The sea beyond the Dawn Islands had transformed into a living nightmare. Where once calm waters reflected the sky, now stretched an endless mirror of blood, its surface shimmering with unnatural viscosity under the Red Moon’s malignant gaze. The very air tasted of rust and salt, clinging to the lips like the aftertaste of a fresh wound.
Then came the ships.
Twenty floating cathedrals of war, each large enough to dock entire villages along their gilded decks. Their hulls, plated with divine alloys that shimmered like liquid sunlight, cut through the corrupted waters with impossible grace. Massive sails of woven silver thread billowed not with wind, but with raw celestial energy, their surfaces etched with glowing scriptures that pulsed in time with the paladins’ chants below. At each prow stood a towering statue of the Holy Order’s Deities, their stone eyes weeping golden tears that sizzled where they struck the tainted sea.
The deck of the lead ship, swarmed with activity. Five hundred paladins in full battle regalia knelt in perfect formation, their polished armor reflecting the hellish glow of the approaching island. Between their ranks moved clerics in flowing white vestments, swinging censers that emitted not smoke, but concentrated light, the holy fumes forming a shimmering dome over the vessel. At the mast, three dozen templars worked the massive ballistae, loading blessed bolts longer than a man is tall, their tips dripping with liquid sanctity that burned the deck where it dripped.
Cardinal Clementine stood at the command pulpit, his ceremonial robes swapped for battle armor of white gold, the papal sigil glowing crimson across his breastplate. His gauntleted fingers tightened around the railing as the island’s silhouette grew on the horizon.
“Steady, my faithful,” he murmured, though his voice carried across the deck through divine amplification. “Today we carve our names into the annals of…”
A young voice interrupted. “They know we’re here.”
Saint Mot leaned against the rail, his bare feet dangling over the edge. The twelve-year-old’s simple gray robes fluttered in a wind that wasn’t blowing, his staff of petrified bone resting across his lap. Where the Cardinal radiated authority, the boy exuded only quiet amusement, his mismatched eyes (one gold, one void-black) tracking something beneath the waves.
Clementine’s jaw tightened. “Of course they do. Let them see the instruments of their…”
“No,” Mot said, pointing. “It really knows.”
The sea ahead began to boil.
The first ship crossed into the mist with a sound like shattering crystal.
The golden dome surrounding Divine Retribution flared blindingly bright, then fractured. Hairline cracks spread across its surface, each emitting a high-pitched whine as the Red Moon’s influence pressed down. Paladins screamed as their armor grew hot enough to blister skin beneath, the holy inscriptions along their plates darkening to burnt black. Clerics collapsed mid-prayer, blood streaming from their noses as their connection to the divine strained against the island’s corruption.
Then the waves came.
The sea erupted in a wall of water taller than the ship’s main mast, its crest curling with impossible slowness before crashing down with the force of an avalanche. The impact threw templars from their posts like ragdolls, their blessed bolts skittering across the deck uselessly. Below, the hull groaned as something massive scraped against its enchanted underside, the sound setting teeth on edge.
From the command pulpit, Clementine watched in horror as the ship to their starboard, was lifted completely from the water by a nest of roots thicker than ancient oaks. The thorns studding their surfaces glistened with some unknown venom, each barb longer than a cavalry lance. With a wet crunch, the roots constricted—and the ship folded inward like parchment in a fist, its golden hull crumpling like tin. The screams of the crew were cut short as the roots penetrated every hatch and gunport, the deck running red with whatever remained of the faithful within.
“Return fire!” Clementine bellowed, his voice cracking. “All batteries!”
The forward ballistae loosed with thunderous reports. Blessed bolts streaked through the mist, their holy payloads detonating against the roots in bursts of golden flame. The vegetation recoiled…for a moment. Then new growth surged forth, the burnt tendrils sloughing away to reveal fresh, glistening bark beneath.
Mot sighed. “That won’t work.”
“Then what will, Saint?” Clementine snapped.
The boy smiled. “Let me show you.”
Mot raised his staff and brought it down with a sound that shouldn’t exist, a wet, echoing thud that vibrated through bone and metal alike.
The sea parted.
Not in a neat divide, but in a violent upheaval, as if some unimaginably vast creature had just twitched beneath the surface. Water exploded upward in geysers taller than the ships, revealing for one horrific instant the writhing mass of roots that connected the island to the ocean floor…and something else moving beneath them.
Then the tentacles came.
They erupted from the depths with the force of volcanic eruptions, each thicker than the ships they dwarfed, their surfaces a nightmare mosaic of eyes, mouths, and pulsating veins. The largest wrapped around the attacking roots and squeezed, the sound of crushing vegetation like a thousand trees being felled at once. Smaller tendrils lashed out with terrifying precision, plucking drowning knights from the water…though their “rescue” was hardly gentle.
On the main ship’s deck, Clementine watched as a templar was hurled aboard by a tentacle, his armor crumpled like foil, his legs bent at impossible angles. Another followed, then another…a rain of broken bodies slamming into the deck with wet thuds.
“You’re killing them!” Clementine roared.
Mot shrugged. “They were already dead in the water. This way, your healers can patch them up.” He pointed to where the massive tentacles were now systematically uprooting the island’s defenses, each yank producing an earth-shaking groan from the landmass. “See? Easy.”
From the depths came a sound no human throat could produce…a shriek of agony that vibrated through the ships, shattering glass and bursting eardrums. The Red Moon’s glow flickered.
Clementine’s horror slowly turned to awe, then to something darker. With this power at his command…
“Van Dijk was never needed,” he murmured.
Mot chuckled. “The fact he stopped something like that without having something like Azathoth is already impressive enough,”
The boy raised his staff again…and the sea went mad.