It was easy to feel overwhelmed when so many things were happening from so many directions, especially when they were occurring all at once.

  Reiva's ship wasn't in the heart of the fleet, as those spots were taken up by the sky arks with all the noncombatant refugees in them. His ship was somewhere in the middle, but more to the back and then a little to the left so it was closer to nd. Height-wise, his ship was among the ones maintaining a higher altitude—which was a good thing for him because the gargantuan megalodons ambushing them from beneath the sea didn't target his ship first.

  And so, because of his sky ark's convenient pcement, he got to see a bit of everything happening.

  Ships below wisely rushed to fly higher, trying their best to evade the gigantic shark-like creatures or at least make it harder for the abominations to crush them with sheer size and weight. In a horrifying turn of events, said abominations seemed to hide a surprise should they fail to sink their serrated teeth into any ship slow enough to get caught—from their gaping maws spawned a sprawling horde of espers that wreaked havoc on any ship decks with people in it. And st but not least, he could make out the sinister appearance of bat-winged creatures menacingly gliding toward their fleet in the distance, each seemingly as big as an elephant.

  So many things to pay attention to, each demanding urgency. A normal nineteen-year-old should be panicking, he mused for a moment. Cowering behind something, as if hiding would help against beings so rge they could crush them and wherever they were hiding. Or maybe cursing out loud as a final farewell to creation as their knees buckled in despair.

  But instead of losing heart or mind at the unexpected, Reivan found himself suddenly gaining crity.

  He took a deep breath before bellowing out at a volume he’d never had to use before. “Mages! Secure and evacuate noncombatants! Don’t fire spells out chaotically! You’ll hit the other ships!”

  Reivan paused, not for effect, but because his throat was unexpectedly pained by the exertion. He realized that his speaking muscles—if there was even such a thing—weren't used much. And definitely not to this extent.

  The thought of utilizing a dream crystal to deliver his orders ran through his mind, but then again, not everyone had one of those. Only the knights did. And they weren’t the sum of his current retinue, were they? Besides, given the abruptness and the seriousness of the situation, not all of those knights would have the time to take out devices.

  And so, shouting would have to do. In the back of his mind though, he was sure that a smart [Wind] elementalist would hear him and use their skills to extend the reach of his voice. Knights wouldn’t lose their heads in this situation. They had been put through worse during their time as squires.

  “Citizens! Stay inside! Ships! Raise altitude while heading for nd! Darkin! Clear the skies!”

  Reivan’s eyes wandered downward, to a tiny corner where one of the gargantuan sharks got blown away by a gust of wind before a long gash appeared in its fnk.

  “Knights!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Do what you can! Prioritize espers when possible!”

  Trying to unite the knights in this chaotic situation was an exercise in futility. Sure, they were traveling and undergoing group deployment a lot more recently. But at their core, knights were a type of soldier that fought freely and with minimal aid because others more often got in the way of whatever they were doing.

  So the most efficient use for them was to just let the professional warriors decide what to do with their skills and decide when those skills would best be put to use. Because Reivan sure as hell wasn’t going to cim that he knew about their skills better than they did.

  “Yani!”

  Reivan snapped out of his short daze, turning back from the railing to see his sister running toward him in full armor from her neck to the tips of her toes, hastily twisting her hair into a loose bun behind her head.

  Clearly, she was ready for anything. Even something unexpected like this.

  ‘Oh. Come to think of it…’

  Reivan looked down at his own clothes and found, well, clothes. He had to fix that.

  With a single thought, he was wrapped in his usual armor, simir to what everyone else wore except slightly more flecked with gold trimmings. The usual. As for a helm, he obviously put one on because he didn’t believe plot armor was going to save him if one of those sharks hit him in the back of the head. No way was that going to end any other way than with a comically loud spt. Or amnesia, which he really hoped wasn't included in the list of story arcs he had to go through in the future.

  ‘Helmets save lives, people!’

