I journeyed, long in walking, far beyond the place of stopping...
Where there was no more returning to the people I had known...
I saw the world forgotten, where the grass gives up on growing...
And I knew that I would never make another journey home...
Upon that fleshy plain, below the final rock outcropping...
Stretched the vast and empty desert of the hungry, bleeding thing...
Encompassing the earth to the horizon, all-consuming...
Crying in a thousand voices to its desolate god-king...
And the music of its crying, never dead, ever dying...
Sent me running in a madness I can scarce compare to fear...
Not to safety, but to silence - unto my own unmaking...
And yet now, upon awaking, once again the song I hear...
I long to taste the fruit of earth, I long for water quenching...
Of my thirst, unending, nothing that remains can satisfy...
For my voice has joined the chorus ever more, ever mourning...
Ever singing, ever hungry. Ever dying, never die...
- A work of the famed R.J. Williamson, years before the collapse of the Golden Age of Modernity...
________________________________________
[Multiple Signals Detected within Range. Determining Total Numbers... Parsing...]
"..."
Her eyes quietly surveyed the display upon of the bright command panel in front of her- several targets marked as pinging signals on the screen, the numerous enemies whose complete annihilation was necessary in order to proceed with the main task she had at hand...
As the Silver Tempest cruised through the ocean waters in a slow, yet dauntless approach, its advanced, long-ranged detection radar immediately allowed it to detect the numerous enemy ships that were just within the reach of its devastating arsenal: granted though, while each of them were still quite far away, enough for the naked eye to be completely unable to see them, the enemy ships were already within reach of the ship's striking range, and all that was left for Thurien to do was to confirm the amount enemies she needed to take down before she gave the order to fire...
[Parsing Complete: Verified Amount of Signals within reach has been calculated to be... 15 in Total...]
15 wooden ships, their hulls armored with some sort of thin, metal platings, as their bodies were armed to the teeth with cannons that were most likely powered by gunpowder and magick... At first Thurien did not think of them as enemies, as she had thought that they were nothing more than armed merchant vessels who had unfortunately been caught within the ship's radar, but after the advanced optic devices confirmed that they were indeed ship-of-the-lines that were meant for battles in the sea, the reluctance forming within her quickly eased up a bit...
"Sigh... Must they all really die?"
Thurien couldn't help but sigh as she heard the results: 15 ships, each of which contained hundreds of men within them as they sailed the seas, human lives who were completely unaware of the carnage that they were about to experience, and the thought of it made the bioandroid a bit reluctant for a while within her thoughts.
Human lives... They were so fleeting, weak, and... fragile. To Thurien, even though the very race who had created her was capable of giving life to a countless, untold miracles
of creation and destruction, they were, by themselves, still ultimately weak creatures who had none of the qualities of strength, speed and endurance possessed by the other races that roamed the earth.
Despite this weakness however, humanity had managed to, in its peak, conquer the entirety of the planet and make it as their own domain, an impressive feat that no other earthly animal had ever managed to achieve throughout the planet's millions of years of existence- it was not through any sort of beastly quality that allowed man to reign supreme upon the lands of the earth, but rather, it was through a combination of intelligence, cunning, and the determination to live that allowed them to achieve all the marvels and miracles they accomplished.
And because of this, a respect, as well as a love for this marvelous race, had always remained strong within the bioandroid's synthetic heart, and for her, it was almost regretful to snuff out the numerous human lives that were just within her ship's range...
"... Even still, they're enemies that need to be dealt with... If I let them be, the others will definitely have a hard time later on..."
Fortunately though, a quick realization immediately led to the medicae steeling up her resolve as she dispelled the feelings of doubt and hesitation that were clouding up her mind. Indeed, she had already done this multiple times: from the vicious humans of the empire who she had to kill in the multitudes of battles against them, to the entire, hundred-thousand-strong army that Speranza completely wiped out under her orders.
