The Lotus Archipelago was a thousand miles from the Rust Sea a chain of islands shaped like a blooming flower, connected by bridges of woven light and protected by a barrier that had kept the Shattering at bay for three centuries.
But the barrier was failing.
Lee saw it as their ship approached a shimmering dome of energy that flickered and pulsed, cracks spreading across its surface like spiderwebs. Through the cracks, he could see smoke rising from the islands. Fires. Destruction.
"We're too late," Taro whispered.
"Not yet," Ren said. "The barrier is still holding. That means the Shadow Weaver hasn't breached the inner islands. He's still working his way through the outer defenses."
Their ship a rusted freighter called the Broken Promise, crewed by the most desperate sailors in the Rust Sea crept through the waves. The water around the archipelago was thick with debris: broken ships, shattered bridges, the floating bodies of warriors who had died fighting.
Kira stood at the bow, her hands clenched, small flames licking at her fingers. "How many do you think have died?"
"Too many," Lee said. "But not as many as will die if we don't stop him."
The ship passed through a gap in the barrier a hole that hadn't been there a week ago and entered the archipelago's outer ring.
The first island was called Kodama's Rest. It had been a farming community, known for its rice paddies and its peaceful shrines. Now it was a graveyard. The paddies were blackened, the shrines toppled, the bodies... the bodies were everywhere.
But they weren't dead.
Not entirely.
Lee saw them as the ship drifted past figures stumbling through the ruins, their eyes glowing red, their movements jerky and wrong. Puppets. Soul drained. Inyocha had taken their life force, but left their bodies behind to serve as soldiers.
"The Eclipse Engine," Lee said. "This is what it does. It doesn't just kill people. It uses them. Turns them into weapons."
"We have to destroy it," Kira said.
"We have to destroy him," Ren corrected. "The engine is just a tool. Inyocha is the real threat."
Lee said nothing. He was watching the shore, watching the soul drained figures stumble through the ruins, and he was thinking about his brother.
Is this what you wanted, Inyocha? he thought. Is this the world you're trying to build?
No answer came. Only the wind and the waves and the distant sound of screaming.