  Not for everyone, apparently, because Reivan winced when he heard the sound of steel and wood being snapped. One of the ships must have gotten caught. Surely there was at least one knight in that ship who wore a helmet, yet it probably didn't help much when their entire body got hit.

  Good thing the Samsaran forces weren’t being one-sidedly beaten, because he could vaguely hear the ghastly death knells of espers everywhere too.

  “Jiji. I’m gd to see you’re fine,” Reivan said as he turned to his sister, debating what he should have her do. But it didn’t seem all that smart to completely split up when there was no need to.

  And she could surely handle herself to a certain extent. Even if she slipped up, then if he was nearby, then he could cover for her.

  ‘Yeah. She should stick with me. That seems better...’

  “Watch my back,” Reivan said before he turned to his left, where he found another armored knight waiting beside him. “Xander, you too.”

  “Understood, Your Excellency.”

  Jiji looked around, and though he couldn’t see her face under the helm, Reivan could tell from her mannerisms that she was hesitant. “I think it’s better if I stay up here to respond to any more surprises. The empire may have more in their bag of tricks.”

  Reivan nodded. “That makes sense, but are you sure…? It's dangerous, no?”

  “Keep your dream crystal active so I can be your eyes up here. I’ll try to coordinate our own chaotic band of armored terrors. I’ll send some people to the refugee ships too. They’ll be exterminated if the espers get to them.”

  “Good,” he said, failing to keep his amazement from leaking into his tone.

  Maybe he had gotten used to being around Helen too much. She would always want to go where the danger was greatest—where she could devour the adversary and use it as a stepping stone to greater skill.

  But Jiji, clearly, was a different breed of warrior. She didn’t feel the need to step forward when she could take a step back and gain an expanded viewpoint instead. Both, Reivan mused, were essential for a perfect warrior.

  Knowing when to charge in, knowing when to hold the line, and knowing when to retreat.

  ‘I should probably learn to take a page out of her book… But not today. Today, I have to go where the problems are and eliminate them.’

  After sending an encouraging nod to his sister, Reivan then climbed atop the railing. Quickly finding his bance, he surveyed the battlefield with sharp eyes.

  There were thirty, he counted. Thirty of those gigantic motherfuckers. Reivan’s frustration at their scouts rose at how they had missed a group of these. But then he saw the parts of the shores that weren’t agitated by the massive homunculi.

  ‘The ash…’

  Volcanic ash had contaminated the nearby waters. While this had the unwanted effect of killing or at least driving away all the fish, it also obscured the waters to the extent you couldn’t see anything wading beneath—even gigantic shark abominations, it seemed. Also, it would have been hard to sense their presence if they stayed entirely still while ying in wait for the Samsaran Forces. Homunculi weren't exactly alive in the traditional sense, so a lot of the tells that a knight used to detect life weren't as effective on them.

  Clearly, this was a very carefully constructed ambush. It was probably Axion's work too, given how the Argonian prince likely had eyes all over Samsara and therefore knew a rge force had just left its only stronghold.

  'Fucking Argonians, I swear...'

  The oversized sharks had to be dealt with, but Reivan’s eyes focused on the ruins of a sky ark below. He didn’t know if that was the one with a lot of refugees in it. But that was hardly relevant. Men and women who flew with him on this expedition had been on that ship and they were likely thrown into the sea.

  Reivan would not leave them to drown if he could help it.

  With that in mind, he summoned Zouros and set the giant serpent loose, but not against the monsters. Zouros’ main role was to slither around the chaos and find the people who fell into the water. Only when he deposited them all into his stomach for safekeeping would the giant serpent address the homunculi.

  ‘The biggest threats…’

  Were probably not the ugly batlings, he immediately decided. Those ugly things were still in the distance and were about to be intercepted by the darkin, though the small force of winged dies seemed drastically outnumbered. There were more of those batlings than ships and darkin combined. With any hope, the fleet would reorganize before that. Out of all the threats, they were the least to worry about for now.

