I didn’t even need to participate, and half the destroyers are already burning. Well, not literally, but they are on their descent into the depths.

The heqet appear far more concerned with slaughter and pillaging than taking the devastating ships for themselves. Unlike the ursu, they seem wholly unconcerned with taking on the obviously superior technology that could wipe out so many of their kind before they could board.

As their ships soon overwhelm the last of the destroyers, I pull back into myself. This is not the one-sided battle I thought it was, so there is no need for me to add my fire to the already crumbling Henosis fleet.

There are only five steel ships remaining, but considering one of those is the battleship, the Henosis still has half their firepower ripping through the encirclement. It won’t be enough.

A set of the larger cannons on the battleship turn and unleash a volley. The heavy projectiles rip through a ship of their own, taking down the fifty wooden vessels anchored to it. Sure it was likely already lost, but to turn on one of their own so quick to take out just a few more in an endless swarm feels unnecessarily cruel.

A typical Henosis strategy.

Now that it is certain the Henosis will lose, I don’t need to fight, so I float with Leal to enjoy the show. I may not join in, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy watching the Empire lose.

The battleship seems to have an endless supply of munitions. Doesn’t matter how many shells have ripped through the heqet, there are always more being fired. Doesn’t matter how many their volleys wipe from the ocean, they cannot stop them all, and the Henosis realise that.

“What are cruisers doing?” Leal murmurs.

Down below, the mid-sized ships with less weaponry weighing them down — cruisers — sail away from the battleship, forming ranks along one side of the encroaching circle. What are they doing? Why are ships with fewer defences taking on the heqet?

The battleship, meanwhile, concentrates its fire toward a single point opposite the cruisers. Tar-slicked ships fall in droves. Explosions of water obscure much of the northern ocean, but the lost ships are quick to be replaced.

The heqet are close enough now to fire upon the four cruisers, and they do so without restraint. Thousands of cannonballs ping off the hulls, the rare one in a dozen leaving a dent. And yet, the ships don’t move. Albanics on the bulwark fire their mounted guns at the ships many hundreds of metres away, but it does little to slow the advance. The cruisers don’t react. They float uselessly in the ocean, barely fighting back.

Have they given up? It is clear the outcome of this battle, but they can’t possibly expect to be spared, can they? A heqet aboard a captured destroyer cleaves his axe through a man on his knees, surrendering; a perfect reflection of the fate of these cruisers should they do the same.

Suddenly, the air grows quiet. The battleship has stopped firing, but it leaves nothing but an eerie silence in its wake.

The heqet ships still fire their cannons, but the much lower rate, added to their lesser volume, makes it feel like light crackling after Henosis ceased their artillery.

Is the Empire surrendering? We’ve not yet even seen the elites I’m absolutely certain are on board. Do they think they’ll be let go? With a fleet this size surrounding them?

The air prickles.

All lights go out on the battleship. That wouldn’t mean much in the morning light… if the hum of its engines didn’t cut at the same time.

That sole unused cannon at the forefront of the battleship moves. It is only slight, but my eyes inexplicably notice the minor detail amongst the chaotic ocean. A thick projectile spears out of the gun barrel with barely a crack. The sound is so inconsequential on the battlefield that it’s barely worth noting, but I can’t pull my attention from it. The cylindrical shell arcs high, slower than any other, and bears down on the disturbed ocean where hundreds of new heqet ships sail into the graveyard of their brethren.

The projectile impacts the water without so much as a splash. For a moment, I think that’s it. It’s nothing more than a normal — albeit weak — shell.

Then everything is white.

For an instant, that’s all I can see; the intense bright light that washes away all else. It disappears soon enough, giving me a clear view of the immense destruction unleashed by the explosion.

The initial burst incinerates ships and water indiscriminately in the immediate vicinity. Following that, a powerful shockwave whips over the waters, reducing the closest vessels to splinters and toppling those well over a kilometre away.

When the shockwave reaches us, I’m almost struck from the air with how hard it hits. The boom roars as ships all around rock and sway before the water feels the effects and writhes, disturbing the floating wooden vessels all the more.

Despite all that, it’s the fireball rising from the initial blast that enraptures me the most. So unbelievably hot that it might as well be plasma. Actually, it very well might be; I can’t influence it. The heat radiating off the explosion is enough to ignite every tar-soaked ship within a kilometre, burning them to cinders on open water.

Where before there was a fleet of a almost a thousand ships, nothing lives. A massive hole in the heqet’s encirclement.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

But the very worst aspect of this entire situation is that I recognise that bomb. The shape was different, and it lacked much of the power source the last one had, but that explosion… it is too similar to the one they locked me in to be anything else.

It had only been a moment at that time, but I had felt the unrestrained power of the blast right before the Void Fog ate it up. This is the exact same eruption of power as back then.

These are the bombs they designed to kill elite. And now that I see the outcome of the explosion, I can see why Henosis is obsessed with them. It’s like the attack of an Inner Circle mercenary, only they didn’t need someone at that strength to use it. I have my doubts it could touch someone like Kalma or Tore, but it is terrifying all the same.

But… they can trigger the explosions without áed now? Isn’t that the whole reason they hunted down our kind? They did that, and there is a method to explode them without us? Why didn’t they do that initially? We could have saved a whole lot of pain and hate if they’d just not dragged us into it.

