The body was that of a 177 pound, 74 inch man who appears to be around his twenties. The scalp is darkish red with a full head of hair. The left frontal hair is burnt with obliquely oriented scars. The irises are burnt out. The eyes are sunken. The neck is symmetrical. The torso has severe penetrating wounds. The sternal region of the chest has been carved out. The stomach has fifteen penetrating wounds. The back is burnt out.

The right upper extremity has severe burnt damage. The left upper extremity has a linear scar that reaches down the forearm. The distal aspect of the left arm suffered severe fourth degree burns. The scapula region of the ribs is broken. The sternum region is severely damaged. The body shows signs of emaciation.

The fingernails are missing. The fifth finger of the right hand is missing. The fourth and fifth finger of the left hand has been cut off. The knuckles are broken.

The sternocleidomastoid muscle shows penetrating damage from a searing object. The scalp, skull, and meninges have damage. The thigh has two penetrating wounds.

The heart is beating. The pupils pin-point without response to light. All four limbs were symmetrically flaccid and tendon jerks were exaggerated. There were no palpable masses around the body.

The body is showing signs of recovery. The body is reconstructing itself through self-repair. The source of his recovery was observed to be in contact with the ray of sun.

The body was not moved to the surface of the deck because of safety reasons. There was no indication that any hostile creature would disturb the fleet after the battle, but it was in the best interest of the fleet to be wary without the banner of light protecting it.

The man being examined was Terin Gaspar.

How he was alive despite his injuries.

He didn’t know.

The resulting battle for the fleet was disastrous at least. The medicine has been recovered. The soldiers who volunteered returned successfully, but the battle between the Baron of the Interstice and the Blinder of Light resulted for the land to change.

Gabrio’s mistake was to think of them as men fighting with swords. When in truth they were like storms more than fighting men.

You cannot think of them as simply as powerful beings fighting with swords. Swordsmen don’t cleave mountains and flood an entire landscape. They don’t change the land. They are like nature itself. A storm that leaves bodies behind when it passes by. A storm can cause the loss of lives, but when two storms fight against another.

It leaves only a disaster. You cannot fight the storm. You can resist but never prevent it from passing by. He realized that he and the others were simply people trapped in a storm. The Blinder of Light being the eye of the storm that prevents the monsters from approaching.

Do you go inside a storm thinking that you can’t be hurt?

You expect trouble.

You expect harsh winds and floods.

That very presence of the storm deters the monster.

An active storm that triggers the instincts of a sentient creature to turn away.

But that storm that protected them faded

The fight with the baron had exhausted that storm, leaving him unconscious on the table of the doctors and kin of the Ark. He had been invited to the Ark to check on him.

His appearance was that of a man that shouldn’t be alive.

How he was able to live.

How he could even have a beating heart made him wonder.

Then again, who is he to speak when his heart was made of bark?

The skies were overcast, with occasional drizzle. Solemn after, a heavy rain slowed into a storm that even the Elven-kin could not resist. However, millions of sprites gather around the ships to create a shield.

The Milostiv.

Or The Mercy.

That is the name of the Grand-Galleon.

It was named after a chapel back in AON.

It’s the reason why there were so many Inquisitors in the first place.

The land is submerged.

As lightning flashes, he spotted a shimmering wave pulse across the land and sinuous ripple of concentric waves raging across the land. The land that had a burnt look to it was now flooded with. The Long Strait became a mass of waterscape.

Behind the Arkshelled Island were the fleet’s ships. Battle-damaged and yet floating behind the floating island. Most of the ships that fought against the forces of the Baron of the Interstice had their hulls burnt. The elven-kin had wrapped the dead with bark-like cocoons and send them to the depths of the water to be rested

The Tailbone port of the Arkshelled Island was dragging the ships through these large roots. The treants that the elven-kin used as a shell of armor helped the carpenters and craftsmen mend the damage.

Walking under the dark cloudy skies of an unending rain. The lapping of waves against the hulls of the ships. The fleet was covered with a thin mist with only the slightest ray of sunlight piercing through the elder spring on the back of the Arkshelled Island.

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Men walked with their thich clothing, watching that ray of sunlight. The world seems so gray and yet within that darkness shines a beam of sunlight. As if that sunlight was seeking the body of the Blinder. Hoping to reach out to it and fill it with strength to once again become the storm that blocks all evils around them.

Gabrio stood on the deck of the Milostiv with passive eyes. His hands inside his pocket. His cloak flutters sideward as the fleet flees the Long Strait.

He was grateful for the drizzle that distracts from the certain truth that everyone didn’t want to hear. Rumors scatter fast and the match between the Baron and the Blinder was enough to guess when both of their banners fell at the same time.

When the lance made of the sun pierced the body of the baron.

