus's exposed flank.
The silver beam lanced toward him, brighter than lightning, hotter than the sun. For an instant, the world froze—Theseus hanging in the air above the churned sea, trident locked against Valeria's barrier, the abyss's weapon screaming for his life.
His eyes burned, his veins seared with tidefire. He ripped a breath from his chest and roared the words, forcing the sea to obey:
"Logoi Píesi Thalassēs—Truth of the Sea's Pressure!"
The ocean answered.
The water around him collapsed inward, crushing itself into a sphere of impossible weight. A tide of deep-sea pressure erupted between him and the oncoming beam. When silver met water, the sea detonated—columns of steam and spray blasting upward, the shockwave rocking ships across the fleet.
The blast hurled Theseus backward, tearing the serpent's watery body apart. He crashed through the mist, slammed hard against the surface of the sea, and skidded across it like a stone. The trident nearly tore from his hands; blood spattered from his mouth. His muscles screamed, ribs shuddering where the pressure of the clash had cracked them.
But he lived.
The waves carried him back toward the Black Trident, where his sailors cried out in disbelief and relief. He staggered to his feet upon the water, bracing on the relic, his breath ragged. His body trembled from the strain of forcing his serpent mystery beyond its limits—but his eyes were still sharp, locked on Valeria.
She stood untouched, golden gaze fixed on him. The faintest curve touched her lips, not mockery but acknowledgment.
"You are strong, Serpent Prince," she called, her voice carrying like a hymn of iron. "Stronger than the algorithm projected. That will make your subjugation… all the sweeter."
Behind her, the leviathan's cannons hummed again, charging with argent light, preparing another storm.
On the Black Trident, Caspian bellowed to the crew, rallying them as the other fleets scrambled into formation. The sea was about to erupt into full war.
The sea erupted into chaos.
At Valeria's command, the iron leviathan groaned as its flanks split wider, ports yawning open along its body. Rows of cannon-mouths glowed with argent light, humming like a choir of steel. Then the beams came—silver lances tearing across the waves, ripping through water and wood alike. One strike sheared a Nerathian galley clean in half, its sailors screaming as the sea swallowed them whole.
The captains of the seven kingdoms answered with fury.
"Loose the bolts!" Poly of Nerathis roared, his kraken-bannered ship unleashing a volley of ballistae, massive iron-tipped spears that streaked through the air. Beside him, Glaucetas of Okeanos bellowed orders, his decks alive with sea magi weaving runes into the very air.
The fleet shuddered with power as dozens of sea magi lifted their staffs. Aether surged, their chants carrying over the din: waves twisted into serpents, harpoons of brine and frost tore free from the tide, whirlpools rose and spun toward the leviathan. From Pelagia's ships, fire-laced cannonballs boomed, streaking across the water in arcs of flame and smoke.
The leviathan endured it all.
Bolts slammed against its armored hull, sparking and screeching as if they struck a mountain of iron. Water-serpents smashed themselves to spray against its plating. Frost shattered across its flanks without leaving a scar. The only answer was more silver beams—blinding, merciless. One tore the mast from a Thyrassian ship, another turned a Phorcasian deck to molten glass.
Still, the fleet pressed on.
From the Black Trident's deck, Caspian rallied the men. "Row, you bastards! Keep her prow steady—fire, fire again!" Cannons roared, their thunder swallowed by the leviathan's mechanical hum.
Theseus staggered aboard his ship, dripping with blood and seawater, trident in hand. The serpent mystery still coiled faintly around him, battered but not broken. His sailors' eyes clung to him—fear, hope, defiance all mingling in their gazes.
"Captain!" Caspian barked, his face streaked with smoke. "She'll tear us apart if we don't break her line!"
Theseus planted the trident in the deck, its prongs sparking with aether. His sea-gray eyes turned to the leviathan looming over them, its cannons glowing brighter by the heartbeat. The Mare Thalassion had faced storms, krakens, and gods' wrath—but never this. And now the abyss and the sea were at war.
