The ocean churned back and forth, and so long as she held onto the boat, she was guaranteed to stay afloat. Of course — that didn’t mean it wouldn’t sink. That wasn’t a promise the ship would keep. The wind blew, the water splashed against the sides of the boat and the two sins worked away. Wrath was tireless, rowing for hours while Sloth fell asleep after five minutes of playing the accordion which rested on her chest, stretching and compressing with every breath, breathing that matched the pattern of Wrath’s rowing.
The two sins were completely in sync. Wrath silently rowed. Aria, to her surprise, found that a seagull had come down from above to rest next to her.
“Well?” Wrath asked. “Are you going to kill it?”
“No thanks,” she answered. “I heard seagulls were the rats of the sea, and rats don’t sound very tasty.”
“How about EXP?”
“There’s no point. I could never beat you.”
Wrath, hearing that, shook his head. “What sort of fighting spirit is that?” he asked. “How are you supposed to survive in this with that sort of attitude?”
“Attitude?”
“Forget about me. What if a bear tore down the front door of your forest hut? How would you fend it off?”
“I’d run,” she answered, immediately, as if it had already happened in the past. Wrath simply shook his head once more.
“No, no. Bears are fast. Faster than humans. If it wanted you dead, it’d maul you and eat you alive — that is, if you couldn’t fight back.”
He took his revolver and flipped it, handing it handle first to her.
“One explosive round is all it’d take. One shot with that gun and the bear would be history. Anyone who wants to hurt you would be left in a pile of flesh.”
She hesitated, but took the gun anyway. Looking the gun up and down, she found that the cylinder was loaded with electric bullets, bullets that left little welts — minor injuries — on her body where she got shot.
“I don’t want you relying on firearms, but for now, I suppose it’s alright to entrust you with ‘supplementary weaponry’.”
Wrath tossed his holster towards her and pointed to his waist, indication for Aria to hide it under her clothes.
“When the moment comes,” he warned, “I will be expecting you to take up arms. If not for yourself, then for the world.”
Gray had asked for ten people, specifically. Despite that, he went out of his way to join the two. Isabelle couldn’t read the old man’s mind, but when she saw him brandish an old looking blade, an elegant silver sword from another dynasty, she knew exactly what he was planning to do. She thought of Gray as a taskmaster with combat experience, but from the way he effortlessly unsheathed his blade, she knew she had a powerful ally on her end.
The body of the sword, from top to bottom, was lined with runes and etchings that were all connected by lines, lines infused with an elemental mixture of crystal dust. It was both a blade and a machine, and with one surge of mana from the palm of his hand, the sword could be infused with whatever element he pleased.
It was the weapon of a mage knight, the upgraded version of the sword of a prophetic hero. She was a demon. It was in her blood to know whether or not a human she faced was born from a prophecy to destroy the demon king of the underworld. She didn’t notice it before in Gray, but seeing him wield that blade — it made her blood grow hot, like she was staring at the sun.
“What is it?” Gray asked, almost mischievously. “Didn’t expect me to be the fighting type, did you?”
“I —”
“No need to answer,” he told her. “All you have to do is follow my lead. That includes our brave hero as well.” and he turned to the other man to ask, “Boris, was it?”
Boris looked him up and down, nervously, and bowed before the man he knew was his superior.
“Boris, sir. I suppose you’re Isabelle’s father? Or maybe the dad of the missing kid?”
“If you’re so curious, I suppose I could label it as a master-servant dynamic,” he replied, “but, if you wish, I could make you twos’ relationship a coworking relationship. After all — you’re after her heart, aren’t you? No sane person would take a quest like this. Only someone driven mad by love at first sight.”
Boris laughed nervously, turning to Isabelle who simply stood and smiled — her smile turning to a smirk when she saw him turn red.
“I thought you were our noble, prophetic hero,” she said, teasing him openly, causing him to laugh it off.
“Well, I suppose I can’t just go around, throwing myself at whatever cause seems the most noble. I’m just a sword swingin’ warrior, that’s all.”
“Is that a righteous thing to do?” she asked him, while at the same time peering over to Gray for his judgment.
“Well, what does it mean to be righteous? To be correct?” Boris asked. “If being righteous meant following the Goddess’ commandments to a T, then I suppose I’m not righteous — not in the least.”
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“Not righteous?” she muttered, peeking at Gray, only to find a smile growing on his face, as if Boris had said the correct answer.
“But,” Boris added, “no one can follow the commandments perfectly, can they? If no one can follow them perfectly, then I reckon there aren’t any righteous folk at all.”
Gray interjected. “Without the Goddess, do you believe there can be moral, righteous people?”
Boris paused, then simply smiled. “I believe people can be good, so yes. Without the Goddess and her commandments, there can still be good people.”
It was the answer he needed to hear, and with that, he turned on a dime and headed to the door, only looking back to wave the other two over, reminding them they had a job to do.
The ocean churned. Aria found herself drifting under the moon, waking and falling asleep at intervals and lengths she thought were unusually long, but in reality, were normal for a child her age. She was meant to get at least nine to ten hours of sleep per night and since she was getting nothing more than short cat-naps, it terribly messed with her body.
Sloth, as expected, slept soundly. Wrath, meanwhile, continued rowing, as if he were a machine made of metal and not a person made of muscle and bone. The only sounds he made were the creaking of wood and the squeaking of the oars.
