Myrrir's mind swam. A bolt of electric purple Arcara struck the back of his neck, and though it did no physical damage, the illusions doubled in strength. Weightless waves rose up from the sea to swat him out of the air, and Nilsenir's ten strands of gunpowder became a hundred.

  An invisible impact struck him from behind, and he splashed harmlessly into the water. A hand gripped him, holding him below the surface.

  Illusions peeled away, leaving only the foamy, bubbly wake of the ocean surface. His body thrashed instinctively, and his lungs begged, screamed for air. Nothing.

  Only a silhouette of his father, gripping him by the neck, holding him beneath the surface.

  "I gave you everything!" Nilsenir bellowed. The bubbling water muffled his voice into faint whispers, but he was Bracing his whole body, and the immense sound of his enhanced reverberated in waves through the water, rattling in Myrrir’s chest. "And you threw it all away! When push came to shove, you were incompetent! Then you threw in your lot with them! Many times I wished you had never been born, but today, I will fix my mistakes!”

  Myrrir choked in a breathful of water and sputtered, but no air came in, and he was left with the sheer panic—and raw pain—of drowning.

  Then another shape appeared behind Nilsenir.

  At first, Myrrir feared it was Kalawen. But this shape had a black coat and glowing yellow eyes.

  It tapped Nilsenir’s shoulder, then swung a sword at him.

  Nilsenir released his grip on Myrrir’s neck just in time to block the sword strike with his hook-hand, but the swipe still sent him skimming over the surface of the water.

  Myrrir pulled himself to the surface and choked out a lungful of water. He gasped for breath and took in his surroundings.

  Toward the Stream, the Velaydian fleet charged in two concentrated clumps, breaking the Elderworld lines. Cannons poured out smoke and fire, and a brown haze of sawdust clogged the air. But a few vessels broke through, and as quick as they could, they made for Shatterport. Their sails billowed and their prows chopped the water, and marines clung to the railings.

  On the shore, bluecoats repositioned their field cannons to fire on the approaching fleet, but they only had grapeshot for dissuading protestors.

  A beam of white light shone up from the slice in the sea, where Vayra duelled Karmion, but Myrrir couldn’t tell the outcome of that fight.

  And, finally, Glade fought Nilsenir and Kalawen. His sword blazed with yellow light, and now, it trailed Arcara leaves in its wake. His soul and spirit brimmed with power, uncontrolled and uncontained, and it was venting everywhere. In the wake of his flying sword, sparks crystalized into impressions of wheat.

  An impression of life and longevity radiated from him, not to mention the strength of an Emissary. Newly forged, but an Emissary nonetheless.

  And he had two foes to deal with. He wouldn’t win. They’d pound him into dust before long.

  Myrrir hoisted himself above the waves on a platform of gunpowder, then shook the water off his hands. A third figure approached, riding side-saddle on a flying staff like it was a flying horse. She skimmed over the water, trailing after Glade.

  The lapin woman. Ameena.

  “Ah, you’re alive!” she chirped. “Wonderful!”

  “I need to…help…” Myrrir said. He clenched his fists and tightened his armour.

  “You need to advance,” Ameena said. “And now. Push yourself. You can’t help him as an Admiral, but as a Grand Admiral, you might just be strong enough.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m here to heal. I’m nowhere close to Grand Admiral.”

  Myrrir winced. “I—”

  “There’s time. But you need to go fast.”

  ‘Vayra,’ Phasoné said, ‘your greatest ally is the Mediator Form.’

  But Vayra was already using it.

  ‘No. Not fully. You’re a Grand Admiral, now.’

  Then Phasoné could pass her Arcara, and it might raise her stage equivalent a little—enough to help against Karmion.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  ‘I am. You’re drawing on my Arcara from the stars, and I’m feeding you everything I have.’

  Then she was just weaker. They were done.

  ‘Yes, you are. But the Mediator Form at Grand Admiral can do more for you, remember?’

  Draw on the mortals—on their belief. Let it flood into her.

  She sprang off the sea floor and lifted herself up above the rift in the ocean, then held her arms out to the side. White fire blazed across her body, and a white wireframe outline of Phasoné shone overtop. For miles, the light reflected across the water, like the moons of Decathe reflecting across the sea.

  She lifted herself higher until she floated above the masts of even the first-rate ships below. Anyone in the port would be watching.

  ‘It’s the feeling you get when someone is watching you,’ Phasoné said. ‘Tug on it. Draw on the tendrils of their belief. You are real, you returned, and you are here to help the people of the galaxy be free.’

  She shut her eyes and tried to imagine them watching her. The feeling you get. Her sixth sense, her spiritual perception, flooded across the harbour, but that alone wasn’t enough.

