The halls of the Arcadia lay in ruin. Fires guttered in broken conduits, blood pooled in the gutters, and the moans of the wounded echoed like ghosts. Sailors sat slumped against bulkheads, too weary to move, too broken to fight again. Mothers clutched children who no longer wept. Veterans stared blankly at their bloodied cutlasses, hands trembling.
They had won, but they were finished.
Harlock walked among them, his boots heavy against steel. His saber hung at his side, its arcs still faintly sparking. The crimson glow of his eye illuminated the wreckage around him.
Every face carved itself into his memory.
Every loss weighed upon his soul.
I failed them.
He had protected the ship, but at what cost? His people were exhausted, broken, bled white. They could not be asked to rise again — not against what still loomed beyond the hull.
For Veynar still waited. The Rogue Trader's fleet lingered like a predator circling wounded prey. The final blow was yet to fall.
Harlock paused at the shattered remains of the shrine deck. Candles smoldered in pools of blood. A child's doll lay amid the corpses, its cloth blackened by fire. His hand tightened on his saber until his knuckles whitened.
Pain. Sorrow. Rage.
They burned in him, threatening to consume him whole.
I cannot stop fighting.
But I cannot ask them to fight anymore.
So he turned. And he began to walk.
Each step echoed like a drumbeat, carrying him deeper into the heart of his ship, toward the prow, toward the enemy that waited. His crew watched in silence, eyes hollow but drawn to him all the same. Some reached weakly toward him, as if to stop him, but none found the strength.
The Arcadia felt him.
The ship stirred. Mist rose from the decks, black and cold, swirling around Harlock's boots. It climbed his cloak, his shoulders, his face, until he was wreathed in shadow. The steel beneath his feet thrummed, a heartbeat answering his own.
The mist thickened, converging upon him, sinking into his flesh. His breath caught as the ship's spirit reached into him, altering him, shaping him. His veins burned cold, his muscles tightened like corded steel, his bones felt forged anew.
The pain was exquisite.
The power undeniable.
When the mist cleared, Harlock stood taller, stronger. His movements were quicker, sharper, fluid as shadow. His grip on the saber was iron, the arcs around its blade brighter, hungrier. His crimson eye glowed with a menacing light, casting blood-hued reflections across the walls.
Shadows flickered and stretched where he walked, as though reluctant to leave him. His presence weighed on the air, oppressive and cold, a silent promise of wrath yet to come.
The crew whispered as he passed. Some bowed their heads, some wept, some prayed. But none spoke against him.
Francis Harlock walked alone toward the prow.
Toward the waiting fleet.
Toward Veynar.
And with every step, his rage deepened. Silent, cold, implacable.
The enemy would not stop.
And neither would he.