Ryn drew in a long, steadying breath. The Crucible roared around him, thousands of voices fused into one tribal chant.

  "SLAY-ER! SLAY-ER! SLAY-ER!”

  The rhythm thrashed through his bones, electrifying. He felt the ship's engine thrum beneath his boots, answering the crowd's bloodlust with its own. Power surged through the hull, through him.

  "Sir," the android said, head tilting as runes pulsed along its jawline, "the Legion is approaching from the port side."

  Ryn swallowed the instinct to flinch. "Recommended course of action?"

  The robot's core flared a deep cerulean. "Kill the enemy," it said. "The ship will do the heavy lifting."

  The ship began to glow and crackle across its plating as it bowed and flexed, and the first mate began ushering the crew into position. It shouted a flurry of orders that weren't technically what he'd said… but close enough that he didn't feel the need to step in and intervene.

  Ryn set his stance as the Legion's vessel rumbled across the waves toward them. It barreled through the water, cutting through the false sea with its steel and timber. His wards rippled, settling into place.

  The legion broke itself on that energy field.

  The collision rocked the foamy water. Their prow crashed against his shield wall with such force that the other ship's bow nearly folded in on itself. Energy rippled out in a cerulean shockwave, spraying white foam into the storm-dark sky.

  Ryn grinned despite himself. It'll do the heavy lifting? A man could get used to this.

  Almost as if the ship could read his mind, he felt a soft purr from underneath his feet.

  "Impact absorbed," the android reported, voice smooth and synthetic despite the chaos. "Counterstrike advised."

  Ryn didn't need convincing. The wards flared, light crawling up the masts and rigging like veins igniting under skin. His crew braced, wide-eyed, half from fear, half from the sheer thrill of watching a ship fight back.

  "Bring us around!" Ryn barked.

  The android didn't wait for him to finish. The helm spun itself, metal spokes moving as if pulled by invisible hands. The vessel twisted with impossible grace, more akin to a dancer than a warship, the seawater sprayed as it carved a perfect arc around the Legion's crippled bow.

  The commentator's voice boomed across the arena, distorted by amplification crystals:

  "The Slayer turns the tide! Look at that maneuver, folks. He is performing like a seasoned voyager among pirates!”

  Ryn felt the crowd's thrill slam into him, their power. Their hunger matched the storm's fury, the rain the only thing keeping the air around him from bursting into flame.

  "Target acquired," the android said calmly as the enemy ship struggled to reorient. "Shall I fire, sir?"

  Ryn's grin widened. "Yeah," he said, fingers tightening on the rail as his wards pulsed. "Show them that we can do more than defend.”

  A lance of force thundered across the water, detonating against the Legion's hull and ripping through its front deck in a spray of shattered timber and echoing screams.

  The crowd erupted, everyone except the section watching their Legion destroyer sink slowly into the churning, rock-frothed waves. Smoke and seawater still billowed from the fractured bow when new alarms flared across Ryn's deck.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "Sir," the android said, voice dipping into a warning register. "Two more contacts. Starboard side."

  Ryn snapped his gaze right... where a war-barge carved from the carcass of a whale surged through the storm. The Beast Tide. Its crew were aquatic beast-men, dripping seawater from jagged scales, moving in unison with the sway of their ship. But at the helm stood their captain, a towering Lionine whose mane whipped in the wind like a banner of gold and kelp. The barge's prow had been chiseled into a lion's skull to match him.

  He threw back his head and roared. A sound so deep it cut through the storm, through the crowd, through the very bones of the ship.

  "Steel-walkers break before the Tide!" he bellowed. "Show them why the wilds bow only to us!"

  To port, a second threat carved a perfect silver line across the waves...a Machine God skiff, all angles and harsh geometry, humming with a synthetic choir that made Ryn's teeth ache. Its central reactor pulsed like a heartbeat made of lightning. Unlike the Beast Tide crew, this vessel was manned by a single android.

