The next morning, the ship seemed suspended in another reality. The clouds from the previous day had vanished, leaving behind a blue sky of captivating purity. Yet this almost supernatural clarity concealed a sly threat. The air, clear and crystalline, bit at the skin like a blade of ice. The cold had crept in everywhere, like a silent shadow.

When Mero climbed onto the deck, he stopped dead. The sea itself seemed frozen. Its surface, usually restless and untamable, gleamed with patches of frost, as if time had come to a halt. The wind, so violent the day before, had fallen silent, and the prevailing hush felt almost sacred, broken only by the creaking of the ship’s wood, strained by the abnormal cold.

The sailors, wrapped in thick coats, tried to stave off the frost. Some blew into their hands, while others stomped their feet on the icy deck. Their faces were tense, and a palpable unease hung in the air. The captain, cloaked in wool, stood at the bow, scanning the horizon with visible concern.

Master Antonin, true to himself, seemed almost impervious to the frigid atmosphere. He approached Mero, a cloud of condensation escaping his mouth with each word. "This kind of cold… isn’t natural," he murmured, his fingers brushing the ship’s railing, now coated in a thin layer of ice. "The ocean’s too salty to freeze so easily. And yet, look at this."

He gestured toward the ship’s hull, where ice clung stubbornly despite the crew's efforts to clear it with improvised tools and buckets of warm water.

"If the wind doesn’t pick up soon, we risk getting stuck here. And in this cold..." Antonin left the sentence unfinished, but Mero understood the implication. It wasn’t just a matter of delay. It was a matter of survival.

A cry suddenly pierced the oppressive silence. "Look over there!"

All eyes turned to the horizon. There, a breathtaking sight emerged: gigantic icebergs drifting slowly on the frozen water, their flanks shimmering in the sunlight. The bluish and silvery hues seemed almost unreal, as if a divine artist had sculpted these blocks of ice with infinite care.

The captain squinted, his jaw clenched. "We’re farther south than we thought... or something unusual is happening with the climate."

No one responded, but the ensuing silence spoke volumes. The sailors were not scientists, but they knew the sea, and this sea was unlike anything they had ever seen.

Mero felt a strange mix of wonder and apprehension. He had always been fascinated by sailors' tales of frozen lands and icy seas, but he had never expected to experience it himself. The cold seemed to seep into everything, even his thoughts, like a silent warning.

Later that day, as the sun shone high in the sky without warming the air, a sudden commotion shook the ship. A lookout shouted at the top of his lungs: "Marine tarasques! Dead ahead!"

Mero's heart leaped. The marine tarasques, those legendary creatures of the Thetehian Ocean, were rarely seen, even by the most experienced sailors. He rushed to the bow, following the others' gaze.

And there they were.

Under the pale winter sun, the sea looked like a silver mirror, reflecting every glimmer of the frozen waves. Beyond this shimmering surface, titanic shadows undulated slowly, barely visible, like specters trapped beneath the ice. Their silent ballet evoked something both majestic and deeply unsettling, a millennial dance beyond human comprehension.

At times, these creatures partially surfaced, breaking the oppressive tranquility of the ocean. Colossal fins bristling with sharp bony spikes sliced through the surface, sending icy sprays bursting into silvery rain. These massive appendages, like living sails, moved with immense power, displacing tons of water with a deep rumble. Their thick, rugged skin, resembling the carapace of a prehistoric reptile, displayed shifting hues under the cold light: a blend of dark ochre, metallic gray, and abyssal blue, as if they carried the colors of the unfathomable depths.

One tarasque, larger than the others, suddenly emerged with solemn slowness, revealing part of its immense flank, scarred and riddled with natural crevices. Its monstrous head surfaced halfway, exposing serrated baleen and a maw wide enough to swallow an entire vessel. Its eyes, two dark orbs gleaming with primordial intelligence, briefly swept over the ship as if assessing this tiny intruder. A guttural, deep rumble seemed to vibrate through the frozen waters, resonating down to the ship's hull.

The largest specimen moved forward with implacable slowness, indifferent to the frail human craft. Its movements made the sea quiver, and each beat of its fins sent lazy waves crashing against the hull. Even the legendary seven-masted ship of the Pirate Lord would have seemed insignificant next to this marine monstrosity. The creature's entire body was so long that it disappeared beyond the visible horizon, snaking beneath the surface like a living mountain awakened from slumber.

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Mero, his fingers clenched on the ship's frosted railing, felt a vibration beneath his feet. The deck itself seemed to tremble under the influence of this colossal presence. Every fiber of wood creaked, as if the ship, too, dreaded this encounter with such an ancient, indomitable force.

