Eye of the Tidal Sea, spatial pathways.
"Irregular turbulence zone ahead. Activate defensive spells. Close the dome. Speed, level two!"
"Forty-five degrees front-left, evade! Entering a dense section, divine-crest seals loaded. All gun ports open. Prepare to intercept close-range interference! Same as always: Heracles on the bow. Big Sister on the port side. Dian… Orion, you take starboard!"
"Entering the Rainbow Coral Zone. Turn the rudder, hug the gill-shaped lane and push through fast. Watch for illusion interference. Everyone, use your peripheral vision to track the surroundings!"
"…"
Inside the fully sealed Argo, Jason stood in the captain's room with his focus pushed to the limit, steering the ship through one dangerous sector after another with crisp, orderly commands.
The hundred-odd crew members aboard were just as disciplined. Their faces were tense but solemn, and there were no wasted words or movements. They moved like precision-cut gears, each one perfectly meshed into the whole that was the Argo expeditionary force.
With that flawless coordination, the Argo's second run through the spatial pathways cut the time needed to clear those hazards by nearly half.
Even so, Jason still wasn't satisfied. Brow knotted tight, two extremes, manic urgency and ice-cold calm, twisting together in his chest, he bit down on his thumb, eyes hard.
Faster. Faster. Faster!
Undercurrents churned and the ship shuddered faintly. In the flickering glow, the blond captain caught sight of the projected external view and lunged for the console, fingers racing across the fish-scale map scroll. His fingertip traced in a blur, locking onto a spot circled in pigment.
The ninth node!
Jason tightened his focus, eyes sharpened. As his orders went out, the hatches along both sides of the Argo slowly opened. One after another, oval bronze devices the size of swan eggs were released, their surfaces carved with divine script, faint lightning flashing within. They drifted silently toward an unremarkable whirl in the dark current.
Once those little gadgets were deployed with practiced ease, the hatches sealed again. The Argo broke through a calmer stretch of flow and accelerated forward.
Ssssh—s s s s!
But as the sea's vivid colors began to fade, an eerie rhythmic resonance rose nearby. Along with the metallic, twisting tremor, crimson beams crossed in a sudden barrage.
Jason spun the wheel. The Argo slipped through the gaps in the red lattice like a nimble fish.
Ahead, several thousand bronze cubes floated at staggered heights. Their surface patterns lit one after another as they began shifting up and down, forward and back, left and right. Some dropped or rose in sudden vertical rams. Some crossed into pincer formations. Some assembled at random like Tetris blocks to form barricades. Others fired crimson beams from within. A full-screen wall of fire that made the blood run cold.
As violent jolts from surging Mana currents slammed through the hull, a familiar feeling rose in Jason's chest. A cold smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Bronze Module Counter Matrix. The Vortex Gate's final line of defense.
Last time you made me suffer here, buddy. This time, I'm taking a perfect score before you can blink.
Dozens of breaths later, the Vortex Gate.
The sea's surface twisted backward. The Argo, without even a scratch, punched through the hollow and burst into a wide stretch of azure ocean.
Pale spray leapt up. The wooden ship's domed deck slowly opened. Jason stumbled out of the captain's room and leaned over the rail, drawing a few breaths to ease the tension locked into his nerves. He slapped his stiff cheeks, then looked out over the vast, open Titan Ocean and forced up a smile of pure relief.
Clean clear… I actually did it, buddy…
Bzzzz!
At that instant, a hair-raising hum came from above. Several rings of light, each more than a hundred meters across with cross-shaped markings at their centers, converged and dropped toward them.
At the same time, thick, blazing golden beams tore through the sky with crushing force, falling like meteors.
It's over.
Jason's pupils shrank. The sudden omen of death made every hair on his body stand up and his heart pound wildly. But the oppressive, murderous pressure that came with it was so overwhelming it felt like being plunged into an ice prison, every muscle locking up so completely he couldn't move an inch.
"Move!"
In the split second before impact, a figure charged in from the bow. A huge left hand seized Jason by the collar and hurled him backward in one brutal motion.
At the same time, the nearly two-meter-tall powerhouse clenched his right hand and drew a pitch-black, vicious-looking Nameless axe-sword from a Magecraft array. A torrent of crimson-black divine power flooded into it, and scarlet flames roared to life.
Battle Technique—Nine Lives!
In an instant, the arm gripping the axe-sword swelled with ropey muscle like a coiled dragon. With unbelievable speed, he snapped his arm upward nine times. The vast cloud sea above tore open like a curtain, a clean split stretching for a hundred zhang!
The nine slashes followed without a seam, ripping up through the air and smashing head-on into the descending, blinding golden pillar.
Boom!
Overlapping sonic booms detonated, swelling into a mushroom-shaped shockwave that shook the world.
Crack!
Under the terrible residual force, the Argo bucked like a leaf caught in a landslide. Towering waves lifted and dropped it violently. Its seven layers of protective spells shattered like brittle eggshells under a hammerblow, and the hull screamed and groaned.
And yet, even those sky-splitting slashes only erased a quarter of the golden pillar's length, barely slowing its fall.
Again!
Heracles stepped forward and the deck cracked beneath his foot. Every muscle on his body bulged as he whipped his arm upward, the force of it driving the already-lifted Argo down as if he were stomping the entire ship toward the deep.
Ssssh!
Twelve slashes this time. Only after nearly half the golden pillar had been shattered did the light finally begin to melt away, but the crisis still wasn't over.
"Get out of the way!"
Veins stood out on the hero's forehead as he threw his head back and roared. Crimson-black flames like hellfire erupted over his body, and a storm of air-splitting shrieks rang out in front of him once more.
Ssssh—s s s s!
Twenty-four afterimages, like black fury made flesh, scoured away the last of the golden radiance falling from the sky. They gouged a vast hollow through the cloud sea, as if ripping open the stars themselves and drilling straight into the boundless void.
"So… so strong…"
As the waves finally began to settle, Jason hauled himself up by the rail, staring in disbelief at the man standing tall on the deck with the Nameless axe-sword in hand. A surge of wild joy and outright worship rose up before he could stop it.
"Heracles, you're a true god wearing human skin! With you here, we—"
"Pfft!"
Jason stepped forward, ready to throw his arms around the hero who had saved the entire ship. The instant he touched him, Heracles' body burst into clouds of blood mist.
That bronze skin, harder than stone, split open like a baby's mouth, exposing torn pink muscle beneath. Blood streamed out in thick flows, winding down from the wounds like snakes.
Crack!
At the same time, the Nameless axe-sword in his hand, forged from solid volcanic rock, fractured inch by inch, collapsing into dull fragments. The heavy thuds as they struck the deck landed like blows on everyone's chest.
It was obvious. To block that terrifying golden pillar, Heracles' flesh-and-blood body had been driven far past its limit.
"Asclepius! Medea!" Jason's face twisted in panic. "Heal him! Now, heal him!"
He shouted orders at the crew while scrambling through his pockets, yanking out every life-saving salve and potion he had. He dumped them all over Heracles' split-open wounds, desperate to stop the bleeding and force the flesh to knit.
It barely helped…
Bzzzz!
And then that fatal humming vibration came again from above. The activated golden cross halo flared violently.