Theo stood on the deck of the ship watching them fly through the water. It was incredibly impressive, the speed that they could get up to. The prince had hired quite a few different people with weather and water-based gifts to help make this trip as simple as possible.

The synergy between someone breaking the waves in front of the ship and someone pushing wind into the sail constantly, made for quick travel. But it was still monotonous.

Seeing all the expansive water sure was impressive, but not for hours upon hours. Theo knew that it was soon to be days upon days, and weeks upon weeks until they finally arrived at their destination.

Theo gave one of his mighty sighs. This was the worst, when it was a problem he could attack or confront, he was good. But this was just an exercise in patience. He guessed he could go to Ian and try to train for a while; that appealed to his workaholic side. Or he could mess around with Lillian and Joy, they were always doing something fun, which appealed to his lazy side.

Theo really needed a hobby. He had spent his whole life being reared by his parents to be a loyal weapon for Prince David to use and that parenting style did not teach children to be themselves, or how to learn self-expression.

Theo’s parents had not been political savants, they had made their gold and won their positions from sheer competency. That competency at farm management and water acquisition was not good enough in the political games that the “old-gold” families had been playing for centuries.

So, when his parents found out that there were two possible heirs to the throne both of which being equally competent at that point in time, they decided to flip a coin on it. Theo’s entire life and personality had been the result of a coin flip. But he wasn’t bitter or anything.

Obviously, the prince had won the coin flip and Theo had been trained until he received his gift to be a valuable asset in combat. Once he came of age, Theo was sent to the prince with express instructions to become as close to his right-hand man as possible.

Many things had gone wrong all at once for his family at that point. His parents soon found out that the princess had officially been declared the heir to the throne, and all their political posturing with the prince had been for naught. While Theo had been relegated to guard duty working with some girl from the boonies.

There was no space for a close confidante, the prince had three incredibly talented and powerful people working as his closest aids. There was no need for some half-baked child to become his right-hand man.

Sam was an incredibly powerful seer that was almost unmatched in their ability to create schemes and plans. Who knows how the prince swindled Sam into working exclusively for him; but it was damn impressive. There was Rose, who was a hyper intelligent tactician who knew almost all the inner workings of the political ties in Vena Cava. And finally, the cherry on top was the prince had somehow gotten Bloody Ian to work for him. The boogeyman to children in the capital. Theo’s parents had told him that if he didn’t get his daily training done that Bloody Ian would come for him.

Both Lillian and Joy had grown up in the boonies, so they had no idea who Ian was and why his presence in the prince’s entourage was so important. But Theo knew, and he showed Ian the respect he deserved. He was a fount of knowledge when it came to combat, and Theo would always be willing to learn from him.

Ian had been King Renoir’s final weapon to use against any who stood against him. The two had apparently grown up together and were the best of friends, way back when King Renoir was Prince Renoir. They would play games where Renoir was king, and Ian was his right-hand man, and they would smite all the bandits who dared to cross the monarch.

Reality turned out to be quite different than the games the two had played.

It started out innocently enough, Renoir would send Ian to go smite the bandits or stop an uprising. And Ian would kill everyone there. He was unmatched in combat prowess, and it did not matter if his opponent had a gift from War, they could not touch Ian. That was when he got the name Untouchable.

Untouchable sounded much more valiant than Bloody, and thus he became the kingdom’s greatest hero. A man that every child wanted to be. He went to parades and showboated at royal galas. He was the man of the hour.

Then the first real revolts began. A noble family whose name has now been struck from all records, except History’s, started buying out huge swaths of the king’s military right under his nose. The military forces had been at an all-time low since the kingdom had been prospering to huge degrees, but still most of the people serving were either bought out or outright killed in staged accidents.

The unnamed noble family then decided to go for a coup, the first and last coup of Renoir’s reign. The entirety of the private military, near one thousand men strong, encircled the castle and were going to take it in the night.

But they didn’t know that Ian had just got back from a mission and was staying the night in the castle. It was pure luck that he walked outside to get a view of the city and saw the mass of men.

Ian stood atop the highest parapet and drew his sword. It was a slaughter, men he had served with, men he had trained, all fell underneath his blade as he killed every single one. Not one person survived that night, then he went to unnamed noble’s house and killed their entire lineage.

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Ian’s entire body had apparently been drenched in blood when he went to report to King Renoir, who had slept through the entire night.

At that moment the king felt he had truly and utterly broken something in his friend. This was no longer the boy Ian who had dreamed of slaying bandits, this was a bloody man who had killed a thousand people in the blink of an eye.

Ian was released from service by the king and told to do whatever he wanted to. Ian had started a small school where he tried to create warriors just as skilled and powerful as he was, until the prince somehow got Ian to join him.

Needless to say, Theo had felt useless in comparison to the prince’s close-knit group. They were the all-stars, and he was just some child whose parents thought would be a good bargaining chip.

