Zay quickly placed his palms on the floor and pushed himself up. He rubbed his hands together to wipe off anything that might have clung to them, then scratched his nose slightly before heading up the stairs.
Upon reaching the bedroom where the staircase resided, he moved through it quickly and entered the control room. His eyes swept across the maps pinned to the ship's walls. The thud of his boots echoed against the metal floor as he took five loud steps toward one of the maps.
"Gyro... that's where I need to go. I have many questions, but despite them all... is there really any point in thinking about them?" he muttered to himself.
His amethyst eyes scanned the map until they landed on the massive landmass labeled Gyro. Turning his head, he picked up the pen he'd left aboard and stepped closer. Pressing his wrist and forearm against the wall to steady himself, he wrote the word Gyro across the landmass, then circled it.
'There's a lot to do now that the Third Sequence has ended. First, get to Gyro. Make contact with Rei Alvor. Hopefully gain his trust in this life. Gather more information on the Fallen Core. Buy books—rituals, incantations, anything on the churches. They'll become important once the Fourth Sequence begins.'
He paused his thoughts, reaching into his pocket to check for the ship's key. Finding it, he walked over and inserted it into the keyholder. Pressing his hand against the wheel, aura flowed from his body and was absorbed into the ship. As the energy circulated through the core mechanisms, the vessel slowly began to move forward.
Zay exhaled deeply, uncertain if he truly wanted to leave right away—or if he should stop and visit his family one last time. He knew this would likely be the last chance for years before he returned to Ovaris again.
'I should probably tell them…' he thought, then shook his head, pushing the notion away.
'If I do that... they'll have too many questions. I just hope they listen to the advice I gave.'
His grip on the wheel tightened before he slowly lifted his hand away. Turning on his heel, he walked to the control room door and closed it behind him. Then he returned to the lone chair in the room and slumped into it.
As he sat, the Resonance Lens materialized before his eyes.
Seal of Midnight | Level 2 → Level 3
→ All Seals operating under Midnight have been increased to Level 3, with improved effects.
→ No new Echoes or passives have been unlocked.
Seal of the Demoness | Level 2 → Level3
→ Night Vision has been enhanced.
→ Resonance Echo: Shadow Walk
Zay studied the words before nodding to himself, pleased. "Show me the Seal of the Demoness."
🖤 Seal of the Demoness 🖤
╭──Passives──╮
• Subtle Charm
• Night Vision
╭──Resonance Echoes──╮
• Shadow Hide
• Persuade
• Shadow Walk
"Shadow Walk?" Zay murmured to himself, immediately reaching out to click on it, curious to see its description. As he did, his eyes drifted to the waters ahead, visible through the window, watching as the ship began to glide across the sea—leaving Ovaris behind.
[Shadow Walk]
The Arbiter gains the ability to teleport instantly between shadows within their line of sight.
Limitations: The ability can only be used once every three minutes, and it drains a small amount of aura. Requires a very dark environment, or at night.
—
After carefully reading over the description, Zay closed the Resonance Lens and swiveled his chair toward the map mounted on the wall. His eyes scanned the lines and markings, tracing the path from Ovaris to Gyro, trying to recall the exact route he had used before. The distance wasn't terribly far, but the terrain between the two locations made navigation tricky. After a thoughtful pause, he turned back to face the panels with the controls, the wheel, and the window. Slowly, he rotated the wheel, aligning it with the direction the map indicated. According to its orientation, Gyro lay to the southeast—straight through a stretch of sea that most sailors refused to even speak of.
"The Hell Storm…" Zay muttered under his breath, eyes narrowing.
Just thinking about it reminded him why he hadn't even attempted to go to Gyro any earlier. That cursed part of the ocean was a nightmare made real—where the skies never cleared, where the waves rose like mountains and fell like boulders. Constant lightning, winds that screamed like banshees, and if that wasn't bad enough, the creatures…
"Tsunamis, sea beasts, and fish that'll tear a hull apart just for the taste of rotted wood," he whispered. "And that's on a calm day."
His hands tightened on the wheel before he let out a sigh, barely audible over a whisper. "I just have to hope it all goes to plan," he muttered to himself. He lifted his right hand, shifted his left, and scratched his arm before leaning further back into the chair.
As Zay closed his eyes and let out a quiet breath, vivid images flashed through his mind—visions of the Temple of a Dead Angel. The relentless [Judicator's Requiem], cast over and over by the Angel of Winter, echoed in his memory. Death and rebirth, again and again, for fourteen unbroken days and nights, without a single moment of rest.
Zay stood up and left the control room, making his way to a bedroom with a mirror. He stared at his reflection for a long moment before removing the Frost Cloak and the Tunic of White Water he still wore. As he looked at himself more closely, he noticed the change in his eyes. Once a bright amethyst, they had deepened—now a dark, brooding shade of amethyst that spoke of everything he had endured.