  The Beasts opened fire first. Artillery thundered across the false sea, but the skiff flitted aside with impossible precision, darting left and right like a metallic dragonfly. Shells plunged harmlessly into the waves.

  "Perfect," Ryn muttered. "Let them kill each other first."

  His android tilted its head. "Cowardice acknowledged."

  "Strategic positioning," Ryn snapped.

  The robot went silent. Somehow, that grated more than any snide remark could have. Ryn forced himself back to watching the skirmish.

  The Beast Tide struck first. Their captain bellowed orders, and his crew, true children of the sea, predicted the skiff's movements with uncanny marine instinct. A Great White beastman vaulted onto the chrome deck with a wet, thunderous crash. The Machine God captain reacted instantly, eight metallic limbs unfolding from his back, each tipped with a different weapon.

  More beastmen surged across the rails, following the shark-born warrior. The deck erupted into chaos, steel against claw, electricity against muscle. Sinew snapped—metal split. Flesh tore. Sparks rained.

  Numbers won the battle. The Machine God captain collapsed beneath a heap of bodies, his limbs twitching before going still. Only black oil and shattered plating remained. But victory cost the Beast Tide dearly. Their deck ran slick with blood and oil. Their warriors stagger back onto their own ship. And before they could regroup, the commentator's voice cracked across the arena:

  "The animals swarm the Machine! Twenty to one. You know that's what it takes for those dumb creatures to bring down a sentinel! But they shouldn't celebrate yet… because something else is cutting through the water."

  "Captain, our shields can only take one more collision." The First mate said to Ryn

  "Full speed," Ryn took one sharp inhale and grabbed the rails, turning his knuckles white.

  They hit the fray like a hammer.

  His shield slammed into the Beast Tide barge first, crunching the rib-like bone plating. Half-dazed monsters toppled overboard. The force propelled them sideways, right into the Machine God skiff.

  Metal shrieked. Sparks erupted. Ryn's ship demolished both ships.

  The crowd went feral.

  "THE SLAYER SPLITS THE SEA! A SINGLE MAN AGAINST THE BEASTMEN AND THE MACHINE GODS! THIS...THIS IS WHY WE WATCH THE CRUCIBLE!"

  Ryn ducked as a metal tendril whipped past his head. "By the old gods."

  The android interrupted, voice serene despite the insanity.

  "Sir, I recommend we disengage before the survivors retaliate."

  "Yeah," Ryn breathed, bracing himself as a wounded Aliigator Beastman skittered across his deck. "That's the plan."

  He shouted to the crew. "Man the guns! NOW! If you see any movement in the water, open fire!"

  But the crowd didn't see a tactical retreat. They saw a conqueror carving a path through two rival factions at once. They screamed his name like he was destiny itself.

  "SLAY-ER! SLAY-ER! SLAY-ER!"

  Ryn only hoped they couldn't hear his muttered reply as he ducked behind a mast, heart pounding: "This is the dumbest thing I've ever been apart of."

  Something moved in the depths below.

  At first, Ryn thought it was one of the aquatic Beastmen circling back for vengeance, but then an eye emerged.

  The thing's single orb breached the water like a rising moon, luminous and black-veined, half the size of his entire ship. No Beast Tide warrior, no matter how blessed, transformed into that.

  No, this was an Abyss monster. One of the titans that lurked beneath the fabricated sea. They stirred only when the water was saturated with too much blood and magic.

  Ryn's breath hitched.

  "Everyone tie yourselves to something!" he yelled, voice cracking. "Now! All power to the engines...divert everything! Move!”

  The deck erupted into frantic motion. Sailors scrambled for ropes. The android's eyes flashed bright with overload warnings. The ship's core groaned, wards flickering as power rerouted from shields to raw propulsion.

  Below them, the Abyss creature's massive eye rolled, focusing on their hull.

  And the water began to rise.