  A resounding boom snapped his attention to a gigantic mass of flesh violently falling back into the water’s embrace after a failed chomp on a sky ark. Now that he was getting a better look, he was starting to think he may have been hasty in calling them megalodons. If memory serves him right, megalodons weren’t portrayed as having tentacles extending from inside their mouths. Megalodons also shouldn’t look as if they were entirely made of rotten flesh.

  Espers were, quite frankly, extremely dangerous to the Samsaran Expedition forces. The floors of a sky ark wouldn’t stop the ghastly phantoms, so they could very easily slip into any of the rooms on board and immediately kill any unsuspecting mages. Even battlemages wouldn’t necessarily fare better if they weren’t simultaneously accompanied by a strong spirit beast.

  It went without saying what would happen if the espers made it to the ships at the heart of their formation, where all the noncombatant Arkhanians were.

  ‘I want to take care of the espers first, but there’s no way to do that now.’

  Most of the said espers were already inside the ships, likely fighting against the mages on board. And at this point, Reivan didn’t know which ships had espers in them. With any hope, there were some Senior-grade Knights around when the specters came knocking. Or at least a few Junior-grade ones that could team up to take a particurly powerful foe down.

  “They caught us at a bad time,” Jiji intoned from within her helm, which she had put on at some point. “House Morva and House Demoscene aren’t here to help and they would have been a big boon.”

  Reivan agreed, resisting the urge to curse out loud. Nobody would hear him in his head though, so he freely did so there.

  When they left the Golden Gear base, the members of those two houses had given up their seats on the sky arks to make room for the Arkhanian survivors the Samsaran Expedition Forces were bringing back.

  Unfortunately, that ultimately meant that they couldn’t keep up with the sky arks which obviously traveled much faster over an extended period.

  While spirit beasts didn’t tire, they consumed their own magic power to do physically exerting tasks—like flying and swimming at full speed. Not to mention how the humans riding them would have to take various breaks, such as for eating and relieving themselves.

  A sky ark, on the other hand, could go on for as long as the enchantments on the ships remained, which was expected to be a century or two for these particur set of newly-crafted ships. There would be no need for rest stops during the voyage either because the people aboard could just do whatever they had to do inside of it.

  That, ultimately, meant the Houses of Morva and Demoscene would g behind over the past few days of their voyage back to Lageton. In fact, the two houses openly stated that they should be left behind so the rescued Arkhanians could make it to Lageton a few days sooner.

  Hence, why they weren’t here to help.

  House Morva’s avian spirit beasts and general domination of wind would have tipped or at least banced the scales against the enemy’s aerial troops. Meanwhile, House Demoscene’s water spirit beasts would have outright detected the enemy and turned the tides.

  Their absence, born from good intentions and ultimately caused by a desire to return as soon as possible, would be felt in this battle. Samsara’s expedition forces would bleed for it, no doubt.

  ‘Wait a minute…’

  A chill crept up his spine as he realized just how perfect the conditions were for this attack on them.

  The ash contamination hiding the dangers lurking underneath. Battlemages who were perfect for dominating the air and the seas were separated from them. And it just so happened that their fleet was den with rescued citizens that they would now have to protect.

  It was like the stacks were slowly built up for the enemy to strike at the opportune moment, when every advantage to be had was obtained. Right when Samsara didn't want to be attacked.

  ‘Was this all a coincidence, or…’

  Reivan bit his lip. He naturally considered this attack was prepared by Prince Axion, but surely the Argonian didn't know everything, right? Everything felt too in favor of the enemy that he was starting to think that maybe there were spies among his forces.

  Honestly though? It could have just been the Samsaran Expedition's fault for handling things in a way that would put them at a disadvantage.

  They were the ones who decided that it was fine to leave behind House Morva and House Demoscene. They were the ones who assumed Argonia wouldn’t have any presence on the southern shores because of how far away it was from the imperial mainnd. They were the ones who decided to travel along those very shores, thinking it would be safer and would make it more difficult for the enemy to hide while surveying them.

  When he really gave it some consideration, it was Samsara’s fault. Not the empire’s.