His teeth clenched as he caught sight of his reflection. Then his gaze shifted to his hair—and his eyes widened. The white and red strands were gone, leaving only his original black hair.
'What the...?' he thought, but before the thought could settle, thunder screamed across the sky. Lightning tore through the clouds and struck the ship's mast—yet no damage followed. The blinding arc of energy dispersed harmlessly, dancing across the hull like angry light without teeth. Moments later, waves began battering the ship with violent force, slamming against its sides and tilting the vessel as the storm took shape around it.
Zay stood his ground, his boots sliding slightly across the floor of the bedroom before he bolted back to the control room. He looked out through the large glass window, now streaked with rain, and then down at the control panel. His eyes locked onto a button labeled "Storm Protection."
Without hesitation, he slammed his finger down on it and dropped into the chair, gripping the wheel tightly. Seconds passed. Nothing happened.
"Shit," he muttered under his breath, forcing the panic from his thoughts.
Another massive wave crashed into the side of the ship, tilting it sharply to one side. Alarms began to blare. Zay looked up—just in time to see a tornado forming in the distance, its core writhing with coiling seawater, spiraling upward like a serpent of wind and tide. The waves beneath it began to rise unnaturally high, then crashed back down with tremendous force, sending walls of water exploding outward.
Then he heard guttural screams rising from beneath the surface. Not human. Not even close.
From the churning sea, two monstrous shapes exploded upward in mid-air—colliding with one another mid-leap in a grotesque display of violence.
The first creature was a massive, eel-like beast, its body bloated and covered in patches of translucent, veined flesh that writhed independently. Its head was vaguely serpentine, but the jaw split four ways, unhinging to reveal rows upon rows of bone-colored teeth, spinning like drills. Dozens of cloudy eyes blinked across its body, each facing a different direction. Clusters of barnacle-encrusted tendrils dangled from its underbelly, some twitching like dead things caught in a breeze.
The second creature was a hulking, crustacean-like monstrosity with twisted limbs growing from impossible angles, like broken bones forced to move. Its entire body was armored in a shell of rotting coral and sharp, rust-colored spikes. One of its claws was a mangled fusion of flesh and jagged metal, as if it had grown around shipwreck debris. It had no face, only a gaping spiral where its head should be, from which a sound like whale-song and screaming burst forth in nauseating harmony.
The two collided, tearing into each other mid-air before crashing back into the ocean's fury, vanishing beneath the waves. The sea trembled in their wake.
Zay swallowed hard, sweat beading at his brow despite the cold spray of the sea. The water around the ship erupted again as three more creatures launched skyward, locked in feral combat, their grotesque forms twisting and gnashing as they tore into one another mid-air.
The first was a jellyfish-like colossus, its body pulsing with dim, bioluminescent colors that flickered like dying stars. Its central mass was a gelatinous dome, split open with a vertical mouth lined with spines, constantly gnashing as if chewing the air itself. Beneath it trailed hundreds of whip-like tentacles, each tipped with a toothy maw or barbed hook, snapping and lashing like wild snakes.
The second was humanoid in silhouette, but only barely. Its arms were overlong and ended in claws made of exposed bone, twitching spasmodically. Its skin was a patchwork of scales, fungus, and writhing leeches, and its head was split vertically down the middle, revealing a yawning, endless mouth filled with rows of chattering, baby-like teeth. It screamed as it flew, but the sound was like broken glass grinding in Zay's ears.
The third was crusty and brittle, shaped almost like a giant manta ray, but its "wings" were torn and stitched together with muscle and sinew. Dozens of human arms sprouted from its underside, all reaching, grasping, clawing at nothing. Its tail was a spiked tendril, moving with unnatural speed, slicing at the other beasts as it spun through the sky.
As they collided, tearing into each other with mindless rage, the sky above them split with a thunderous roar. The clouds twisted into a spiral, and from the vortex, a beast descended—not a dragon, but as large as one.
It was as massive as any dragon Zay had ever seen. Its wings wider than the ship was long, but they were made of stitched shadows, almost insubstantial at the edges, like they were decaying or dissolving into mist. Its body was long and serpentine, covered in molten-black scales and pulsing tumors, each one birthing tiny, insectile limbs that grew and died within seconds.
Its head was skeletal, elongated like a bird's skull, but with three jaws that opened in different directions, revealing a throat glowing with crimson lightning. It didn't roar—it shrieked, a horrible, multilayered sound that seemed to echo with the help of the sky. From its chest hung a massive, beating heart, exposed and glowing, wrapped in chains and sigils that sparked with energy every time the heart pulsed.