The main entrance of the warehouse was a churning, chaotic vortex of grim purpose. The usual lethargic atmosphere was gone, replaced by the sharp energy of imminent violence. Vipers checked weapons, tightened leather armor, and spoke in low, guttural tones that were more akin to the growls of hunting dogs than human conversation. The air smelled of oil, sweat, and the metallic tang of nervous excitement.
When Lutz emerged from the interior gloom and stepped into this fray, a subtle shift occurred. He didn't demand attention; he simply absorbed it. The conversations didn't stop, but eyes flicked toward him. Men who weeks ago would have shoved him aside or ignored him entirely now gave him a slight, acknowledging nod. They saw the reinforced "Viper's Hide," the bandolier of knives across his chest, the twin sheaths on his hips. But more than the gear, they saw the stillness in him. He wasn't jittery with adrenaline like the newer recruits. He was calm, a deep, cold pool of focus amidst their turbulent stream of aggression. He had faced the Lost Rudel and walked away. He had the Baron's favor and Karl's wary trust. Respect, in the viper's nest, was earned in blood, and Lutz Fischer had paid his dues.
He moved through them without a word, his path unconsciously clearing, until he reached Karl. The strategist was a statue of controlled energy, his own lean form radiating a predatory readiness that dwarfed the nervous energy of the men around him.
"We are ready," Karl said, his voice a low hum meant only for Lutz. "The Viper's Fang is provisioned. The men know their roles."
Lutz's gaze swept over the assembled gang members—brutal, desperate, amoral. He thought of the "civilians" on the merchantman—sailors, cooks, carpenters. People like Henrik had been. His hand rested almost imperceptibly on the worn grip of the revolver hidden beneath his vest.
"We'll take care of the Beyonders," Lutz said, his voice low and flat, his eyes still on the crowd. "But let's not kill civilians. The crew. They're just men doing their job."
The air between them grew cold. Karl turned his head slowly, the banked coals of his eyes glowing with a sudden, intense heat. The silence from him was more threatening than any shout.
"You can't still be soft at this point, Fischer," Karl's words were quiet, precise, and utterly devoid of warmth. "This isn't a neighborhood collection. This is a message. A message written in fire and blood, sent to every merchant who thinks they can operate outside our sphere. 'Pirate attacks' are not clean. They are massacres. Everyone on that ship is a witness. Everyone is a liability."
He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "We will do whatever is needed to complete the mission. That is the only principle that matters out there on the water. There is no room for sentiment. It gets men killed. If you have a problem with that, stay here. But if you step onto that ship, you are a tool of the Baron's will. Nothing more. Your conscience is a luxury you drowned the moment you helped kill that traitor's sister."
The words were a deliberate jab, a reminder of the moral line Lutz had already crossed, the line Karl believed had been erased forever. He was testing the seams of Lutz's new-found resolve, probing for weakness.
Lutz didn't flinch. He met Karl's gaze, his gray-blue eyes like chips of winter ice. He didn't argue. He didn't justify. He simply absorbed the rebuke and filed it away. Karl saw a tool. Lutz saw a necessary evil, for now, there would be carnage on that ship no matter if he went or not, so he wished that his presence could at least control the damage, soon there would be no more ships rampaged by the Vipers.
"Understood," Lutz said, the single word offering no concession, only an acknowledgment of the order. He had stated his position; it had been rejected. The matter was closed. For now.
Karl held his gaze for a moment longer, then gave a sharp, single nod. He turned and raised his voice, a crack of command that silenced the remaining chatter. "Move out! To the docks! The sea waits for no one, and neither does our fortune!"
The Vipers streamed out of the warehouse, a river of dark intent flowing into the foggy night. The walk to the docks was a silent, grim procession. The usual sounds of the harbor at night seemed muted, as if the city itself was holding its breath.