The sea boiled with fire, salt, and silver. The leviathan's beams cut through ship after ship, but the Mare Thalassion did not scatter.
Theseus lifted Poseidon's trident high, its prongs burning with aether, his voice carrying over the cacophony. "Captains of the Thalassarchates! Magi of the sea! Hear me!"
His words thundered across the waves, reaching the battered fleets. "No ship alone can strike this beast—but together, we can drown it! Nerathis, bind it with your kraken chains! Kymara, scorch its hide with fire! Okeanos, churn the depths beneath its belly! All others—cover the gaps!"
The magi lifted their staffs, their voices rising in unison, threads of aether weaving into the water itself. Great chains of black-iron kraken surged up from the deep, coiling around the leviathan's flanks. Waves rose like walls, fire bursting from their crests as the Kymaran galleys hurled blazing spears. The sea itself twisted, whirlpools opening beneath the metallic hull as Okeanos magi pulled at the currents.
The leviathan groaned, beams faltering as its great bulk was dragged, for the first time, off balance.
The fleet roared, sailors striking their weapons against shields, the old pirate chants reborn as war cries. Hope flickered—faint but real.
But as Theseus stood at the helm of the Black Trident, directing the storm, something twisted in his chest. At first it was faint, a tug beneath his ribs. Then it grew stronger, pulling like a tide in reverse, dragging not toward the battle—but away. South. Toward Pelagia.
He staggered for a breath, clutching the coral charm at his throat. Its cool surface pulsed against his skin, glowing faintly.
Then her voice came.
"Theseus…"
Lysandra's voice, urgent, trembling, carried not by air but through the coral, through the very marrow of the sea. "You must hear me—the palace—" Her words broke with static, her breath sharp. "They've come. The— the—enemy—they're here—Your family—"
The message cut, the glow of the charm flickering as if the sea itself recoiled.
Theseus froze. The blood in his veins thundered, his serpent lineage thrashing. The battle raged around him—ships burning, beams screaming—but all he could feel was the pull, the certainty that Pelagia was under siege. His father. His people. Lysandra. The abyss was not only before him. It was already behind.
The sea was chaos. Ships burning, silver beams splitting the waves, kraken chains straining against the iron hull of the leviathan. And yet, amid the storm, Theseus's heart thundered with a different battle—the pull of blood, of home, of Lysandra's broken voice through the coral charm.
Pelagia.
His father. His people. His betrothed.
The serpent within him coiled tighter, instincts screaming for him to abandon all else and dive south. But around him, the fleet staggered, barely holding their line against a monster that could erase mountains. If he left now…
He clenched the trident, knuckles white, the salt spray stinging his eyes.
Sea or home. The fleet or Pelagia.
The choice pressed down like the weight of the tide.
Before he could decide, Valeria moved.
She stepped lightly from the water, her armored feet hissing against the sea's surface as though it bent to her. Her fist rose, the plates along her gauntlet unfolding as lines of black aether crawled across her arm. She drove her punch forward—once.
The sea shuddered.
A shockwave blasted outward, a wall of compressed force that tore across the water. One of Kymara's ships, its banner still fluttering defiance, was struck amidships. The hull cracked like kindling. Wood splintered, masts snapped, men screamed as the vessel was ripped apart, scattered like driftwood.
The sea magi tried to bind the wreckage with waves, but it was too late—the ship was gone, swallowed whole.
Valeria's golden eyes locked on Theseus across the water. Calm, merciless, radiant.
"Choose, Serpent Prince," her voice carried, almost a whisper yet reaching every ear. "Hold your sea—or save your home. Nova Roma will take both in time."
The fleets wavered, their eyes swinging between their captain and the abyss's envoy. Sailors shouted in panic, some begging for orders, others cursing, others already rowing back. Caspian roared from the deck of the Black Trident, his axe lifted high.
"Theseus! What are your orders?"
All eyes turned to him. The sea was waiting for his choice.