Vraaxask fell violently from the sky, her body rolling until it slammed hard against the main mast and fell to the edge of the ship. Fortunately, there was a railing there that stopped her momentum.

  Mira crawled on the deck, which was tilted forty degrees. Her fingernails scraped the layer of ice covering the wooden floor, trying to find a grip. Below her, the churning black sea looked like a giant mouth waiting for crumbs to fall from the dining table.

  "Hold on!" shouted Kars after seeing Vraaxask unconscious below and Mira struggling to stay on her feet.

  That man stood near the main mast, already half broken. He no longer looked elegant. His black hair was soaked, sticking to his face. His hands trembled violently as he stretched them upwards.

  A transparent dome covered the remains of the ship, The White Swan. Outside that dome, the King Winter Worm was thrashing its spiky, scaled body.

  The dome flickered. Spiderweb-like cracks appeared on its surface.

  “Kars!” Mira shouted, her voice almost swallowed by the storm.

  The worm monster's tail coiled around the ship's stern. The oak wood screamed. Iron nails flew like bullets as the deck boards tore away from their frame. Grog, the old logistics officer, slipped. He screamed as his body slid toward the gaping sea.

  “Grog!”

  Mira didn’t think. She activated her Intian. Not to attack, but to move. The yellow light turned purple, exploding at her feet. She glided swiftly over the ice.

  Mira’s hand grabbed Grog’s collar exactly one second before the old man fell into the mouth of the waves. Mira planted her dagger into the remaining ship railing. The dagger held the weight of both of them. Mira’s shoulder muscles screamed in pain, feeling like they were about to tear from their joint.

  “Up!” hissing Mira, pulling Grog up with the last of her strength.

  But the monster saw them. Even though it was blind, King Winter Worm sensed Mira's body heat rising due to the use of the Intian. The giant's head swiveled. Its round mouth, filled with thousands of crystal teeth, aimed directly at Mira and Grog hanging off the side of the ship.

  Cold vapor began to gather in the monster's throat. Deadly blue light. Frost Breath.

  "Shit," Mira whispered. She couldn't dodge. She was holding Grog.

  "MIRA!"

  Kars released his main dome defense. He focused the rest of his Intian into a small protective disk right in front of Mira.

  The blast of ice hit Kars' disk. Its temperature was absolute. The disk didn’t shatter; it froze. Pure Core solidified into ice, then shattered into pieces.

  The impact threw Mira and Grog back to the middle of the deck. Mira landed hard. Her back slammed into an iron post. The wind was knocked out of her.

  "Uhuk…" Mira tried to get up, but her legs wouldn’t move. She looked down. Her legs, from the knees down, were encased in thick blue ice. The monster’s breath had frozen the lower part of her body to the deck.

  The cold was unbearable. It wasn’t ordinary cold; it was a sharp pain, as if thousands of needles were being driven into her bones, then slowly going numb—instant necrosis.

  “Mira!” Kars ran toward her, but the monster was faster.

  The giant worm's body arched, then smashed into the middle of the ship. The White Swan broke.

  Completely broke.

  The sound of the impact was deafening, and the hull split in two. The front and back of the ship began to separate, connected only by the remains of ropes and chains, straining desperately.

  Kars was thrown to the other side of the crack. He fell, hitting his head on an iron winch. Fresh blood flowed from his temple. He did not move.

  “Kars!” Mira screamed.

  She was alone. Stuck on the icy floor. On a sinking ship. With a hungry ancient monster.

  The King Winter Worm raised itself high above Mira. Its icy saliva dripped like stalactites, falling around Mira. It didn’t attack immediately. It was savoring the moment. It could feel the “Spark” in Mira’s chest—the source of warmth, so tempting amidst the cold storm.

  Mira tried to summon her Intian. Heat... I need heat... But her body was too cold. Hypothermia spread quickly. The flow of her Intian was blocked. Her heart beat slowly, very slowly.

  Mira’s vision began to blur. The edges of her sight went black. She was going to die. Here.

  No…

  Mira bit her tongue until it bled, trying to stay conscious. Inside her, something was trying to break free. Something hot, rushing through every blood vessel. Even faster than the blood itself.

  Cyan.

  When Mira's life hung by a thread, her chest began to glow. Not red. But Cyan.

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  The color pierced through her linen shirt, through her skin, illuminating the stormy night with an unfamiliar hue. It wasn't the light of fire; it was the light of the Aurora.

  King Winter Worm stopped. He felt something was wrong. His snack suddenly changed taste. From "warm" to "dangerous."

  Mira looked up. Her eyes, which had previously been blue and red, completely changed. Her sclera turned pitch black, and her irises glowed bright cyan. Her mouth opened, but it wasn't Mira's voice that came out.

  The voice was a Harmonic Resonance—a combination of eagle screeches and dragon growls, layered, echoing as if spoken by a thousand entities at once.

  "YOU. DISTURB. MY. SLEEP."

  Mira's back skin tore. Not blood came out, but light.

  Two giant wings exploded out of Mira's back. The wings were not feathers, nor skin. They were pure energy solidified. Their shape was a terrifying combination of a sturdy dragon-wing bone structure, yet covered with "feathers" made of cyan-colored crystal shards, each with a cyan-colored flame aura.

  The wingspan was ten meters. Far larger than Mira's small body.

  The ice that bound Mira's legs shattered, not from heat, but from the pressure of the entity's aura.

  Mira's body was lifted into the air. She was unconscious. She hung limply like a doll, completely moved by the Cyan Wings on her back.

  Above Mira, the energy solidified into a transparent Avatar that enveloped her small body. The head of a Giant Eagle with Dragon horns curved backward. Its beak was sharp, made of condensed starlight. Its eyes stared at King Winter Worm with the arrogance of a top predator.

