The ocean did not forgive theft.
Inside the Abyssal Bell, the ascent was not a smooth glide; it was a violent, shuddering rejection. The winch-motor screamed, its gears smoking as it hauled the Lead-Bismuth pod upward at a speed that pinned Kael and Ignis to the floor.
Kael sat with his back against the vibrating hull, his legs locked around a strut to keep from being thrown. He cradled the infant Source-Vessel against his chest, shielding the child's glowing body with his own. The baby was silent now, his wide eyes fixed on Kael's face, transmitting a sensation of profound, heavy curiosity.
"Depth check!" Kael shouted over the roar of the water rushing past the hull.
"One mile!" Ignis yelled back, his mechanical eye spinning wildly as he monitored the external pressure. "We're moving too fast! The hull integrity is at forty percent! If we hit a thermal layer at this speed, the rivets will pop like buttons!"
THE VOID IS COLLAPSING, KAEL! the God shrieked, the entity's fear vibrating in Kael's marrow. THE TEMPLE IS GONE. THE CAPACITOR HAS FAILED. THE OCEAN IS FALLING INTO THE HOLE WE LEFT BEHIND!
Deep below them, three miles down in the dark, the capacitor Ignis had rigged burned out. The "loop" broke. The pressure field that had held back the crushing weight of the Pacific for a thousand years vanished in a microsecond.
The result was not an explosion. It was an implosion of biblical proportions.
Millions of tons of water rushed into the vacuum of the Sunken Cradle. The ocean floor cracked. The obsidian pillars of Aethelgard shattered into dust. For a heartbeat, the sea level above dropped as the ocean inhaled.
And then, it exhaled.
A shockwave of compressed water, moving at the speed of sound, shot upward from the trench.
"Brace!" Kael roared.
He didn't use a shield. He wrapped his entire body around the infant and channeled the "Stable Agony" into the hull of the pod. He fused his mana with the metal, turning the Abyssal Bell into an extension of his own cursed physiology.
BOOM.
The shockwave hit the pod.
The sensation was like being kicked by a god. The pod was catapulted upward, accelerating from fifty knots to five hundred in a split second. Kael's bones shattered—crack-snap-crunch—his ribcage collapsing inward before instantly knitting back together with a flare of golden-violet light.
Ignis screamed as he floated weightless for a second before being slammed back down.
The Abyssal Bell breached the surface.
It didn't just break the water; it launched into the air like a missile, soaring two hundred feet into the sky amidst a geyser of white foam and steam.
For a moment, there was silence. The pod reached the apex of its arc, spinning slowly in the twilight air.
Through the reinforced porthole, Ignis saw the world spin. "We're... flying."
Then gravity took hold. The pod plummeted, crashing back into the sea with a bone-jarring impact. It bobbed violently, rolling in the chaotic swell.
"Get the hatch!" Kael commanded, his voice wheezing as his lungs re-inflated. "We need to see!"
Ignis scrambled to the wheel, spinning it until the seals hissed. He threw the hatch open.
The cool night air rushed in, smelling of salt and imminent destruction. Kael climbed out onto the roof of the bobbing pod, pulling Ignis and the baby up with him.
They were in the middle of the Sultanate blockade.
Six Dreadnoughts surrounded them, their iron hulls looming like islands in the dark. The crews were scrambling, alarms blaring as they tried to understand what had just rocketed out of the ocean.
"Target sighted!" a voice boomed from the nearest ship. "It's the Weeper! Fire the main batteries!"
The turret of the Iron Sovereign began to rotate, its massive cannons leveling at the tiny, floating pod.
"Saint," Ignis whispered, looking at the water. "Look at the tide."
Kael looked down. The water around the pod wasn't choppy. It was receding. It was rushing away from the ships, away from the shore, drawn back toward the center of the event. The Dreadnoughts groaned as their keels scraped against the sudden shallow reefs.
"The ocean is taking a breath," Kael said.
He looked at the infant in his arms. The baby raised a tiny hand toward the horizon.
Then, the horizon stood up.
A wall of water, five hundred feet high, was rushing toward them from the center of the blast zone. It was a tsunami of black water and white foam, a liquid mountain that blocked out the stars.
The Sultanate sailors stopped loading their cannons. They stood frozen on the decks, watching their death approach.
IT IS BEAUTIFUL, the God whispered, awestruck. PURE KINETIC HATE.
"Kael!" Ignis screamed. "We can't survive that!"
Kael looked at the wave, then at the shore of Stormhaven miles away. If that wave hit the coast, it would wipe out the city he had just saved.
"I have to break it," Kael said.
"Break it?" Ignis yelled. "It's an ocean!"
"I am the Moon," Kael whispered. "And the Moon rules the tide."
Kael handed the baby to Ignis. "Hold him. Don't let go."
Kael stepped to the edge of the pod. He didn't raise his hands. He raised his will. He reached into the deep, primal connection the Moon-Scarred had recognized in him. He reached into the "Agony" that was the twin of the world's pain.
He didn't try to stop the water. He tried to command it.
"Primordial Art: The Parting of the Grey Sea!"
He released a pulse of "Dawn-Mana" so intense that his skin cracked, weeping liquid starlight into the ocean. He projected a command of "Submission" to the water.
The wave hit.
But it didn't crash onto the pod. Directly in front of Kael, the wall of water split. It sheared around them like a river hitting a stone, creating a canyon of air in the middle of the deluge.
The Sultanate ships were not so lucky.
The Iron Sovereign was lifted by the wave, carried up five hundred feet, and then dashed against the Cobalt Hammer. The steel hulls crumpled like paper. The massive Dreadnoughts were tossed, rolled, and buried under millions of tons of water.
The wave roared past Kael, heading for the shore. But Kael held the split. He kept the channel open, forcing the energy of the wave to dissipate sideways, into the cliffs north and south of the city.
Stormhaven was battered by spray and wind, but the city stood.
Kael stood on the roof of the Abyssal Bell, his arms outstretched, his body glowing with a blinding, iridescent light. He was the lighthouse in the storm, the anchor in the flood.
Slowly, the water settled. The roar faded to a hiss.
The sea was filled with wreckage. Wood, iron, coal, and bodies. The blockade was gone.
Kael collapsed. Ignis caught him before he slid into the water.
"Saint!" Ignis cried.
Kael's eyes were open, but they were dim. The "Stable Agony" was silent. He had spent everything.
"The baby..." Kael rasped.
"He's safe," Ignis said, clutching the glowing infant. "We're safe."
From the darkness of the shore, a signal fire was lit. Then another. Then another. Thorne and the Army of the Broken were signaling. They had seen the wave break. They knew who had done it.
Ignis looked at the unconscious Kael Light.
"You crazy bastard," Ignis whispered, a tear leaking from his organic eye. "You actually fought the ocean. And you won."