  A chill ran down her spine. There were thousands of mortals in the harbour, and each of them had a tiny presence, but they were there. In the gray, monochrome perception of her surroundings, they each leaked out a strand of previously invisible power from their navel.

  Some reached out to Karmion still, desperately clinging to their god-emperor and begging him for help. Others reached back to the arena, to their other godly patrons. But those strands were crumbling by the second. Every mile closer the Ko-Ganall approached, every barrage of grapeshot that tore into the crowd.

  Most poured out toward Vayra. She reached out with her will and bundled them up, then drew them into her.

  At first, it felt like her soul had set on fire. She screamed, then pulled her voice down to a controlled yell, then wrestled her breathing into a proper timing. As her Arcara cycled, the strands of power circled her body and wound through her channels, enforcing and strengthening her techniques.

  She poured the new belief into her scythe, and it blazed along with her.

  Ascending up from the sea floor, Karmion sealed the rift in the ocean behind him, and the waves crashed in behind him.

  He floated up to meet Vayra. “You can’t. Their belief belongs to me!”

  “You squandered it,” Vayra said, her voice washing over the entire port. “You took their love and did nothing with it. It is time for a new era: an age of mortals. An age free from your tyranny.”

  Yelling, Karmion threw a punch at her throat, but she caught it and tightened her grip around his fingers until his knuckles cracked. He was weaker now than he was moments ago, with the belief in him slipping.

  And she was stronger than ever before.

  She twisted downward and threw him into the water. The force of the impact blasted a crater away and sent him plummeting to the sea floor. The water rescinded, but she’d only have a few seconds before it would come roaring back in.

  Karmion coughed and raised his hands, mustering a slow defence against a flurry of scythe blows. He moved…pathetically slow. His Wards simmered off into steam, and his Bracing techniques weren’t strong enough.

  Then she cleaved through his forearm and sliced it off. He tried to kick her, but she sliced off his leg and threw him back into the ground with a Starlight Palm. The seafloor blasted apart beneath him. He raised his hands, sputtering and screaming curses, vowing endless death and suffering upon her.

  No more. She whirled her scythe and sliced through his head, severing it from his shoulders, just as the water washed back in.

  She jumped up as the ocean’s maw devoured Karmion’s body. A great wave of force rattled out through the water, booming beneath the surface of the waves and making the ocean’s surface ripple.

  That was one God dead. Plenty more to go.

  Glade couldn’t feel his arms or legs. He focussed more on trying to contain the authority of Talock, to process the godly powers of the autumn harvest. He didn't know what half of the new feelings meant, but there wasn’t time to process them.

  The authority was of healing, of life, of continued survival. Of thankfulness and feasting of the autumn season. There were impressions of previous iterations of him. Talock, for one, holding a silver scythe and golden pitchfork. But before him, there were men and women with sickles and trowels, with leaf laurels and cloaks of intertwined wheat.

  Glade was the first of his kind—a sword-wielding God of harvest.

  Instead of crops, he was going to cut down the gods.

  He whirled his blade around him, weaving a basket from head to toe. It was a better, stronger basket than his guards had ever been before, and golden-pink light circled around him. He cycled with the Burnished Flame Loop, focussing his will and fortifying his mind against Kalawen’s illusions, and he focussed his internal Wards on his head, protecting himself from any further tampering.

  They launched technique after technique at him. He didn’t need the swordwyrm to fly anymore, but it stayed by his side, deflecting technique after technique, until a stray blast sent it tumbling across the waves. It skipped like a stone.

  A tendril of gunpowder wrapped around his sword and caught it in a bind, and Kalawen unleashed a flurry of punches into his chest. “You didn’t take my advice.”

  Glade coughed blood, but still redirected his Wards to reabsorb some of the impact.

  Nilsenir rammed his hook-hand sharp tip first into Glade’s gut, then sneered. “You can’t control it, boy! It’s too much for your mediocre spirit! You’ll never have what we do!”

  Glade panted and gasped. The godly authority was slipping out of his grasp, trying to leave him. He couldn’t hold it all in, but he pulled on it nonetheless. He shouted, reaching out with his will, and redirected it in.

  He was a part of the changing seasons. He would help.

  He struck Kalawen with a punch from his free hand, sending her spiralling down to the ocean below. Before Nilsenir could retaliate, a flash of pale green severed the tendril of gunpowder, then swept up to the side and caught the pirate god across the chest and flung him back.

  Myrrir floated into place beside Glade. Green dust encased his hands like gloves of jade frost, and his spirit radiated the strength of a Grand Admiral. Ameena descended on the other side of him, placing a hand on his shoulder and healing his external wounds. Her Arcara filled him with a sense of calm, and the Godly Authority of the harvest settled down inside him.

  “Now,” Glade said. “I think we can destroy the two of them.”