The weapon was much smaller than the large orb they’d shoved me into all those years ago. So much smaller that I can’t help but feel horrified at how big of an explosion that one would have made. The alternative — which I’m not sure is better or not — is that the Henosis have advanced their research so much in these few years, that they’ve not only removed the necessity for áed to control the devices, but have made them small enough to be fired from cannons. If they’ve advanced that fast, what else might they have hidden?

Well, there’s not much harm the centzon can do now giving their mechanical designs to the Henosis. I’d been worried, but if the Empire already has weapons like this, a few war contraptions will hardly make a difference.

“Deivos’ beloved,” Leal mutters. “What was that?”

The dark rising cloud no longer contains any plasma, but it still burns with lingering heat. It reaches high into the sky, but does not trigger the Nightfall Shroud.

A lull in the battle occurs. A lull where everyone simply watches in awe at the destruction caused. A lull that is broken by the combined roar of the massive Henosis ship engines and the waters rising around each.

At first, I think it’s the disturbed ocean lapping at the overly large vessels, but that is soon disproved. Massive mountains of water lift up behind the battleship and the four cruisers that moved in alongside it while everyone’s attention was glued to the explosion. The swell rises unnaturally high, sending the heqet vessels stuck on the other side uncontrollably rushing away, and for the unlucky ones caught on their side, capsizing.

Ah, this must be the Henosis’ elite. Of course it’s a water mage. I really shouldn’t have expected anything else over the ocean.

The mountain of water collapses, like the string pulling it up snaps, and all the volume lifted high rushed down and out. All five Henosis ships, rather than being tossed around by the vast quantities of water, are embraced. The vessels ride the wave like Elder Śuri does sand.

The battleship and flanking cruisers speed through the devastation left by the explosion, and flee the heqet encirclement.

They used a weapon as dangerous as that to create an opening? Couldn’t their water mage do something similar? Why rely on weapons when you have the individual strength to do the same? Is this another of the Inner Circle problem of the pact nations? Does the Henosis Empire want so desperately to withhold the information of their elite that they will resort to bombs like this?

No, this is more than that. If the Henosis can manufacture weapons that can compete with century old elite, then there is no reason not to. If they can mass produce the weapons, then what would a war against them look like? When each artillery is loaded with bombs that can destroy anything within a kilometre of where it impacts — elite included — what can stop them?

All I can be thankful for is that their bombs probably won’t pose much problem to my grand elders. The plasma might be difficult to deal with, but for how short it exists for, I know I would survive the blast. Once the plasma is gone, it’s hardly even an issue influencing the fireball. And with all that energy, the Henosis would have to be stupid to use one on an áed.

Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s the áed they want to use them on.

I catch a flash of movement. A wooden ship shatters as something shoots out from it. The rocketing shape pierces through a cruiser before exploding from the other side in a rapid spin and crashing through the water. It is only when the heqet breaches the surface again with a wide, head-spanning grin that I realise it was a person that flung themselves through the ship. Despite the axes held in both hands and the armour weighing it down, the heqet starts swimming back to the black ships faster than I’ve seen most ships sail.

The cruiser seems almost undamaged despite being pierced. But that soon changes; the vessel slows, lagging behind the other ships. Before long, the hull fractures. It snaps apart; the front of the cruiser breaks away from the rear, a razor-like cut cleaving the vessel in two.

The heqet that inflicted such damage watches the ship sink in glee as he lies on his back in the ocean. Large sweeps with his axes through water act like oars to carry him toward his kin.

The four remaining Henosis vessels sail north, assisted by the efforts of their water mage. Or mages, if there’s more than the one. Hundreds of the heqet ships chase after them, but at their current speeds, the Henosis will be gone before long. No more crazy heqet throw themselves through the air in order to cleave them, so I have no clue whether the one who did so is the only one at his strength.

Most of the heqet ships seem satisfied with the victory and remain in the waters of the battle. Plenty below jeer at the fleeing albanic, raising their axes high and croaking battle-cries after them.

With the battle over, I create a body besides Leal to talk to her.

“I think it’ll be best if we go down and find someone willing to guide us. Surely the residents of the Warring Isles will know where the-” a pair of cannonballs explode through my body, interrupting me.

Leal’s eyes widen as she watches my body burst into flames. Both our gazes drop to the imbecilic ship that fired upon us. Before my flames even have time to gather and burn them for their attempt, wind gathers around Leal. The air grows dense and a high-pitched whistle rips through my ears as the dense wind crashes down on the ship.

The initial compressed funnel of air does enough damage to rip out all the wooden boards of the deck, but it’s the splash-back of the ocean rising to rip the ship apart from within that does the most damage.

I stare at Leal in surprise as she glares down at the ship where she likely just killed a dozen heqet. The fury in her eyes is undeniable… but didn’t she hate killing?

When she notices my gaze, she flushes, ashamed.

The sound of countless more cannon-fire reaches us, and I return my gaze down, expecting the heqet to be firing upon us, but what I find is far more confusing.

Now that the Henosis has fled, the remaining ships turn on each other. Where before they stood as one against the albanics, they now fight amongst themselves. Two sides slaughtering each other with almost more frequency than the Henosis’ artillery could achieve.

Another cannonball flies through my flame. Its trajectory would reach Leal if I didn’t incinerate it long before it could reach. I glare down at the guilty ship where a dozen heqet point up at us, and rush to turn more cannons our way.

And I said I would keep out of this war… too late for that.