The water, usually wild, now bowed docilely around these giants. Their movements created hypnotic swirls, concentric circles that slowly dissolved into the frozen plain of the ocean. The massive forms glided beneath the waves with unexpected fluidity, defying their own gigantism. It was as if they weighed nothing, their mere will enough to shift tons of water.

These legendary beasts, believed to be isolated and scattered, now swam together in a strange procession. Mero felt small, insignificant in the face of this display of raw power and unfathomable mystery. Silence returned, broken only by the faint lapping of waves and the creaking of ice. And yet, beneath this apparent stillness, the sea roared with a force older than human civilizations.

"By all the gods..." murmured a trembling sailor. "These monsters could crush us with a single flick of their tails."

The captain remained impassive, but his eyes betrayed tension. "Hold your positions. As long as they don’t feel threatened, they won’t attack us."

Some sailors began muttering prayers, while others spat into the water to ward off bad luck. Mero, unable to tear his gaze away, decided to climb to the lookout to get a better view.

From the lookout, the spectacle unfolded with an almost unreal grandeur. From this height, the immensity of the tarasques appeared in all its disproportion. They glided beneath the water with a disturbing fluidity, an unexpected grace for creatures of such colossal size. Each undulation of their bodies created lazy waves that stretched out only to gently break against the ship's hull. Their sinuous silhouettes seemed endless, winding through the ocean's depths before reappearing farther away, as though the sea itself struggled to contain their vastness.

Their hypnotic movement was paced by the slow rise and fall of their titanic fins. With each beat, these sails of bone and flesh split the surface, sending sparkling splashes that fell back in icy sprays. The pale light of the winter sun played on their rough skin, revealing unexpected hues—abyssal blue reflections mingled with golden and coppery tones, as if these creatures carried with them the glints of a thousand worlds buried beneath the waves.

Some specimens, briefly rising to the surface, revealed their massive heads framed by curved horns and serrated baleen. Their huge, dark, fathomless eyes shone with a primitive, almost divine intelligence. They seemed to contemplate the sea with ancient wisdom, indifferent to the stirrings of men.

From this dizzying height, Mero could finally take in the scene in its entirety. The tarasques, scattered as far as the eye could see, moved in a slow and silent procession, their path almost perfect, as if guided by an invisible will. They formed a titanic army, advancing with a determination that surpassed human comprehension. The entire ocean seemed to bend beneath their passage, as if subjected to an ancient law that only these creatures seemed to still know.

The sunlight, reflected by the frozen waters, formed iridescent prisms around the tarasques, giving their movement an almost sacred quality. The ripples they left in their wake transformed into shimmering circles, like the rings of a moving fresco drawn on the surface of the sea.

Mero stood still, his gaze fixed on the grand procession. Each creature that passed seemed to carry with it a fragment of the unfathomable mystery of the oceans. Their endless bodies, disappearing into the depths before resurfacing, gave the impression that the visible world was merely a thin membrane through which these giants navigated freely, between two realities.

The biting cold still gnawed at his skin, but Mero barely felt it, captive to this breathtaking vision. The lookout, usually a functional observation post, now seemed like a sanctuary, a place from which he could contemplate without hindrance the raw majesty of the sea and its legendary colossi.

Mero squinted, trying to make sense of what he saw. Then, a detail caught his attention: all the tarasques were swimming in the same direction. Their movement was slow, but determined.

He quickly descended to share his observation with Master Antonin, who was feverishly noting every detail in his notebook. "They're running from something," Mero said, panting. "They don't move like that without reason."

Antonin looked up, his expression grave. "If they're running, it means something much bigger is coming."

The captain, having overheard their exchange, approached, his face set. "That would confirm what I've feared. This cold, these icebergs, these tarasques... We might be facing a major upheaval."

A heavy silence fell on the deck. The sailors continued to watch the creatures, but their fascination was gradually giving way to palpable concern.

As night fell, the cold grew even more biting. The sea, almost unnaturally calm, seemed to hold its breath. Mero, unable to sleep, remained on the deck, watching the darkness. At times, he could still glimpse the silhouettes of the tarasques, their slow, steady movements creating barely visible ripples.

He thought back on everything he had experienced since his departure: the storms, the snow, and now this frozen sea, haunted by mythical creatures. He felt as though the ocean was sending him messages, veiled warnings he was struggling to decipher.

A sailor approached, carrying a blanket, which he threw over Mero's shoulders. "You should rest, boy. This cold will freeze your bones."

Mero nodded, but didn't move. He felt that something important was about to happen, and he didn't want to miss it.

Staring at the horizon, where the last glimmers of the icebergs sparkled faintly, he murmured to himself, "What are you hiding, ocean?"

The silence of the sea was his only answer. But deep inside, he knew that this icy calm was merely the prelude to a storm far greater, a storm that would surpass everything he had known up to this point.