Sabrel stood on the gray sand and looked up.
The beast filled the world in front of her. Six tentacles arched against the red sky like living towers. Silver-gray scale armor caught the light in cold plates. Four clawed limbs gripped the seabed hard enough to crack stone. Six red eyes watched her without blinking. She had never seen anything like it—not in all the years she had walked Chaos. All her life, she had believed she and Indura were the true monsters of this world. Looking at the creature now, she almost laughed at the thought.
A low chuckle left her throat as she stared straight into those six burning eyes.
Farther back along the shore, Vespera stood with her arms crossed, safely clear of what was about to unfold. Golden eyes moved between the two figures—one small and white-haired, the other a mountain of scale and tentacle. Two monsters, measuring each other.
Then her gaze drifted toward the deeper red water. Something in her expression tightened. Her eyes narrowed, as if she had caught sight of a shape or a current that should not have been there.
Her voice carried across the distance, calm and almost gentle.
"Sabrel… there's something you need to know."
Sabrel's smile did not fade.
"It's fine. I'll handle this quickly."
Vespera said nothing more. Instead, a soft, intricate magic circle bloomed beside her. A crystal glass and a dark bottle of blood wine appeared within it. She poured until the glass was half full, then lifted it slightly and whispered under her breath,
"Suit yourself."
Sabrel glanced back at her once, then returned her full attention to the beast.
The creature regarded her the way something ancient might regard a strange new light—curious, measuring, almost interested. One of the great tentacles rose with deliberate slowness, its tip hovering high above Sabrel's head. She watched it come, her white hair stirring in the sea wind. When the tip finally snapped downward with crushing speed, it struck only empty sand.
The beast's six eyes shifted to the impact site.
Sabrel was already standing on the tentacle itself.
She balanced easily on the thick, scaled surface, looking almost casual. The sudden, effortless movement—the way she had simply ceased to be in one place and appeared in another—snagged the beast's full attention. Its massive head turned. All six red eyes locked onto her.
For a brief moment, the two of them simply stared at each other.
Then Sabrel's pupils changed.
They narrowed into sharp, predatory slits—cold, focused, and utterly without fear.
The reaction hit the beast like a physical blow. A deep, violent shudder ran through its enormous body. The tentacle beneath Sabrel's feet jerked hard, and a low, resonant sound—half roar, half challenge—rolled out across the Red Sea.
The beast suddenly wrenched its tentacle backward.
Sabrel pushed off at the same instant, her white hair flaring as she flipped through the air and landed lightly on the sand. The creature let out a low, rough growl that rolled across the water. Then it roared—not at full force, but with clear intent, a deep warning sound meant to drive her back. When she did not move, the roar came again, louder this time. The force of it pushed visible waves across the sand and sent Sabrel's long white hair streaming behind her.
She tilted her head, studying it.
Look at it... It's smaller than Indura... or close?!
The beast snapped.
Two tentacles cracked through the air like living whips, smashing into the exact spot where she had stood. Sand and red water exploded upward. Sabrel was already gone. She hung in the air above the shoreline, still watching the creature with calm, curious eyes.
"Hm... I expected something else," she said.
The beast answered with another roar and lashed out again. Tentacles tore through the space she had occupied a heartbeat earlier. Sabrel weaved between them in clean, precise arcs, a white blur against the red sky. Then she stopped dodging. She shot forward like a spear and slammed her entire body into the creature's armored chest.
The impact traveled through the massive frame with a deep, resonant thud. The beast stumbled backward several steps, its claws gouging trenches in the seabed. It roared at her once more—angry, frustrated—but it did not follow the attack.
Sabrel hovered in place, frowning slightly.
"Is this what the legendary beast is capable of?"
Behind her, Vespera's golden eyes had fixed on the deeper water. Something large was clearly stirring beneath the surface, a dark shape moving against the current. She called out, her voice sharp.
"Sabrel!"
Sabrel did not turn.
The beast roared again, the sound now edged with urgency. All six tentacles came at once, a storm of silver-gray muscle and force. Sabrel became a white streak. She slipped between the lashing limbs, caught one near its base, and, in a single fluid motion, used it to bind the others. The remaining tentacles tangled and locked against each other in a heavy knot.
Then she planted her feet in the air, seized the bound mass with both hands, and pulled.