Docked at a secluded wharf was the Viper's Fang. She was a predator of a ship: medium-small, with a lean, black-hulled profile that seemed to swallow the lamplight. Her lines were clean and fast, built for speed and surprise over capacity. Two masts were rigged with dark sails, currently furled, and her deck, though weathered, was clear of clutter, a platform for violence. She was perfect for an operation like this—a blade to be thrust into the side of a larger, slower prey.
They boarded quickly and efficiently. The gangplank was hauled in, ropes were cast off, and with the help of a grumbling steam-tug, the Viper's Fang was guided out of the crowded harbor and into the open, dark expanse of the sea.
The transition was immediate. The relative shelter of the port vanished, replaced by the vast, chilling emptiness of the ocean. The fog was thinner here, but the night was deep, the moon a smudge behind high clouds. The only sounds were the creak of the ship's timbers, the splash of water against the hull, and the snap of the sails as they were unfurled and caught the wind. The Fang leaned into the breeze, coming alive, a hound unleashed.
Lutz stood at the port railing, his hands resting on the worn wood, his senses extended. The salt spray stung his face. He could feel the thrum of the ship through his palms, the living pulse of a vessel built for one purpose. He reached into his belt pouch, his fingers brushing against the cloth-wrapped form of Umbra. He put it on, the world gained a faint, shimmering texture. He could feel the low, animal fear of the men around him, the focused, burning intensity of Karl near the helm, and the vast, ancient indifference of the sea itself.
For an hour, they sailed, a shadow on a dark canvas. Then, a low call came from the crow's nest.
"Ship! Starboard bow! Two points off!"
All eyes turned. In the distance, a constellation of lights resolved into the shape of a much larger vessel. It was a merchantman, moving with a steady, ponderous grace. The Ocean Snake's Bane.
Karl raised a spyglass, his form silhouetted against the faint glow of the distant ship's running lights. "That's her," he confirmed, his voice carrying easily over the deck. "Ready the grapnels. Weapons at the ready. Remember, no calls, no warnings. We hit fast, we hit hard, and we leave nothing but splinters and silence."
The respectful glances the Vipers had given Lutz on land were gone now, replaced by the blank, focused faces of killers preparing for work. They checked their cutlasses and pistols, their earlier nervousness hardened into a brutal anticipation.
Lutz remained at the railing, watching the lights of the Ocean Snake's Bane grow slowly larger. He pulled the broader knife from its sheath, checking its edge by touch alone. Then he drew Creed. The rose-tinted metal seemed to drink the ambient light, and he felt the familiar surge of enhanced strength and sharpened senses. The faint, unwelcome stir of lust was there, a distracting static, but he pushed it down, a rock in a river of emotion.
He had his principles. Karl had his orders. The sea had its own, older laws. Soon, they would all collide. He slid one of the dry sausages from his pocket and took a methodical bite, chewing the tough, salty meat as he watched their prey, his hunger a practical problem to be solved before the real work began.
The Viper's Fang cut through the black water like a blade, closing the distance to the lumbering Ocean Snake's Bane with silent, predatory intent. The plan was simple, brutal, and reliant on shock and awe. The initial strike would decapitate the merchantman's leadership, sowing panic and confusion before the Vipers even set foot on her deck.
Lutz stood poised at the railing, the world sharpened by the grip he maintained on Creed. The enhanced senses made every detail scream: the individual planks on the merchant ship's hull, the faint shouts of her crew carried on the wind, the silhouette of a large, broad-shouldered man standing defiantly at the ship's stern—the captain. He was a statue of resolve against the backdrop of his illuminated ship, a perfect target.
Karl, standing amidships, was the spark. He didn't shout, he didn't gesture. He simply raised a hand, palm open. The air around it shimmered with heat haze, and with a sound like tearing canvas, a spear of condensed, red-hot flame roared into existence. It was a thing of terrible beauty, a manifestation of pure, destructive will. With a flick of his arm, Karl hurled it.