It took a long time for him to start feeling useful to the prince, especially after he was paired off with Lillian. He had hated her at first, she was stupid and brash to his cool and intelligent. But years working with someone will iron out the creases in your friendship.

Theo stared out at the water contemplating his past, and what hobby he should pick up. His gift led him towards ice sculptures, he felt he could make unique and powerful art out of his gift. Just as he was considering what to make for his very first piece, he was stuck between a crying face or a very large cow, when the boat started rocking.

Theo knew the main reason nobody traveled the ocean. It was because there was no need to do so, there was nowhere as hospitable as the Hearted continent, so unless someone was specifically searching for artifacts there was no need to leave.

The second reason was because the ocean was full of monsters. Back in the beginning of the second age a woman was given the gift to brings her drawings to life. She had tried for decades to create her magnum opus. She felt the reason for her life was to create dragons.

Unfortunately, her gift had a lot of restrictions; the creatures she made had to be able to survive in the world. No one knows whether she truly made a dragon, but she released all the cast offs into the ocean. Giant lizards that could only survive in the water. It was insanely dangerous to go into the ocean because one woman decided to get rid of her failed projects in there.

Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem. All the sea monsters she created would eventually die and everything would go back to normal. Except the thing about creating life, is that it wants to thrive. And so, a new apex predator was born in the ocean and still dominated to this day. The giant serpent.

Theo watched as the serpent’s head rose out of the water. It was larger than the boat by a small margin. Its beady eyes were not intelligent, but it would tell that there were some tasty morsels inside of this wooden shell of a boat.

Theo immediately put on his game face and started freezing water. Theo’s gift was not the fastest gift in the world, but the longer his eyes stayed open the more water would freeze, which would give the crew more time to find someone who could deal with this mess.

The crew started scrambling around the deck while screaming about the giant serpent. The overgrown snake lunged for the ship, hoping to snatch up one of the tiny things making the loud noises.

Theo’s gift was based around his vision, what he looked at froze, it was very simple. But its simplicity gave him some wiggle room when it came to the things he could do. Since the serpent had first surfaced, Theo had not been targeting the surface of the water, he knew that freezing the water surrounding the serpent would slow it down only a little. Instead, he had moved close to the edge to see as far down into the depths of the water as possible. Then he started freezing as much water as his gift would possibly allow.

The buoyancy of the ice hunks brought them up to the surface, where they subsequently crashed directly into the body of the serpent. Causing it to veer off course, barely missing the ship.

Not one to waste time, Theo kept forming as many of these miniature icebergs beneath the surface as he could, shaping them into spears of ice that were forced upward and into the serpent’s body.

Maybe ice sculptures really could be a hobby, he seemed to be okay at forming these on the spot. Theo marked that stray thought in his mind for more consideration later. For now, more ice spears.

They punctured the outer layer of the serpent’s skin but didn’t do any real damage. The only goal Theo had for these spears was to distract the serpent.

Which was a successful plan, the serpent went under the waves to try and attack whatever was pricking it. The serpent was not very smart, but it was strong, and the waves created from its movement still rocked the ship.

Now that the serpent was under the surface Theo moved on to phase two of the plan he had made up on the fly. He started freezing as much of the surface as he could. His eyes burned from the strain, but he made quite the platform of ice. A group of one hundred men could walk comfortably on that ice.

Unfortunately, the serpent was much stronger than a mere hundred men as it came crashing through the layers of ice Theo had so painstakingly stared into existence. In a spray of glittering shards, the serpent stared down at their ship.

Theo sighed; this wasn’t the way he had imagined his death, but it certainly could be worse. He had enjoyed his time serving the prince, but all good things must come to an end.

That was when a voice spoke up behind him, “Good job Theo. I see all that hard work has been paying off.” Ian smiled in the grandfatherly way that he always did while speaking to Theo. “I hope you don’t mind me taking care of the rest.”

“Be my guest,” Theo gasped out.

As the serpent moved lightning fast towards the ship, intent on capsizing it. Ian took the sword and sheath he always kept by side in his left hand and raised it over his head. As the serpent came down, Ian’s right hand grasped the hilt of his sword and in no particular hurry he did a single strike in the air. The sword extended from its sheath and came down, all in one fluid motion.

Once the perfect strike ended, Ian calmly re-sheathed his blade and put it back on his hip while turning away from the serpent. His face was deadly calm, no joviality or joy in his eyes, he just seemed like an old, tired man.

Behind Ian the serpent and the ocean had split in half. The blood slowly oozed out of the carcass, while the ocean crashed back together in a deafening clap.

“Shit.” Theo said.

There was no way to describe the utter power he had seen. It was more than any one person should be able to handle, it had been like watching a god come down and smite the serpent for him.

“It’s awe inspiring every time, isn’t it? The true power one person can wield.” the prince said. He had apparently come up top to watch Ian dismantle the serpent. His currently blue eyes, which were supposedly his natural color, looked on at the scene in awe. Just like Theo’s.

That was the pinnacle of human strength.