The Savu Sea grew eerily still. The crowd hushed, holding its collective breath.
Queen Kadita stood tall upon the ocean surface, bare feet resting as though the waves were glass. Her long hair swayed with the breeze, her eyes fixed on the woman across from her. She carried herself like divinity incarnate, untouchable, certain.
Across the water, Artemisia I of Caria stood at the prow of her warship, the massive vessel creaking and steadying itself against the tide. She gripped the railing, her expression sharp, every inch the seasoned commander who had survived countless battles.
The distance between them buzzed with tension.
Kadita voice calm, tinged with disdain,
"You've sailed into waters that do not belong to you. This sea answers to me, and me alone. A soldier, a commander… What are you compared to a queen?"
The crowd gasped at her arrogance, while Hans chuckled from his throne.
Artemisia lips curling into a cold smirk,
"Queens drown just the same as sailors. And gods? They bleed like anyone else. Remember this Queen, underestimating me will be your first mistake… and your last."
Kadita's eyes narrowed. The ocean beneath her feet rippled violently, sensing her mood.
Artemisia's hand tightened around her blade, her ship's oars hammering the sea in rhythm, like the heartbeat of war.
Rumpelstiltskin screeching from above,
"OHOHO, AND THERE IT IS! The first sparks of hate! The air is thick with it! The ocean ITSELF quivers!"
Suddenly, Kadita raised her arm. A towering wave surged behind her, coiling like a serpent ready to strike. With a flick of her wrist, the water lunged forward, a roaring wall aiming to crush Artemisia's ship.
But Artemisia did not flinch. She drew her xiphos and barked a command. Her warship groaned, its sails snapping, and the massive vessel cut through the wave, splitting the attack in half with its sheer momentum. The crowd screamed in shock.
Artemisia leapt from the deck, landing gracefully on the ship's extended beam, blade glinting.
"You'll need more than pretty waves to sink me!"
Suddenly, Artemisia pointed her blade towards Kadita. With a sharp gesture, she summoned her crew of spectral warriors, phantoms of her past fleet, who appeared at the oars and rigging, their ghostly cries filling the air as the trireme lurched forward, aiming to ram Kadita directly.
The sea cracked open with fury. Kadita's laughter echoed like the tide itself.
"Very well… then let us see if a mortal storm can outlast the wrath of the sea itself!"
The first clash began ship against tide, steel against wave, the arena erupting in chaos as the two sea sovereigns unleashed their power.
Humanity including Noah and Lucianne looks into the ghost naval fleet of Artemisia with such surprise. Doesn't know that Artemisia have the ability to summon back her ship crew in a phantom form.
Both Artemisia warship and Kadita waves rush toward each other for their first clash.
BOOOM!
The Savu Sea exploded into chaos.
Kadita's laughter turned into a chilling hymn, her voice resonating across the waters. The sea began to churn violently, spirals forming beneath her bare feet. From the depths, monstrous shapes emerged like serpents of water and scaled leviathans born of her will, their eyes glowing with sea-green light. They circled her protectively, hissing and screeching like heralds of the Southern Queen's wrath.
Kadita commanding the newly formed Sea Beast,
"Drown them."
The beasts lunged forward, waves towering alongside them.
But Artemisia's gaze was razor-sharp. She raised her blade and slammed it against her shield, the sound echoing like thunder across the sea. At once, her phantom crew roared, shades of warriors who had once rowed under her flag. Their voices carried the memory of countless battles, their hands pulling invisible oars.
Her warship's sails flared unnaturally, filled by winds no mortal could summon. It surged like a beast unchained, the ghostly crew manning ballistae and hurling flaming spectral bolts into the leviathans.
The projectiles tore through the beasts of water, evaporating them into bursts of mist.
Kadita's eyes widened slightly. "Not bad…"
But Artemisia was relentless. She guided her trireme with precise hand signals, each movement of her crew executed with military perfection. Her ship sliced through the waters like a dagger, its bronze-plated ramming prow aimed directly at Kadita.
At the last instant, Kadita lifted her arms and shouted a command. A whirlpool opened beneath her, swallowing the incoming ship's momentum. The massive trireme tilted dangerously, its crew struggling to keep balance as the ship's bow dipped toward the abyss.
Rumpelstiltskin nearly falling from his balloon,
"WHIRLPOOLS! SERPENTS! A SPECTRAL FLEET! OHHHH THIS IS MADNESS! This is no longer a duel, this is the duel of RANDOM BULLSHIT GO!!!"
Kadita walked calmly atop the raging whirlpool as though it were solid ground, her hair floating unnaturally around her head. She raised her hand again, summoning a colossal tidal wave behind her, one so large it eclipsed the horizon.
But Artemisia standing on the slanted deck simply smirked.
"You think drowning me in your waters will break me? I was born for storms, Kadita!"
She raised her blade high. The spectral crew cried in unison, and phantom triremes erupted from the sea, dozens of them, forming a ghostly fleet around her flagship. Their hulls gleamed with an ethereal light, their rams pointed outward like an iron wall of death.
The crowd went mad with humans and fairy tales alike.
