The City of Eastport was usually loud with the haggling of fishmongers and the bells of returning trawlers. Today, it was silent, save for the wailing of children and the distant, growing roar of the ocean.
Fisherman Zhang stood on the wooden pier, his knuckles white as he gripped a railing. He wasn't looking at his boat. He was looking at the horizon. The sea had pulled back, revealing miles of wet, stinking mud and flopping fish. But beyond the mud, a wall of water was rising. It touched the clouds—a dark, churning mountain of death that blotted out the sun.
"It's the end," the city magistrate wept, dropping his official seal into the mud. " The Sea Gods are angry. There is no escape."
Above the city, streaks of light flashed. The local cultivators—the Blue Wave Sect—were fleeing on their flying swords. They looked down at the 200,000 mortals packed into the streets with contempt.
"Why don't they help us?" Zhang's grandson asked, tugging his trousers.
"Because we are heavy, child," Zhang said, closing his eyes. "And they travel light."
The tsunami was ten miles out. It wasn't just water. Through the mist, Zhang saw colossal shapes moving within the wave—serpents the size of towers, crabs with shells like fortress walls. The Deep Ones were riding the tide to feed.
Zhang hugged his grandson. He waited for the impact.
He didn't hear the water. He heard a hum.
It started low, vibrating the teeth in his skull, then grew into a thunderous mechanical shriek that drowned out the ocean. The clouds above the harbor split open.
Something massive descended. It wasn't a sword. It wasn't a dragon.
It was a city of grey steel, falling from the sky.
On the bridge of the UNSC Kunpeng, the proximity alarms were a chaotic symphony.
"Altitude 500 feet! Descent rate critical!" Old Wu shouted, his hands flying over the controls. "Administrator! If we land in the harbor, we'll displace enough water to flood the lower district anyway!"
"Not inside the harbor," Jiang Chen stood at the helm, his chest reactor flaring bright green. He was plugged directly into the ship's thrusters, feeling the strain of the 40,000-ton vessel in his own spine. "We land in front of it."
He looked at the tactical map. The tsunami was a kinetic energy weapon. The only way to stop it was with an equal and opposite mass.
"Target coordinates: The Harbor Mouth," Jiang Chen ordered. "Deploy Hydro-foils. Brace for splashdown."
"Ye Bai!" Jiang Chen shouted over the intercom. "Secure the deck! It's going to be wet!"
The Kunpeng dropped. The thrusters fired a final, massive retro-burn that vaporized the surface of the sea, creating a cushion of steam.
BOOOOOOM.
The impact registered on seismographs a thousand miles away.
The Flying Fortress slammed into the shallow water at the mouth of the bay. It didn't sink; its massive hull plowed into the seabed, the hydro-foils locking into the bedrock.
It sat there, a monolithic wall of titanium and nuclear fire, effectively blocking the entrance to Eastport.
Then, the tsunami hit.
Fisherman Zhang opened his eyes. He wasn't dead. He wasn't wet.
He looked up. The sky was gone. In front of him, towering three hundred meters into the air, was the grey hull of the metal mountain.
The tsunami smashed into the other side of the Kunpeng.
CRASH.
The sound was like the planet cracking in half. The ship groaned, the steel screaming as millions of tons of water slammed against it. The entire vessel slid backward ten meters, grinding the seabed, but it held.
Spray flew over the top of the flight deck, raining down on the city like a heavy storm, but the destructive wave was broken. The water crashed harmlessly against the "Steel Shore," diverting around the bay.
"It... it stopped the sea," the Magistrate whispered, falling to his knees in the mud.
High above, the fleeing cultivators of the Blue Wave Sect stopped mid-flight. They stared down in disbelief.
"What is that?" a disciple stammered. "A metal island? It fell from the sky and... challenged the ocean?"
"Impossible," the Sect Elder muttered, his face pale. "No formation can withstand the Ocean King's wrath. That metal should be crushed!"
But the metal didn't crush. It hissed.
On the flight deck of the Kunpeng, the water was receding, but the threat remained.
As the wave washed over the deck, it deposited its riders.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Giant, wet shapes landed on the steel plates. Merrow-Warriors—humanoid fish monsters with obsidian spears and scales as hard as diamond. Armored Crabs the size of tanks. And slithering Sea Drakes.
Ye Bai stood on the bow, his white robes soaked, his hair plastered to his face. He held his chipped sword.
Behind him stood the Ronin Guard—fifty elite soldiers in Mark IV Exosuits, armed with Vibro-Glaives and Autocannons.
"They are ugly," Ye Bai noted, looking at a Merrow-Warrior hissing at him.
"They are lunch," Captain Han, piloting a heavy weapons suit, racked the slide of his 20mm cannon.
"Defend the ship!" Jiang Chen's voice boomed from the bridge speakers. "If they breach the reactor, we all glow in the dark! Push them back into the sea!"
The battle for the deck began.
Ye Bai moved first. He didn't use a giant slash. He used the "Efficiency" Jiang Chen had taught him. He stepped forward, his sword moving in a tight, minimal arc.
Snick.
Three Merrow-Warriors fell apart, sliced cleanly in half.
"Suppressing fire!" Han roared.
The Ronin Guard opened up. The roar of autocannons filled the air. Explosive rounds tore into the crab shells, blowing chunks of chitin and blue blood across the deck.
But more were climbing up the sides. The hull was swarming with them.
In the city below, the mortals watched the battle silhouetted against the dark storm clouds. They saw the flashes of gunfire, the sparks of swords, and the bodies of monsters falling from the top of the metal wall.
"They are fighting for us," Zhang realized. He grabbed a harpoon from his boat. "They are fighting for us!"
"Old man, get back!" a neighbor yelled.
"No!" Zhang shouted. "The Iron Prince saved us! If any of those fish-bastards fall down here, we kill them! We protect the Wall!"
A roar went up from the docks. The fear vanished, replaced by a primal need to defend the miracle that had just saved their lives. Fishermen grabbed hooks, knives, and oars. They formed a line at the base of the Kunpeng, ready to fight any leakers.
Inside the bridge, Jiang Chen was struggling.
The physical impact of the tsunami had jarred the reactor casing. His chest burned. The Ghost King essence was agitated, sensing the chaotic energy of the Deep Ones outside.
"System," Jiang Chen gritted his teeth. "Hull integrity?"
[Hull: 78%. Port Stabilizers: Critical.][External Threat: Massive Biological Signature Detecting Approaching.]
Jiang Chen looked at the radar. The small fry were on the deck. But the thing that had caused the wave... the true monster... was surfacing.
Out in the dark water, two yellow eyes the size of houses opened.
A tentacle, thick as a redwood tree and covered in barnacles, rose from the depths. It slammed onto the flight deck, crushing a parked P-47 fighter like a soda can.
The Kraken.
"Ye Bai!" Jiang Chen shouted into the comms. "You wanted a challenge? There's your mountain!"
Ye Bai looked up at the tentacle towering over him. He smiled.
"Finally," the Sword Saint whispered. "Something big enough to not miss."