With a dull thwack audible even above the howling winds and pouring rain, one last explosive shell was fired from a mangonel attached to the bow of a Legion war galley. It exploded upon the deck of one of the pirate’s long, thin ships, cracking the already-strained hull, and letting the ship’s own mass and momentum pull it in half, spilling its contents of cargo and people out into the storm-ravaged straits of the broken eighth island.

Leon watched from above, riding upon the back of Anzu, untouchable even in this terrible storm, as this Legion battlegroup finished subduing a small group of four pirate ships that had been blocking their path deeper into the shattered island. Leon hadn’t even felt the need to get involved, these pirates were clearly not of Jormun’s caliber, and their ships were relatively weak, more in-line with the Islanders that had resisted the Bull Kingdom’s advance rather than Jormun’s direct subordinates. With Legion artillery raining down upon them almost as hard as the actual rain, they hadn’t stood much of a chance.

Such scenes were repeating themselves all throughout the remnants of the eighth island, with multiple Legion battlegroups cutting their way deeper and deeper into the archipelago, aiming to secure each and every inhospitable rock they encountered and surround the massive crater in which Jormun’s base seemed to be located.

There wasn’t an easy way into the crater, unfortunately, as the walls completely enclosed the lake within, and the storm slowed everyone down and forced a more languid push through the straits.

As he flew above the island, Leon took some time to investigate what he could about the crater without coming in too close, ignoring the lightning strikes that, by his power, almost seemed to curve around him and Anzu. The crater walls had clearly been augmented by a powerful earth mage, for while about half of the crater’s walls appeared natural, the remainder were far too smooth and uniform to be anything other than the creation of an earth mage.

This worried Leon a bit, as he’d yet to see an earth mage within Jormun’s faction that was powerful enough to create such a structure.

He supposed it might’ve been an old construction, and that Jormun simply had other ways in and out of the crater’s lake—he had displayed an ability to submerge his ship, before—but Leon resolved to keep an eye out for powerful earth mages, just in case.

As it was, it was clear that they’d need to clear out the pirates within the archipelago, fill the empty channel of water that surrounded the crater with Legion ships, and then send in the marines. There were a few other options available to them, such as trying to blast open one of the magically-created parts of the crater walls with Flame Lances, but Leon had a feeling that option wouldn’t see many results.

This was going to end with a ground assault, he could feel that in his bones, and this weather wasn’t going to make that an easy proposition.

With the destruction of the small pirate battlegroup beneath him, Leon turned his attention back to the task he’d taken upon himself: be the eyes-in-the-sky for the Legion ships advancing through the archipelago. With Anzu’s wings and wind magic, he could move faster than any of the other ships, even in these hurricane winds, moving to and fro with great speed—more than enough to be constantly popping off flares to mark the locations of pirate ships that he could see, their light cutting through the dark gloom spread by the thick storm clouds and lasting for a surprisingly long time within the great sheets of rain.

There were quite a few pirates out there with more ships than he’d been able to initially count. Jormun’s force had to have at least fifty ships of similar size to Legion war galleys, if not quite as heavily armed, hidden all over the ruined island, among other, smaller ships. These ships, however, were dropping like flies before the Legion onslaught. Without room to maneuver in the narrow waterways of the archipelago, the pirate ships weren’t able to capitalize on the advantages of their lighter designs, and so were easy pickings for the Legion ships.

Leon and Anzu flew around, staying in contact with Maia on Sigebert’s ship and marking the pirates for destruction, doing little more than that for several hours as the Legion advanced. He was greatly concerned that Jormun wasn’t personally making a move, and he wanted to save his resources for that inevitable fight. Without his flight suit and his armor, taking Jormun on in direct combat was going to be a risky proposition. He’d need other tools at his disposal.

To that end, Leon began to contemplate breaking out a tool he hadn’t used in years, and his left arm began to ache just thinking about it.

Xaphan, how ready are you to loan me your power? Leon asked.

