Davina Jones had now turned into something akin to an abomination.
It could not be called a monster because of how it looked. It could not be called a human because of the terror it brought. It was something between a bridge of flesh and nightmare, a fusion of the woman she had been and the blood that flowed through her veins.
Her eyes were dark red.
As if drenched in the thickest of blood. The whites were gone. The irises were gone. There was only red deep, endless, hungry. They burned with a light that was not light, a fire that came from somewhere beyond the physical.
Her face remained partly normal.
But it was as if roots grew on it dark, twisted, organic. They spread from her cheeks to her forehead, from her jaw to her neck, composing a dense, thick black fog that pulsed with each heartbeat. The roots were alive. They moved. They breathed.
Her teeth each of them sharper than a newly forged blade spit out acid and fire. They looked like iron, dark and gleaming, and upon contact with the acid that poured from her throat, they ignited into flames.
Her arms had mutated into giant tentacles.
One of her arms bore sixty-nine large ones thick, muscular, deadly. Each tentacle was covered in suckers that dripped with a corrosive liquid. Anything they touched was melted within moments. Wood dissolved. Steel rusted. Flesh turned to sludge.
She destroyed the ship.
Her tentacles slammed against the hull CRASH! splitting it into two, scattering debris across the water, sending pirates flying into the sea. The vessel that had carried the Black Ledger's men broke apart, its wood shattering, its sails burning, its body dying.
The Black Ledger was forced to get up.
His composure that cold, calculating mask cracked for a minute. His chair tumbled away. His black book fluttered in the wind. His eyes widened at the sight of the monster that had been Davina Jones.
He shouted.
"ALL MEN! RETREAT!"
His voice cut through the chaos sharp, urgent, desperate.
"A MONSTER! IT'S A MONSTER!"
Every single one of the pirates began to run.
They fled from the broken ship leaping onto other vessels, swimming through the dark water, scrambling over debris. Their faces were twisted with fear. Their bodies were shaking. Their minds were screaming.
But not all of them could make it.
Every roar that Davina made had a great force. The sound was not just sound it was pressure. It was impact. As soon as it came in contact with their bodies, they were killed. The force messed up their internal organs, shattered their bones, burst their hearts.
Only those who were fast were able to make it.
But even upon that, their survival was not certain.
The Black Ledger turned.
His face was gleaming not with fear, not with horror, but with something else. He noticed too late. His eyes tracked the pattern of her roars, felt the rhythm of her calls, understood the purpose of her cries.
They were not normal.
She was calling.
From beneath the sea, monsters rose.
All of a sudden, a sharp, long blade rose from the sea.
It was a great starfish.
Its body was made out of the shell of a snail thick, curved, impenetrable. Horns like those of a rhinoceros covered its body sharp, jagged, deadly. And at its head, it had a great, long blade curved, gleaming, absolute.
It slashed through his men in a second.
SHLIK! SHLIK! SHLIK!
Bodies fell. Blood sprayed. The blade cut through flesh and bone like they were nothing, reducing their numbers faster than he could even react to it.
But yet instead of displaying fear
This man threw his book of anatomy to the sea.
The leather splashed into the water, the pages soaking, the ink bleeding, the knowledge drowning. He did not care. He smiled.
He wanted to cut it open.
He wanted to understand how such a creature was able to live.
It felt truly fun to him.
On the other sides, the support navy vessels the ones that had come to help, the ones that had destroyed Davina Jones's ship were being attacked.
Great monsters of all kinds rose from the depths.
Creatures with tentacles and claws and jaws that could swallow ships whole. Beasts with scales that could deflect cannonballs and fangs that could pierce steel. Abominations that should not exist, that could not exist, that did exist.
As Davina Jones continued to roar, the sea beasts got stronger and stronger.
They grew in size.
Their bodies swelled. Their muscles thickened. Their power multiplied. The sea itself seemed to respond to her call, to bend to her will, to become an extension of her rage.
Gareth lay on his sea beast, atop a destroyed pirate ship.
He had made a graveyard of pirate ships that belonged to the Iron Lantern. Hundreds of pirates killed. Their bodies floated in the water. Their vessels sank into the depths. Their screams echoed in his ears.
He was tired.
His body ached. His mind reeled. His breath came in ragged, uneven gasps. Blood dripped from his wounds. Sweat stung his eyes. His will was nearly spent.
But even if there was nothing remaining to keep him going
He would still go.
The beast he was on then roared.
The sound was different from before. Not a command. Not a challenge. Something deeper. Something that trembled through its body, through his body, through the water around them.
It was losing control.
in the space between the abomination's rampage and the devil's exhaustion, between the sea beasts that rose and the will that refused to break.
Davina roared.
Gareth held on.
And the Infinite Sea churned.