The air inside the captain's quarters was thick with the smell of old parchment, brine, and the unspoken scent of anxiety.
Blaze stood among the few survivors who had been summoned. They were a ragtag assembly, a handful of souls left to man a vessel that felt far too large for their dwindling numbers. The flickering lantern light cast long, dancing shadows against the timber walls, making the room feel smaller than it was.
At the center of the cabin stood Captain Theon. He was a man carved from oak and iron, his face a map of scars earned from years on the treacherous swells. He leaned over the heavy navigation table, his eyes scanning the horizon through the stern windows before turning to face his crew.
"There will be an enemy attack," Theon began, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the cramped space. "Prepare yourselves. Information has been filtered through our network—our movements are no longer a secret. They are hunting for something, scouring every lead, and they've traced it to us."
The room grew colder. Blaze felt a phantom itch at the back of his neck.
"Check your gear," Theon commanded, his gaze lingering on each person. "Sharpen your steel and check your powder. But listen well: do not get caught, and under no circumstances are you to engage an Awakened if you see one or higher, you run. Is that understood?"
A chorus of grim nods followed. As the meeting broke up and the others filed out to the deck to ready the harpoons and ward-stones, Blaze remained motionless for a moment.
The Captain's warning echoed a dark premonition he had carried for days. Before the entering the had struck him—that fragmented, searing glimpse of the future—he had seen this. He had seen this very ship engulfed in ethereal fire, the wood splintering like dry glass under the weight of an impossible shadow. This attack wasn't just a skirmish; it was a catalyst for total destruction.
I need to prepare, Blaze thought, his hand instinctively ghosting over the hilt of his sword. The Vision didn't show me surviving. It only showed the end.
As he turned to leave the cabin, a figure stepped out from the shadows of the companionway. It was Anna. She was leaning against a support beam, her arms crossed, watching him with an intensity that suggested she had been reading his thoughts.
"So," she said, her voice cutting through the sound of the crashing waves outside. "Since we are marching toward a slaughter, let me ask you a question."
Blaze stopped, turning his head slightly. The moonlight catching the spray of the sea through the porthole illuminated her sharp features. "Go ahead," he replied.
Anna stepped forward, her footsteps silent on the creaking floorboards. "You've been training. for a small time. But tell me, Blaze... what is the essence of combat?"
Blaze didn't hesitate.
"Murder," he spoke with a grim confidence. "The essence of combat is the efficient elimination of the threat. To kill before you are killed."
For a long heartbeat, the only sound was the groaning of the ship's hull.
Then, Anna shook her head. "Wrong answer."
Blaze's eyes widened slightly. He had expected a lecture on technique or perhaps a comment on bravery, but a flat denial of the lethality of war surprised him. "Then what is the correct one? If it isn't about ending the enemy, what are we doing out there?"
Anna walked past him toward the window, looking out at the dark, white-capped peaks of the ocean.
"Control," she said softly.
She turned back to him, her expression unreadable. "Some fights don't require killings. In fact, sometimes a death is the worst possible outcome for a mission. There is always a desired result—an objective. Sometimes that objective is a distraction; sometimes it's a capture; sometimes it's merely survival."
She paused, letting the weight of the word settle between them. Outside, the first shouts of the lookout began to rise above the wind. The enemy was closing in.
"A butcher understands murder," Anna continued, her voice hardening. "A warrior understands control. If you go out there thinking only of blood, you become predictable. You become a tool for your enemy to use. Before you unsheathe that blade, Blaze, you must be absolutely clear about what you want to achieve."
She placed a hand on the doorframe, looking back one last time. "Do you want to be a killer, or do you want to be the one who decides how the story ends?"
Blaze remained in the silence of the cabin as she vanished onto the deck. He looked down at his hands. The ship lurched as a rogue wave hit the bow, and the first bell of the watch began to scream its alarm.
He didn't just need to fight. He needed to dictate the terms of the chaos to come. With a sharp exhale, he adjusted his cloak and stepped out into the night, the weight of the Vision and Anna's words warring for space in his mind.
The sea was waiting, and it was hungry for more than just blood. It was hungry for those who lacked the will to control it.
*****
Blaze summoned the memory he got from the killing the dormant.,He summoned the runes
Name:Greyscale sword
Rank:Dormant
Type:Weapon
Description:[When a warrior travelled through a camp,he encountered a beast which killed,him.This weapon gets stronger in the fear of the death]
The warning bells hadn't even finished their frantic tolling when Blaze felt the familiar, cold pull in his chest. With a sharp exhale, he reached into the void of his soul and summoned his weapon.
In a flicker of ethereal light, the sword materialized in his grip. It wasn't an ornate blade of legend; it was a humble, functional piece of steel with a weathered iron handle that fit perfectly against his palm. It was a tool built for the "murder" he had spoken of moments ago, though Anna's words about control still hummed like a second heartbeat in his mind.
