Lukey looked at Caldoon with utter skepticism. Promote the class to outsiders? How exactly did he plan to do that? Even Triton was extremely careful when vetting Lukey, telling him about how he worked for Dragon’s Lance, which he suspected wasn’t entirely true.

  Caldoon was nothing if not ambitious; after his father died, he took over as the emperor of the island. The other villagers voiced their concerns about this man, but he always shot down those concerns with either gifts or force, sometimes both. It was Caldoon’s idea to create the town for all the visitors to the island and then attract outside talent using the promises of a town rising to prominence.

  Now he was talking about promoting his class in the face of both Hundred Acre and Dragon’s Lance. They won’t take kindly to people promoting other classes in their faces, especially someone who lacks any sort of big backing. Lukey, however, couldn’t help but admire the brazen fool; after all, wasn’t following your path the essence of sovereignty?

  “I know you’re skeptical, but I have a plan,” Caldoon said.

  “I can explain it tomorrow after you get some rest. Before that though, you need your class. So, without further ado, let us begin.”

  Lukey was skeptical but excited at the prospect of finally doing what he came here to do. Everyone then began getting up to approach the sovereign icon. It was then that Lukey realized that he looked downright small and incredibly out of place compared to the two men at his sides. Lukey himself only reached up to the icon’s toes.

  The three men stopped just in front of the statue, all of them having to crane their heads up to look at the statue in its entirety. Before the statue was a staircase that led up to a platform that sat directly in front of the statue’s chest. It was made of wood, like everything else, and almost looked like some kind of platform made for offerings.

  “This is the sovereign icon of the fisherman, Hemmingway,” Caldoon said.

  “All you must do is walk up the stairs and mimic the position of the statue. You will begin to resonate with his power, and should he accept, you will be granted the class.”

  Lukey started to walk up, but before he did, he saw Caldoon share a look with Triton. Curious, he turned around to ask.

  “What’s going on? Will something else happen?”

  “Oh, we wouldn’t dare spoil the surprise; just follow our instructions and you’ll be fine. Oh, and tell us about your experience afterward!” Caldoon said excitedly.

  Lukey turned and continued up the steps with a mixed sense of excitement and trepidation. He wasn’t as eager to go through with this as he once was, but the thought of everything he had to go through to get here made him press on. He ascended the steps slowly, taking measured steps towards the icon, fearing that he might offend it somehow if he seemed too greedy.

  It only took a short while, but eventually Lukey made it up to the platform. He looked at the massive man before him and felt his fear grow but remained steadfast. He began to take the position of the statue, mirroring the way Hemmingway held his net and spear.

  It was immediately after that he felt the energy begin to pour into him. It was like taking this position opened a connection between him and the sovereign. The energy began flowing directly into him, and he drank it all. Lukey felt like the power was filling something inside him that he lacked, rewriting out the empty space where something should have been.

  He felt it build and build, and then, he blacked out.

  ...

  He was old.

  His family had urged him to stop.

  To retire and go home to spend time with his great-grandchildren.

  To do anything but go back out to sea.

  Hemmingway didn’t listen to them.

  After his beloved wife died, the only time he felt alive was in the ocean. He didn’t even feel a connection with his family like he once did.

  Of course he loved them, but whenever he was with them, he felt distant. Like he wasn’t supposed to be there. His children gave him looks of sympathy, believing that it was due to their mother’s death that he drove himself so hard. Hemmingway was thankful for their consideration, but there was a different reason that drove him out to sea.

  The truth was, he never felt alive unless he was on the ocean. The ocean was his domain, and he was its ruler. Every day he took his little boat and sailed out further than anyone else, to the point he disappeared on the horizon. He would always sail until he reached a point where there was ocean as far as the eye could see, then dive.

  Hemmingway was an experienced fisherman. He would dive down where not even the sun’s light reached and kill things that would horrify most of the islanders. At times he would spend days out at sea, losing track of time, only to return and be told that he’d been gone for months.

  One time he took his boat into a storm to catch a certain sea monster. He killed the beast and returned to the surface only to discover his boat was missing. That day was mostly spent swimming back to the island.

  Today was no different; he had taken a disposable sailboat out to a place that he had never been to in the Abyssal Ocean. It was an enormous volcanic ring that stretched for three months of travel and spawned unimaginable horrors. To Hemmingway, this place felt like the ultimate challenge, a test of sovereignty over the ocean.

