Chapter 6
Die Already
"Shitty fish… that can't be a head."
The man with the sword thought it with restrained fury, watching as the enormous fish's head began to split open.Split open like a hood being torn off.
A torrent of fluids poured down on him, blood and viscous remains sliding along the edge of the sword that still pierced it.The monster pulled back, dragging the blade with it—and with it, the man, who was almost buried into the wall, unable to move.
The sword's hilt, embedded in his left side, tore the fabric as it was lifted along with the fish's head. The motion revealed a bruise so dark purple it looked rotten. The pain forced a harsh, trembling breath through his nose. When the sword let him go, he dropped a few inches like a broken sack.
Even so, he didn't give up. With a rigid jaw and contracted face, he gathered the water held in his mouth and forced it to spin. The tiny drill of liquid shot against the bruised area, piercing the flesh. A dry cry, more groan than voice, escaped his throat.
And as he tried to endure, he saw it.The monster's true face.
From within that fish's mouth emerged something indescribable: a deformed tongue taking the shape of a humanoid head. It had no eyes, no nose, no ears—just the fleshy ridges of a grotesque tongue and an elongated hole imitating a mouth.
Disgust hit him as hard as the shock. He stared, dazed, unwillingly analyzing that abomination.
Then, a crash snapped him back to reality.A sharp blow—bones and metal breaking in unison—devoured by the roar of the storm.
The fish lunged with all its mass, crushing the man against the wall. Metal groaned, wood splintered… until everything burst open, torn through.
After piercing the wall, both the redhead and the monster were hurled outside the ship, smashing beams, planks, and metal before dangling from the hull.
Eilor was dragged too. Since half his body was already outside the hatch, when the wall gave way he was flung out, but he managed to cling desperately to one of the hull's jagged tears.
The icy air struck his face, the rain blurred his vision, and beneath his feet there was nothing but emptiness and the raging sea meters below.
The man didn't fall because his arms clung to Eilor's legs—the same grip he had used earlier to keep the boy from slipping out the window. That decision saved him from falling into the sea… but now left him hanging in a precarious balance: the redhead's weight yanked Eilor downward with brutal force, stretching his shoulders to their limit.
Eilor's fingers dug into the torn metal edge, but the sharpness ripped his skin. Blood mixed with the rain made him slip, and he felt the metal would tear his nails off at any moment.
The hull shuddered beneath them with every wave's blow. The structure creaked, threatening to split further.
And meanwhile, the monster hadn't fallen either. Its claws clung to the remnants of the wall, writhing like an insect, also suspended from the hull. The sword still impaled it, bound to it like a bloody tether, vibrating with each movement of the storm.
The redhead spat blood, his face contorted from the strain."—Hold on, damn it!" he roared, feeling his arms tear as he held onto the boy.
Eilor screamed without voice, teeth clenched. His hands bled, slipped, but he didn't let go. The void claimed him, and below, the waves looked like black hills ready to swallow him whole.
Eilor's fingers were on the verge of giving out. Blood mixed with rain made him slide over the jagged hull edge, and the pain was so intense he could no longer tell if they were fingers or shattered blades stabbing into his flesh.
The redhead, dangling from his legs, squeezed with all his strength. His left arm trembled, his right barely held the sword still stuck in the monster. The storm shook them all like puppets tied to a wire.
Then it happened.Thunder exploded above them, and in that flash of white light the man felt his muscles tear. His grip failed. His fingers slipped from Eilor's legs.
"No!" Eilor managed to cry, his throat shredded.
The man fell backward, dragging the monster with him, still skewered by the sword. For an instant they seemed like two chained bodies, spinning together as the rain devoured them.
The roar of the sea drowned everything else. The monster let out a horrifying screech, a blend of beast and rusted iron, before sinking into darkness. The redhead, still clutching the hilt of his weapon, vanished with it.
Eilor was alone.Dangling from the hull's tear, nails split, fingers raw and bleeding. His breath was short, ragged gasps. The storm beat him from above, and below was only a black sea swallowing everything that fell.
For one eternal second, he felt the ship itself reject him, as if he were about to follow them into that darkness.
Eilor hung there, his body drenched, the wind ripping air from his lungs. Each second was a battle against the void. His fingers kept opening, blood running hot over cold metal, and the storm shook him as if trying to hurl him down.
The sea's roar devoured everything… but more than that, the immediate memory devoured him: the image of the man falling with the monster, bound by the sword. It wasn't a clean fall. It was a brutal wrenching, a body ripped from his legs in a pull he still felt in his joints.
"He…" Eilor could barely form words. "He fell…"
The emptiness in his voice was as strong as that in his failing hands.
Lightning lit the horizon, and for an instant he saw the sea close over them both. Neither the man nor the beast surfaced. Only foam, waves, and darkness.
"He's dead."
The word stabbed like a knife. Dead, and he had seen it. Dead, and the only thing keeping him from following was that edge of metal tearing his skin.
His arms trembled. His whole body screamed to let go, to end the pain. Blood slipped down, his grip weakening with every second.
"No…!" Eilor cried, his broken voice more fear than courage.
He clenched his teeth, and something stirred inside him. Not muscle strength—there was none left. Something else. The water streaming down the hull, mixing with his blood, swirled around his fingers, thickening as if answering his desperation. The liquid hardened just enough to give him one more second of grip.