Hans leaned forward with wicked delight, while Leo's eyes finally gleamed with interest.
Noah and Lucianne clenched their fists in awe and fear.
For the first time since the duel began, both queens showed their full hand.
Kadita, Goddess of the Southern Sea with her endless tides and monsters and
Artemisia, Sea Empress of Caria commanding a fleet that defied death itself.
The waters of the Savu Sea quaked as their armies clashed.
Leo with a questioning tone, seeing that Artemisia, a mere mortal human can summon her phantom trimeres from the deep sea casually.
"That naval lady sure is an interesting one among all the humans. How can she obtain such power?"
Hans, his younger brother replied,
"I DON'T CARE! JUST KILL EACH OTHER ALREADY! YAHOOO!!"
Leo just smirked and just shook his head seeing his younger brother maniacal attitude.
Kadita then starts commanding his waves to form big waves the size of a tsunami. The sea trembled. Kadita's tidal wave finally came crashing down, its mass blotting out the sun as it thundered toward Artemisia's flagship. The force was devastating, a wall of water that could swallow nations whole.
Artemisia braced, shield raised, shouting commands in her native tongue. Her phantom fleet surged forward to intercept, but the sheer power of the Southern Queen was overwhelming. The wave struck like the wrath of gods.
The ship buckled. Deck planks split and snapped. The illusory triremes around her shattered into mist under the crushing tide. Artemisia herself was thrown across the deck, slamming into the mast, her armor scraping against the splintering wood.
Blood spilled from her lips. The audience gasped this was a blow that should have ended it.
Kadita, floating serenely above the chaos, her dress never touching the water, smirked with quiet pride.
Kadita calmly, almost cold,
"Do you see now? The Southern Sea does not forgive trespassers. Your courage is wasted here."
But instead of despair, laughter echoed from the ruined deck. A deep, unyielding laugh that silenced even the crashing waves.
Artemisia pushed herself up with trembling arms, blood trailing down her chin. Her phantom crew reappeared, flickering but rallying to her side as if her defiance breathed life back into them. She planted her blade into the deck, using it as support, and grinned at Kadita with fire in her eyes.
"You strike like a queen, Kadita… but I am Queen like you but the difference is I am also a commander. I've fought storms fiercer than you, and men crueler than the sea itself. You think this will break me?"
She spat blood into the water, then roared,
"I SWEAR! EVEN IF I STAND ALONE WITHOUT A SINGLE SHIP LEFT… I WILL MAKE YOU BLEED!"
The phantom fleet cheered like thunder, their ghostly voices shaking the sky.
Rumpelstiltskin, losing his mind in his hot-air balloon,
"WHAT IS THIS?! A QUEEN AGAINST A COMMANDER, NEITHER YIELDING, NEITHER FALTERING! BLOOD HAS BEEN DRAWN, BUT SPIRIT? SPIRIT IS LIMITLESS!"
Noah and Lucianne exchanged a look of awe.
Hans licked his lips with excitement, and Leo's stoic face betrayed the faintest grin.
The battle was only just beginning
a goddess who commands the tides versus a mortal woman whose courage turns storms into allies.
Kadita looks at Artemisia from the top of a tall wave.
"What a crazy lady, you are. How foolish, this will be the end of you!"
Artemisia with a bloody smile starts standing up and ready in a fighting stance.
"You are actually the fool between the both of us."
Suddenly…
The sea roared with restless fury, but Artemisia roared louder. Her phantom fleet swelled, reforming despite the devastation, their ghostly sails cracking in the wind. With a guttural war cry, she launched herself from the ruined deck, landing hard onto another phantom trireme. Then another. Each landing shook like a war drum. She is moving like she doesn't get hit from a critical damage minutes ago.
While she jumped across ships, she also used her bow and arrows and shot it towards Kadita. Kadita blocks every shot with walls created by sea waters.
Kadita's brow furrowed.
"How…? She should barely be standing. No mortal body could endure my tide."
Yet Artemisia pressed forward, leaping ship to ship, closing the gap between them with impossible resolve. Her body was battered, ribs screaming in protest but her mind was sharper than the blade in her hand.
On the third leap, her voice carried over the waves.
Artemisia shouting,
"Do you wonder how I move, Queen of the South? How do I defy the pain? It is because I've lived through storms harsher than the sea itself!"
The ghost fleet parted, revealing sea beasts in the form of serpents, eels, and sharks, rising from the depths under Kadita's command. The audience gasped as Kadita's watery kingdom sent forth its horrors.
But Artemisia's fleet, though made of phantom light, surged forward in unison. Ballistae turned downward, chains glowing as if blessed by her spirit, and fired into the depths. The spectral projectiles pierced through the waves, entangling and binding the sea beasts, holding them back just long enough for their queen to advance.
Artemisia kept leaping, her shield raised high, her blade gleaming and she shot her arrow until none of them left.
But, one of the arrows broke through Kadita's wall of water and almost hit her directly in the face but got caught by one of the wave tentacles that Kadita created.
That shocked Kadita so badly and for the first time after thousands of years, she almost tasted death.
And with every step closer Artemisia takes to get closer to Kadita, her voice wove her story into the salt-filled air.