When the sword of the baron carved the body of the blinder.

When that dot of light against the dark fell.

They knew that the Blinder and the baron had fallen.

They found the baron with his eyes burnt out by the light. Although the elven-kin had pulled the Blinder out before the creatures of the interstice could finish him off.

The state of the blinder was clear. Not even the medicine of the elven-kin could help him. The only thing they could do was wait for the natural healing abilities of the Blinder to heal him.

But it would take a long time.

Gabrio leaned on the railing of the galleon. Footsteps made Gabrio turn around and his stoic disposition crumpled.

“Zyra, been long.”

“Been really a while.”

Zyra strides to the leaning. She remained the same except for the new scars around her bare neck and the hand of hers that looked like they were made of roots that formed a replacement hand.

“It’s fascinating isn’t it? How many men had their limbs replaced with prosthetics that mimicked a hand already?”

Gabrio reached out and ran his palm on the root prosthetic.

“Indeed. How are you?”

“I don’t know, Gabrio.”

Zyra looked at the damage they left behind, “I was fighting alongside Caldor Ando and Rosalve. We lost Mardon Lam to the fight and Lady Rosalve had to pour forth her power to keep Terin Gaspar’s heart alive.”

“I see.”

Zyra went on to tell him of how things were. What was the purpose of the group in venturing far from the fleet? She told Gabrio of their goal to secure the pillar of light that would open the way to the thousand islands.

That pillar of light would guide those who seek the thousand islands to their destination. But what made it important was that it allowed passage. It would lessen the distance traveled by the ships.

“A million miles away?”

“Yes.”

“You’re kidding me!”

Zyra’s face crumbles.

“We spent at least two years sailing. But this is already the best we can get. Ten years in the middle of the sea.”

“But… will we have enough time?”

“I don’t know,” she lowered her head. “But we’re not the only ones who want to win. The Baron of Interstice fights for his own race. They who dwell in the dark longs for the moonlight’s grace. We are a race that thrives under the sun. We cannot live in the dark. And it’s either us or them.”

Gabrio wiped his face tiredly.

“I don’t understand. It’s hard to think what you are going through. To have the burden of helping save the world. It must be terrible.”

“It is.”

Zyra smiled grimly.

“I wanted nothing more than to leave everything behind. Do you think it’s my choice to be part of something like this? Then again, I was asking for it the moment I took a step.”

“You are pretty brave for taking a step to that choice. I admire you because I know that I can’t make the same choice of following a storm.”

“A storm… that’s a good way to describe them,” her eyes were on the cleaved mountains and the flooded lands. “Back in AON they always say that the arrival of the Blinder marks the end of the world. The weather will change and the lands will dry and flood. In a way, the Blinder leaves trouble behind. Can we really say that we have helped knowing that we live such tragedy behind?”

A pause.

“So what's your personal assessment of the Blinder?”

“He’s a good man. He carries the weight of the races on his shoulder. He hardens his heart and steel his resolve. He wouldn’t be able to face that monster.”

“Did we win?”

“No. If anything we lost too much in fighting the Baron. He isn’t the only monster we need to face. I’m worried. We have ten years to travel a million miles. Doc, do you really think that we can make the journey?”

“What choice do we have other than forward? We can’t turn back now. I’m… just a Doctor and we rely on the soldiers and the Blinder. I can’t understand the weight that you are all carrying. How heavy it must be to continue, but we need to.”

She pocketed her hands. Her eyes traveled on the fleet. A sense of dread loomed over everyone. The fleet had lost its storm to another storm.

“Do they know?”

“They do.”

Gabrio rubbed his fingers on his knuckles, “What do we know?”

“Just an endless horizon full of water and monsters. We could only hope that Terin wakes up and prevents the worst of the worst from attacking the fleet. The Elven-kin’s presence prevents some of the vile creatures below with their collective presence, but as we go further. You will understand why the thousand islands became thousands in the first place.”

Gabrio had heard from Mana the truth.

How there was once a continent that was hundreds of millions of square kilometers until a catastrophe hit the land and separated the continent into thousands of islands.

It was not about the distance that bothers Gabrio.

It was the fact that even the Elven-kin were clueless on what island the eye of the world was on. It’ll take years to arrive and months and possibly years to search for the right island.

It was not good news.

They lost so much and gained so little.

“Now we have to rely on ourselves to bring the Blinder to the thousand islands. He has done a lot for us and now it’s our duty to bring that land.”

Zyra was exhausted. The battle had withered her fighting spirit. Gabrio wanted to believe that they could reach that island.

Hoping that when they do the Blinder will lead the way.

***

Day passes.

Then months.

And years in the brutal seas.

The Blinder of Light who slept on the Elder Spring of the Arkshelled Island still didn’t wake up.