At first, Thurien considered a less cruel alternative, one where she would personally travel to the ships one by one through her teleportation capabilities and bring them all into the Realm of Sleep, however, she quickly realized that this would not only take too much time, but it was also too incredibly dangerous: Their destruction... It was a necessary step, an inevitable requisite that had to be done in order to proceed with their plans- at the very least, she could at least provide these pitiful humans with quick, painless deaths by utilizing a notable percentage of power within her ship's weapons arsenals.
"Begin charging the secondary railguns. Leave no ship alive, and wipe all of them out as quickly as possible..."
[Command Received. Powering up secondary cannons...]
Not all of the ship's weapons were necessary for dealing with the relatively small human fleet- in truth, even the weakest weapons of the Tempest were enough to sink several of them in a single strike, but Thurien of course possessed a desire to not only conserve the power of the Tempest for future engagements, but to also at least provide a swift end to the doomed sailors who were about to meet their demises in a few short moments.
And for this reason she had chosen the secondary guns among the ship's armaments: they didn't need much power to use when compared to the other weapons, and they were powerful enough to completely annihilate the human ships in only 2-4 barrages, and this made it as the perfect weapon to deal with the targets before her whose deathly fates closely lied in wait.
[Long Range, Secondary Guns....]
[Online and Ready to Fire.]
"... Begin firing at once then..."
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The air shook violently as the guns let loose, their projectiles speeding through the air in an unstoppable manner as they rapidly closed in on their targets in a dreadfully quick approach...
...
...
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
There were those sounds again... About 30 or so minutes ago, their ships were still complete in number, but now, there were only 3 of their vessels that were still afloat, as the noises of explosive eruptions kept rippling throughout both the air and waters while the men all around him began screaming and panicking about.
"What the hell is happening to our ships?!"
"We're under attack! We're being bombarded from far away!"
"Damn monster! It's coming from that fucking metal ship, but we can't even attack it because it's too far away!"
For the man known as Bertran, one of the hundreds of pirates under Blackheart's command, the entire situation that he and his crewmates had found themselves in quickly proved to be an absolute nightmare.
They were supposed to have set sailed for the seaports of Athenia, the capital of Gresia, the same place where most of the Neugomian forces were currently located at: together with their naval power and the teeming might of the imperial forces, they were supposed to have at least put up a fight against the oncoming forces of the demons who had easily conquered Vishnal in the blink of an eye.
Truth be told however, Bertran had already heard rumors of just how powerful those monsters who easily defeated the empire truly were- in only mere days, those bastards had achieved what had once been thought for hundreds of years to be impossible, as they not only annihilated an entire, hundred thousand strong force sent against them, but they also managed to seize the empire by its neck and make it bend the knee so humiliatingly...
There was no other possibility after all: this attack could have only been made by those monsters who made a laughingstock of the empire, and there was no other prime candidate that would be the perfect suspect for the cause of these sudden attacks on them...
Unfortunately though, the same demons of rumor had now arrived before them, and not one of these bandits of the sea would be able to survive the onslaught that would sink every single one of their ships...
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"We're taking in water below the decks! Our ship's fucking sinking!"
"We're doomed! Doomed, I tell ya! We ain't surviving this one!"
"Abandon ship! We have to flee lads, it's no use!"
From what he could remember from the memories of his past that were currently flashing before his eyes, Bertran had lived a life of thievery and cruelty throughout most of his life- with his fellow bandits of the sea he had killed numerous unfortunate sailors and pillaged countless collections of gold and jewelry from them, and by now, the amount of both could stack up and form an entire mountain.
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Did he deserve this? Just like all his mates, who had satisfied their greed to their fullest without a single regard for the innocent souls they slew along the way? Deep down however, Betran had already come to a conclusion of his own, and he had quickly began to believe that this was some sort of divine retribution for all the crimes they've committed in their miserable lives...
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"... I-I don't want to die here... Not now..."
