As Sigebert’s flagship sped up and his battlegroup spilled out into the channel surrounding the crater, Leon flew a little bit lower and pursued Jormun’s ship. The wind howled in his ears and the rain was so thick it was practically a solid wall at the speeds that Anzu was flying, but neither Leon nor the albino griffin paid any attention to that at all. Instead, Leon’s only concern was drawing close enough to Jormun’s ship that he could shoot arrows at the thing without them being thrown off course by the gale winds.

The wind seemed to take some issues with that, for it began to pick up even more as Leon and Anzu flew lower, flattening Anzu’s feathers and forcing Leon to don his helmet just to stay focused. That helped, dampening the sound of the wind and keeping most of the rain out of his face, but it wasn’t perfect, and he still had to squint.

Fortunately, his magic senses weren’t impacted at all by the storm—in fact, his power and magic senses seemed to be operating at heightened levels as the swirling air, water, and lightning magic within the storm was drawn into his body. He felt spectacular, more than powerful enough to drop down to the deck of Jormun’s ship and thrash everyone he encountered.

But Leon maintained as detached a mindset as he possibly could. Jormun’s ship was sailing past Legion ships, its Flame Lances setting each one ablaze with near impunity. Within the channel, there wasn’t enough space for the Legion ships to turn to face their new foe, and their artillery emplacements were too cumbersome to turn quickly enough to catch the ship. The other pirate ships that had followed Jormun out of the crater were less lucky, getting bogged down as they boarded other Legion ships, leaving them fairly easy pickings for still more Legion ships as they streamed out into the channel.

Leon took a few potshots at these other pirate ships as he passed, even setting one on fire despite the rain and the ship’s own robust defensive enchantments. He didn’t, however, let himself get distracted from his real target, and Anzu soon closed in on Jormun’s ship.

‘This is the end!’ Leon roared in his mind as he swapped out his explosive arrows for his most powerful spell arrows, those attached to Thunderblast spells.

In the past few months, Leon had learned from and consulted with Nestor a great deal, and the dead man had certainly made good on his promise to teach Leon what he knew of enchantments and to help hone Leon’s skills and understanding of the seven magical elements. The natural result of those lessons was that the Thunderblast spell arrows that Leon pulled from his soul realm were markedly more powerful than those he’d produced even just a few weeks ago. He only had a small handful of these newer variants, however, so he’d have to be careful with them, he couldn’t waste them on risky shots or worthless targets.

With an almost manic smile, Leon and Anzu closed to about a hundred feet with Jormun’s ship, and Leon gleefully let loose with one of his new Thunderblast spells. He was close enough that his bow’s enchantments had the arrow cutting straight through the storm to hit the deck of the ship only a moment later. The arrow detonated, bathing the entire ship in golden lightning so bright that the channel was momentarily illuminated like it was daytime, and the thunder the spell brought was heard for miles.

And yet, the ship was intact. There hadn’t been anyone on the deck, so Leon couldn’t tell if his spell had actually killed anyone, but the ship was left still sailing, its Flame Lances still seemingly operational, but the deck had been badly burned, and he’d seen the ship buck as his arrow detonated.

With a scowl, Leon produced another of these spells and loosed, and again, it hit Jormun’s ship like the fist of a wrathful god. This time, however, Leon had targeted the bow, hoping to at least disable those Flame Lances even if the spell was still too weak to do much damage to the ship.

The spell arrows detonated right where he wanted it to, bathing the Flame Lances in potent golden lightning. He was more than gratified to see the metallic weapons glowing with heat as the lightning dissipated, and their barrels starting to bend and sag. No more fire came from the weapons, though the ship still sailed without much noticeable hinderance, and more than two dozen Legion ships of varying size behind it had been destroyed or disabled by its fire.

The Flame Lances quickly cooled with all the rain and wind, but they didn’t begin spewing fire again. He turned back to hit the ship again wherever it seemed weakest, but he only had three of these spells left. Given how distressingly little damage they seemed to be doing to the ship itself, he had to make sure he used them sparingly.