  Perhaps the tter simply saw the opportunity that Samsara revealed and took it. That was all there was to it. It didn't have to be a story of treachery. Hell, it was also possible that this entire affair wasn’t that deep. Perhaps the empire would have ambushed them on their way back to Lageton regardless of the expeditionary force’s state.

  Extricating himself from the mire of his own thoughts, Reivan pointed at the giant monstrosities below. “Those creepy shark-like things must be dealt with. Who knows if they’ve got more horrors inside like the walking type of homunculi? It’s gonna be tough taking them out though, but it's not like we have any other option here…”

  No compints, it seemed, but Xander stepped forward with an idea. “We do not actually need to sy them, Your Highness. The fleet is still flying forward at a great speed and yet those things can still keep up. If we can sabotage the monsters’ mobility, however, then they will be a nonfactor even if we don’t kill them right now.”

  Jiji gasped and Reivan’s eyes widened.

  “That’s true…” she muttered. “I should pass that around, just in case.”

  “You’re a genius, Sir Xander. That’s exactly what we need to do!”

  ‘Is this the difference that being experienced brings?’

  While he had thought that killing the things was their only solution, Xander saw through the crux of the problem and offered a much better answer to their current predicament.

  Now their problems were looking much easier to handle.

  “Alright, I guess I should go for the tail, huh?” Reivan mused as he watched yet another of the sharks have a go at one of Samsara’s sky arks. Those things were enormous and were probably heavy as hell too, but they sure could jump.

  He’d have to fix that.

  Tipping forward from the ship's edge, Reivan fearlessly dove downward and kicked off his conjured swords whenever he needed to avoid crashing through a sky ark passing by. He had a long way to go considering how high his sky ark had been, so he got a better look at his surroundings.

  Of course, he could just speed through the distance by using a mobility aetherbde art but he wanted to save mana as much as he could. Homunculi were bereft of the resource, so he couldn't replenish his mana pool by draining the creatures.

  Which meant what he had right now was all he had to work with.

  Unless he drained an ally, that is. Which was actually a viable tactic when he thought about it. After all, not everyone would need all of their mana, right? Sharing was caring and all that good stuff.

  Reivan chanced a gnce behind him to make sure Sir Xander was still following him, only to see the knight momentarily conjure some kind of paraglider-like instrument whenever he had to avoid one of the ships.

  ‘Oh, that’s cool. I should’ve done that instead…’

  There was no need to do so now, however, because his first prey just burst out of the water to offer itself to him. As it reached the crown of its jump, there was a brief moment when the gargantuan abomination looked utterly weightless. It was just gravity’s favorite part—the part where it tried oh so very hard to make things fall back down to the earth where they belonged.

  ‘Now!’

  Seeing his chance, Reivan became a bolt of lightning that reached the base of the titan’s tail fin. In his firm grip was a big battle axe that would make stereotypical anime dwarves proud. And with a grunt of exertion, Reivan swung it as hard as he possibly could while imbuing its edge with a generous amount of his essence.

  The unpleasant sensation of a bde sinking into the rotten flesh… wasn’t there. Rather, the glowing edge sliced through whatever it passed through and more. There was no resistance at all, like a hot knife through butter.

  His job done, Reivan once again transformed into a bolt of lightning that crackled through the air and into the deck of an ascending ship. Along the way, he managed to catch a glimpse of Xander stabbing a spear through an esper and shattering it into nonexistent pieces.

  ‘Did it work though?’

  There was a loud spsh as the giant homunculi whose tail he cut off crashed back into the water. Reivan’s gaze followed the sound before inspecting the dark shadow below the water with scrutinizing eyes. It struggled. And though only a little, the giant monster did somehow move. But with its current speed, there was no way it would catch up with the fleet.

  Reivan sighed in relief even though he knew that it would work. Theoretically, that is. Even if logic stated that it was a good pn, mountain-sized sharks that could extend tentacles from within its mouth weren’t exactly in the realm of normalcy that he’d come to know—which was saying something, because his font of knowledge was anything but normal.