Even so, despite his calm acceptance of the situation he had been entrapped in, the impending sense of death began pervading within his body like a poison that coursed through his very veins: the explosions were growing more numerous and even more louder with every passing second, and to add insult to injury, the very ship he was on right now was beginning to quiver back and forth due to the extreme, violent forces that collided with its once proud, durable hull of wood and magisteel.
At what point of it all was he going to die? Was he going to get thrown and knocked into the water by those powerful shockwaves that were tearing their ships apart while sending men into the air in the blink of an eye? Would he be engulfed by the eruptions that were now tearing his ship asunder and be reduced to ashes? Or would he be impaled and torn apart by the scattered pieces of ship-parts both small and large that were flying all through the open skies?
"... How did things come to this...? Agatha... If only you hadn't died back then..."
His life experiences flashed before his very eyes, playing themselves in a deluded sense of theatrical despair like a short film being played in rapid successions- the memory of the loving, gentle, though now-dead woman who Bertran cherished greatly when she was still alive... It was her death that led to him walking the dark path of banditry and murder he now lived, as the pain of grief and loss had forever scarred the very foundations of his soul and mind.
Perhaps if she hadn't died, then things could have been completely different, but alas, a weak, mortal man like himself was completely incapable of turning back time to achieve his desire for change...
BOOOMMM!!!
At the very least, his demise had been rather quick and painless, as one of the powerful explosions that tore through his ship like a hot knife through butter got within close proximity of his body: he couldn't even feel the pain of being burned or torn apart, as the sheer energies that made contact with his skin immediately turned Bertran into dust in but a millisecond's worth of time...
________________________________________
"... E-very single one of our ships have been sunk, cap'n..."
"... Fucking monsters they are... How powerful even are these damn bastards?!"
It was over by the time the Dread Corsair had arrived to the scene: his 15 ships, the entire armada he had spent years of grueling effort to arm and integrate as his ultimate weapons... Blackheart had poured oceans of his own riches into these tools of crime that faithfully served their purposes for years without fail, but now, they were all sinking into the depths as their broken wreckages burned with raging flames that covered the sky in a dark smog...
It was, in a way, quite ironic- once, he had been the one to leave the victims of his raids, the ones who chose to resist instead of yielding, in this pitiful state of death and despair, but now, the warlord of the sea himself had been put in the very same position from where his sufferers once stood from before they finally perished, and the feeling of it ate away at his pride endlessly, which only further drove the pirate captain into a great madness.
"Damn this life... DAMN IT ALL!" Hassan cursed as he sent the bottle of rum on his hands hurtling into the air. "If only I hadn't chosen to form an alliance with those imperial idiots, then none of this would have happened in the first place!"
Regret began forming within his thoughts as Blackheart looked back to where before this had all happened: his offer of an alliance to the imperials, the fact that he even went out of his way to send the entirety of his impressively-sized fleet to the empire's ports and provide them with all the help they needed for their war against those demons who conquered Vishnal in only a matter of days...
If only he hadn't thought of helping them, then he never would have lost his entire armada of precious ships like this so easily, for in a cruel twist of fate, his desire for survival and a continued existence led to him losing far more than what he had already possessed in excess...
"... We have no choice then... Begin preparations for the summoning..." Blackheart commanded all of a sudden, an order that his subordinate already had a faint idea of what he was referring to. "The Corsair alone won't be able to handle whatever beast it was that sunk all of our ships here..."
"C-cap'n... Y-you don't mean 'that' now, do ya?"
Even still, despite the devastating losses he already incurred, Hassan still had one more ace up his sleeve, a trick he had almost never used due to the power it held, as well as the fact that he considered it as a trump card that should rarely ever be utilized...
In fact, it was the reason why he earned the name 'Blackheart' all those years ago: a forbidden magick tome that bound its powerful magicks with his own heart, an arcane item that was capable of summoning a powerful, creature of the sea, whose appearance would require a sacrifice that came in the form of the doomed ships it was meant to annihilate...
