Leo scrambled up, spitting blood inside his helmet. He didn't have a sword anymore; the tachi had been knocked out of his hand. He looked around frantically and grabbed a heavy, iron-tipped harpoon from a nearby rack.
He used it like a pike.
He charged, the iron head of the harpoon whistling through the air. He slammed the point into the back of a shadow-soldier swarming Lyra, then used the shaft to sweep three more off the platform.
The deck was a slaughterhouse of ink and heat. Lyra was stumbling now, her breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. Her heating ability was failing, the red glow of her armor fading to a dull, scorched grey.
"Tsk. Not today," Leo growled.
He reached Lyra just as a shadow lunged for her throat. He drove the harpoon through the creature's head and stood over her, his legs wide, his chest heaving.
The Shadow of the King stopped five paces away. It raised its hand, and the hundreds of dead incarnates froze. The silence that followed was louder than the storm.
"Give up, boy," the Shadow rasped.
Leo looked at the hundreds of grey, dilated eyes staring at him. He looked at Lyra, who was leaning against the steering oar, her good hand trembling as she tried to raise her sword one last time.
Leo wiped the blood from his visor with a shaky hand.
He didn't wait for the Shadow to move. He lunged, not with skill, but with a raw, suicidal tackle. He slammed his weight into the Shadow's midsection, the [Shell of Dread] clashing against the entity's cold, basalt-like skin.
They went over the edge of the platform, tumbling into the sea of shadows on the main deck.
"Leo!" Lyra's scream was lost in the roar of the hundreds as they swarmed the spot where he fell.
Under the weight of a dozen shadows, Leo felt his ribs finally give way. The darkness pressed against his throat, cold and suffocating. His vision began to fail.
'Is this it?' he thought, his ego finally flickering. 'A nameless death in a shadow-tomb?'
The impact with the main deck was a dull thud that rattled the marrow in Leo's bones. He didn't have time to gasp before the sea of grey-skinned husks collapsed on top of him. It was a dogpile of cold, dead weight, but the Shadow brushed them aside like autumn leaves.
It clutched Leo by the neck and raised him up, Leo fighting frantically to remove the Shadow's tight grip.
"You... you think you can run away from me? Who do you think you are, Aquarius? How will you, the second weakest brother, be able to rescue a whole realm from me? Are you a fool?!"
Suddenly, Leo felt a pain course from his neck to his whole body. The pain was unbearable.
The pain was a slow, agonizing rot that felt like a thousand freezing needles were being driven into every nerve ending in Leo's body. The Shadow's grip on his throat tightened, but it wasn't just crushing his windpipe; it was also injecting the literal essence of madness into his veins.
Leo's legs kicked frantically, his boots scraping against the [Shell of Dread]'s white plating as his body convulsed. He tried to grab the Shadow's wrist, but his fingers felt like lead. Every time he touched the entity's skin, a fresh jolt of agony surged through his arms, making his muscles lock and seize.
"I... I..." Leo wheezed, the blood in his mouth making his words sound like a wet rattle. "I... will... destroy you..."
"You are a failure!" the Shadow roared, the voice vibrating through Leo's skull until his vision blurred.
With a casual, brutal flick, the Shadow slammed Leo face-first into the main mast. The wood cracked under the impact. Leo didn't even have time to slide to the deck before a black-veined hand pinned him against the splintering timber.
Then, the Shadow reached out with its other hand, its fingers elongating into jagged, obsidian claws. Methodically, it drove one claw into the gap of Leo's shoulder armor.
Leo's scream was muffled by the blood in his helmet, a raw, guttural sound that tore through the silence of the deck. The pain was so intense it bypassed his brain's ability to process it; his world turned into a white void of pure suffering.
"Where is your pride now?" the Shadow hissed, leaning in until its black-pit eyes were inches from Leo's flickering crimson ones.
"Where is the arrogant soul? You are weak and will always be weak."
The Shadow twisted the claw.
Leo's back arched, his spine threatening to snap against the mast. He could feel his ribs grating against each other with every shallow, panicked breath. The [Shell of Dread] hissed. He turned, his eyes frantically searching for Lyra.
He saw her. She was being held down by five shadow-soldiers, her face pressed against the deck, her eyes wide with a horror that was worse than the pain. She was watching him be dismantled, her beautiful lady facade completely shattered by the reality of their defeat.
The Shadow noticed his gaze and let out a chilling, hollow laugh.
"Watch her, then. Watch her realize that it's all over."
The entity grabbed Leo's left leg and pulled. There was a sickening pop as the hip joint was forced out of its socket. Leo didn't scream this time; his voice had given out, leaving him with only a ragged, sobbing gasp.
He was being treated like a doll by a bored child. The Shadow punched him in the gut, the blow denting the white metal inward until it bit into Leo's stomach. He coughed up a thick spray of crimson that coated the inside of his visor, blinding him.
He was drowning in his own blood, pinned to a mast by a monster that called him brother, while the thousands of people he had promised to save were just feet away, waiting for their turn to be erased.
'Tsk...' Leo thought, his consciousness slipping into the grey. 'I really... am... a shitty person.'