  Hemmingway had seen everything this ocean had to offer. He sailed from the great empires of the eastern continent to the strange and wild lands of the western continent, from the freezing north down to the sunny south. He fought every creature the great makers could conceive of, from ship-destroying sea stars to the immortal sea dragons. After making his way, challenging every sea creature he could find, the only place that could still challenge him was here.

  Hemmingway dove into the water and shot straight down. He moved at a rapid pace, moving his body up and down in a motion that has been practiced since he was young. He moved like a fish did, pumping his body up and down as his legs trailed behind with a powerful dolphin kick. He held his spear with both hands in front of him, using it to divert the water as the light faded around him.

  The bright and warm surface water gave way to the twilight depths, and soon the twilight gave way to midnight. Hemmingway sped straight through the water, taking care to avoid anything that could cause trouble for him. Along the way he saw massive jellyfish and whales that could swallow him whole, but they weren’t his target today.

  Before he could reach the Abyssal Depths, however, he felt vibrations through the water, indicating something was heading right towards him. He stopped himself, then with one powerful stroke, pushed through the water in a wide arc to get behind whatever targeted him. As he finished the arc, he got a better view of what was harassing his descent.

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  The creature had its own light on its head that glowed to show the face of a deep-sea viper, with its blank eyes and teeth like pointed pillars jutting out of its giant maw. The monster’s face was easily the size of his house, and its length was comparable to the height of four palm trees. The deep sea had no light, so monsters like this one had to make their own. It was also flexible, as it was already turning around to go for another strike.

  Hemmingway wouldn’t let it.

  He performed another powerful stroke and swam in an arc up to the viper’s head. As he landed, he thrust the spear through the viper’s head. He put some strength into it, so the force of it ended up going through the head and down through the bottom jaw. Weak things like this weren’t worth his time, so he made sure to end it quickly.

  Other monsters would come to feed on the viper’s flesh, so Hemmingway had to leave. He swam under the viper’s body, then used it as a springboard as he launched himself towards the abyss. With the extra force, it didn’t take long to reach the bottom.

  Before the old man was a vast land of azure and crimson, where molten heat met cold ocean water. Hydrothermal vents spewed black smoke all around, giving nutrition for the abominations that live here. Black smoke and darkness shrouded most of his sight, but Hemmingway could still see lights coming from the many creatures that live here.

  Giant tubeworms sprouted in groups like an underwater forest, with red tails sticking out of their casings that radiated light. The additional heat gave rise to all sorts of creatures: crabs that trampled over the land on legs that made them look more like spiders, starfish that hunted with five long hairy sets of arms, and even chimerical fish that hunted with a smile and spewed smoke out of their gills.

  This alien world was truly the final frontier.

  Hemmingway looked around for something to explore. It didn’t help that there was almost no light except for the glow coming from the tubeworms and fish.

  Below Hemmingway, and all around the volcanic ring, he noticed volcanic cracks creating a path. He figured the volcanic energy that created the cracks must have come from a source, so he found one to follow and set off. Hemmingway knew he was on the right track as he started to see more of the cracks joining to form large branches.

  He decided that the cracks must’ve had a source, and whatever it was, it must’ve been worth seeing. He made like an arrow through the water, avoiding enemies when he could and defeating them with quick strikes when he couldn’t. Eventually, he couldn’t continue further as he spotted something floating in his path.

  Before the fisherman was… He had no idea what it was, but it was disgusting. It looked like a bunch of large white tendrils merged to form a larger organism. Each tentacle was connected to several others to form a tall, blobby pyramid. Hemmingway stopped some distance away, but judging by how far it was, he would say it was the size of his island.

  It was directly in his path, and moving around it would risk him getting lost. So, he decided to challenge it. Hemmingway approached it while trying to search for a weak point, but when he got into its range, something strange happened.

  The titan opened its many folds and stuck what looked like small tentacles out from its body. On the tip of each of these tentacles seemed to be a small black eye. In total it must have had over a hundred eyes trained on the old man. The creature got a good look at the small being before it, then released some of its tentacles outward, letting them drift towards its prey.

  The old fisherman already had experience against creatures with tendrils. The best thing to remember was to avoid the tentacles; most of the time underwater creatures used them to release toxins that destroyed the body. Hemmingway suspected this was no different, so he maneuvered around the drifting tendrils with short bursts of movement via his kicking.

  The organism released more tendrils, keeping its many eyes trained on Hemmingway. He continued to dodge, but the tendrils were slowly starting to fill the space between him and his target. He continued weaving his way through the living net until the space was so thick with tendrils that he could no longer maneuver his body through them.