"Are your ears deaf? I said begin preparing for the summoning of that damn behemoth..." the captain glared at him as he spoke. "We're going to need everything we can gather to fight those bastards that sunk all of my ships so easily..."
Of course, there were a myriad of dangers that would come the moment the beast was to be summoned for one of their grisly tasks, and all of them possessed risks that could lead to the Corsair's eventual destruction: there was a chance that it could go out of control and lead to the behemoth wreaking havoc upon everything within its sight, and there was also the possibility of a failure within the arcane mechanisms of the tome, which could lead to a cataclysmic disaster that had the possibility of becoming even far more dangerous than the likes of the sea-beast itself...
Even so however, Hassan knew that he had no choice but to use this trump in this battle: he had already used it multiple times in the past after all, and the only doubt in his mind was whether or not he could truly score a victory even with the help of the gigantic sea monster that served as his trump card...
... Of course though, as soon as Hassan repeated his orders, without delay, the fear-stricken sailor immediately responded.
"R-right away cap'n... I'll go and tell the others right away."
"Ah, and by the way... Tell all the men to use those magick spyglasses we got from that merchant ship we pillaged, we need them to be on the lookout for that monster that did all of this... According to the last report that came to us, the entire damn thing is made of metal, correct? That shouldn't make it too hard to spot..."
"G-got that, cap'n, I'll inform the others at once..." the sailor obeyed, as he then scurried off to the desks to inform the others of their captain's new orders...
...
...
There was only one ship left, and it hadn't been a survivor of sorts from the previous attacks she made; rather, it seemed to be a member of the fleet that had arrived too lately at the wreckage-ridden sea that completely surrounded its vessel...
Strangely though, this ship seemed different from the rest of the ship-of-the-lines that the Silver Tempest destroyed with ease: unlike the others, this one possessed a much greater size, and it also sported a jet-black hide of metal plating that perfectly covered most of its wooden framework from almost every angle.
"What could this ship be?" Thurien pondered, though in a quiet eventuality, her curiosity soon quickly drifted away and was replaced by a slight pity. "Hmm... Well... It doesn't really matter anyway, I suppose..."
[Recalibrating... Charging-up Secondary Weapons...]
And so the secondary guns of the Tempest slowly pointed their massive turrets towards their singular, remaining target, preparing once more to unleash their blazing firepower upon their enemies- this time however, their target was the poor, doomed vessel that had carelessly gotten within the Tempest's range, and it would only be a few more seconds before the poor ship would be blown away in the blink of an eye, though Thurien couldn't help but close her eyes out of pity as the turrets finally completed their short-lived charge-up sequences.
[[Long Range, Secondary Guns: Online and Ready to Fire.]
"May you poor souls not feel any pain with this finishing blow." Thurien uttered, though as she prepared to give her words of confirmation, something of a noteworthy interest would immediately catch her attention. "... Alright then... Begin firing-"
[Warning: Massive Energy Signatures detected from Targeted Vessel! Exercising Caution is advised!]
"... W-what in the..."
A warning formed on the display's screen all of a sudden, as the optic footages of the lone ship provided by the Tempest's advanced detection systems revealed to her an incredibly peculiar sight: a tall, crimson beam-pillar of light that came from the center of the remaining enemy ship, a blinding structure of radiance that reached for the skies as it continuously went upwards ever further. It was a bizarre scenery that brought a sense of great unease and caution to Thurien, as she would then momentarily delay the firing sequences of the Tempest in order to verify first just what exactly this phenomenon truly was, and how exactly was she supposed to deal with it...
[Notice: A New Signal has been detected... Movement Type: Underwater...]
[... Alert: Detected Signal is rapidly approaching... Estimated Speed: 300 kph and increasing...]
"!!!"