Before he could choose his next target, one appeared before him; the door that led below deck burst open, and the female fire mage came barreling out, her eyes wild and furious, her aura towering, her killing intent soaring. She was already exuding so much heat that her arms were lightly burning, and much of the rain that had been pooling on the deck started to noticeably steam and boil.

“LEON RAIME!” she bellowed as her eyes landed upon him. She didn’t say anything more, but instead began to conjure and throw fireballs at him.

Anzu was only of the fifth-tier, and Leon knew that if his griffin took even one hit from those fireballs, then he would be severely injured, if not killed outright. In response, he steered Anzu up higher, putting not only more distance between himself and the fire mage, but also much more water. Fireballs still came careening through the air between them, though, and Leon had to resort to calling upon his own fire magic and doing his best to either block or deflect those attacks.

The fire mage immediately put such pressure on Leon and Anzu that Leon had to have Anzu pull back almost entirely, retreating from only about a hundred feet from the ship to more than five hundred before the fire mage stopped attacking them.

But she remained standing on the deck of the ship, utterly immovable even as the storm crashed upon her. The ship kept moving, and even started to speed up—it still had a vicious ram on its prow, and it looked like it was going to use it.

Leon was a little confused, though. He’d yet to see Jormun, and he’d expected that if anyone were going to respond to him, it would’ve been the head pirate himself. He also would’ve thought that the ship would’ve tried falling back by now, to try and get itself out of harm’s way by returning to the crater. With a quick pulse of his magic senses, Leon could see that those pirate ships that had burst out of the crater with Jormun’s ship were being steadily destroyed, despite their initial gains.

All of this wasn’t coming without cost, though, and already by Leon’s estimation, Sigebert’s fleet was barely sixty percent of what it was when it left the Bull Kingdom.

But that sixty percent included both dreadnoughts, and Sigebert’s monstrous personal craft had already entered the channel and was sailing toward Jormun’s ship. All Leon needed to do was buy a little bit of time, and the Legion’s Flame Lances would tear that thing to pieces. After that happened, what did Jormun have left to resist them with? Leon could only think of his personal power, but with the storm ravaging this broken island, Leon was sure that there was something else going on, too.

Jormun had one more ace-in-the-hole, Leon knew it. That was why he wasn’t here, on his ship, leading the defense of the crater. He was preparing something elsewhere.

Below, Leon could hear the female fire mage screaming and roaring in challenge, and occasionally throwing fireballs at him, but they were far enough away that Anzu could easily dodge. So, Leon felt confident in shifting his attention momentarily away, to inspect the crater.

It was still empty and devoid of anything that stood out, but in his moment of distraction, the fire mage leaped off the deck of Jormun’s ship with great force, flying up into the air propelled by a massive explosion channeled through her legs. Her arms blazed with fire, and Leon only just barely brought his attention back to bear to avoid a huge gout of flame she launched at him. Anzu had already started to move, but Leon needed to throw himself down in the saddle to properly dodge. The fire sailed right over his head, and Leon considered himself duly chastised.

The female fire mage’s legs burned like jets, keeping her aloft. Leon couldn’t imagine the sheer amount of power she was using to keep herself in the air—he was a little jealous of it, though—but he supposed that her shiny plate cuirass or maybe her armored boots held some secret to them that he couldn’t immediately discern, giving her extra power for this move.

He took only the briefest of moments to admire it before he instinctively shot one of his more powerful Thunderblast spell arrows at her. She just barely dodged, not even letting her armor take the hit, and Leon cringed internally as his arrow sank into the waves down below them a moment later.

The fire mage then reached toward Leon, letting fire erupt from her fingers and sail up toward him in a great, wide geyser.

Anzu flapped his wings hard, propelling them onward and causing a cushion of air to hit the fire and delay it just long enough for them to get out of range.

Leon shouted and pulled on Anzu’s harness, ordering the griffin to drop down to the fire mage’s level, and he drew his family’s blade. Immediately, he felt the power within him amplify even more than the storm had already made it, and he filled the blade with as much of that power as he could.

