Leon spent a great deal of time speaking with Anshu, and the man gave Leon exactly what he wanted: an explanation as detailed as he could give of Jormun’s specific plans. And they were exactly as ambitiously deranged as Leon had believed. Jormun had promised all of his followers that he was bringing some mythical sea god back from its long imprisonment. Anshu insisted that he was following out of honor for some huge, undefined favor that Jormun had rendered him and that he didn’t believe in all of that religious nonsense.

But there were many among Jormun’s fleet that did.

More concerning was what Anshu revealed would happen on the fifth island: Jormun would sacrifice Octavius at the southernmost place on the island, supposedly where the Three Heroes had struck the Serpent down thousands and thousands of years ago—at least, according to some of the Islander myths they told themselves. Jormun had the crews of his ships believing that once Octavius was sacrificed, the final seals of the Serpent’s cage would be undone, and their god would return to the world of the living. It would cast the entire plane down into the sea, and then make the Islander peoples the rulers of the resulting ocean.

Leon wasn’t sure how much of that he could believe. It sounded a lot like a story that Jormun was using to keep his people in line and believing in his goals. However, Jormun had essentially admitted most of these claims to Leon back in the temple, among a host of other ramblings. What Leon focused on was the bigger piece of information that was easy to lose in the minutiae: Jormun’s people believed that once Octavius had been sacrificed on the fifth island, and all the rest of their seals had been undone, then the release of the Serpent was guaranteed.

And according to Anshu, all the rest of the seals had been undone. Great amounts of blood had been spilled on each island, enough for the power that blood contained to release the great seals that chained the Serpent within its watery prison deep below the islands. Leon felt no small amount of horror when the realization hit that not only had Jormun confessed that this was his plan back in Kraterok—saying it almost off-handedly as Turiel describing ‘rumors’ of Jormun’s activities—but that he’d also gotten the Legion to participate, too. Those blood sacrifices were, in no small part, accomplished thanks to the Legion slaughtering the Islanders who resisted their advance.

Once the interrogation was done, Leon rushed to Sigebert with the knightess right beside him. They gave the Fleet Legate their reports, and Sigebert took them seriously. The fleet was already moving as quickly as they could to the next island, but their course was slightly adjusted to take them directly to the spot Anshu had told them that Octavius was to be sacrificed.

Unfortunately, Leon didn’t think they’d make it in time. Jormun had had more than a day to prepare, and it seemed like this last act needed less prep work than the rest. Only Octavius, with his powerful blood, was needed. Jormun only needed to spend a few minutes on that island, and once it was done, he could go wherever and do anything he felt like. The only saving grace was that Leon’s tracking spell continued to work. It pointed them in the same direction that Anshu had directed them towards, lending further credibility to the man’s words.

And so, they moved as quickly as a couple hundred ships could, hoping against all odds that they might make it in time to stop Jormun and retrieve the Prince he’d stolen.

—

It was a chilly day when Leon stepped out of the rowboat and onto the shore of the fifth island, the last of the Serpentine Isles that had been left intact after the Penitent Paladin had swept through more than half a century ago. Those islands further south were little more than jagged rocks and uninhabitable cliffs, the shattered remains of islands once teeming with life in countless forms.

The fifth island was much like the first four: rocky, and very vertical. There wasn’t much flat land anywhere, and the landscape only grew more broken the further inland it was, being so covered in volcanic mountains and dense jungle. It was beautiful, a vision of a wild paradise that Leon would’ve otherwise spent at least a few minutes admiring.

But he was in no mood for such things. He knew what he was about to see with his own eyes, for he’d already seen it with his magic senses, and it killed any enjoyment he felt at being in a new place so full of wilderness.

