A stray drop of rain slid down Jia's cheek, cold as if the sky itself was warning him. The wind howled louder, whipping across the deck in long, drawn-out wails. A moment later, the world dimmed, swallowed whole by a ceiling of black clouds, and a furious gale slammed against him, rattling his balance.
Across the rain-slick deck, Tyler's eyes weren't just looking at the ship of the Sea Dragon Palace— they were locked entirely on the Dragonion standing upon it. Jia could feel that gaze, sharp and deliberate, like a harpoon that had found its mark.
Only then did Jia glance back at the man shrouded in an unnatural darkness. Phantom Blackwood. His expression shifted subtly, a shade more serious than before. What weighed on him wasn't the man's name, but the pressure that swept over him—the vast, crushing sweep of a Divine Sense so deep and endless it felt like the ocean itself had chosen to bear down on him.