  Even though cutting off the tail should slow it down to a snail’s pace, he didn’t know if it could, say, swim using those tentacles or maybe sprout more tentacles or something. Receiving confirmation like this was the best way to alleviate any doubt in his heart.

  ‘Alrighty, then. Since it worked, all we need to do is rinse and repeat.’

  In fact, they didn’t even need to cripple all twenty-nine of the sharklings left. When the entire fleet made it high enough and maybe got back to looming over nd, then the only threats left would be the espers and the bat-winged homunculi.

  Just as he was about to check the darkin and their csh against the batlings, yet another titanic figure erupted from the murky waters.

  Four, actually. All at the same time.

  Reivan hesitated only for a brief instance, aiming to attack the nearest one and go from there—rather than try to take all four and fail to catch any. Again, he became a nce of electricity that closed the distance in practically no time at all. And once again, he sliced off the abominable thing’s tail.

  But just as he was about to head for the nearest one, he saw that another knight was already there. With a mighty diagonal chop, the sharkling’s tail was sliced clean off.

  The other two left were also attacked by other knights before they turned into various elements to retreat back into their ship. Reivan also returned to the stable foothold of a low-flying sky ark, residual electricity still snaking around his body as he grinned.

  ‘Man, having competent allies sure makes life a lot easier.’

  Clearl as day, the other knights had seen his first success and opted to join in. The fact that they did so without him having to tell them was nice, because he didn’t have time to ask for help when four of those fat fuckers suddenly sprouted from the sea.

  If, Reivan mused, one’s teammates in online games were this competent, team chat would be a much more family-friendly environment and censorship wouldn’t be required. But so is life. Not everyone had a good hand dealt to them all the time, so to speak.

  ‘I think I can leave this task to them…’

  One of the three knights who cut off a sharkling tail had transformed into water, which meant that knight had the [Water] affinity. Very fortunate, that. The man—or woman, he wasn't sure because of the armor and the abruptness of the situation—was much more useful in this environment than Reivan would be. Obviously, no mortal water elementalist could deal with such gargantuan creatures all at once, so Reivan didn’t expect the knight to solve everything.

  He stuck around just in case, but ten more of the sharklings tried their luck, only to be humbled by more knights.

  With that, Reivan decided that he was no longer needed here.

  Of the thirty shark homunculi, half were already taken care of. And while there was still another half to go, the fleet was already doing better for it. Most of the low-flying ships had already ascended to a reasonable altitude. Now, if their captain just paid attention, dodging an attack from below wasn’t an improbability. Cutting off the tail didn’t stop the giant sharks from taking a ship down with them, after all, should their attempts to get a bite succeed.

  With the leeway he’d obtained, Reivan finally checked back with the figures in the sky and his heart grew restless when he saw winged figures headed for the ships.

  And those wings weren’t the feathered wings of the darkin.

  As his grip around the bde tightened in preparation, he felt someone reaching out to him telepathically. It was Jiji, and she was telling him not to worry about the bats. Hoping that his sister knew what she was doing, he left her to it and turned his attention back to the waters.

  For a second, he balked at the appearance of something new. There was a different shape in the water. Just as rge, though in a different sense. The unknown thing was longer.

  And it had wings.

  ‘Oh. It’s Zee. Fuck, I almost had a heart attack...’

  A mere moment ter, Zouros burst out in all its glory. And though it wasn’t big enough to swallow a shark homunculi even at its maximum size, it was long and rge enough to wrap around one and constrict the homunculi just as the abomination attacked.

  The crunch that Reivan heard, even with a decent distance from the scene, was a good assurance that the abominable thing wouldn’t be using any of its body any time soon.

  Reivan couldn’t help but take a moment to appreciate the satisfaction of seeing a giant monster fight another giant monster. There was just something about it that caused a morbid fascination.

  It sted but a second, however, as his attention returned to the flying fuckers above.

  The sharks were taken care of and the espers were hard to track, but these bats? They were arrow fodder.