Her arms and shoulders flexed. White light flared along her skin. A raw, powerful roar tore from her throat as she heaved upward. The sea beast's enormous body resisted for a long, grinding moment—water pouring off its scales in thick sheets, the Red Sea itself seeming to cling to it. Inch by inch, then foot by foot, the creature left the water. Its four clawed limbs kicked uselessly at empty air. The six red eyes widened.
Sabrel's muscles stood out in sharp relief. Veins of pure force raced down her arms. With a final, explosive surge, she ripped the beast completely free of the sea and swung it in a wide, terrible arc.
The impact when she slammed it into the shore was catastrophic.
The ground buckled. A shockwave of sand, stone, and red water blasted outward in every direction. The beast's armored bulk cratered the coastline, the sound of the collision rolling across the Red Sea like thunder.
For several long seconds, neither of them moved—Sabrel still gripping the tangled tentacles, the massive creature half-buried in the shattered earth, its six red eyes staring up at her in something close to disbelief.
Sabrel grinned, still gripping the tangled tentacles of the fallen beast.
"I heard you were supposed to be formidable," she called down, her voice bright with pride. "That even calamities would struggle against you." She threw her head back and laughed. "I guess that means I'm above all calamities now."
"Sabrel!" Vespera's voice cut across the shore again, sharper this time.
Sabrel did not turn. White light was already beginning to gather around her body in slow, confident waves.
"My power is fully restored," she continued, almost to herself. "Now I can finally have that rematch with Indura."
The air around her suddenly contracted.
A perfect crimson sphere snapped into existence, sealing her inside like a glowing cage. Sabrel's eyes widened. She had only a fraction of a second to register the change—
—before the Red Sea erupted.
Four colossal black tentacles exploded from the depths.
They were nothing like the silver-gray limbs of the beast she had just slammed into the earth. These were darker than the space between stars, their surfaces ridged and ancient, each one easily half the size of the entire creature lying broken beneath her.
They rose in a single violent surge, water sheeting off them in roaring cataracts, climbing higher and higher until their tips vanished into the low red clouds. The sky itself seemed to shrink around them. The shore trembled. The air pressure dropped so sharply that the waves pulled backward as if in fear.
Sabrel turned, still trapped inside the crimson sphere, and her jaw went slack.
The four tentacles hung for one terrible moment, blotting out the light. Then they began to twist. Flesh and shadow braided together with a sound like grinding continents. In the space of a heartbeat, the four became one—a single, monolithic pillar of living darkness thicker than any tower, denser than any mountain.
It fell.
The merged tentacle cut through the air with a scream of displaced wind. Below, the silver-scaled sea beast suddenly heaved itself upright. With a desperate, almost protective lunge, it slammed one of its own limbs into Sabrel and flung her clear of the impact zone.
The black tentacle arrived in the same instant.
Sabrel closed her eyes.
The strike landed with the force of a falling world.
The coastline ceased to exist. A crater the size of a city district opened in a single, world-shaking detonation of water, stone, and force. Red sea and gray sand erupted skyward in a towering wall that blotted out the horizon. The shockwave raced outward in a perfect ring, flattening the black cliffs for miles and sending a tsunami of displaced water roaring toward the open sea. The sound itself was physical—an overwhelming, bone-deep pressure that silenced everything else.
When the spray and debris finally began to fall, the place where Sabrel had been was gone, replaced by a smoking, water-filled wound in the earth so deep that the bottom could not be seen.
High above the devastation, the single black tentacle slowly withdrew into the clouds, leaving only the trembling Red Sea and the stunned silence that follows something far older and far greater than any ordinary beast.
Sabrel blinked.
The red sky was suddenly much closer. Wind tore at her hair. She turned her head and found Vespera hovering beside her, high above the ruined shoreline, far from the crater and the still-twitching tentacles below. The crimson sphere around Sabrel dissolved with a soft shimmer.
Vespera's voice was quiet, almost tired.
"I was trying to tell you there was another one. You wouldn't listen."
Sabrel stared at her, still catching up.
"Is that not the beast I was supposed to defeat?"
Vespera exhaled through her nose.
"Clearly not."
Sabrel's white eyes drifted back toward the Red Sea. The black tentacles that had nearly erased her still lingered at the edges of the massive crater, slowly withdrawing into the water. Her voice came out thinner than usual.
