The moment Raiden Ei's silhouette came faintly into view, Ye Xi gave the order at once: the fleet was to steer that way.
This voyage had two purposes. The first was to stop the sea-beasts from breaking through the front line and falling upon the islands of Inazuma, and at the same time to rescue the Shogunate troops holding that line.
The second was to bring Raiden Ei back.
Raiden Ei was a God, and yet Yae Miko still worried.
On that point, Ye Xi felt exactly the same.
There was no denying it — Raiden Ei was strong.
But two fists could never beat four hands. Only once he stood at her side would his mind be at ease.
As the fleet pressed forward, a thick mist rose off the surface of the water.
It clung and refused to lift, and it swallowed every line of sight.
From far off it looked like an endless field of snow-white cloud, blurring the horizon into nothing. And once the ships sailed into the heart of that misty sea, it felt less like sailing and more like flying above a sea of clouds.
The soldiers on deck watched it come, and dread filled them.
Of all the things that could happen at sea, nothing frightened sailors more than groping forward "blind" like this.
If the sea-beasts chose such a moment to strike, no one would even know where the enemy was. There would be no way to fight back.
And the ending of that story was always the same — a grave at the bottom of the ocean.
Still, ever since they had boarded these steel behemoths, everyone breathed a little easier. The wooden boats had all been abandoned, and every soul they had pulled from the water was now aboard the cruisers.
Just then, a dense rattle of thuds came from all around the hull — thump, thump, thump.
"It's the sea-beasts! They're attacking the ships!"
"This is bad — get below, we need to start patching!"
For the Shogunate Navy, those sounds were the stuff of nightmares.
But when men came scrambling down into the hold, what they found was a wall of iron and bronze on every side, solid as a fortress.
All that furious hammering was like mayflies trying to shake a great tree. It hadn't done the ship the slightest harm.
"Look how solid it is! This ship really is forged out of iron!"
"It's too steady — it's practically a fortress on the sea!"
"Thank goodness. Now I can finally relax!"
A collective breath of relief went through the crew.
The sea-beasts lurking beneath the waves seemed to realize how sturdy these cruisers were as well, and before long they gave up their pointless assault.
Just as everyone was letting their guard down, a shout of alarm went up from the stern.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
Every head turned. A long tentacle was stretching up out of the water.
The sea held many kinds of sea-beast, not merely one or two. Clearly, having failed to knock the Shogunate troops into the water, they now meant to climb aboard and hunt the humans on deck.
The sight of that long, groping tentacle sparked a moment of panic, but the men steadied themselves quickly.
With a deck this solid under their feet, why should they be afraid? They might lose to a sea-beast in the water, but up here on the planks, they could at least put up a fight.
So the soldiers drew their long blades, and the samurai swept forward, swords flashing.
Every sea-beast that hauled itself onto the hull was hacked into pieces by the Shogunate Navy.
Arataki Itto went further, swinging his stone club in a wild, thundering barrage. An octopus-shaped sea-beast had barely crawled onto the deck before it sailed off in a straight line like a struck shuttlecock.
The Shogunate troops around him broke into cheers.
Inside the bridge island, Kujou Sara had gone off to direct the fighting.
Ye Xi tried using his Stand to sweep the heavy fog away, and found he couldn't disperse it at all. Which meant this mist was not a natural phenomenon.
It was something the sea-beasts had secreted.
At that very moment, the cloud before them thinned. And out of that pale haze, a colossal sea serpent came coiling into view like a swimming dragon.
Ye Xi recognized it at a glance.
This was Beisht — the very creature that had attacked Liyue Harbor.
After Osial, the Demon God of the Vortex, was sealed away, his wife Beisht had come storming back.
Only to take a hard smack across the head from Shenhe and that blond idiot, after which she'd fled with her tail between her legs.
He never expected her to turn up here in the Dark Sea.
This one might not rank as a Demon God, but her strength was nothing to scoff at.
The waves she raised wouldn't capsize the warships — but they would sweep the Shogunate troops off the deck and into the sea.
Yae Miko's stomach dropped. "This is bad. It's calling up the waves!"
The words were barely out of her mouth before a monstrous wall of water heaved into the sky.
Even the cruisers, unmoving as mountains, began to pitch and roll.
Kamisato Ayato and Kokomi both went pale.
"Quick, get everyone back into the hold!"
"No good — there isn't time! The crest is coming down!"
In that instant, everyone finally understood.
The mist had never been meant to cover a sea-beast ambush. It was cover for Beisht to summon a tidal wave in secret and drown every ship in the fleet.
It was an ambush laid so well that no one had a chance to brace for it.
Panic swept the deck in a heartbeat.
Watching that waterfall of a wave come crashing down on them, every man simply froze where he stood.
For one long second, they all felt the same helplessness.
And then the sky itself turned wild with wind.
That wind carried ice and snow in it. It was a blizzard, out here, over open water.
The temperature plunged all at once, and the gale cut straight to the bone.
The strange part was this: the instant that freezing snowstorm slammed into the towering wave, the whole crest froze solid into a glacier.
The wave never got the chance to fall. It hardened through and through, becoming a wall of ice that reached toward the clouds.
Crack —
The ice wall split apart and came down as countless enormous shards, plunging back into the sea.
The Shogunate troops on deck threw their arms up and roared.
"What just happened? Where does a snowstorm come from in the middle of the ocean?!"
"A miracle! That's a flat-out miracle!"
"How does a tsunami just freeze over like that? It's unbelievable!"
No one could make head or tail of what they had witnessed. But danger had turned to safety, and that was enough.
Inside the bridge island, every gaze had settled on Ye Xi.
Flakes of wind-blown snow still drifted around him, slow to settle.
There was no mistaking it. That sudden blizzard had been Ye Xi's doing.
____
Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