Thalantis was a boiling grave.
War split the sea open like a wound.
Above the trench-line of Mareth'Vael, the Varynth armies clashed like titans of old. Stormshields shattered. Fangs sank into flesh. Water turned black with blood as Thal'zaron, Warden of the Deeps, hurled walls of tide to break his rebel Second's momentum.
Velmorr, crowned with stolen coral, struck back with a blade that bled shadows, leading a host of exiled Varynth who had long thirsted for the throne of the Deep King.
"You held us back!" Velmorr shouted through churning waters. "You feared surface fire and forgot what we are!"
"I command the sea," Thal'zaron roared, voice deep as the trench below them. "You command nothing but your own ruin."
He drove his trident into the current — unleashing a riptide that turned the front lines into shredded corpses.
And then—
Everything stopped.
The tides froze. The pressure lifted. The battlefield fell unnaturally silent.
And from the rift below, he rose.
Zariel-Kar.
He glided elegantly in the water. He ascended, the water parting around him in reverent horror. His skin glowed with burning glyphs, each one Djinn-forged, demon-warped. His presence excluded an aura that forced those near to give in. Every living thing nearby recoiled — even those too wounded to flee.
His voice was still. Cold. Showing a subtle hint that it had ordered the death of many.
"You bicker like minnows beneath the waves of fate."
Velmorr turned. "Who—?"
Zariel vanished. In the tenth of a millisecond half of Velmorr's army was crushed into imploding spheres — bones cracked inward, blood misting the water like rust.
Everything didn't take more than a second.
The rebels tried to flee. They didn't make it far. Sulphur too incomprehensible for the ocean dwellers to understand it's purpose in water melted their bodies.
The Sulphur bent to his will, shredding through Varynth soldiers like razors. Velmorr swung his blade — Zariel side stepped, holding the blade, then crushed it.
Zariel grabbed him by the throat, stared into his eyes.
"I want silence."
And Velmorr's soul left his body, his eyes bleak and cold. His face an expression of disbelief.
He let the body drift like silt.
Only Thal'zaron and a dozen of his elite remained — wary, weapons braced, not yet striking.
Zariel turned toward the Sea King.
"I have an offer?"
"What do you want, half-blood?" Thal'zaron's voice was like still full of warinnes. He didn't trust the man.
"My cousin," Zariel said, eyes glowing hot. "The last Djinn."
He spat the word like venom.
"I know where he is. Shrak. I want him dead before the memory of his throne finds him."
Thal'zaron's grip on his trident tightened. "Why ask me?"
Zariel stepped closer. "Because I could drown your kingdom in a chaos we wouldn't both want. But I don't care about your coral. I need your elite — five killers born from the Abyss. I'll return their corpses when I'm done."
The sea was silent.
Thal'zaron studied him — weighed possible annihilation against survival.
Finally, he gave a nod.
"The Tidebound Five," he said. "But if you fail, do not crawl back to me."
Zariel smiled — sharp and without warmth.
"There won't be a need."
He turned. The water twisted around him again. The five were summoned — creatures armored in barnacle-forged obsidian, with eyes like glowing scars.
Together, they swam upward.
Toward Shrak. Toward Ramiel.
Toward blood.
The last Djinn has returned. So has the last half-Djinn.