As he was preparing himself, however, the Thunderblast spell arrow that had sunk into the channel detonated, illuminating the water from below with thousands of arcs of golden lightning.

The channel was unfathomably deep, far too deep—in Leon’s admittedly amateur opinion—for it to have been natural. However, more shockingly than the depth, was what Leon saw for the briefest of moments as the golden lightning flashed through the channel.

Writhing tentacles of darkness, hundreds of feet below the surface of the channel, far too many to count. They were intersecting and twisting together, forming a massive web of inky-black tendrils far below the surface.

Leon felt a burst of instinctive, primal fear well up from his chest, and for a second or two, he faltered in his charging of his blade.

That second was just enough for the fire mage to close in with him and Anzu and send one more gout of intense orange flame toward him and his griffin.

The griffin immediately furled his wings and let gravity pull them out of harm’s way, and the fire mage’s legs sputtered out as she fell back toward Jormun’s ship, but Leon could only curse himself at having allowing himself to be distracted. What was beneath the water was deeply concerning, but the priority right now was the fire mage.

He and Anzu pursued her down, dodging several lances of fire she threw back as they did. When she hit the deck, Leon wasn’t too far behind her, and as Anzu pulled up to avoid crashing into the deck, Leon swung his sword, sending a wave of lightning rushing toward the fire mage. Much like her fire, though, the huge sheets of rain interfered with Leon’s rain a little bit, slowing it down and draining some of its power, enough that the fire mage was able to dodge out of the way.

Leon swore under his breath. He’d packed a lot of power into that swing, and it all went to waste. He could see that as the ship was drenched and heavily enchanted, his lightning was dissipated over its surface, doing little more than burning the surface of the wood—and reducing the effectiveness of his spell arrows, he realized, which was immediately followed by a round of self-recrimination.

He felt a little useless, but he didn’t want to leap down to the deck and fight the fire mage properly. He felt like he’d perform better with stabler ground beneath his feet, but he ignored that feeling, for Sigebert’s ship was now coming into range.

Instead, Leon had Anzu fly up about two hundred feet and use his magic to hover. There, he wasn’t so close that the fire mage could take him or Anzu by a surprise attack, but they could still talk if they shouted above the rain and wind.

“GIVE UP!” Leon shouted to her. “IT’S OVER!”

“YOU’RE RIGHT, LEON RAIME!” she screamed back, a manic look in her eyes. “IT IS OVER! BUT NOT FOR ME! THE SERPENT IS WAKING UP, AND THE PRISON’S DOORS ARE SWINGING OPEN! IN ONLY A MATTER OF HOURS, THE SERPENT WILL RISE, AND YOUR WORLD WILL DROWN WITH ITS COMING! LOOK AROUND YOU! IT’S ALREADY STARTED!” The fire mage dramatically raised her arms and indicated the storm.

Leon used his magic senses and connection with Maia to check in with Sigebert’s ship. By his estimation, he had enough time for one last exchange with her before the flagship could bring its Flame Lances to bear.

“YOU’VE DONE ADMIRABLY WELL!” Leon shouted, no trace of irony or sarcasm to be detected in his voice. “BUT IF YOU DON’T SURRENDER, YOU’LL DIE HERE! IF WHAT YOU SAY IS TRUE, THEN YOU’LL NEVER EXPERIENCE IT! YOU’LL BE DEAD! SAVE YOURSELF AND SURRENDER!”

“A TEMPTING OFFER, BUT NOT ONE I’LL CONSIDER!” she roared back, an almost crazed smile on her face. “NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, I’LL NOT BETRAY MY CONVICTIONS JUST TO SAVE MYSELF! IF I DIE HERE, THEN SO BE IT! I WILL WATCH THIS WORLD DROWN FROM BENEATH THE WAVES!”

Sigebert’s flagship finished turning around the crater wall enough to have a clear shot at Jormun’s ship without any other Legion ship in the way, and its Flame Lances began to charge with magic power in an unmistakable declaration of intent. The fire mage had no chance anymore, not in this situation. The Legion was taking this archipelago, she couldn’t stop them, and not even with her power could she hope to swim through the treacherous Endless Ocean to safety.

