The morning of the twenty-sixth day began with a deceiving calm—the sea was like a shimmering green glass, the sky was blue without a single cloud, and a light breeze made the sails of The Unity flutter gently. Li Yuan woke up with a rare feeling of peace, the sound of children's laughter was already coming from the upper deck, and the aroma of breakfast wafted from the galley.
In the blink of an eye, everything changed.
There was no warning. No gradual signs like what usually happens with bad weather. Nature spoke as if it didn't need any kind of warning, taking a storm that wasn't all predictable. One second the sky was still bright blue, the next—as if the universe had suddenly become enraged—dense black clouds appeared from all directions at once, swirling and gathering with a speed that defied the laws of nature.
Li Yuan was fully awake when the ship first swayed with a violence that made every wooden plank scream. This was not the gentle rolling they had come to know—it was a brutal jolt that threw everyone unprepared against the walls and floors.
This is impossible, his mind screamed as he tried to stand. Storms don't come like this—
But reality didn't care about logic or experience. The wind howled with a force that drowned out all human sound, the sky turned into a maelstrom of black and gray that swirled like a giant hole sucking away the light. And the waves—
Oh my God, the waves.
A mountain-high wall of water moved toward them with impossible speed, its crest foaming white like the teeth of a sea monster ready to pounce. The Unity, which just a minute ago had felt so solid and safe, suddenly felt like a fragile piece of wood in the face of an incomprehensible power.
"EVERYONE TO EMERGENCY POSITIONS!" Captain Korven's voice was almost lost in the howling wind, but the authority in his tone cut through the panic that was beginning to spread.
But it was too late for preparation. The first wave hit the ship with an impact that made Li Yuan feel every bone in his body shake. The ship was lifted into the air—literally lifted, as if gravity had suddenly ceased to exist—then plunged downward with a force that threw everyone in the opposite direction.
Screaming began to be heard. First from the children, then from the adults as the reality of the situation began to sink in. This was not a storm they could wait out. This was something completely different—something that would likely kill them all.
Li Yuan moved with reflexes honed over thousands of years, but even with his extraordinary physical abilities, he could barely maintain his balance on a deck that was changing into a steep incline every few seconds.
Anna. Lila. Those names screamed in his mind as he looked toward the cabins where the families with children were supposed to shelter.
He slid across the slick deck toward the hatch leading to the lower levels, but before he got there, a second wave—even bigger than the first—hit the ship with a force that literally lifted The Unity and threw it sideways.
The sound of splintering wood echoed above the howling wind. The ship's hull, which had withstood countless storms, began to crack under a pressure it was never designed to handle.
"THE SHIP IS BREAKING APART!" Someone screamed, their voice raw with absolute terror.
Li Yuan watched in horror as a section of the starboard railing was torn away by the wave, taking with it two people—crew members he recognized but didn't know well by name. One second they were there, struggling to hold on, the next second they were gone, swallowed by the churning water that was as black as midnight.
No, no, no—
He moved with desperate speed toward the area where he had last seen Anna and Lila, but the chaos on the ship made navigation almost impossible. People were running in all directions, some trying to reach lifeboats, others clinging to anything solid, many already injured from being thrown around by the ship's violent motion.
Marcus appeared from nowhere, his face bleeding from a cut on his forehead, his eyes wild with equal parts panic and determination.
"Yuan!" He had to shout to be heard over the storm. "Anna and Lila—they're trapped in the lower cabin! The hatch is jammed and water is coming in!"
Li Yuan's heart stopped. In that instant, all consideration about hiding his abilities, about maintaining his disguise, about protecting his secret—everything disappeared. There was only one thought: Get to them. Save them.
He followed Marcus to the hatch leading to the passenger quarters, and immediately saw the problem. The metal latch was twisted from the impact, and worse, structural damage from a hull breach had caused the doorframe to warp, jamming the door completely shut.
From inside, he could hear voices—Anna calling for help, Lila crying, others trapped with them in a space that was rapidly filling with seawater.
