The corridor, a throat of dark stone, muffled the sounds of the distant, world-shaking duel. Galit Varuna led the desperate charge, Atlas Acuta's unconscious form a heavy, furred weight across his shoulders. Jannali, Vesta, and Eliane ran in his wake, their footsteps a frantic drumbeat against the ancient floor. Jelly, a wobbling azure comet, ricocheted cheerfully off the walls beside Eliane.
"Bloop! Race time! Go, go, go!" Jelly chirped.
A giggle, born of nerves and relief, escaped Eliane. "I missed you too, Jelly!"
"Focus!" Galit snapped, his voice a whip-crack in the gloom. His long neck swiveled, emerald eyes scanning every shadowed alcove. "Don't fall behind. We are not safe yet."
"What's the plan, mate?" Jannali asked, her twang tight with strain. "We can't just leg it forever."
Galit opened his mouth to reply—a plan involving the river and the hidden sub half-formed in his mind. The words never came.
The world upended.
A colossal QUAKE tore through the mountain. It wasn't a tremor; it was the Lugh-Grange itself screaming in protest. The floor leaped beneath them. Jannali cursed, stumbling into the wall. Vesta cried out, grabbing Eliane as they both lost their footing. Galit grunted, knees buckling under Atlas's weight as a rain of dust and pebbles pattered down.
Then, the dust turned thick and white. A choking, chalky cloud billowed from cracks in the ceiling, filling the corridor with a blinding, desiccating fog. It coated their tongues, gritted in their eyes, and stole the breath from their lungs. Coughing fits wracked the group.
"What is—" Vesta managed between hacks.
A thunderous CRUNCH silenced her. A massive block of ceiling stone, larger than a ship's dinghy, slammed down directly in front of Galit, sealing the corridor with a wall of rubble. The way forward was gone.
From the swirling, opaque chalk behind them, an ominous, echoing chuckle bounced off the stones. It closed in from all sides.
"Real talk," Paula Cupcake Pope's voice boomed, rich with mocking pity. It wasn't loud, but it carried a weight that pressed on their eardrums. "You never had a chance. But the effort? Adorable to watch." A definitive BOOM shook the air as the butt of her massive trident, Sharito, struck the ground.
"Now, now, Paula. It's not nice to tease the prisoners," Archibald Winn Lima-Sabin's voice chided from another direction, a playful scold laced with venom. "It gives them false hope."
Galit's face hardened. With a pained thud, he lowered Atlas to the ground, propping the Mink against the new rubble wall. His hands went to his hips, fingers closing around the braided sinew hilts of his Vipera Whips, Current's Deception. The air hummed with his focused intensity.
Beside him, Jannali's expression turned fierce. She gripped the collapsed segments of her spear, Anhur's Whisper. With a series of sharp clicks, the weapon expanded in her hands, the dark sea-stone tip gleaming dully in the fog.
The chalk dust began to part, not settling, but swirling as if guided. From one side, Archibald stepped forth, his colorful vest a shocking burst of color in the monochrome chaos. He spun his heavy spear, Shijito, in a lazy, humming arc. From the other, Paula emerged, her wolf-fur tunic dusted white, her blue war-paint stark against her skin. She held her trident loosely, smoke still curling from the pipe clenched in her teeth.
"Oh-ho!" Archibald chirped, his eyes sparkling. "Look at that! The little fish have decided to fight for their freedom! The drama!"
Galit didn't look back. His voice was low, directed at Vesta and Eliane. "You two. Keep an eye on the furball. Do not engage."
Vesta nodded, her usual vibrancy replaced by sober determination. She pulled Eliane back, placing themselves as a living shield between Atlas and the commanders. "You got it."
Jelly bounced forward, landing with a determined splat beside Galit. He molded his face into what he believed was a terrifying snarl, balling his gelatinous hands into fists. "Bloop! Protect friends! No hurt!"
Paula sighed, a long, weary exhalation of smoke. "And your little leader is fighting her heart out, too." As if to punctuate her point, another terrific quake shook the mountain, and a fresh cascade of dust and stone rained from above.
Archibald glanced up, pouting. "The roof is going to be a pain to repair. Pier does love his dramatic battles."
The two commanders exchanged a glance—a silent, effortless conversation born of decades of shared battles. A smirk touched Paula's lips. "Well? Shall we?"
Archibald nodded, hefting his spear. "Might as well. We do have more to do today. Repairs, paperwork, the inevitable scolding from the boss…"
"Yeah," Paula agreed, and in that single word was a universe of threat.
Galit moved. He was a streak of teal cloak and coiled motion. His whips lashed out not at Archibald's body, but in a complex, tangling pattern aimed at the shaft of Shijito, seeking to disarm with the clever Kelp Forest Kata. But the spear was no longer just where it appeared. A puff of chalk erupted from its surface the instant before the whip made contact, and Archibald's form blurred. He wasn't faster in a conventional sense; he simply reformed two feet to the left, the whip slicing through empty, dusty air.
"Close!" Archibald applauded. "Wonderful form! But you're fighting the idea of where I am, not where I am."