Leon pulled on Anzu’s harness and the griffin rapidly rose into the air, a muted feeling of regret in his heart. She’d gravely hurt Maia, but Leon had fought her enough to have some measure of respect bloom in his heart, especially after her refusal to surrender. That, in particular, struck a bit of a chord within him.

Plus, she hadn’t pulled out that turquoise with the white gemstone, nor had she drawn her sword of golden fire. If they were in her soul realm, then they’d be lost if she died.

The fire mage watched from the deck the two rise for a moment with a content smile on her face, and then Sigebert’s ship opened fire. A pair of white-hot clumps of molten stone erupted from Sigebert’s Flame Lances, and not even a second later, splashed across the bow of Jormun’s ship.

Unlike with Leon’s Thunderblast spells, this had an immediately noticeable and appreciable effect on Jormun’s ship, tearing through the wood with ease and rending huge rifts in the hull. Both of the slagged Flame Lances on Jormun’s ship exploded as their enchantments were damaged and their power sources hit by the molten stone, causing even further damage. What truly brought a slight smile to Leon’s face, however, were the cracks in the ship’s lower decks and superstructure, and the lightning-pattern burns that were exposed—it seemed his spell arrows had done more damage than had been immediately visible.

A moment later, the Legion Flame Lances opened up again, further eviscerating the ship, and this time the top deck collapsed as the ship lost structural cohesion and began to sink.

The Legion ships fired a few more times, utterly savaging the pirate ship with every shot, and through it all, the fire mage just stood on the deck, her smile turning into one of resignation, her eyes locked on Leon as the ship sank beneath the waves. She didn’t even squint as the rain hit her face.

Right before the ship slid beneath the waves, she was directly hit with a Flame Lance. Leon had seen the seventh-tier vampire Bran survive several shots from a Flame Lance, but it seemed his demonic patron or his darkness magic must’ve given him greater resilience to such blasts, for the fire mage was immediately torn in half at the waist, obliterating her armor and sending the tattered remnants of her body scattering into the sea.

Leon sighed as the pirate ship sank beneath the rough waves, spared just one more thought for the fire mage, and then turned Anzu back in Sigebert’s direction. The pirates were all but defeated. Now, they just had to take the crater and kill Jormun, then hopefully stop whatever was going on. Those black tendrils of darkness writhing beneath the waves couldn’t mean anything good, and with the storm, made Leon think that time was of the essence.

This thought intensified as Anzu flew in the direction of Sigebert’s ship, and something about it made Leon turn his head in the crater’s direction. His eyes felt almost attracted to something, and they quickly found the boxy stone structure in the center of the carter’s lake. Standing atop the cracked roof of that structure was a figure, a person who was staring back at Leon and smiling in invitation.

Jormun.

Leon’s mind was instantly filled with images of ripping Jormun’s flesh from his bones with beak and talon, and almost without thinking, he pulled on Anzu’s harness and redirected him toward the crater.

He could end this now. He would end this now.

—

Jormun watched emotionlessly as his ship, which had faithfully carried him for decades, vanish beneath the waves. Not even the death of the last of his followers, Friga, moved his heart.

He cared none for those who’d followed him. Not one. They were but means to an end, and that was all. They’d served their purpose, and now, everything he’d worked for was practically within his grasp. The power of the Serpent filled him, giving him a preview of what the sacrifice of so many had bought. Jormun was alone, with neither ally nor ship, but he’d never felt so powerful. He’d been able to assemble a vast fleet of pirates to sack one of the most important cities in the Halcyon Federation with little more than a few words; such was his reputation, but not even that kind of power could compare to what he felt right now.

Jormun’s eyes found Leon as the boy flew around on his griffin, and he smiled. The boy’s head whipped in his direction, his golden eyes practically glowing behind his visor, perfectly visible even through the rain and the darkness of the storm clouds. Jormun knew how strong the powers that backed the boy were, but now, he had powers comparable to back him. It didn’t matter what Leon might display, Jormun was ready with great powers of his own.