The North Sea Ghost.
The Dragonborn returned the Elder Wand, and the dragon guardian spirit slowly dissipated. The dragons—freed with awakened will—let out exhilarated cries.
On the gundeck, the clash between Neloth and Miraak was already nearing its end.
The brass heavy fist smashed down once more, but the do-or-die resolve from the beginning was gone, and the steam driving it had already sputtered out. The punch missed Miraak—only to be caught by a palm wrapped in dragon-soul armor. In the next instant, Miraak turned his back and threw him clean over the shoulder, heaving the entire hulking brass war-plate up and over, smashing straight through the steel plating and dropping him into the lower engine room.
Miraak sprang down through the hole in the deck, landed atop the struggling Neloth, and yanked his helmet off in one brutal pull.
The Dunmer mage was gasping for breath.
"You lost. You really thought putting on a suit of armor makes you a warrior?" Miraak sneered. If not for his pact with Mora—capture these people alive—Neloth's soul would've gone to Oblivion the moment he fell.
"Hah… hah… I'm old."
Miraak burst into louder laughter. "My age dwarfs yours. Don't be sore about it—your conqueror is the First Dragonborn, Tamriel's chosen master of destiny!"
Before the words had even finished, a bolt of lightning crashed down from above, jolting Miraak until his whole body spasmed.
He looked up. The mages were clustered around the ragged hole in the gundeck, staring down at him, destructive elements already gathering in their hands.
"Hmph. Stubborn to the end."
He didn't get the chance to say more. Dumbledore raised his wand.
[Langlock]
Miraak went rigid. For a Dragonborn, the Voice was the greatest weapon of all—and this "little" spell might as well have crippled his martial arts at the root. In the same breath, he realized his odds had plunged to rock bottom.
The dragons no longer answered his call. Still, Miraak fought on, casting magic to summon Mora's spawn.
Two deep-sea creatures appeared in the ship's hold. They hadn't even understood the situation yet when Lady Moonshadow drew her bow and loosed an arrow—whereupon a torrential downpour fell like a guillotine, shredding the two abominations where they stood.
Miraak seized the opening, casting again, slipping himself into the shadows.
The Dragonborn snorted. "Trying to run? Fus… Ro… Dah!"
A shockwave swept the deck, blasting the invisible Miraak into the open. He went with the force, crashing through the railing and diving into the sea.
Without hesitation, the Dragonborn plunged in after him.
The lightless sea of Apocrypha was poisonous to mortals; the shadow-stuff hidden in its depths stole vitality itself.
Down in the deep, the Dragonborn felt only bone-biting cold. He couldn't see a thing. The moment he opened his eyes, the seawater burned them with searing pain; blood began to seep from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and his skin started to peel away, slowly corroded.
And unlike him, Miraak moved as though he'd returned to his natural element. His human shape began to unravel—like a torn cocoon, a new creature inside casting off its restraints.
Eyes bulged outward. Fangs lengthened. Bones dissolved. Muscles stretched.
An unnameable aberration—like some grotesque fusion of snail and octopus—waved fourteen tentacles and drifted soundlessly toward the Dragonborn.
In the deep water, the young Dragonborn and the tentacled veteran were about to collide.
On the deck, Lady Moonshadow stood beneath the dazzling sky.
Everyone else leaned over the rail, staring down at the sea, frantic with worry.
Mortals return to dust; gods return to gods.
"Lady Moonshadow, what do we do?"
Lydia, that foolish girl, had already started stripping off her armor, but Brelyna caught her. "Don't be reckless! You can't help the Dragonborn—if you go in now, you'll just throw your life away!"
Lydia collapsed, eyes shut tight, praying to the Nine Divines to bless the Dragonborn's return in victory.
Lady Moonshadow spoke clearly, her voice carrying. "Do not fret over the trial that hero faces. Fate has already foretold his triumph. The First Dragonborn cast off the mortal shell, tainted the dragon soul, and fell into a base Daedra. The struggle of dragon and serpent has long been decided. I shall watch this. We shall witness this."
She raised both hands high. Gentle morning light gathered in her palms, condensing into a brilliant star that lit the ancient darkness of the sea.
The shadow-energy in the water was driven back. Bathed in bright silver radiance, the sea looked like a clear summer harbor shallows.
No one on deck even had time to gasp at her magic—they all locked onto the struggle below.
Miraak was gone. In his place was a many-legged sea-beast that would have you waking up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and wetting the bed.
The Dragonborn's blood spread through the water, turning him into a red shadow. The man was being strangled by tentacles clamped around his throat, his struggles growing weaker by the second.
"No! The Dragonborn's going to—help him!" Lydia screamed, her voice dry and harsh, like a cracked whistle.
Professor Dumbledore was the first to act—he never hesitated to step forward when justice was in danger.
