Jormun walked over to Leon and the fire mage, now separated by a wall of water that no one else could’ve conjured.

“You’ve really caught me flat-footed here, haven’t you?” he said with a hateful smile on his face, an expression that Leon found quite unsettling, having until this day never seen the man without anything other than the smug smile of someone who was in complete control over the situation he found himself in.

“Looks like I rattled you a bit…” Leon said with a wry grin.

For a moment, he was confused as to why Jormun was ignoring the battle around them in favor of coming to him, but a quick pulse of magic senses at the ship told him exactly why: Jormun had conjured a massive wave of water to lift the ship up and above the war galleys. It was a startling display of power, especially so since Jormun hardly seemed fazed by it, even having the spare power to separate Leon and the fire mage and speak like nothing at all was happening. Leon was no expert in such things, having met so few seventh-tier mages, but what Jormun was doing didn’t seem to be possible with only seventh-tier power.

What was even stranger was the fact that, despite everything going on, and in contrast to all of his fellow pirates, Jormun wore no armor, merely a long-sleeved grey tunic and a pair of black trousers.

“Just a little bit,” Jormun replied, his statement punctuated by the sounds of more Legion artillery smashing against the hull of the ship. “My ship is strong and sturdy, this is nothing. I will escape this measly trap and continue with my work.”

“Or you’ll die here…” Leon said as he slightly adjusted his stance, lowering his center of gravity in preparation for a blazing-quick charge.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Jormun said as he pulled back his left sleeve, revealing a dreadful thing: a black bracelet, made of what looked to Leon like onyx or some other shiny black material, and set with half a dozen sparkling black crystals, two of which were lit up like stars to both his eyes and his magic senses, showing a truly tremendous amount of power contained within.

Leon charged. Whatever Jormun was doing, Leon didn’t want him to continue. He didn’t commit wholly to the strike, allowing room for him to fall back if Jormun did anything, but a moment later, another wall of water erupted from the deck and hurled Leon back like he was a sack of potatoes.

Leon was back on his feet almost instantly—just in time for the two crystals on Jormun’s bracelet to flash with strange black light, and a second later, for the ocean around the Legion ships to begin to vibrate.

“What did you do?!” Leon shouted, hoping his voice carried through the water wall.

“Broken your blockade!” Jormun shouted back.

A moment later, a massive tentacle burst from the ocean, thicker than Leon’s body was long, covered in dark green scales and thousands of tiny suckers. It wrapped around a war galley that was coming perilously close to Jormun’s ship, and with a tremendous flex, snapped the ship in half.

The war galley was, rather obviously, built for battle, and so had extremely robust defensive wards. Leon knew them to be even hardier than the temporary forts that the Legion would raise when they were on the march, though perhaps not quite as sturdy as a more permanent fortress.

Still, none of those wards made a lick of difference as the galley was squeezed like an overripe banana, crushed, bent, and dragged down into the deep.

It took no more than a couple of seconds, and an entire Legion war galley was gone. Leon could do nothing more than stare in sudden primordial terror as he suddenly realized his position. He could still remember the chilling gaze of the kraken he’d made eye contact with at the second island, and Leon’s killing intent was immediately halved as horror filled his mind.

A moment later, another tentacle burst out of the ocean, and another Legion war galley was dragged down, sailors and marines and all.

The rest of the Legion ships then reacted, with the smaller ships that survived Jormun’s initial waves scattering and those Legion ships armed with ballistae turned their weapons and harpoons downward to face the threat beneath the waves.

The war galleys closest to Jormun’s ship, however, stayed their course, riding up the wave he’d conjured to keep his ship away from them, their rams closing with Jormun’s hull and about to hit—

Jormun’s Flame Lances roared to life, spewing nightmarish amounts of flame at the nearest ship, bathing it and its crew in power enough to almost immediately disable it. The galley’s wards collapsed as the bodies of the crew on the main deck practically shattered from the heat, and its speed plummeted as the magic engines shut down.

Jormun’s ship sailed right through the Legion lines, spewing fire and covered by the krakens. The Legion couldn’t stop him.