"…Are you saying that is the one I have to take down?"
Vespera's lips curved, but there was no real humor in it.
"You don't have to do it alone." She turned fully toward the sea. "Because this one is the real deal."
The water began to rise.
Not in a violent eruption this time. Slowly. Massively. As if the entire Red Sea had decided to stand up. A black shape broke the surface—first a single curved ridge, then another, then a living wall of darkness that kept climbing without end.
The creature that emerged was easily twice the size of the silver-scaled beast Sabrel had slammed into the earth. Its bulk blotted out the red sun completely, casting a vast, crushing shadow that swallowed the shore and the cliffs and stretched far beyond the horizon. Faint, oily reflections slid across plates of dark scale, but the upper body was so high it disappeared into silhouette. Only its eyes remained visible: six points of cold, burning red light cutting through the blackness like wounds in the sky.
Ten enormous tentacles uncoiled behind it, each one thicker. Four colossal limbs found purchase on the seabed, their fortress-sized claws digging in as the creature's true weight settled. The Red Sea itself seemed to shrink around it.
Sabrel's mouth hung open. Vespera's golden eyes were wide, her usual composure gone.
"I cannot believe my eyes…" Vespera whispered. Her voice carried genuine shock, almost reverence mixed with fear.
"An ancient one. A true depth-born."
She paused.
"These things were already legends when the first Sovereigns still walked. Most were hunted down ages ago because even a single one could unmake coastlines."
Vespera let out a low, dry chuckle as she stared in awe.
"How did this survive the boiling waters years ago...? It's ridiculous."
Sabrel could not look away from the towering black silhouette.
"…What is it called?"
Vespera swallowed. When she spoke again, the words came out low and tight, as if saying the name itself carried weight.
"The Abyssal Matriarch."
"Matriarch?!" Sabrel's voice cracked slightly on the word. She pointed down at the silver-scaled body still half-buried in the ruined shoreline.
"Then… that must be its child."
Vespera did not answer at once. Her golden eyes remained fixed on the black colossus that blotted out the sun, drinking in its sheer, impossible scale. When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter than usual.
"Defeating something like that would take everything we have... No... everything we have would not be enough."
Sabrel's gaze returned to the towering silhouette. The question came out low, almost reluctant.
"…Can we win?"
Vespera's lips curved in a faint, humorless smile.
"More like... can we survive? I do not know, Sabrel. This is ancient."
The Abyssal Matriarch moved.
Ten colossal tentacles uncoiled with deliberate, crushing grace. Two reached down, wrapped around the silver beast with surprising care, and began to lift it. Water poured from the younger creature's armor in thick sheets as it was slowly dragged back toward the open sea. The Matriarch did not rush. It simply reclaimed what was its own, lowering the silver body until the red water closed over it once more.
Only then did the ten burning red eyes turn.
They fixed on Sabrel and Vespera with a weight that felt almost personal. There was no curiosity left in that gaze—only a cold, ancient anger, the quiet fury of something that had watched lesser beings lay hands on its child. The air itself seemed to thicken under the force of that stare.
Then the Matriarch turned away.
The movement was slow, almost regal. The vast black body rotated, tentacles folding inward, limbs pushing against the seabed as it began to sink. Inch by inch, the towering form descended. The shadow it cast across the world gradually shrank. The red glow of its eyes was the last thing to vanish beneath the surface, lingering for a final moment like dying embers before the sea swallowed them completely.
Silence followed.
The overwhelming pressure that had crushed the air around them bled away, receding with the beast into the depths. The Red Sea, which had been pulled and distorted by the Matriarch's presence, slowly flattened once more into that unnatural, mirror-still calm. The waves that had been driven back began to return in soft, hesitant laps against the ruined shore.
High above, Sabrel and Vespera remained motionless for several long breaths. Only when the last trace of that crushing presence had truly gone did they allow themselves to exhale.
They descended without a word.
Their feet touched the far gray sand almost at the same time. Neither spoke. They simply stood there, side by side, staring out at the quiet red water that had just closed over something that should not have existed—two figures made small by the silence the Matriarch had left behind.
Farther along the Red Sea's curve, where the gray sand met a thin line of wind-bent trees, two figures lay stretched out as if the end of the world were nothing more than a quiet afternoon.