As if reflecting Leon’s mood, the sky, which had nearly always been perfectly clear since their arrival, had turned overcast, with dark storm clouds ominously rolling in from the south, the strong winds that brought them howling and screeching in Leon’s ears. The ride from Sigebert’s dreadnought to the shore of the island had been fairly uncomfortable, with the ocean itself seemingly resisting them with powerful waves that battered the rocky coast as if the Endless Ocean were trying to sweep the entire island beneath its surface.

There was a storm coming. Leon could feel it in the core of his being. It was like the big storms that used to stimulate his blood, before he grew powerful enough to ignore their effects.

But this, he couldn’t ignore. His blood sang in the wind, even as dissonant dread settled into his stomach, weighing it down like he’d swallowed a boulder. As he strode across the rocks toward his destination, flanked on both sides by anxious Legion marines, a deadly serious Sigebert, and all of his retinue, silent and looking vaguely disturbed, Leon’s eyes drifted out to sea, where he could see a great sheet of rain more than a dozen miles in the distance, and it was rushing in their direction.

He hoped that this was natural. He hoped this storm didn’t mean anything other than it was simply time for rain—the jungle on the island couldn’t have gotten there without copious amounts of rain, after all.

But Leon knew that this was wishful thinking at best.

Not too far ahead, Leon and the rest of their group could see it, the result of their failure. A figure had been tied to a similar-looking structure—three beams of wood nailed together in a star shape. This figure looked thin, covered in blood, and unmoving. His blond hair was practically plastered against his head by the strength of the wind, while his handsome face was locked in an expression of terrible pain and terror.

It took a few minutes, but soon enough, they drew close enough that even a mortal could’ve clearly recognized the form of Octavius, the Prince that Jormun had kidnapped from his cell in the Royal Dungeons the day before his execution. The Prince that had ordered the death of Trajan, and whose vanity had led to a civil war that led to the deaths of thousands and nearly tore the Bull Kingdom apart.

And here he was, right before their eyes. Leon could see horrendous gashes all over his arms and legs; some that looked practical for the purpose Anshu had described, cutting deep into the Prince to sever critical veins and arteries, while others seemed like they had been inflicted in pointless sadism.

Whatever else he was, Leon knew that Octavius had been a fifth-tier mage. He could’ve survived even a bad cut that severed his most critical arteries, with his natural healing abilities sealing up those wounds before he could bleed out. He would’ve been weakened, but he would’ve survived. But these wounds, Leon guessed, had been slashed open repeatedly, inflicted again and again until the Prince had been completely exsanguinated.

Octavius was now little more than dry meat. His flesh was bone-white, while actual bone was more than visible where it looked like someone had flayed much of his flesh. The only part of his body that seemed intact, lacking any obvious evidence of a wound, was his head. It seemed Jormun wanted him identifiable, for some reason.

But the Prince was dead. He lacked even the tiniest hint of an aura, and he wasn’t breathing. Leon didn’t need to go over there to tell he was dead.

Leon slowly came to a halt on that tiny peninsula, the land bridge behind him so shallow that it would probably be submerged come the rising of the tide. He stared at the Prince, the others slowly stopping just as he did once they caught up to him. A few of the Legion marines swore and decried either Jormun’s barbarity, or his audaciousness in attacking a member of the Bull’s Royal Family. A few averted their gaze. A couple stared in horror or fascination.

Sigebert was one of those who swore aloud and began to walk toward the body, followed closely by several Tribunes.

“That **ing pirate…” the Fleet Legate whispered, his tone shaking with rage and indignity, “when I get a hold of him, I’m going to tear him limb from limb…”

“Wait!” Leon suddenly shouted, causing Sigebert and his followers to immediately pause.

“What is it?” the Fleet Legate asked as he glanced back at Leon.

“After everything we’ve been through, let’s take this a little slower, yeah?” Leon said. They couldn’t move too slowly, his sense of dread grew in proportion with his storm-sense. He occasionally glanced out to the south, in the direction of the shattered islands—and the direction of the incoming storm.