I’m always ready, boy, the demon replied, his voice largely neutral, but Leon picked up on an undercurrent of anticipation within it.

How about manifesting yourself outside of my soul realm? Leon asked. How would that work, exactly?

Ahh, preparing for things to go completely to **? Xaphan asked, his voice crackling with amusement.

I have to be prepared for anything, Leon answered, and after what that guy I captured said… If Jormun’s achieved his aims, then we have to assume that he’s even more powerful now than he was when last we fought. I need to be ready to face more than a seventh-tier water mage, and Naiad isn’t going to cut it, not with that fire mage woman still there with her proven ability to dissipate Naiad’s magic.

You can do similar, can’t you? Xaphan asked.

Leon began to twist the three silver bracelets adorning his left wrist. Maybe… he said uncertainly. I was only able to make two more copies, but even then, I have yet to test the original design. Maybe they’ll work. Maybe they won’t. Maybe the original was a faulty design that’ll fail when it comes time to put it to the test, and maybe these copies will do the same. They’re as prepared as they can be, I just need you to be, as well.

Is there anything stopping you from testing them on your fish girl? I’m sure she’d jump at the chance to help your dumb ass out with your enchanting.

The thought did occur… Leon said, his tone dropping in both thought and reluctance. He could still remember the feelings of pain that Maia felt when her power was disrupted by that fire mage. He could vividly remember having to carry her back to the Legion camp that day, and the pain and uncertainty he felt in whether or not she was all right. I’d rather not. I can risk testing them in the heat of the moment. I’m not going to use her as a straw dummy for my weapons.

A foolish notion before an enemy as powerful as this **stick is, Xaphan muttered. But I suppose it hardly matters at this point, not if you’re planning on calling me out to clean up this filthy mess.

Mm. How is this going to work, then? I don’t have to say a spell or strike a pose or anything like that, do I?

I certainly won’t stop you if you feel it’s necessary, Xaphan said with an audible smile, but no, you don’t have to do so. This more like holding the door of your soul realm open so that I can come through. It could be dangerous under normal circumstances since you’d never want to leave your soul realm open like that in the presence of an enemy, but in this case, you’ll have a Lord of Flame pushing his way out, so there’s little to no risk of something successfully pushing in.

Our contract will still be valid, and I should be able to return to your soul realm at my leisure, so long as you stay within I’d say about ten miles, but I’ll also be physically present, it won’t be some projection or anything of that nature. I’ll be able to personally fry the dickhead pirate the way he was always meant to be!

Glad to hear you’re so enthusiastic, Leon drily quipped, but the conversation was forced to end there, for Leon saw far below, about halfway up a largely sheer cliff overlooking the largest route to the crater—one of the only routes that the dreadnoughts could take, and the one that Sigebert’s flagship was slowly sailing through—a ledge carved into the cliff face. The ledge was protected from Legion sight and attack by a protuberance in the cliff, but as soon as the Legion ships sailed past that protuberance, any pirates on that ledge would be able to launch a surprise attack on them with near-impunity.

And there were pirates on that ledge, and they had with them a most fearsome weapon: a Flame Lance, obviously one that they had pillaged from the first Legion fleet that had been sent here. They’d be able to wreak havoc upon the fleet as it sailed past with that weapon up there, and it would be damned difficult for the fleet to deal with it on their own.

‘All right, here we go…’ Leon thought to himself as he urged Anzu to fly a little bit higher and in the ledge’s direction as he used a modicum of his water magic to part the rain in their way. He wanted to save the lion’s share of his power for Jormun, so instead of preparing his lightning magic, he instead reached into his soul realm and retrieved his bow along with a handful of arrows. He didn’t think he’d need more than one, but one of those pirates was sixth-tier, and he wanted to be sure he got them all.