"I was a wife once… My husband was taken from me before his time. They thought grief would drown me, but grief became my anchor. I turned to the sea, not to escape… but to rule!", coming from a voice that was hidden deep inside of The Queen of Halicarnassus.
Another leap. Another strike against a beast's thrashing maw. She slashed, landed, and pressed forward.
"They called me reckless, unfit to command but I showed them a woman's fire can match any man's. When Persia called, I led five ships against a thousand and made the Aegean tremble! Even Xerxes himself praised my brilliance!"
By now she was only two ships away. Her phantom fleet had encircled Kadita's waters, binding the queen's beasts and straining the tides. Kadita, though still regal, finally clenched her jaw.
Artemisia's final leap landed her at the prow of her closest ghost ship, sword raised, eyes like burning coals.
Artemisia then shouted,
"I am Artemisia I of Caria, Queen of Halicarnassus. The Naval Commander of the Ancient Greek! And no sea, not yours, not anyone's that will ever drown me!"
The phantom fleet howled as if her words alone had given them life.
Rumpelstiltskin's voice cracked as he shrieked into the air:
"BY THE GODS! SHE TURNS HER INJURY INTO FURY, HER PAIN INTO POWER! WILL THE SEA EMPRESS STRIKES BACK!"
The last ghost ship beneath Artemisia's boots dissolved into foam, carrying her momentum forward like the final push of a tidal wave. With a roar that shook the sky, she leapt directly at Kadita—sword raised, shield braced.
Kadita's eyes widened.
"So reckless…!"
The queen raised her hand, and a pillar of water surged upward like a serpent, coiling to crush the mortal commander. But Artemisia wasn't aiming to outmatch Kadita's raw power.
Mid-air, she braced her shield against the surge. The impact cracked her bronze armor, blood spattering as the force tried to hurl her back but Artemisia roared and redirected the momentum. With sheer grit and a commander's precision, she used the wave's own push to hurl herself faster toward Kadita.
She landed on the water itself, her phantom fleet supporting her by getting rid of the Sea Beast created by Kadita. For the first time, she was within striking distance of the Southern Queen.
Artemisia's blade cut through the salty air, a diagonal slash aimed for Kadita's midsection.
Kadita tried to parry, her trident of water spiraling into existence, but Artemisia's strike landed first-
a brutal cut across Kadita's side.
Blood misted into the sea.
The entire arena gasped. The queen of the southern seas, wounded on her own throne of water.
Kadita staggered back, her poise finally cracking, fury flashing across her perfect face.
Artemisia pressed forward, teeth bared, eyes wild.
Artemisia, snarling through blood.
"You call this your domain? Then bleed with it!"
She bashed her shield forward, hammering Kadita's guard, then struck again. Sparks and water sprayed with every clash.
From the VIP stands, Hans was on the edge of his seat, his manic grin slipping.
"Impossible… how is a human commander cutting her down in her own sea?!"
Leo remained still, though his eyes gleamed like sharpened steel.
"This one… this Artemisia… she's more dangerous than she appears."
On the human side, Noah grabbed Lucianne's hand, trembling with awe.
"She's not just fighting Kadita. She's commanding the whole battle itself."
Lucianne whispered, her eyes wide:
"She fights like the ocean listens to her."
At that moment, Artemisia raised her sword high, her phantom fleet echoing her cry as if a thousand ghostly voices spoke through her.
"This sea may be yours, Kadita… but today, it is my battlefield!"
And with a furious strike, she aimed to drive her blade once more into the Southern Queen.
But, this time it was blocked by the Kadita shell trident and with a little bit more energy, she pushed herself away from Artemisia to give her a little bit of distance.
The damage that Artemisia make towards her body was shocking to her but, there are something that shocked her more than Artemisia's strike.
Kadita's eyes widened, her grip on her trident faltering for just a breath. She had never once imagined anyone could stand upon her summoned tides without her blessing.
"Impossible…" she whispered, voice carried away by the crashing waves.
Artemisia smirked, her eyes sharp and burning with a queen's defiance.
"Do not mistake me for a fragile widow washed away by fate. I was a commander before I was ever a queen. A queen before I was ever a widow. And above all…"
She pressed her foot firmer into the rolling water, the wave rising beneath her as if lifting her stature, "…the sea knows rulers. It respects them, even if reluctantly."
Kadita felt her chest tighten, not out of fear, but disbelief. This was her ocean, her living extension, yet somehow Artemisia walked across the water as though invited.
Artemisia pointed her blade at Kadita, eyes glowing with fury and dignity. "On ordinary waters, perhaps I would sink. But on yours? These sentient tides know the weight of a crown… and they know I carry one as well."
The sea hissed and howled around them, torn between two sovereigns. Kadita clenched her jaw, shaking her head.
"You dare to claim equality with me? With the Queen of the Sea itself?"
Artemisia's lips curled into a half-smile, half-snarling challenge. "Not equality, Kadita. Rivalry. Today, the sea will witness which queen it truly bows to."
With that, Artemisia lunged forward, her blade slicing down as the waves themselves quivered in conflicted reverence, caught between two monarchs who demanded its loyalty.