The sea was not empty.
Leo treaded water amid twisted iron and drifting bodies, lungs still burning from the fall. Shadows coiled around his limbs like living ink, buoying him without effort, keeping the cold from biting too deep. The ruined cage bobbed nearby, half-crushed, its bars bent outward like broken ribs.
Figures clung to debris.
Some shouted.
Some prayed.
Some were already slipping beneath the waves, dragged down by exhaustion or unseen hands.
Atop the highest jut of iron stood Aurelion Vale.
Her broken spear was planted like a standard. Her tunic clung darkly to her frame, rain and seawater plastering it to scar and muscle. Silver eyes swept the horizon with ruthless clarity.
When she spotted Leo, she lifted the spear in salute.
He swam toward her, slicing through the swells with unnatural ease. The collar was gone—sunk to the abyss like a discarded lie—but its absence still burned faintly at his throat.
Freedom tasted like salt and blood.
Leo hauled himself onto the wreckage beside her.
Nearby, cassia Holt and Aulus were already moving—counting, shouting orders, dragging the stunned upright. Fifteen remained now. Three had been claimed by the fall or the water.
Lyr lashed broken bars into crude rafts with quick, shaking hands.
Gravem hauled the weak onto higher iron without a word, a silent wall of muscle.
Thalassa moved among the injured with soldierly efficiency, tearing cloth, binding wounds.
Aurelia offered Leo her hand.
He took it—felt the calluses, the iron steadiness.
"We're alive," she said.
"For now," Leo answered.
They both looked up.
High above, the winged abomination circled—a black eclipse carved against the storm. Its wounded shriek rolled across the sea like thunder tearing itself apart.
But it did not dive.
Something restrained it. Injury. Distance. Or command.
After one last furious circuit, it turned toward the distant crimson glow and vanished into the clouds.
The Crimson palace.
Even from leagues away, it dominated the horizon—a tower of impossible height, grown from living coral and bone. Veins of crimson light pulsed along its surface like a beating heart. Lightning crawled eternally around its base, revealing vast shapes moving beneath the water.
Leo felt the shadows inside him recoil.
Not fear.
Recognition.
That place knows slaves.
It had been built for them.
It's waiting, he realized. Not just for us. For everyone the Spell drags here.
A factory.
Break them. Read them. Feed whatever waits at the top.
Poverty had taught Leo the world was cruel.
But this—this was cruelty with design. With architecture. The Spire was a machine.
And they had just snapped one of its chains.
Aurelia followed his gaze. "You feel it."
"Yeah," Leo said quietly. "It's hungry."
She nodded. "Old stories call it the Labyrinth's gate. Every Nightmare feeds it souls. Survivors get sent there to be… refined."
Leo's jaw tightened. "Then we don't go."
Aurelia almost smiled.
"But the sea has other plans."
The water rippled.
Not from waves.
From below.
The wind hushed. The temperature dropped, as if the ocean itself had drawn breath.
A shadow slid beneath the wreckage—longer than the cage, wider than a city street. It circled slowly. Patiently.
Lyr whispered a curse.
Gravem tightened his grip on a broken bar, ready to die swinging.
Leo sent his shadows downward, tasting the depths.
What they touched made his skin crawl.
Hunger.
Ancient. Endless. Calm.
The thing rose.
First, ridges of bone plates shattered the surface, barnacled and scarred. Then a head the size of a house emerged—eyeless, its mouth a vertical slit lined with translucent teeth longer than swords. Its skin was semi-clear, silhouettes of half-digested prey still drifting inside.
[Creature Identified: Abyssal Leviathan (Juvenile)]
[Rank: Awakened Tyrant]
[Tier: 5]
A Tyrant.
Five ranks above the larva he had barely survived on the mountain.
We can't fight it, Leo realized instantly. Not here. Not like this.
But the leviathan did not attack.
Not yet.
It surfaced fully beside them, water cascading from its colossal back like waterfalls. Its mouth opened—not to bite, but to speak.
The sound was like continents grinding.
"Broken chain. Stolen cargo."
The survivors froze.
Aurelia stepped forward, spear lowered but ready.
"We're not cargo," she said clearly. "Not anymore."
The leviathan regarded her with blind sockets.
"All are cargo."
"The Spire claims what the Spell delivers. You delayed. You did not escape."
The truth settled into Leo's gut like lead.
The Nightmare wasn't over.
The Scenario had changed.
The leviathan dipped lower, creating a current that drew the wreckage toward its bulk.
"Climb."
"I will carry you. Resist—and feed the depths."
Cassia spat into the water. "We cut ourselves free just to ride a bigger monster? No."
The sea exploded.
A second shape breached—smaller, faster. A serpent of bone and shadow. Its hook-ringed mouth snapped shut around a slave at the edge.
Gone.
Blood clouded the water.
The leviathan did not move.
It simply waited.
Message received.
Leo looked at Aurelia.
Her face was carved stone. Her eyes burned.
Different chain. Same destination, he thought. The Spell never lets you win. It just changes the rules when you get close.
But something else burned in him too.
Defiance.
He had killed the larva.
He had broken the chain.
He had tasted freedom—even if only for a breath.
He wasn't putting the collar back on without drawing blood.
Aurelia read his expression perfectly.
She turned to the survivors.
"We climb," she said, loud and clear. "But we climb armed. We climb together. And when we reach the Spire—we find another chain to break."
Some nodded.
Some looked away, already broken.
Leo stepped to the edge of the wreckage.
The leviathan's back was vast as a plaza, ridged with barnacles sharp enough to flay skin. He leapt.
Hit hard.
Shadows softened the blow.
One by one, the others followed.
As the great beast turned toward the crimson glow, Leo crouched low and pressed a hand to its hide.
The shadows whispered secrets into him.
Old wounds.
Ancient bindings.
Commands etched deeper than bone.
A master below the sea.
The place wasn't just a tower.
It was a lock.
And somewhere inside it—
There was a key.
Leo smiled into the storm, small and dangerous.
Then let's steal it.
Behind them, the black sea closed over their wake, patient as ever.
Ahead, the Crimson palace waited—hungry, eternal.
But this time, something was coming not as a slave…
…but as a thief.