As much as natural storms calmed him, he didn’t want to be outside when this one hit. But there was something about this set-up that disturbed him, and his instincts were screaming at him to take this slowly.

“There’s a strong possibility that the body’s been trapped,” Leon explained, and Sigebert and his people glanced back at Octavius’ corpse before backing away.

“Shit…” Sigebert murmured. He turned to one of the marine Tribunes and ordered, “Get some of your people who specialize in enchantments up here. Be sure they know what they’re dealing with.”

The Tribune scurried off, but Leon didn’t pay him much mind. On first inspection, this tiny peninsula seemed hardly worth noticing at all, and was notable only for the corpse of Octavius that had been left upon it. But the more Leon let his senses wash over the rocks looking for traps, the more he could feel some kind of power lingering within the rocks. It wasn’t much, but it was disturbingly similar to the power he’d felt within the serpent statue back on the second island.

It seemed like this place had been touched by divine power at some point, and that divinity hadn’t yet dissipated into its surroundings.

Or maybe this was lingering power left over from Octavius’ sacrifice. Leon couldn’t be sure, all he knew was that there was power here, and at the very least, it didn’t seem immediately dangerous.

Leon began to slowly walk along the edge of the peninsula as closely as he could. He circled Octavius’ corpse, inspecting it from every angle. His hunting instincts were screaming at him that this was bait, but for all he knew, this could also just be Jormun wanting to send them a message, or a myriad other reasons.

Leon kept his eyes open for anything that seemed hostile—any change in the ambient magic power that would indicate the activation of a trap, both around Octavius and around himself. If he were in Jormun’s shoes, he would’ve not only trapped Octavius’ corpse, but he would’ve laid a few traps around the edge of the peninsula, too, just in case someone tried what he was doing.

But nothing happened. Leon circled the corpse until he could see the back of the crucifix. That was where the enchantments had been placed upon the previous crucified corpses that he’d seen, so it stood to reason that this would be no different.

Sure enough, Leon saw a number of runic glyphs that he recognized as explosive enchantments placed upon the back of the wooden beams that Octavius had been tied to, subtly glowing with light, just waiting for someone to approach Octavius and activate them.

Strangely enough, these explosive enchantments weren’t hidden in any way, and to Leon’s eyes, they were quite hurriedly inscribed. There was even one that didn’t look properly drawn, and was likely not even functional. Either someone had been incredibly sloppy, or Jormun was in a terrible hurry.

Given these past couple of days, Leon strongly suspected it was the latter.

He glanced over his shoulder at the approaching storm, knowing that Jormun was in the same direction. He imagined the pirate looking back at him, grinning like the madman he was. It infuriated Leon, and for just a moment, he was struck with a vision. He imagined himself tearing into Jormun, rending his flesh with fang and claw, tearing his body to bloody ribbons with strength that was utterly inhuman.

When Leon blinked and averted his gaze, he glanced down at his arms and almost shouted in surprise and panic when he saw they were covered in black scales, glittering in the daylight even with the sky completely overcast. But then, he blinked again, and his body was back to normal, without a hint of scales anywhere that he could see.

Leon took a deep breath and stepped away from the shore, his heart racing, a drop of sweat beading up on his brow. He quickly checked his mental defenses, and seeing that they were still completely intact only marginally calmed him down.

There was something about these islands that were screwing with his head, and it was starting to cause him no small amount of stress. Worse, it seemed to be getting stronger the further through the island chain they traveled.

Turning his attention back to Octavius, Leon conjured a small bolt of lightning and tossed it at the back of the crucifix. His aim was perfect, and the explosive enchantments were destroyed without being triggered.

“We’re good,” Leon said, his voice as steady as he could make it. One last time, he glanced out to sea before turning away. He couldn’t help but feel like he was running out of time, and that maybe he was already too late. But what specifically that feeling was referring to, he couldn’t quite say.

—

“Technically, our mission is over,” Sigebert quietly stated.