"We tried everything," Marcus gasped, blood streaming down his face. "Can't get it open—we need tools, time that we don't have—"
Li Yuan didn't hesitate. He placed both hands on the twisted metal latch and, for the first time in months, let his true physical strength flow without restriction. The metal gave way as if it were made of clay, the hinges torn from their supports with an ease that would have shattered trees.
The door swung open, releasing a flood of seawater mixed with desperate humans pouring out of what had become a death trap. Anna emerged carrying Lila, both soaking wet and terrified but alive—
Another massive wave hit.
This one was bigger than anything before, a wall of water that seemed to stretch from the sea floor to the clouds. The impact lifted the entire ship and threw it like a toy, and in horrible slow motion, Li Yuan watched as a section of the upper deck—the area where the children had been playing just hours before—was simply torn away.
Elena. Little Elena with her bright smile and weaving lessons.
Gone.
Henrik Larson, with all his careful plans for the colony governance.
Gone.
Petra, the young teacher with dreams of a school in a new land.
Gone.
One wave. One horrible wave, and dozens of the people he had come to love disappeared into the churning darkness of the storm-lashed sea.
"NO!" Li Yuan's scream was torn from his throat with an anguish that came from the depths of a soul that had loved and lost across millennia. But this—this was different. This was family.
He leaped from the deck without a thought for his personal safety, hitting water that was as cold as liquid ice and immediately began swimming with a strength no normal human possessed toward the area where people had fallen.
The water was chaos—waves hit him from every direction, visibility was near zero in the mixture of rain and spray, currents tried to drag him down to the depths that had no bottom. But he pushed through with a determination born of absolute desperation.
There— a glimpse of cloth, a flash of pale skin in the dark water. He dove, using his abilities to hold his breath indefinitely, searching in the underwater chaos for any sign of survivors.
He found Elena first, unconscious but still breathing, and managed to bring her to the surface. But by the time he located floating debris that could support her, another wave separated them and he lost sight of the little girl in the churning foam.
Save as many as possible, the thought hammered in his mind as he continued his desperate search. Use every ability, break every rule, reveal everything if necessary—just save them.
But even with physical capabilities that could shatter stone with a casual touch, even with an endurance that could sustain him indefinitely, even with senses that could track heartbeats in a raging storm—
He was still just one person in the face of an overwhelming catastrophe.
He managed to pull four people from the water—Marcus, who had jumped in after him; Sarah Miller, unconscious but alive; a stranger from a different part of the ship; and after a desperate search, Anna.
But not Lila. Not Elena. Not the dozens of others who had become precious to him.
By the time exhaustion forced him to stop active rescue attempts, The Unity had broken into three major pieces, each drifting in different directions. Survivors clung to floating debris, calling for loved ones who would never answer.
Li Yuan floated in the water that tasted of salt and loss, holding Anna who was barely conscious, listening to the sounds of the community that had been destroyed in a matter of minutes.
Five hundred and twenty-three souls, the thought repeated in a mind that felt numb with shock. Five hundred and twenty-three people who trusted this ship, trusted this journey, trusted—
Trusted me to protect them, and I failed.
The storm continued to rage around the surviving fragments of what had been a floating world, but Li Yuan barely noticed. In his Zhenjing, his understandings vibrated with an agony that seemed to echo from every person who had been lost.
I could have unwrapped my abilities sooner, the thought tortured him. Could have sensed the coming disaster, prepared better, saved more—
Could have done something other than watch the people I loved disappear into the darkness.
Anna stirred in his arms, coughing up seawater, her eyes opening with a confusion that slowly shifted to horror as memory returned.
"Li... Lila?" Her voice was barely audible over the continuing storm.
Li Yuan could not answer. He could not bring himself to say the words that would destroy the last hope in a mother's heart.
Failed them all, the realization settled in his soul like a stone sinking to the bottom of the deepest ocean. For all my power, all my understanding, all my centuries of experience—when it mattered most, I was helpless.
And now they're gone.
All of them.
Gone.