Leon could only partially watch, for he quickly turned his attention back to Jormun. The pirate hadn’t used Leon’s moment of weakness against him, merely standing there on the other side of the watery curtain, his smile slowly turning into one of triumph.

“I have a god on my side, Leon!” Jormun shouted, punctuating his statement with a cackling laugh. “You never had a chance! Call this a victory if you like, but you can’t stop me! Not when I am a conduit for its power!”

Leon swung his blade, sending a bolt of lightning careening into the water wall. Leon cut right through, flash-boiling away enough that, if he timed a jump exactly right, he might be able to get through and attack Jormun without trying to jump over. But that was a risky move… Leon didn’t know what to do. He could stay and fight and try to end things here, but without Legion support, Leon wasn’t sure how much more he could do. The light mage was dead, and he’d managed to fend off the female fire mage for a time, but Leon could feel the strain of the day’s battle settling in. He couldn’t go on like this for much longer.

But there wasn’t anywhere else he could really go right now; he was on board an enemy ship, and krakens were in the water. He certainly wasn’t swimming away.

There were a few Legion ships nearby, though…

Suddenly an explosion rocked the back of the ship, and Leon turned his attention in that direction. About three or four hundred feet behind and above the ship flew Anzu and Alix, still hot on the ship’s tail. Alix had just hit the ship with an explosive arrow and was already drawing another back in her bow.

Leon scowled deeply; Jormun was right here, right in front of him! But the titanic aura the man exuded spoke volumes about how much power he could still command, even while maintaining the colossal wave that propelled the ship onwards at great speed.

Still, appearances could be deceiving, and as Alix’s second arrow sprayed fire all over the rear of Jormun’s ship, Leon raised his blade and began to channel his magic through it, letting the Adamant of the blade take the power and strengthen it, amplifying it, and releasing it.

A stream of silver-blue lightning erupted from Leon’s blade and sliced clean through Jormun’s water wall. However, as Leon swung his blade, Jormun raised his arm and snapped his fingers, and a serpent made of water that eerily resembled one of Maia’s water dragons erupted from the ocean and interposed itself between Leon and Jormun, letting his lightning strike its head, flow through its body, and dissipate out into the ocean through the serpent’s tail.

Leon pushed and pushed, stretching his power to its limits, but it was futile. A few seconds later, having done nothing to destroy that serpent, Leon stopped and hurled himself back, Jormun’s laughter ringing in his ears even as the female fire mage stared death at him, still behind her water wall.

“I’m not going to kill you, Leon!” Jormun shouted. “I’ll see you further on!”

Leon gritted his teeth, but he could feel his limbs slowly getting heavier. He was running low on magic power, and he needed to find a way out of here as soon as possible. In the distance, he could see Sigebert’s flagship and several other large Legion ships moving rapidly in their direction, but they weren’t going to beat Jormun’s ship anytime soon. Leon could do only one thing, and he did it without any more hesitation, leaping with as much power as he could spare at the moment.

His blade vanished back into his soul realm as he extended his arm, placing himself completely at the mercy of his griffin and former squire a few hundred feet behind Jormun’s ship. Even with all of his power, he couldn’t jump quite so far, and if Anzu wasn’t able to close that gap, then… he supposed he’d have to very quickly start swimming toward the nearest Legion ship.

Fortunately, Anzu squawked in panic, and with a mighty beat of his wings that practically sent a shockwave through the air behind him as he invoked his air magic, he closed with Leon. Alix then reached out for him as he was about to sail past, and their hands made contact.

For a brief moment, with all the sea spray and the sweat of the battles, Leon thought he was going to slide right through her grasp, but she squeezed his hand until he started to lose feeling in his fingers and pulled with a tremendous roar of exertion. With one hand, she caught Leon and hauled him onto Anzu’s back.

“You reckless bastard!” Alix shouted, to Leon’s mild amusement. “Are you ever going to stop doing ** like that?!”

Leon could only shrug before turning his attention back to the battle at hand.