He, Leon, and several dozen other high-ranking members of his fleet had gathered in his meeting room to discuss their next steps. They had Octavius in custody—or what was left of him, anyway. Their initial reason for being deployed to the Serpentine Isles was over. Basina and Theuderic might still need some help securing the islands, but Sigebert’s fleet would be perfectly within its rights to return home.

But Leon wasn’t going to have any of that. The storm that he’d seen rolling in had arrived, and it was fierce. Many of the smaller ships had to be tied down to the bigger ships so they wouldn’t capsize in the giant waves being kicked up or blown over by the storm’s tremendous winds.

“We can’t leave,” he growled. “Jormun is still out there.”

“To the south, correct?” Sigebert said.

“Yes,” Leon confirmed. “It doesn’t seem like he’s still on any of the inhabited islands, and has taken refuge in the shattered islands.”

“And we don’t know where…” Sigebert murmured as he turned his gaze to an old map of the Serpentine Isles, one old enough to still show the last three islands in the chain.

“He could be anywhere,” one of Sigebert’s Tribunes stated. “He’s a pirate, such creatures don’t necessarily have to stay in their bases. We’ve driven him off from the Isles, we don’t need to stick around.”

“Look outside,” Leon said with a graveness that had the Tribune noticeably shivering. “Do you see the storm outside? That’s not normal! Whatever Jormun’s doing, he’s not leaving! Not yet!”

“There’s nothing strange about a storm upon the Endless Ocean,” another Tribune countered. “Jormun’s goal was to unleash some old god. This preposterous mission was doomed from the start, this storm means nothing and is completely unrelated.”

Leon scowled. Sigebert’s flagship was only being lightly buffeted by the waves, but even that much was startlingly indicative of the storm’s strength. To him, it felt like something was waking up, like something more was coming. This storm was just a precursor.

Leon didn’t bother trying to refute the Tribune’s comments. He had no proof, and he wasn’t going to try and justify his feelings somehow. He hadn’t the kind of rhetorical powers to pass his feelings off as facts.

“Sigebert,” Leon quietly whispered as he leaned forward onto the table they all stood around. “You saw what Jormun did back at the ritual site. You know the kind of forces he commanded yesterday. He has more. This isn’t over. He’s just regrouping. This will never be over until he’s been hunted down and permanently dealt with. He only left Octavius there because the Prince was no longer of use, but his plans are continuing.”

“That doesn’t mean much,” a third Tribune said. “I say the pirate is just admitting defeat. He executed Octavius horribly as a warning to us against pursuing him, while also returning the Prince to us. Good riddance to the traitor, I say, but our business in these Isles is over.”

Sigebert stared at the map for a few seconds more as silence fell upon the meeting room. With a sigh, he turned back toward Leon, who was barely keeping himself in check despite his rapidly rising anger and frustration over the lack of vision that these Legion knights had.

“Our mission is over. We have Octavius. We can return to the King with pride.”

Leon’s fists began to ball up. He thought it would be suicide, but if Sigebert didn’t order the fleet to continue on, then he would grab Maia and Anzu and head out to hunt Jormun down himself. He wasn’t going to leave things like this. Even if it killed him, he had to stop Jormun.

“However,” Sigebert continued before Leon could interrupt, “I agree with you, Leon. Jormun must be stopped. We must hunt him down and end him.”

“But—” the third Tribune began before being cut off by the Fleet Legate.

“‘But’ nothing! It doesn’t matter if Octavius was a traitor, he was still a Prince of the blood! He was for us to punish, not for that lowlife pirate! We no longer have a practical reason to hunt that pirate down, but he has impugned the honor of the entire Kingdom! What’s more, our honor has been tarnished, for we could not bring the Prince back alive!

“Leon,” Sigebert said as he straightened himself out. “I will order the fleet to continue on. We will kill Jormun before any more damage can be done.”

Leon smiled, but as the storm outside raged, he wasn’t sure if that was still even possible.