With some small measure of reluctance, Leon didn’t launch a flare at the offending weapon, choosing to instead approach with a little more caution and stealth. The pirates manning the Flame Lance were staring down into the waterway more than a hundred feet below them, waiting for the first unfortunate Legion ship to pass the area the rocky protuberance obscured and into their range. They weren’t paying too much attention to the skies, and even if they were, Leon and Anzu were largely obscured by the storm.

Anzu flew in close, and Leon let loose with an explosive arrow. With the gale-force winds blowing about them, however, the arrow missed the ledge and detonated about twenty feet below. The blast was powerful enough to blow a huge hole in the cliff face and send countless cracks spiderwebbing up into the ledge. The pirates began to shout in panic and alarm, but none could retaliate as their footing became suddenly unstable.

A marginally acceptable result, but not one that Leon was remotely sated with. He brought Anzu in for a closer pass, and then loosed another arrow, this time using one of his more powerful ones. He activated every enchantment his bow held, letting it draw as much of his power as it needed in the process. The arrow flew truer than the one before and hit the Flame Lance directly.

The ledge was immediately bathed in bright white flame. Rain within ten feet of the explosion’s center was flash-vaporized, as was the flesh of several of the pirates. The sixth-tier mage survived, but he was the only one to do so, and he came through with a few nasty-looking burns and been knocked to the floor of the black stone ledge.

He roared as he drew his weapon and stumbled to his feet, the ledge now even more unstable than it had been. The Flame Lance was starting to slide away and fall into the water below, but the pirate didn’t pay it any mind, instead choosing to stare up into the sky directly at Leon, his eyes squeezed shut from the rain and wind—but Leon knew he could see him, for he could sense the man’s magic senses and towering killing intent lock upon him. The rain noticeably dropped in temperature around them, but Leon simply smiled and loosed another arrow.

The man roared once more and jumped with everything he had. The arrow exploded behind him, obliterating the ledge and sending the captured Flame Lance plummeting into the waterways below, but the pirate himself was untouched and sailed through the air toward Leon and Anzu.

Anzu hadn’t been idly ignoring all of this, however, and it wasn’t too hard for him to flex one of his wings and arc both himself and Leon clear of the pirate, letting him impotently shout as he passed harmlessly beneath them.

The pirate fell the hundred feet to the storm-ravaged water below. He managed to hurl one ice spike before he hit the waves, but his aim was terrible, and Leon didn’t even bother acknowledging it.

With that, the ledge had been secured—or, more accurately, utterly destroyed—and Leon popped off a quick flare and sent a message to Maia relaying what had just happened. A moment later, he got word back from Sigebert acknowledging his report.

With that distraction taken care of, Leon took quick stock of the situation. The Legion was still pressing further into the islands, but it seemed that they were finally running into some problems. The pirates were growing in strength the closer the ships came to the crater, and the ambush that Leon had just prevented wasn’t the only one that Jormun had set up. A few artillery positions had been set up all over the remnants of the island, hidden from detection mostly by clever placement of the weapons in caves or behind rock formations, and were starting to finally do some damage to the Legion fleet.

Leon even saw one large Legion war galley armed with a pair of fearsome-looking trebuchets on its deck be practically lifted by the water it was trying to sail through, and then bombarded with fire from at least three different pirate catapults. He urged Anzu to fly in its direction, reasoning that such a display of water magic could likely be Jormun’s doing. No matter what, though, Leon was done with just being a scout—he needed to get involved so the Legion could keep up the momentum.

Flying over to the distressed war galley, Leon was disappointed to see that it wasn’t Jormun himself finally making a play, but instead about half a dozen water mages working in tandem to block this waterway. By lifting this war galley and hitting it with their catapults, they were blocking four more war galleys and a dozen smaller ships from sailing further into the shattered island.