Jormun was still standing upon the deck of his ship, grinning like a madman at Leon as his ship rocketed away, buoyed as it was by the gigantic wave that Jormun had summoned. Behind them lay the Legion ships, many of them still reeling from Jormun’s breakthrough and the appearance of the terrifyingly-strong krakens. Most of the war galleys were ponderously turning around to try and give chase, but Leon knew that it was futile. They weren’t even close to being quick enough to catch the ship of a seventh-tier water mage on the open ocean.

It hurt to admit, but Leon knew that the battle was over. Jormun was effectively home-free, and not even the might of the Legion dreadnoughts was going to stop that.

It was a tactical victory, and one reinforced when Leon saw one of Jormun’s krakens already being hauled out of the water, its body acting as a pincushion for dozens of gigantic harpoons. They’d killed many of Jormun’s pirates, and lost a comparatively small number of marines, sailors, and ships in the process. Leon had even killed Jormun’s seventh-tier light mage.

However, they’d failed to achieve their aim: Jormun had managed to escape the battle, and now, he knew they were onto him. Leon couldn’t imagine he was going to be screwing around with them anymore.

But, for all that, Leon took some consolation in knowing that his tracking arrow was still embedded in the hull of the pirate’s ship. For how much longer that could go on, he couldn’t say—at some point, Jormun would have to find it and do something about it—but for now, Jormun couldn’t get far.

—

Leon and Alix landed upon the deck of Sigebert’s flagship and were immediately greeted by the frustrated faces of the comrades they’d left behind. Maia was, perhaps, the most subdued of them all, but Leon could feel her displeasure at having been left behind. Given how active the female fire mage had been, though, he was glad he didn’t put her at risk by bringing her along.

Leon and Gaius then went to Sigebert so that Leon could give the Fleet Legate an update, while Alix and Anzu rested with the others back on the deck. By the end of the report, Sigebert had come to the uncomfortable conclusion that they couldn’t immediately pursue Jormun, not with the casualties they’d taken. They’d need several long hours before the fleet could regroup and tend to their wounded, as well as investigate the caves that Alix had caused to collapse—Alix had already told Leon that there were several pirate ships in each of the caves, so they were probably already hard at work trying to dig themselves free of the cave-ins that she’d subjected them to.

However, Sigebert agreed with Leon that they had to pursue Jormun as soon as was feasible. They weren’t sticking around the fourth island for long. Dealing with its inhabitants was Basina and Theuderic’s job. Sigebert would send them a report of what happened, but then it was back to the pursuit.

When he left the command tower, Leon found himself strangely grinning. Sure, it hadn’t been the win he’d wanted, but the next time would be different, and they’d at least made some progress this time. Jormun had eaten more losses today than he had in any of their other engagements.

‘Yes…’ Leon thought to himself as he stared Jormun’s ship miles in the distance, still riding that wave that was putting ever more distance between them, ‘I’ll get you next time…’

—

“Move quickly!” Jormun shouted as his crew streamed off his ship and onto the desolate spit of rock to the southeast of the final island in the Serpentine island chain. They weren’t going to any of the Islander settlements on this island, their business was not with the humans of the island. Instead, their goal was on this barren mountain rising out of the sea—or perhaps ‘rock’ might’ve been a better word for it, for to call it a mountain would be generous to the point of charity.

But it was here, at a small flat platform at the rock’s base that Jormun knew he had to perform the final ritual. Everything had already been prepared, there was just one more step, and then he could finally return to the place of his dreams for the last time, to the place where he’d first heard the Serpent whisper into his mind, the place where he began this journey that would culminate in his rise to divinity.

Jormun quashed those thoughts. This wasn’t the time to be distracted by yearning and nostalgia, not when he was so close. Not when everything had nearly been derailed by the Bull Kingdom acting with uncharacteristic decisiveness.

Pulling him out of his quiet reverie, Friga came walking down the gangplank to stand next to him, her wild bright red hair matted and damp from the spray of the ocean, her usual exuberance equally dampened.

“… Andoral’s dead,” she whispered in pain. “Rolf’s not looking much better. That Leon Raime did a real number on a lot of us…”

As she spoke Leon’s name, her tone turned bitter and resentful, and her aura was laced with a considerable amount of killing intent.