[Transfiguration]
The seawater became a school of fish. Sailfish, arrow-fast, shot like underwater javelins, their long sharp bills punching through Miraak's body.
The monster convulsed in pain. Its tentacles spasmed, and the Dragonborn tore free. Instead of surfacing, he surged straight at Miraak.
In the deep water, on the last breath left in his lungs, he unleashed the thunder of the Voice.
"Fus… Ro… Dah!"
The sea exploded.
Water cavitated and hammered itself in repeated shock, the wavefront scything outward—strong enough to shatter organs with ease.
Miraak's body was torn apart, blasted into countless fragments drifting in the sea. His twisted dragon soul was absorbed by the unconscious Dragonborn.
The fish made by Transfiguration bore the Nordic hero upward, carrying him back to the surface. Everyone hauled him onto the deck at once and began treating his wounds.
Above, the elemental tide had finally calmed. After the wind fell quiet, Mora's wail became clearer.
Skyl's voice carried down to the sea. "Lady Moonshadow, please send everyone out. Apocrypha is about to collapse."
Brelyna's voice was tight with urgency. "Skyl! Are you alright?!"
"Don't worry about me. We'll see each other soon."
Lady Moonshadow took one last look at the countless majestic blue doors yawning open across the sky—those dreadful, gorgeous things that carved the infinite void into pieces, beautiful enough to make you drunk on awe.
"Truly terrifying. Skyl… do you understand what kind of power you're carrying?" She shook her head with a faint smile. "No. It doesn't matter. Fate has its arrangements."
She summoned an Oblivion Gate and teleported the battered North Sea Ghost to the harbor of Raven Rock.
In the deep void, Skyl withdrew his gaze. The floating island beneath his feet began to rise.
Layer upon layer of doors stacked like stairs, guiding Skyl to Apocrypha's highest point.
Every Daedric Prince's domain was as vast as a true universe—but distance meant nothing. All physical measures meant nothing.
The Tower of Tomes was small, yet it could seep into Apocrypha and devour it. Victory wasn't decided by size, but by status.
Just as Skyl had said: he was only bringing forward an ending that had already been destined for Mora.
He passed slowly through the boundary of spacetime, slipping free of Apocrypha. Now he stood in the chaos of Oblivion, looking down at Apocrypha itself.
In Skyl's field of view, it was no bigger than a washbasin.
A dim green star, freckled with blue lights within.
He took out his phone and opened the camera. In Oblivion, every physical rule should have failed—this phone shouldn't have worked at all. But it did, running perfectly.
Skyl snapped a bird's-eye shot of Apocrypha and posted it with the caption: "My favorite bookstore—couldn't even make it through this summer."
He put the phone away. Time for a deep cleaning—wipe out Mora's warped servants for good.
In Apocrypha's deep sky, a conical object popped out from one of the Tower of Tomes' doors. Its surface was painted with the letters CCCP in red, along with a radiation hazard symbol.
Skyl swung his wand.
[Alohomora]
Warhead password program: unlocked.
[Duplication Charm]
[Duplicate · Duplication Charm]
[Duplicate · Duplicate · Duplication Charm]
…
He stacked a single Duplication Charm's effect seventeen times. After the first duplication there were eight in total; after that, each duplication performed another exponentiation on a base of eight, until the final count required scientific notation just to write down. Converted by mass, the duplicated warheads outweighed the entire solar system three times over.
Quantity meant nothing.
Energy meant nothing.
A sky filled with warheads was only for cleaning. It changed nothing about Mora's fate.
Skyl swung his wand again and cast [Fireworks Spell], a tiny spell meant only for releasing magical fireworks.
The sun fell.
The green star before him slowly warmed with orange-red light. Blue doorframes stabbed through the plane's boundary. It began to split apart, like a droplet shattering, its contents scattering into the void.
A chaotic eyeball flew out of Apocrypha—insignificant amid the collapse. But before it could escape, it dropped straight into Skyl's hand.
"Mora. My dear big brother—still kicking?" Skyl poked the eyeball. "We're so fated, I can't even bear to kill you. How about this: I happen to need a proper spellbook, and you—so enthusiastic about being a god—surely you'll volunteer, right?"
Amid Mora's furious, unwilling curses, Skyl used Transfiguration to turn the last of the god's body into an unremarkable black notebook. Aside from the chaotic eyeball that occasionally bulged from the cover, it was no different from the faux-leather hardcover notebooks sold in corner shops for a few bucks.
"Good. Finally I won't have to keep tearing my sleepwear." Skyl let out a long breath, opened an Oblivion Gate, and returned to Raven Rock.
Local Dunmer gathered around the North Sea Ghost, pointing and commenting, all fascinated by the iron ship that had vanished and reappeared out of nowhere.
"What did it go through?" someone asked sincerely, staring at the pitted, scarred hull.
"A war, I guess," someone beside them shrugged.
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