The fire-spear tore through the night, a comet of annihilation aimed directly at the merchant captain's chest. It was the opening move of their bloody play, the signal for the entire operation.
It never landed.
In the heartbeat before impact, the air around the captain congealed. A wave of absolute, profound cold erupted from him, visible as a shimmering, blue-white aura. The very moisture in the air flash-froze, creating a brief, beautiful, and terrifying cloud of ice crystals. The blazing spear of fire, a manifestation of enough heat to melt steel, flew into this domain and died. It didn't sputter or fade; it was instantly encased in a tomb of solid ice, the flame frozen in a perfect, impossible sculpture of its own fury. The frozen spear clattered harmlessly to the deck at the captain's feet and shattered.
The silence that followed was louder than any explosion.
On the Viper's Fang, the eager bloodlust of the Vipers curdled into stunned disbelief. Karl, for the first time Lutz had ever seen, looked genuinely shocked. His analytical composure cracked, revealing a sliver of raw, professional surprise. "Impossible..." he breathed, the word a ghost on the sea wind.
Lutz's own mind reeled. He had seen Karl's fire burn through stone and metal. To see it extinguished so absolutely, so… effortlessly, was a fundamental rewriting of the power scale he understood.
Instinct took over. His left hand darted to his belt, pulling the cloth-wrapped Umbra from its pouch. He didn't care about the whispers, not now. He shoved the ring onto his finger.
The world screamed.
The psychic cacophony of two dozen panicking, violent men assaulted his mind, a wave of raw, chaotic emotion. But beneath it, through the filter of the ring's enhanced perception, he felt something else. Something that made his blood run colder than the captain's frost.
Standing beside the imposing captain was another presence. It was faint, a shimmer of spiritual energy so cold it felt like a void in the fabric of reality. It had no heat, no life, only a relentless, draining cold. It wasn't human. It was a… thing. A silhouette of frozen death.
"Karl!" Lutz's voice cut through the stunned silence, sharp and urgent. He didn't take his eyes off the spirit. "There's something else! A spirit, right beside him! Its aura… it's pure ice. It's not him; it's the thing with him!"
Karl's head snapped towards Lutz, then back to the merchant captain, his eyes narrowing with furious calculation. He saw the man standing firm, but now he was looking for the puppet master, the source of the power. His mind, a library of Beyonder knowledge, raced through pathways and sequences.
A spirit that commanded cold. A power that could snuff out a Sequence 7 Pyromaniac's fire so completely. The pieces clicked into a horrifying, logical whole.
"Corpse Collector Pathway?" Karl hissed, a question laced with dawning dread. It was a pathway that dealt with spirits, the dead, and the profound cold of the grave. This wasn't a simple guard; this was a master and his otherworldly hound.
There was no more time for analysis. The momentum of the Viper's Fang carried them forward relentlessly. The distance vanished. With a grinding, splintering crash that shuddered through both vessels, the two ships collided. Wood screamed against wood, the Fang's reinforced prow digging into the merchantman's hull.
The sound broke the spell of shock.
"BOARD!" Karl roared, his voice a blast of fire and command, shattering the paralysis of his men. "Take the ship! Kill anyone who resists!"
The Vipers erupted into a frenzy, their fear transmuted back into violence by the familiar call to action. Grapnel hooks flew through the air, biting into the Ocean Snake's Bane's railings. With guttural yells, they began to swarm across, cutlasses and axes gleaming in the lamplight.
The battle for the ship had begun, but the real fight, Lutz knew, had already shifted. This was no longer a simple pirate raid. It was a Beyonder conflict, and they were on the enemy's chosen ground, facing a power they had not anticipated. He tightened his grip on Creed, the rose-tinted steel feeling like the only thing of warmth in a world suddenly gone cold with the chill of the grave. The principle echoed in his mind, more urgent than ever: The Take is Never Worth the Fall. He just had to figure out what the "Fall" here truly was, before it consumed them all.