Jormun did his best to look apologetic and sorrowful, and he laid his hand upon her shoulder, but his insincerity must have been a little too obvious, for Friga brushed his hand away and growled, “Andoral’s dead! And you don’t even look like you care!”

“Andoral was my friend!” Jormun growled back as he pushed Friga away from the end of the gangplank and closer to the edge of the ocean, where they could talk with a little more privacy. Jormun could feel many eyes upon them, and many an ear, as well. “I care plenty, don’t you ever question that!”

“It might do you well to show it, then!” Friga shot back. “We just got torn apart out there! How many ships did we lose? Twenty? More? How many krakens do you have left? And then Andoral… Rolf…”

“We’ve taken losses,” Jormun admitted, though his patience was being tested, “but our holy mission must continue. Those who gave their lives did so in support of this quest. The Serpent will be released, and we will be rewarded as we deserve! It hurts to know that we’ve lost those we care about, but I’m focusing on this mission to honor their sacrifice, and to ensure that it wasn’t in vain! The Bull is after us, now, with the color red filling its eyes. Our losses were severe, but hardly crippling, so we must move with haste, or all will be lost.”

Jormun wanted nothing to do with any of this. If he could slaughter the rest of his crew and just be done with them, he thought that he would in a heartbeat with how patience was being tested. It would be so much easier than having to deal with their meaningless opinions when there was still work to be done.

But, alas, they still had their uses, and he couldn’t just get rid of them yet. And that meant he still had to play the part expected of him.

Jormun took a deep breath, and then softened his tone, though he spoke with a tone so sincere that he was certain he could even fool a god.

“This was a bad day, Friga. No doubt about that.”

Jormun knew that wasn’t true, everything that had been lost was insignificant to him. Pieces that had their uses and had been expended well. However, their loss did mean that the game was coming to an end…

“We need to buckle down and finish this. Vengeance will come after, once the Serpent has been released and we’ve been rewarded for our service. They’ll chase us, that’ll be our time.”

Friga sighed, and for the first time since he’d met her all those years ago, practically buried in the hold of a trade ship she’d stowed away on as it left Kraterok, she looked defeated.

“I’m with you,” she whispered. “Others might not be. Promises are one thing. Nearly all of the crew are true believers, and they won’t leave for any reason. Others bought your promises of the Serpent when you had all five islands in your grasp, a fleet, three krakens, and three seventh-tier mages. You’ve lost so much of the power you once had… many of those who haven’t sailed with you for decades will start deserting come sundown.”

“Kill the first ones that try to desert, that’ll keep the rest in line,” Jormun ruthlessly ordered. He had other orders for her, but as he turned his eyes to the small ship rapidly approaching the island, the words died in his throat as a look of glee momentarily crossed his face. He suppressed that look as quickly as he could—he understood that such unbridled happiness wouldn’t be received well after the beating that his followers had just taken, even if that beating was, in the end, meaningless.

But aboard that ship was the key to the last true hurdle between him and the power that he’d longed for so badly that he’d spilled oceans of blood to acquire it. The power that he’d been denied for no other reason that the weakness of his Ancestors. Once this key was turned, there’d be no stopping him, no matter how fervently the Bull followed him.

Aboard that ship—a small vessel, barely big enough to have a crew of half a dozen—was a man with golden hair, bound and gagged, his eyes filled with hate, but his resistance utterly crushed by the tortures that Jormun had inflicted upon him over the last couple of months.

The Prince that Jormun had stolen from the Bull, and behind him, the rune-inscribed planks he’d be tied to in only a few minutes, and a box filled with the knives that Jormun would need to finish his work. He just had to lift this final seal, and then head south, through the shattered remnants of the Serpent’s Tail, those last three islands in the chain that had been annihilated by the Penitent Paladin all those decades ago.

Leon would follow him, as would the Bull. Leon would follow him right to the doorstep of the Serpent, all of Jormun’s obligations would be met, and his power, so long denied him, would finally be his.