  Just as he’d expected, the moment any of the giant bats got close enough, it was shot through the head by an arrow he assumed came from a knight. More bats followed the first one, and so more arrows were shot in response.

  In the end, none of the bats that slipped through the darkin’s forces managed to make it close enough to the fleet.

  Xander must have been finished, because he nded at Reivan’s side. The next moment, however, he pulled Reivan to the left. “Your Excellency, watch out.”

  “Ah…?” Reivan looked up and indeed saw a body descending rapidly. If he didn’t move, it would no doubt be quite unpleasant. Should those things truly be homunculi, the thing wouldn't have blood. But a well-made one would, apparently. And he didn’t want blood and guts all over his armor, even if it was a conjured one that didn’t need cleaning.

  Before the cadaver truly nded on him, Reivan halted its descent with [Formless Will], and then he let the corpse nd gently at his feet for inspection.

  ‘Ugly thing. Literally, why can’t they make visually appealing homunculi? Even normal ones will do fine, like ones that don’t look as if they’re made from dead flesh. Or ones that sing and dance and are kind to nerds.’

  The thing had pale grey skin just like every other kind of homunculi. At first sight, anyone would think it was just a mutated bat.

  A rge, elephant-sized bat.

  A rge bat that sucks blood from people. Or kills them. Or sucks then kills them.

  A rge bat that sucks, or kills, or sucks then kills, and also had its ugliness meter dialed up to eleven and a half—maybe three halves, on a bad day. The arms with its wing membranes looked ridiculously muscur too, and the batling even had defined abdominal muscles.

  Essentially, these were jacked bats that were gigantified and extra-uglified.

  To his disgust, another two bats almost fell on him, even though he’d already moved from his previous spot. Was someone out to get him or something? Throwing giant bat corpses at people was definitely rude, even if it wasn't stated in any etiquette manuals.

  His annoyance was forgotten when his gaze fell on them. These ones, interestingly enough, were still alive. Except their arms had been cut off or magicked off with a good old-fashioned detonation spell or some higher variation.

  As Xander finished the two off and Reivan telekinetically threw the corpses overboard without lifting a finger, Reivan noted that the people up top probably thought simirly to Xander, in that the enemy didn't need to be sin—just neutralized enough that they became irrelevant.

  Sharks and their tail fins. Bats and their wings. Same thing, in essence.

  ‘The wings are honestly an easier target than, say, its head or its heart.’

  It seemed his sister really did know what she was doing. The bats, one of two new additions to the tally of imperial abominations, would not be a problem for now. And the sharks were handled too.

  “Xander, we’re helping the center,” Reivan said, gesturing above where knights and mages alike were doing their best to keep the espers away from all the people—who couldn’t put up a fight against a literal phantom.

  “Understood,” the knight responded promptly.

  And just like that, Reivan moved from one fire to another after making sure that someone else was working to extinguish it. Both of them turned into collections of elemental essence, with Reivan choosing lightning and Xander choosing a comet of bck mist.

  They ascended as fast as they could, and Reivan didn’t miss the broken corpses of a few mages on the decks. The poor souls must have been too weak to resist [Poltergeist], an esper’s favorite method of killing. If even one esper got into a ship full of ordinary people, the tragedy would be magnified exponentially.

  Reivan truly hoped that when he got there, he wouldn’t find a ship full of mangled corpses and a cackling esper. These were not his people and he didn’t even know half their names. But they didn’t deserve to be massacred here—they deserved better.

  ‘Hurry, hurry.’

  Reivan knew he had capable allies all around him. He knew that, even if he didn’t do everything in person, someone else would pick up the sck and do a good job. That he wasn’t alone here, even when there were so many enemies all around him.

  But even then, he knew that all it would take was one mistake.

  One mistake could turn their successful expedition into a tragedy.

  So he felt rushed because he wouldn’t let his guard down until he could confirm with his own eyes that everything was fine.

  AnnouncementChapter Word Count: 5000Last Edited: March 12, 2025