Simultaneously, Jannali lunged. Her spear was a black dart, aimed with the precision of a master huntress at Paula's center mass. Paula didn't dodge. She casually swung Sharito in a flat, sweeping parry. The impact was colossal. A ringing CLANG filled the corridor, and Jannali's arms sang with pain, the force nearly tearing the weapon from her grip. She stumbled back, her third eye flying open in shocked reflex.
"Good thrust, cupcake," Paula drawled, not even shifting her stance. "You've got spirit."
Jelly, seeing Galit's miss, bounced in to help. He morphed his body into a large, sticky net, flying toward Archibald. "Bloop! Gotcha!"
Archibald looked genuinely touched. "A net! How inventive!" He raised a hand and blew. A superheated jet of fine, white powder—Absolute Heat—shot forth. It didn't burn Jelly; it instantly desiccated the moisture in his gelatinous form. Jelly let out a startled squeak, his net shrinking, crisping at the edges, and falling to the floor as a crinkled, rubbery sheet. He reconstituted himself, but now he was smaller, wobblier, and had a terrified expression. "B-Bloop? Dry!"
"Jelly!" Eliane cried out.
"Oh, don't worry about him," Archibald said. "He's just a little… parched."
The fight, such as it was, lasted less than a minute. Galit was a tempest of clever angles and feints, his whips a humming blur. But every strike passed through a chalky afterimage or was met by a section of Archibald's body that dissolved into dry powder before solidifying again, trapping the whip's tip. Archibald countered not with brute force, but with maddening, artistic precision. He tapped his spear's haft on the ground, and a wave of Coarse Fusion shot out. The stone beneath Galit's feet turned glossy and slick, then hardened into a brittle plaster. Galit's boot stuck fast. As he struggled to pull free, Archibald lazily swung Shijito. Galit crossed his whips to block. The spear, infused with Haki harder than iron, didn't bounce. It broke through the guard with a sound like snapping bones and connected with Galit's chest. The air left his lungs in a choked gasp, and he was thrown back against the wall, slumping to the ground, dazed and weaponless.
Jannali fared no better. She fought with everything she had, using her third eye to predict the trajectories of Paula's trident strikes. She saw the blows coming a heartbeat early, but it didn't matter. Paula's strength and speed were of another magnitude. Each block rattled Jannali's teeth. Then, with a grunt of "Enough," Paula's form shifted. Her skin took on a lustrous emerald sheen. From her back, two additional pairs of arms unfolded, and a celestial ribbon of light—a Hagoromo—materialized around her shoulders. The Hybrid Form of the Tara.
Now a six-armed warrior goddess, Paula moved. Jannali's third eye saw the first two disarming strikes but couldn't warn her body to move fast enough. Sharito was knocked from her stinging hands. The next two arms shot out, moving with Enlightened Speed, and clamped onto Jannali's shoulders with an unbreakable grip. The final pair of hands formed a complex mudra, and a pulse of golden energy—the Purifying Nectar—washed over Jannali. It wasn't meant to heal. Inverted, it sapped her will, her strength, her very consciousness. Her third eye fluttered shut, and she went limp in Paula's grasp.
It was over. Vesta and Eliane could only watch in horror, huddled over Atlas.
Archibald strolled over to the crumpled, wheezing Galit. "Marvelous effort! Truly! The tangled whip technique at 0:34 was particularly inspired." With a puff of chalk from his fingers, he produced a set of heavy, stone manacles. They clicked shut around Galit's wrists with finality.
Paula gently laid the unconscious Jannali beside Atlas. "Tuck in, cupcake," she muttered, almost kindly, before securing her manacles as well.
Archibald then approached Vesta and Eliane, his expression one of apologetic cheer. "Ladies, I'm afraid intermission is over. Back to your seats, please." He didn't wait for resistance they couldn't offer. The cold stone manacles were fastened, their weight a familiar, dreadful burden.
Lastly, he bent down before the shivering, dehydrated Jelly, who was trying to form a defiant fist. "And you, my wobbly masterpiece! A stellar supporting role!" A tiny, custom-made manacle, like a stone donut, was produced. With a gentle plink, it was attached to a loop on Jelly's body. Jelly let out a defeated, quiet, "…bloop."
The corridor was silent again, save for the distant, apocalyptic sounds of the duel and the ragged breathing of the recaptured. Their freedom had been a brief, glorious, and utterly hopeless dream. The hunters had herded their prey with effortless, devastating grace.
If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider giving Dracule Marya Zaleska a Power Stone! It helps the novel climb the rankings and get more eyes on our story!
Thank you for sailing with us! 🏴☠️ Your support means so much!
Want to see the Dreadnought Thalassa blueprints? Or unlock the true power of Goddess Achlys?
Join the Dracule Marya Zaleska crew on Patreon to get exclusive concept art, deep-dive lore notes, and access to our private Discord community! You make the New World adventure possible.
Become a Crewmate and Unlock the Lore:
https://patreon.com/An1m3N3rd?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Thanks so much for your support and loving this story as much as I do!