That instant saved him: he hooked his right elbow into the torn edge, hanging on a little more firmly.
Eilor panted violently, head lowered, heart pounding like a war drum. He was alive, but he had seen the price with his own eyes: the redhead had sunk with the monster.
And now he was alone, trapped in a hull that creaked as if ready to split apart, with the storm raging above and the sea yawning below.
Eilor still hung on, fingers buried in the hull's edge, while the sea roared like a beast wanting to devour him whole. Amid lightning and thunder, he glimpsed again the redhead and the monster's fall, dragged by the storm into the ocean's dark jaws.
The sound of furious waters.
"Picke Körper," said a voice, like an echo in unison, resounding from the depths.
The man and the creature struck the water with a crash that shook even the ship's frame. The sword slipped from his hands on impact, drifting away among bubbles and red foam.
From his desperate grip on the weapon, it slid through the monster's flesh and blood…the monster was freed.
The currents dragged them in opposite directions, bodies warped by pressure and shadow. Even so, every stroke, every claw movement, every push of the man brought them back together, entwined in a silent battle under the sea.
The water turned red in flashes, cut by lightning that lit the surface like shattered glass. There, in the middle of that liquid chaos, the sword spun slowly, suspended between them like a drifting shard of fate.
The monster reacted first. With a lash of its massive tail, it created a whirlpool that hurled the redhead into darkness. Pressure bit into his chest, his lungs screamed for air, but his hands didn't stop. He conjured, voiceless, wordless, shaping the water with pure instinct.
A liquid wall closed before him, dissipating the claws' charge. Then he turned that defense into attack: a spiraled lance of pressurized water that tore through the depths toward the monster's torso.
The impact thudded like a muffled drum. The creature's flesh split in a bloody beam, but it didn't stop. The fish-humanoid spun violently, its jaws opening to unleash that deformed tongue, the grotesque head trying to bite him beneath the sea.
The redhead answered with the only thing he could: fire turned into boiling water. A brief circle in his palm, and from it burst a scorching jet that wrapped the aberration in a cloud of scarlet bubbles.
Both spun amid opposing currents, each spell breaking the abyssal silence with muffled bursts. The monster, stronger, always forced him downward. The mage, more skillful, deflected every blow at the last second.
And in the middle of that back-and-forth, the sword sank slowly, cutting the waters as if waiting for them both.
The redhead understood: without the blade, there was no end.
He forced his torn muscles, propelling himself with a whirlpool at his feet. The water itself catapulted him toward the weapon just as the creature lunged with a metallic shriek.
His fingers brushed the hilt at the same time the monster's claws pierced his shoulder. Pain stole his breath, but he closed his fist. The sword was his again.
The sea trembled around them.
The water closed over him like a liquid coffin. Air burned in his lungs, but still he twisted his body, letting the current fling him sideways. In his palm he formed a seal of compressed water and released it with a flick of his wrist.
The blast struck the monster full on, slashing its belly and raising a cloud of blood that spiraled outward. For an instant he lost sight of it within the crimson haze.
A mistake.
The jaws surged from the gloom, clamping onto his side, stabbing that deformed tongue like a fleshy spear. Pain ripped bubbles from him, but not a scream. He clenched his jaw and, with a muffled roar, summoned a whirlpool that spun around them both.
The water churned violently, turning into a vortex that hurled him upward. With the momentum, he stretched out his hand and his fingers closed on the sword's hilt.
The blade gleamed for an instant beneath the sea, as if lightning from the storm had descended into the depths.
The monster felt it. It roared, flailing its limbs in grotesque convulsions, trying to tear the weapon away. But the redhead didn't yield. With the sword steady, he conjured an ascending current, a violent jet that wrapped his body and flung him at the creature.
The clash was brutal. The blade sank once more into the abomination's flesh, and both spun like chained projectiles. Water pressure crushed them, blood blurred vision, and every move was a blow against death.
Then, the water itself broke.
A colossal current seized them without warning, a vertical torrent that ripped them from the depths and launched them upward like shattered dolls. The redhead barely managed to cross the sword in front of him, the blade shining in the dark. The monster gripped him with its claws, and together they ascended at impossible speed.
The impact against the surface was a muffled thunder, a lash of foam and blood. But it didn't end there: the current shoved them further, straight against the colossal shadow of the ship.
The hull appeared suddenly, a wall of metal rushing closer. No time to react.
The crash smashed them against the steel, the boom echoing like a cannon under the sea. The structure dented first, then cracked, and finally burst open in a brutal fracture, like a dry scab shattered by a hammer's blow.
Both bodies tore through the wrecked hull, dragged uncontrollably inside. Water poured with them in a furious torrent, sweeping beams and pipes, snuffing out the roar of the boilers in an instant.
They fell heavily into a lower deck: an engine room where gears still turned with metallic screeches, where steam hissed from broken pipes. The air was heavy with damp, wet coal, and rancid oil.
The man staggered to his feet, soaked and bloodied. His breath burned in his throat. He looked toward the monster, sprawled against a broken boiler, motionless. For a moment he thought it was over.
"…Die already." His voice was a growl of fury and relief.
But relief lasted only a heartbeat.The monster's silhouette stirred. Flesh quivered, and from the deformed mouth that tongue-face emerged again, humanoid and revolting, opening as if to scream.
The battle wasn't over.It was just about to begin again.