What exactly were these things? Why did that pillar of light appear all of a sudden, and why was there something that was rapidly closing in on the Tempest's location? Were the 2 related in any sort of causal relationship? Perhaps had been summoned by that massive beam of light that came from the black-hulled ship, or perhaps not...
Regardless of their origin however, they were something that needed to be dealt with as soon as possible: after all, Thurien already knew the dangers of letting the impending threat get too close to her ship, and as such, the medicae quickly began acting with a swift, well-calculated course of action.
"How many torpedoes do we have at our disposal?" Thurien questioned the monitor display.
[Number of Available Torpedoes: 80...]
"Hmm... Alright then, fire half of them and designate that approaching signal as their target."
[Orders Received. Commencing Torpedo Deployal...]
Multitudes of speeding, iron rods were then launched from the Silver Tempest's dedicated torpedo launchers, as they then proceeded to speed towards the underwater entity that was rapidly heading towards the Tempest's direction- of course, due to their speed, it wouldn't be long before each and every one of these weapons of metal would finally hit their marks, as their explosions then produced mighty shockwaves that made tremendous ripples within the very waters where they let loose...
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
[Notice: All Deployed Torpedoes have successfully reached the target.]
"Good... I supposed this one's already been taken care of..."
It seemed that the undersea problem had finally been dealt with: at first, Thurien thought that dealing with it would have been more difficult, but after hearing that all of the torpedoes that were deployed managed to land their marks on their target, the medicae eventually became absolutely certain that there was no way it could have survived after such a fatal attack, as the explosive, steel-rending power of those homing rods of death was something that was capable of ripping apart even the strongest battleship hulls in existence...
However... Contrary to what she expected, the announcement that would come from the display instantly confirmed the worst outcome possible...
[Warning: Underwater Signal is still active and approaching. 2 minutes before point of contact...]
"... H-how did that thing manage to survive all of that?"
It was quite an impossible feat of survivability- the target had somehow managed to live through all those torpedo-induced explosions that were supposed to have torn it into pieces by now, and not only that though, but it was also still managing to draw even closer to Thurien's ship in the same speeds it was going in just a few minutes ago.
"... What about those 'other' torpedoes we have? And by other, I mean the nuclear ones..."
[Quantity of Available Nuclear Torpedoes: 15...
[Proceed to Deploy: Y/N?]
"... No. I suppose now's not the time to use them. Not when we have another option that we can use..."
The initial failure of her weapons led to Thurien devising a new method of attack on the fly, and yet surprisingly, in the short amount of time where she could think, she had already managed to form a simple plan: the nuclear torpedoes equipped onto the Tempest's anti-submersible weaponries, while Thurien wasn't sure if using them would finally allow her to effectively deal with whatever that rapidly approaching thing truly was, utilizing them now would be a waste that'd hinder her from the further battles that would come in the nearby future- instead, she could simply rely on one of her most precious creations who have always guarded her castle, and the only thing she needed to do was to form a gateway in order to bring them here.
After all, this was the perfect place for her to send them out: the reason why she had rarely ever been able to deploy them in the past was because of the fact that they could only move and thrive in the sea due to the way she made them, but now that she was in a battle located right at the center of an ocean.
"Connect a gateway to home." Thurien commanded without delay. "I'll be summoning one of my precious children here to deal with that thing that's closing in on us..."
[Affirmative. Commencing gateway generation...]
Lightning flashed and emerged from one of the Tempest's turrets, and immediately, a small, ethereal, disc-shaped construct formed up in the sky- as time continued to pass though, the once-small gateway slowly grew in size, in order to facilitate the arrival of the massive entity that was about to make its way into the battlefield.
After only 10 Seconds though, the bright, portal of light would finally reach its maximum size, and out from it came one of Thurien's largest and most terrifying creations of sophisticated, technological engineering...
"Come forth, Jormungandr..." Thurien ordered to the massive, construct of metal that was slithering from the gateway, as if it were a snake that had been woken from its silent den. "Protect your mother from that thing that's closing in on her ship."