Leon put a stop to all of that with a well-placed explosive arrow, but didn’t need his bow’s enchantments. He wasn’t wasting any more magic power on the pirates if he could help it. A few more explosive arrows took out the catapults. The lead war galley, however, had been disabled, and many sailors had been killed. It hadn’t sunk, so with it unable to sail, the waterway was still blocked, and a not insignificant portion of the fleet was unable to sail further—at least, for the time being. A few Legion water mages were already moving to get to work clearing the ship from their path and to help any stranded or injured sailors and marines.

Leon left them to it and moved on.

Things were going very well, so far. Apart from this one place, the pirates hadn’t been able to stop the Legion’s inexorable push through the broken island. On one hand, he was feeling good about that, but on the other, he felt not at all at ease with Jormun yet to make his move. Leon forced himself to focus on something productive instead of pointless speculation or frustration, though; on escorting the Legion into the wide channel that separated the crater from the rest of the broken, spiraling, web-like islands that the volcano’s eruption had turned this place into.

It didn’t take much longer before Legion ships were streaming out into this channel. Leon only had to intervene in one more engagement, and his continued use of flares to point out hidden pirates were invaluable to the Legion fleet; he saved many Legion lives that might’ve been taken by the pirates.

That wasn’t to say there weren’t any casualties, though. Several more war galleys were sunk, as well as about two dozen smaller craft, but for the most part, the Legion fleet began to enter the channel around the crater about as intact as they could reasonably expect to be.

On many of the larger broken islands that surrounded the channel, too, the Legion marines were landing and taking up positions to ensure their encirclement was total. Leon wasn’t entirely sure what they were going to try to do, but he could see quite a few fifth-tier mages amongst their number, so he assumed they might be setting up some kind of artillery formations, using all of their powers in tandem to create effects greater than any single one of them could make. He’d already been on the receiving end of such formations during the civil war, when one such formation allowed the nobles to inflicts serious casualties upon the stone giants that had followed him.

At that thought, Leon felt a quick pang of loss and guilt. There would’ve been no way that Lapis could’ve followed him all the way out here, but Leon still couldn’t help but wish the stone giant were still around. He could use the support, and not just of the martial or magical variety.

As the Legion ships continued to stream into the channel, something of note finally seemed to happen. Nearly all of the pirates who had infested the outer islets had been cleared out, though a few smaller Legion detachments were hunting down the rest. That meant that the bulk of Legion forces could concentrate on setting up a blockade around the crater to support the coming assault that the marines would have to lead up and over the crater walls. This threat, it seemed, was just enough for Jormun to make his move.

One of the less-natural sections of crater wall suddenly began to rumble and vibrate, and then slide open like the double doors of a massive gate. They weren’t swinging open, though, and instead showed much of the sea walls around them to be hollow as they retracted into them.

From this opening came sailing two dozen pirate ships of various sizes, led by the largest and most heavily-armed of their number: Jormun’s ship. The two close-range Flame Lances set up on its bow were up and running, and it moved with great speed. Almost as soon as it sped out of the doors, it ran into a Legion war galley, and those Flame Lances opened up, bathing the Legion ship in flame intense enough to overwhelm its structural enchantments, setting the entire hulk aflame and slowly sinking as the Legion sailors and marines aboard screamed in agony as they were burned alive. The pounding rain of the storm did nothing to stop this fire, and the wind only helped it to spread faster.

The pirate ships behind Jormun’s ship followed up, ramming into several Legion ships and boarding them so lightning-fast that they couldn’t be anything else other than most powerful, experienced, and skilled members of Jormun’s pirate coalition. For them, it was like the storm around them didn’t even exist, for the choppy waters of the channel proved no obstacle for their boarding, and they didn’t even seem to notice the rain or wind.

‘This is it,’ Leon thought to himself as he turned Anzu in that direction, popped off a few flares, and sent a message back to Sigebert about what was going on via Maia, ‘these are Jormun’s best people…’

Indeed, as Leon scanned the inside of the crater with his magic senses, he noted that it seemed utterly deserted.

‘He has nothing more to send out,’ Leon thought. And he smiled, for he knew the end was close.