“Still awake,” he asked, lit a soft blue underneath the gentle moon. It didn’t fit him. Not at all.
“I can’t fall asleep,” she muttered, half asleep. “I need to stay awake. When we hit the end of the world, there’s no telling what’ll happen.”
“The last thing you want to do is fall off the boat this far out. If I had to guess, I’d give you a 0.0000001 percent chance of making it back to the shores of the world, and that’s me being generous.”
“Why add that many zeroes? Why not just say it’s impossible?”
“Because nothing in this world is impossible, and besides, if you really fell off the boat I wouldn’t want you giving up — now would I?”
“And if I fell off the boat, what should I do?”
“Wait and stay still, as if you weren’t a human but rather a floating chunk of ice.”
“And why is that?”
Wrath responded by handing her a spyglass. She took it, pulled it open, and looked around. It was Wrath who directed her down into the waters below — to the real threat beneath them.
The water was pitch black, and at first she assumed that was just how the deep, far out oceans were, but looking at it now, she realized just what was underneath her.
They weren’t riding the currents of the sea. No — they were being pushed forwards by the primordial creatures that lived in that sea.
Fishermen who ventured a bit too far out sometimes caught strange creatures that resembled nothing like the ordinary fish that fed the world. The creatures they caught were large as sharks, but in reality, were still wee’ babies.
This far out, peeking down into the water, she saw it. The primordial warfare fought between the kings of the sea.
It was an endless war between gigantic sharks, titanic octopus and squid, world-carrying sea turtles and nautilus armed with conical shells big enough to rival city destroying missiles. They were so far below that they seemed small, but their motions and movements were strong enough that, a thousand kilometers of water above, they affected the waves on the surface.
The blood that they spilled became the nutrients in the water — nutrients that fed plankton, plankton that fed fish, and fish that fed sharks and other predatory creatures. They were the feeding mothers of the ocean and the warring fathers of the wrathful sea.
Just beneath her was a world ravaged by a millennia of war, a terrifying sight for a girl who was, frankly, utterly unaffected. Despite being on the same Y axis, the two worlds didn’t collide, and would never.
She could see, but like a layer of bulletproof tempered glass, was protected from their warfare. Like saltwater and freshwater, the two worlds would not mix.
“Did you know that in the past, the two worlds collided?” Wrath asked, and Aria felt a chill run down her spine.
“In the past, in the primordial era, those giant creatures below used to live on the surface. Their battles raged on for thousands of years and the blood and flesh they spilled took on a life of their own, becoming the creatures that exist today.”
“That’s… crazy.”
“There’s more,” he said. “This world used to be like a fish tank with only the primordials. The thing is, it’s completely unnatural. The tank is physically too small for its fish to grow this big naturally. Normally, sea creatures hit a size cap, limiting themselves to the resources of their environment and the size of their territory. Normally, they’d either starve if they grew too big or get killed by other creatures if they ventured out of their territory, looking for more food. The rules of the wild apply to confined spaces like that, and yet, they managed to survive despite it all.”
It didn’t make any sense, and despite that, the creatures still survived and grew to astronomical sizes. Wrath pointed out a fact — that the primordials weren’t level 99 or anything like that. Rather, when he checked with his assassin skills, he found that they were level ???.
The monsters below couldn’t be defined by numbers. No — they were above power levels, stats and skill points. They were raw, primordial creatures who fought, mindlessly, like ancient titans made of animated mountains and valleys.
Their blood spilled into the sea, and from above, she could smell it — a faint scent of iron.
“There are secrets to this world — secrets that could tear apart the fabric of reality,” Wrath warned. “When we get to the Imperial palace, you will surely be invited into learning those secrets. Whether or not you listen, I’ll leave that decision to you.”
Aria felt a chill. It was both the growing cold and the silence of the ocean, an ocean teeming with immortal, primordial life. In the distance, she saw fog — fog where the sound of clanging steel and iron rang through.
The further the boat floated on, the thicker the fog became. According to government approved maps, she had long passed the ‘border’ that surrounded the world. Now, she was in no man’s land — a place where boats disappeared and ships vanished into thin air.
Wrath should have known that fact, but despite that, he showed no fear. He closed his eyes and rowed.
“You should’ve been asleep for this,” Wrath said. “Whatever you do, do not turn around. Trust that you will make it to the other side.”
“What if I turn around?”
He had no answer. Aria knew better than to ask more, and with that, she shut her eyes. The icy cold fog enveloped them all. It felt like having hands grasp out of the blue. Cold fingers wrapped around her bare skin, like it was trying to pull her away.
Don’t turn around. It was the one, singular rule Wrath told her. The fingers tried to pry her eyes open and pull her head around, but it was nothing but a fleeting feeling. Whispers flew all about, whispers that emerged from the fog.
She clenched her eyes shut, only for the fog to grow quiet. The fingers grew weak and disappeared into the mist.
“Welcome to the other end of the world,” she heard, and she opened her eyes to see the morning sun.
They were on the other end of the world, and immediately, she found her boat surrounded. A giant ship sailed over, a boat made with a hull of steel, armed with titan slaying cannons and harpoon guns. It was a modified whaling boat turned into a warship.
The Imperial flag flew high that day and marked with the brand of Seti’s axe, Aria found herself taken into an unfamiliar world.