The North did not just thaw; it wept.
As the Sapphire Heart began its rhythmic rotation, trillions of tons of ancient ice transitioned from solid to liquid in a matter of hours. The result was a vertical deluge—a thousand new waterfalls cascading from the upper plateaus into the lower strata. The Silver-Wing rode the vanguard of this new tide, its Null-Iron hull slick with condensation as it dove toward the Drowned Reach.
"The air is getting 'wet,' Kaelen!" Lyra shouted over the roar of the rushing water. Her Sona-sense was being drowned out by the sheer volume of the downpour. "The Miasma below is reacting to the fresh water. It's turning into a thick, acidic slurry!"
Kaelen leaned over the railing, his breath hitching. The "Thermal Scar" on his chest throbbed with a dull, orange heat, a stark contrast to the cold blackness of his Void-Glass arm. The internal balance of his power was shifting, making him feel like a glass bottle filled with boiling oil.
"Jax! How are the new conduits holding?" Kaelen called out.
"The Sapphire Aether is too pure!" Jax yelled back from the engine hatch. He was covered in glowing blue grease. "It's eating through the old copper pipes. Elian is trying to bypass the secondary regulators, but if we don't find a way to stabilize the flow, the core is going to vent right through the galley floor!"
The Rising Tide
The Drowned Reach was a graveyard of coral-encrusted skyscrapers and floating kelp-forests that had once been the world's primary oxygen farm. Now, with the sudden influx of northern meltwater, the sea level of the Deep Miasma was rising rapidly. The violet fog was being displaced by a dark, churning ocean of "Heavy Water"—Aether-charged liquid that was both life-giving and corrosive.
"The Third Valve is down there," Nova said, pointing toward a massive whirlpool forming in the center of the reach. "The Abyssal Anchor. It regulates the world's buoyancy. If it isn't turned soon, the rising pressure will pull the floating islands down into the crush-depth."
"And who's guarding it?" Kaelen asked, checking the tension on his glass hilt.
"Nereis, the Fourth Harbinger," Nova replied. "The Tidal Queen. She doesn't fight for the Spires out of loyalty. She fights because she believes the sky is a mistake. She wants the world to return to the Great Ocean."
The Leviathan's Shadow
As the Silver-Wing approached the whirlpool, the water beneath them erupted. A massive, bioluminescent shape rose from the depths—a Miasma-Kraken, its tentacles thick as ship-masts and pulsing with a toxic violet light.
But it wasn't attacking. It was being ridden.
Standing atop the Kraken's head was a woman whose skin looked like wet marble, draped in a cloak of living jellyfish. She held a trident made of black coral that hummed with a low-frequency vibration.
"Exile," Nereis's voice rumbled, echoing through the water itself. "You bring the heat of the stars to my silent world. You seek to dry the tears of the North. But the ocean is patient. It will swallow your fire and your glass."
"I'm not here to dry the ocean, Nereis!" Kaelen shouted. "I'm here to stop the islands from drowning!"
"The islands are splinters in the flesh of the world," Nereis retorted. she raised her trident, and the whirlpool accelerated. "Tidal-Style: Crushing Abyss!"
The water didn't splash; it moved like a solid wall. A localized gravity-well formed around the Silver-Wing, dragging it toward the center of the vortex. The ship groaned, the Null-Iron plates screaming as they reached their pressure limit.
Steam and Shadow
"Kaelen! I can't break the pull!" Lyra cried, her hands trembling on the helm.
Kaelen looked at his Void-Glass arm. The heat from the thermal scar was leaking into the crystal, turning it a dark, smoky amber. He realized he couldn't use his Singularity moves here—the water was too dense. He had to use the "Burn."
"Jax! Divert all Sapphire Aether to the external vents!" Kaelen ordered.
"You'll cook us alive!"
"Just do it! Nova, shield the crew!"
As the blue energy flooded the ship's outer vents, Kaelen jumped onto the railing. He gripped the vents with his Void-Glass hand and unleashed the thermal energy stored in his chest.
"Void-Style: Superheated Vapor-Shroud!"
The interaction between the raw Sapphire Aether, Kaelen's thermal "Burn," and the cold ocean water was instantaneous. A massive explosion of steam erupted from the Silver-Wing, creating a high-pressure bubble that pushed back against the whirlpool. The ship didn't just move; it was launched upward by the expanding gas.
Kaelen didn't stop there. He used the steam as a bridge, sliding toward Nereis on a rail of evaporating water.
The Duel of Salt and Void
Kaelen and Nereis clashed in the center of the mist. Her trident was heavy, every strike carrying the weight of a thousand tons of water. Kaelen countered with his Void-Glass blade, but instead of cutting, he was using the heat to flash-boil the water around her strikes, creating mini-explosions that disrupted her momentum.
"You are burning yourself away, Kaelen Vane!" Nereis hissed, parrying a strike that turned the sea-spray into scalding steam. "The more you fight, the faster the void consumes you!"
"Then I'll make sure... I leave a mark... before I go!" Kaelen roared.
He grabbed the shaft of her trident with his Void-Glass hand. The black coral began to crack as the thermal energy from his scar met the absolute-zero vacuum of his palm. The thermal shock was too much for the material; the trident shattered into a thousand obsidian shards.
Nereis fell back, her Kraken let out a pained shriek and dove back into the depths.
"The Valve!" Kaelen pointed toward the center of the whirlpool.
The Silver-Wing dove into the eye of the storm.
The Abyssal Anchor
At the bottom of the whirlpool sat the Third Valve—a gargantuan anchor-chain made of gold and lead, disappearing into a hole in the world's crust. It was vibrating, the tension so high that the metal was glowing red.
"It's a winch-lock!" Elian shouted, looking through the ship's spyglass. "If we don't release the catch, the chain will snap and the islands will drift into the sun!"
Kaelen landed on the Anchor's platform, his Void-Glass arm smoking. He looked at the massive gold lever. It was encrusted in centuries of salt-deposits.
He placed his hand on the lever. The "Burn" in his chest flared one last time, the orange light meeting the black glass of his arm.
"Absolute... Thermal... Expansion!"
He didn't pull the lever. He heated the metal until it expanded and shattered the salt-crust, then used his Void power to erase the friction in the rusted gears.
The lever moved.
The Abyssal Anchor let out a thunderous CLANG that could be heard across the entire Reach. The chain began to unspool, the tension in the world's crust finally easing. The whirlpool vanished, and the rising waters began to recede into the subterranean reservoirs where they belonged.
The Cost of the Deep
Kaelen lay on the platform, his chest heaving. The orange glow of the thermal scar had faded, replaced by a dull, permanent gray. He looked at his Void-Glass arm—it was now translucent, almost invisible, as if it were fading out of existence.
"Kaelen!" Nova was there, pulling him back toward the ship.
"Three down," Kaelen whispered, his voice a ghost of a sound.
"Yes," Nova said, her eyes looking upward toward the highest peak of the world. "But the Fourth Valve is in the City of the Sun, the capital of the High Spires. And the Fifth Harbinger... he is the Grand Inquisitor. He has been waiting for you since the day you were born."