  Its name was V’nyr—the pinnacle of its legendary food chain.

  The King Winter Worm roared, challenging this new entity. It was the king in these waters. It was not afraid of the light. The worm monster surged forward, its mouth wide open to swallow both Mira and her Avatar at once.

  The Eagle-Dragon Avatar did not dodge. It spread its wings. A sonic screech exploded. The storm around them ceased. The raindrops instantly evaporated into mist.

  One of Cyan's wings swept forward.

  The movement looked slow, graceful, like a dance. But its effect was catastrophic.

  A crescent-shaped energy blade shot out, cutting through the air, cutting through the rain, and cutting through... King Winter Worm.

  The worm monster was cleaved. Not neatly cut. The part of its body hit by Cyan's wing was erased. Its organic matter was broken down into particles of light dust.

  The monster's roar turned into a horrific scream as a third of its upper body was destroyed. Dark blue blood gushed out like a geyser, coloring the sea and the remains of the ship.

  But the entity inside Mira's body was not done yet. She wasn't here to harm. She was here to punish.

  Mira's hand (wrapped in Avatar's energy claws) rose. The sky above them opened. Storm clouds swirled, forming a cyan-glowing eye of the storm.

  From that vortex, spears of light descended. Starfall Barrage.

  Dozens of spears of light struck the remains of King Winter Worm. Each spear exploded on contact, not producing flames but generating shockwaves.

  The seawater around the ship was pressed down as deep as ten meters, creating a massive water crater. The remains of the ship, The White Swa,n rocked wildly on the edge of the crater, like toys in a giant whirlpool.

  The worm monster was completely destroyed. Nothing remained except floating chunks of frozen flesh and a mist of blood.

  The Eagle-Dragon entity hovered above the carnage. It looked around, searching for other threats. Its gaze fell on the remains of The White Swan. It saw the tiny, terrified humans there. It saw Kars, bloodied—the human who had sealed it in this fragile body.

  The entity raised its wings again. It made no distinction between friend and foe. To it, anything that moved was a potential threat.

  "Enough." That one word broke through the dominance of the storm’s roar. The voice was calm, flat, and sounded bored—as if someone were scolding a dog barking too loudly, not confronting a god.

  Kars stepped forward from behind the rubble of the mast.

  That man didn’t look panicked at all. His normally neat black hair was now wet and disheveled, his black shirt torn at the sleeves, yet his posture remained relaxed. He stood with one hand in his pocket, while the other held a wet playing card—the remnant of the earlier game. Or maybe it was from his dimension pocket? That man was completely unpredictable.

  V’nyr screamed in anger at the human who would not submit. He readied another Starfall Barrage. Cyan light began to gather in the sky.

  But Mira’s body had reached its limit. The girl’s skin started to crack. The Cyan light was too strong for a vessel that was not yet fully formed. Blood began to seep from Mira’s nose, ears, and pores.

  Kars took a long sigh, as if facing a troublesome overtime task.

  He flicked the playing card in his hand into the air. The card didn’t fall. It hovered, then burned into swirling black ashes.

  Kars raised his hand toward Mira. He didn’t cast a spell. He didn’t need to. He was the Sovereign of the Star element.

  High-Level Star Style: Event Domination.

  Kars clenched his fist. The sky around Mira collapsed. Not exploded, but imploded. The gravity around the Cyan entity was amplified a thousandfold into a microscopic point.

  The Eagle-Dragon Avatar screamed as its energy body was forcibly pulled, compacted, and destroyed back into Mira’s chest. The entity couldn’t resist—Kars’s gravity was absolute.

  “Done,” Kars said flatly.

  But the problem isn't over. The White Swan ship is finished. Seawater is rushing in. King Winter Worm is dead, but the ship will sink in a matter of seconds.

  Zeal, Grog, the Old Man, and the remaining surviving crew gather at a point that hasn't yet sunk, their faces pale as they stare at Kars, the mysterious man who just slapped a god with gravity.

  Kars looks around. He sees the rising water. He sees total destruction. He clicks his tongue.

  He stretches out both hands. A dark purple aura and a dazzling white aura begin to mix around his body. He gazes at the sky, trying to find a star whose power he can borrow. After finding it, he locks onto the star, drawing its source of power to respond to Kars' call.

  Whether real stars or just holes in the sky, whatever they are… come to me.

  “Grab anything planted on the floor,” Kars ordered, his voice now firm, radiating an aura of authority that made Grog’s knees weaken. “Don’t throw up.”

  Kars brought his palms together. The space in front of The White Swan distorted. Reality bent. The stars in the sky seemed to be sucked down to the surface of the sea.

  Singus.

  There was no sound of an explosion. The sound was the absolute silence of the air around them being forcibly pulled away.

  The White Swan and the sea around it disappeared.

  One Second Later.

  The sensation of falling was real. Pieces of the ship hit the wet sand with a loud thud.

  Mira jolted awake from the impact. She coughed, spitting out blood. The sound of the raging waves disappeared, replaced by the sound of crickets and the gentle night breeze.

  Mira opened her swollen eyes. They were on the beach. In front of them, limestone cliffs towered high.

  Kars turned weakly. Kars was standing not far from her. The man was trying to fix his messy shirt collar. He looked a little pale—the side effect of moving a mass as heavy as a ship—but his expression remained blank.

  Kars walked closer to Mira. He crouched down, looking at the girl who was lying there dying.

  “I used Singus, our presence will most likely be detected. So we have to leave.”

  Mira wanted to protest, but darkness engulfed her. The last thing she saw was Kars's silhouette standing tall under the moonlight, looking more majestic and frightening than any monster she had ever encountered.

  Then, Singus appeared again. Taking them back to some unknown place.