Then, the battle horns sounded.
The blast was deep and dissonant, a sound that didn't just travel through the air but rattled the very planks of the Vanguard. Blaze sprinted for the companionway, his boots thundering against the wood as he burst onto the main deck.
He skidded to a halt, the spray of the salt sea stinging his eyes. Emerging from the wall of fog was a leviathan of a ship—a massive, dark-hulled vessel that dwarfed their own. It bore down on them like a predator, its prow carving through the black waves with predatory intent. On its towering decks, shadows moved—dozens of figures, armed and armored, ready for a slaughter.
Even from this distance, the power imbalance was sickening. It was a one-sided fight before a single blow had been struck.
But it wasn't the army that drew Blaze's gaze. It was the man standing alone at the prow of the enemy ship, separated from his crew by an invisible boundary of sheer presence.
He looked like a ghost of a fallen era. Tattered remnants of a once-lavish robe fluttered in the gale, worn over a suit of spectral chainmail that glinted with an unnatural light. His long hair was swept back into a careless knot, exposing a narrow, aristocratic forehead and skin the tone of aged bronze.
He was translucent, his body suffused with a pale, ghostly glow—but it was his soul that stopped Blaze's breath.
A red aura swirled around the man, a mist so thick and crimson it looked like drying blood. It was the darkest shade of malice Blaze had ever witnessed, a visual testament to a lifetime of atrocities.
"How many sins did he commit?" Blaze muttered, his voice swallowed by the wind.
The enemy captain didn't respond, but he didn't have to. With a casual wave of his hand, he gave the order. "Attack them," a voice bellowed from the enemy deck.
The ocean responded first.
The water erupted.
A colossal GrayScale serpent, its hide the color of wet tombstone, coiled out of the depths between the two vessels. It didn't just breach; it rose like a mountain of muscle, its scales grinding against the Vanguard's hull with the screech of metal on stone.
The twelve survivors around Blaze didn't stand a chance. The serpent moved with a fluid, terrifying speed that defied its massive size.
With a whip-like snap of its tail, the beast smashed the mainmast. The heavy timber groaned and snapped, crushing two men instantly. It was a scene of pure, unadulterated chaos. The serpent lunged, its baring fangs glowing like ivory daggers in the dark. Three fighters, driven by desperation, charged with spears, but the beast swiped them into the black waves with a single, contemptuous flick of its head.
Swords flashed in the darkness as the remaining crew tried to find purchase in the creature's hide. They fired their weapons, but the lead flattened against the serpent's reinforced scales like pebbles against a wall. The creature exhaled a low, vibrating hiss that shook the very marrow of Blaze's bones before its jaws snapped shut over the navigator, dragging him into the abyss.
Within minutes, the deck was a graveyard of broken wood and silence, save for the roar of the storm and the splashing of the sea.
Blaze stood alone near the stern, his boots slipping on the blood-slicked oak. His knuckles were white around the hilt of his iron-handled sword. He was the final obstacle.
He knew he was outmatched. The creature was stronger, faster, and possessed a primal cruelty that made his blood run cold. But as the serpent looped its massive body around the ship's midsection, the wood groaning under the lethal constriction, Blaze felt a strange clarity.
The serpent lowered its head, eye-to-eye with him. Its vertical pupils slit with hunger, reflecting the flickering lantern light.
Blaze didn't wait for the strike. He lunged.
He became a blur of motion, his blade whistling through the freezing rain. He didn't fight the serpent's power; he used its own momentum against it. He dove beneath a crushing strike, the massive scales passing inches above his head with the force of a falling carriage.
The serpent, frustrated by the small human's persistence, reared back for a final, decisive strike. It unhinged its jaw, preparing to swallow the entire stern deck whole.
At that exact moment, the ship tilted violently into the trough of a massive wave. The beast overextended, its predatory strike missing Blaze and burying its massive fangs deep into the heavy oak of the deck boards.
Blaze saw the opening.
He didn't waste time striking at the impenetrable scales. He sprinted up the creature's arched neck, defying gravity as the ship pitched and rolled. With a guttural roar that was lost to the thunder, he drove his sword upward.
The steel sank deep into the soft, vulnerable tissue beneath the serpent's jaw, piercing straight into the brain.
The creature stiffened. A low, wet gurgle escaped its throat. With a final, convulsive shudder, the massive weight of the serpent slid backward. The sheer force of its descent tore the sword from Blaze's hands as the monster vanished into the dark, hungry Atlantic.
Blaze collapsed onto the deck, his lungs burning. He was the only soul left breathing. Around him, the corpses of his comrades lay still under the weeping sky.