  Hemmingway was impressed; there weren’t too many creatures that could say they caught a fisherman. The tendrils were all around him, and they were slowly closing in on his body. Each one was filled with toxins that would seep into his skin and destroy him from the inside out before the multibody organism slowly digested the remains. It certainly seemed like he was trapped, but that only forced the fisherman to adapt in kind.

  The fisherman readied his spear to launch it through the tendril net, aiming downward with a forward slant. Using as much strength as he could, he threw the spear downwards below the organism, towards where the volcanic cracks were. The spear shot through the net and created a massive hole through it, blowing all the tendrils out of the way.

  Hemmingway shot down through the tunnel he created, towards where the spear landed. As he got closer, he could see the spear pierced the rock and saw a slight trickle of fire pour out of the crack before being engulfed by the ocean. If the organism couldn’t be approached directly, he would just have to trap it.

  When the fisherman reached his spear, he took it and thrust it once more into the ground, piercing it again and opening the fissure wider. Molten rock shot out of the ground in bright sparks, but this wasn’t nearly enough to destroy the mass of tendrils. Hemmingway took his spear and moved to an open spot on the seafloor.

  The fisherman put one hand to the ground and began to sense for movement. The flow of the lava below the earth can be felt through its vibrations. Hemmingway had spent years sensing movement through the water; it took a great deal of practice to push it towards other mediums. However, through years of effort and sheer willpower, he eventually managed it.

  Hemmingway discovered six more spots where the lava threatened to burst out of the ground. He took his spear and shot through the water towards one of the spots. He could already see the tendrils begin to descend, so he had to move quickly. He made it to another hot spot, and a powerful thrust opened the floodgates. Some of the white appendages reached the ground, so he had to begin weaving his way through. A third, fourth, and fifth vent opened; red cracks began appearing in the rock around him and beneath the multi-minded organism.

  It began to look like a horrifying forest, with albino appendages reaching down from every corner of the fisherman’s vision. Hemmingway had the area memorialized, however, so he continued toward the sixth spot. He dodged left and right as his kicks propelled him forward as fast as he could go. Hemmingway propelled himself into the sixth hotspot with his spear in front and rammed into the vent. More red glowing cracks appeared, with magma bursting out from within.

  The white appendages almost descended on him, but the hot magma that spewed from the cracks below the creature halted their advancement. All the magma vents combined weren’t enough to create an explosion; Hemmingway had to reach the last one. The old man sighed, knowing what he had to do.

  The fisherman shot through the water, keeping close to the ground near the magma vents to avoid the tendrils. He shot out of the tentacle net and began swimming up, taking a stance to throw his spear. He took one last look at the horrifying creature before hurling his spear downward towards the final lava vein. It only took a moment after it struck true for the ground to explode in fury.

  After the spear landed and the cracks spread out, the entire network began to glow brighter before it exploded below the abyssal horror. Magma exploded upwards towards the creature, burning it and destroying the individual beings that made up its body. They all slowly fell towards the churning magma as they no longer had the buoyancy to stay afloat.

  While elated that he won against the creature and happy that he had a new story to tell his great-grandchildren, he was still disappointed. Hemmingway not only got burned all over, but he lost his spear in the process. Clearly, he had been overconfident in thinking he could explore all the volcanic rings if he had difficulty beating this.

  Hemmingway would ascend, but before he did, he would follow the lava veins to their source and commit the location to memory. He once more began following the glowing cracks through the sea floor.

  Hemmingway saw a few more creatures like the one he just fought: a titanic fish with glowing red eyes, a squid with arms extended towards the ground, and even a group of underwater spiders that tried to chase him. He avoided all of them and continued until he reached an area that made him look around in wonder.

  Before him there was a massive basin, big enough to fit his island twenty times over. Glowing cracks came from all directions as they all reached the basin and descended into it. It truly felt like he was seeing the center of the world, where the veins of lava that led everywhere all originated from one source.

  At the very center of the basin was the mouth of a large cave, capable of accommodating even the massive blob of organisms he had defeated. The cave was glowing hot, as if it led to a chamber of nothing but fire and molten rock. Hemmingway couldn’t see it, but he began to feel the presence of monsters that would make the blob seem tame by comparison coming from that cave.

  This cave led to an infernal underworld, and Hemmingway was woefully unprepared.

  It was the ultimate challenge, and Hemmingway intended to conquer it, but not today. He would first make plans, then come back here and give an honest attempt. He didn’t intend to throw his life away without making absolutely sure he gave it his all.

  It was with that last thought that he made his way up and back towards his beloved island.