Ostrid yawned, his silver eyes half-lidded with boredom. He pushed himself up on one elbow. Long silver hair slid across his shoulders and caught the red light. For a moment, he simply watched the still water, then spoke without looking at his companion.
"How much longer is this going to take? We came all this way expecting a fight, and those two women still look like they're deciding whether to run or pray."
Astrath sat up more slowly. His crimson hair was tied back from a sharp face, and his white eyes remained fixed on the distant horizon of the sea. A low chuckle left him.
"Is a fight really what you care about most right now?"
Ostrid's mouth curved.
"It's the least I expect after all this time. The journey has been quiet. Too quiet."
Astrath exhaled through his nose.
"I understand."
He rose to his feet in one smooth motion. The brown and silver robes he wore shifted with the wind—layered fabric the color of old earth and polished metal, the hems marked with faint, flowing script that seemed to move when the light caught them. He looked out across the water.
"The Matriarch only needs a reason. Forcing the matter would not be the worst idea."
Ostrid remained seated a moment longer.
"She has lived a long life. Every mate she ever took was hunted down and devoured by the Sovereigns. There is little left for her to protect."
Astrath glanced sideways.
"And the calf?"
Ostrid's fingers tugged absently at the short gray beard along his jaw. His silver eyes dropped to the sand.
"The little one will remain. It will serve its purpose in the far future."
Astrath drew a slow breath.
"I almost feel regret at the loss of such a beast."
Silence stretched between them. Then Ostrid stood as well. Black robes, simpler and heavier than Astrath's, moved around his tall frame like liquid shadow.
"The Matriarch will become Indura's power source," he said quietly. "Without her, he will not be ready for what is coming."
Astrath's white eyes narrowed with quiet amusement.
"He has no idea yet." A pause. "But then… he was always destined for it."
Ostrid chuckled, low and dry.
"What are you waiting for, then?"
Astrath's expression settled into something colder, more focused.
"Right… It's time."
In the air before him, a crimson book took shape, its cover smooth and alive with a soft, flowing aura. The volume opened on its own. Hundreds of pages turned in a rapid, whispering blur until Astrath stopped one with a single finger. He exhaled once, then tore the page free. The book dissolved into red motes and vanished.
He held the single sheet between two fingers. The script upon it pulsed faintly, as though it already knew what it was about to become.
"Forgive me, great one…" he whispered.
He released the page. It drifted downward on the wind, turning once, twice, before the red surface of the sea accepted it without a ripple.
Astrath's voice dropped to something almost private.
"Rampage."
Deep beneath the Red Sea, where the last traces of crimson light died and the water turned black, a vast hollow opened in the seabed like the mouth of a drowned cathedral.
Two enormous silhouettes moved through that darkness.
The Abyssal Matriarch glided forward in near silence, her bulk so great that the weak currents parted around her in slow, heavy waves. Behind her, smaller but still immense, the silver-scaled calf followed close, its six faint red eyes glowing like dim embers in the gloom. Only the thinnest threads of light reached this depth, catching the edges of dark scale and the pale ridges of the younger beast, turning both into shifting outlines against the abyss.
The Matriarch stopped.
The calf drifted closer, tilting its head upward, its six eyes fixed on its mother in quiet question.
For a long moment, the Matriarch did not move. Then her great red eyes closed. Slowly, almost reluctantly, several of her tentacles rose and pressed against the sides of her massive head. She shook once—hard, as if trying to dislodge something that had taken root inside her mind. A low, resonant growl rolled out of her, deep enough to make the walls of the underwater cave tremble.
The calf froze.
Something cold and wrong bled through the water between them. The younger beast felt it first as a pressure behind its eyes, then as a sudden, instinctive terror that did not belong to it. Its six eyes widened. With a series of sharp, high cries, it propelled itself backward, tentacles flailing, calling out in alarm and confusion.
The Matriarch went completely still.
When her eyes opened again, the soft, ancient light that had lived in them was gone.
What stared out now was colder than the deepest trench—flat, pitiless, and utterly focused. The red glow had sharpened into something predatory and absolute, as if whatever the page had awakened had burned away every trace of the mother that had just tried to protect her child.
The water around her began to vibrate.
Far above, on the quiet surface of the Red Sea, the first unnatural ripple began to spread.