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Jimmy sprang to his feet, snapping his two long blades together into a single double-ended weapon. In one fluid motion, he leapt onto a jagged reef rising from the water.
"Come on!"
Wave after wave of red-eyed water spiders swarmed toward him. The inflatable raft lasted less than a second before it was devoured down to nothing.
They were like army ants of the sea.
Jimmy's blades spun so fast they blurred like a fan. Within moments, a mound of severed spider bodies piled up around him.
Horus swooped down and blasted them with dragonfire. The flames washed over the swarm and did absolutely nothing.
If anything, Horus's beak and talons were more effective than his fire.
But there were too many of them.
Even worse, when they managed to latch onto Horus, their mandibles could gnaw through feathers that felt like sheets of iron. Given enough time, they could strip him to the bone.
"Horus, higher! Get some distance!"
Horus shot into the sky. The spiders could leap and glide briefly, but they could not reach him at altitude.
From above, the scene looked like a nightmare.
Jimmy stood at the center of a living storm. The spiders engulfed him in layers, only to be sliced cleanly in half and fall into the water below, sinking slowly into the violet haze.
Horus screeched in frustration.
Then—
In the distance, a dark cloud approached.
Bats.
A massive swarm.
If he couldn't help Jimmy against the spiders, he could at least tear through these.
Horus dove into them, wings flailing, claws ripping, beak snapping. Every so often, he spat a blast of dragonfire.
Two battles unfolded at once.
Jimmy remained rooted in place, a whirlwind of steel.
Horus became a shifting mass of red and black in the sky, dragging the swarm farther and farther from the Smoking Sea's mist.
Gradually, they broke through the haze.
The bats hit open sunlight.
And began to fall.
One by one, they dropped from the sky, shriveling as if the sun itself burned them. Their bodies cracked and dried, crumbling as they struck the sea.
Horus blinked.
Well.
That was useful.
He immediately wheeled back toward Jimmy, swelling in size as he descended.
"Hold on!"
With a tremendous beat of his wings, Horus unleashed a gale. The spiders were lifted in a writhing mass and hurled outward, tumbling end over end, carried beyond the border of the Smoking Sea.
Jimmy could almost hear the sizzle.
Exposed to true sunlight, the creatures blackened and carbonized, dying in waves.
Jimmy glanced at the scorched shoreline, then at Horus perched proudly on his shoulder.
He raised a thumb.
"Nice."
"Obviously," Horus replied smugly.
Aside from losing two inflatable rafts, Jimmy had suffered no real damage.
Fortunately, he carried plenty.
He pulled out another inflatable craft, filled it, and fitted it with a pedal mechanism.
Yes.
It looked suspiciously like a giant rubber duck boat.
But it was stable.
Efficient.
And with Jimmy's stamina, nearly as fast as a speedboat.
"Go!"
He kicked the pedals hard.
A white wake split the violet water as he surged deeper into the Smoking Sea.
"There!" Horus called out, sharp eyes spotting drag marks along the shoreline.
Jimmy adjusted course immediately.
He slammed ashore—
Boom.
Another raft was destroyed.
The explosion of sound echoed across the barren coast.
Aboard the Silence, Euron Greyjoy's face drained of color.
"Idiot," he muttered. "This is the devil's territory."
Jimmy closed the distance quickly.
Beneath the Silence loomed a colossal squid, its bulk so immense that the ship perched atop it like a toy hat.
Jimmy had known octopi could leave the water for brief periods.
But this?
This monster had dragged itself far inland, hauling the ship with it.
And Jimmy had never seen anything like it.
"My friend—"
Jimmy's twin blades blurred like spinning turbines as he charged straight at Euron.
Friend?
Who the hell was his friend?
Hadn't villains learned by now that talking too much got you killed?
Cut first, ask later.
Euron had faced storms, monsters, and madmen but this?
This lunatic didn't even exchange formalities.
Wasn't a greeting basic noble etiquette?
Who attacked mid-sentence?
Still, Euron was no helpless prey.
He barked an order, and the colossal squid beneath the Silence lashed out. A massive tentacle coiled around Jimmy, hauling him toward its beak-lined maw.
Jimmy did not resist.
Instead, he calmly dismissed his blades and let himself be dragged closer.
The squid's mouth split open, rows of serrated teeth glistening.
Jimmy jumped willingly into the darkness.
Euron blinked.
That was it?
All that fury—only to throw himself into a monster's mouth?
Dead?
Hardly.
Jimmy's eyes flashed violet as he glimpsed the creature's true nature.
A servant of the Drowned God.
Euron had earned a title in certain circles: Drowned God Warlock.
The squid's beak bit down—
—and failed to pierce Jimmy's flesh.
Instinctively, the beast swallowed him whole.
Inside the suffocating darkness, Jimmy extended his blade-arms.
If Journey to the West had taught him anything, it was this:
Don't swallow what you can't digest.
For a creature this size, with nine brains and one heart, you'd think at least one of them might predict danger.
Jimmy carved.
The Horadric Cube swallowed every chunk of flesh he tore free as he tunneled forward.
Outside, the squid convulsed violently.
Then it screamed.
A sound so terrible it seemed to awaken the ruins of Valyria itself.
Its tentacles thrashed wildly, some even probing into its own mouth in a futile attempt to drag Jimmy back out.
The cry echoed across the land.
From fissures and shadows, the smoke wraiths emerged.
Skinless, chitin-armored horrors that resembled something torn from a nightmare—creatures disturbingly similar to xenomorphs.
Horus descended, and this time there was no sea column to extinguish his flames.
Dragonfire washed over the Silence.
The ship ignited.
Roasted kraken.
Euron's luck had finally run dry.
If they had remained at sea, the massive squid might have held off both Horus and Jimmy long enough to escape.
But Euron, desperate to avoid the sea spiders, had ordered the creature inland toward a lake that had once saved him.
Now, stranded on land, the beast's strength was halved.
And it couldn't even deal with one man.
Inside the squid's belly, Jimmy worked methodically.
One heart.
Nine brains.
He cut through them one by one, holding his breath as blue blood flooded around him.
Finally—
Slash.
He tore through the outer flesh and burst out, drenched in thick azure gore.
Behind him, the dying kraken collapsed.
Horus wheeled overhead, blasting dragonfire into the swarm of smoke wraiths, which clawed at the fallen carcass and swarmed over his wings.
Euron crouched nearby with a handful of his men, strangely untouched.
The smoke wraiths seemed to avoid him instinctively.
Euron slowly removed his eyepatch.
Beneath it, his second eye was pitch black—an abyss that seemed to pull at the soul itself.
"Why?" he screamed, madness in his voice. "Why attack me? I am the Drowned God's chosen! I have yet to conquer the seas! Why?"
Jimmy glanced at the advancing horrors, then at Euron.
"Because I don't like your face. Is that enough? Stop talking and die."
The simplicity of the answer made Euron tremble with rage.
"Then none of us will live!" he roared. "Sound the Dragonbinder!"
As he spoke, a flicker of black light pulsed within his dark eye—
—and streaked toward Jimmy.
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