The vessel continued its course along the calm waters of the delta. The sound of gentle waves lapping against the hull, the soft wind caressing the sails, and the murmurs of the crew made the crossing almost poetic. It was the kind of tranquility that invited daydreaming, introspection, the false illusion of safety.
But Atlas never let anyone forget where they were.
The sky changed.
First came gray clouds forming in the distance, pulled from nothing. Within minutes, the golden sunlight was replaced by a restless twilight, heavy as the silence before a calamity. A thunderclap tore through the sky, and with it, scarlet rain began to fall—not blood, but something similar in color and density, dripping like an omen.
The ship's wheel turned with urgency. Sailors shouted orders. The Church's mages took their positions. The river, once as gentle as a serene lake, began to stir. Waves three meters high rose without natural logic, as if the river itself was trying to cast them out.
Here was a curious fact about this world: in Atlas, even the ocean was an incredibly deadly enemy.
Dungeons, which appeared like magical tumors distorting the world, were not limited to solid ground. Rivers, lakes, and seas could also birth these anomalies. But there was a difference: while land dungeons could be explored, conquered, and overcome… underwater dungeons were untouched territory. Uncharted.
A nightmare even the greatest nations dared not face.
Like those universally hated water levels in every adventure game—always the hardest, always the most unfair. Now imagine that... on a real-world scale. With hundreds of lives at stake. With monsters that defied every known logic.
Something emerged from the depths.
It couldn't be seen clearly. Only its consequences.
A colossal force struck the ship's side. The wood cracked. Magical chains were activated. Lightning continued to streak across the sky, each flash briefly illuminating a distorted silhouette beneath the surface. Tentacles? Gills? Eyes? Nothing could be fully identified, as if the creature itself refused to be understood.
The waves were no longer three meters high. They were thirty.
The river now resembled a furious sea. The vessel of the Church of the Three Fates was no ordinary ship—its magical shields and levitation enchantments provided stability even in extreme situations. But now… even those spells were being pushed to the limit.
Drakk approached the railing, arms crossed, watching with narrowed eyes. The scarlet rain dripped down his thick beard. Behind him, Skaryss kept one hand on the grip of her forge hammer, silent.
"What kind of abomination is that?" she murmured.
"I don't know," Drakk replied. "But whatever it is... it's not too happy we're passing through."
The sky thundered again. The creature dove, preparing for another strike. And the storm roared, as if Atlas itself was screaming.
At a signal, ten mages from the Church of the Three Fates took their positions at the ship's sides. Five on each side, like the tips of a spear poised to be hurled at the storm.
A pale white glow began to form around the central mage in each row, a light so pure it outshone even the lightning in the sky. That glow soon spread to the others around them, like flames spreading from candle to candle in silence.
Then, the counterattack began.
From each side of the ship, two incandescent white orbs rose with a deep hum. They hovered over the mages like miniature moons, slowly rotating in place, and quickly became the only beacons of sanity in that wet, living darkness.
At their peak, the orbs began to pulse. With each pulse, light spread across kilometers, momentarily pushing back the darkness of clouds and sea… and that's when everyone saw what they were facing.
It wasn't a monster. It was a mistake of nature. A cancer of the ocean. A creature clearly born from a dungeon.
Beneath the water, illuminated by the orbs' glow, a colossal shape slithered like a single organism, but it was composed of thousands of fused fish—eyeless, asymmetrical, with exposed, pulsing viscera. Scales had been replaced by living flesh and teeth.
Thousands of teeth.
At the tail… there was no tail. There were hundreds of tentacles, like eels in constant agony, intertwining, merging, and separating as if they were a separate organism altogether. Wherever they passed, the river was left corrupted, stained red—not with blood, but with liquid death.
The orbs pulsed brighter.
An ethereal roar split the heavens, and then, like cannons of the gods, two gleaming beams burst from the orbs—one from each side of the ship. Pure light. Scorching heat. Blessed destruction.
The sound of the explosion shook the ship. The thirty-meter wave that had been forming was vaporized instantly, and a boiling column surged into the sky like a spear of divine mist.
The beam tore a monstrous hole in the aquatic creature—an immense, grotesque gap shaped like a flaming ring, an orion ring of living flesh. The smell of burning and rot exploded into the nostrils of all nearby.
But… the creature did not slow down.
As if it ignored pain—or simply couldn't feel it—the living mass surfaced with a muffled roar, fully revealing its cursed presence. A pillar of flesh and teeth rose like a living wall over the ship.
From the thousands of open mouths, it spewed a black, dense liquid, like the ink of a squid… but this ink was alive. It pulsed like poisoned blood and surged directly toward the ship, intent on swallowing everything.
The storm howled in approval.
The magical shields around the vessel glowed with desperation. A veil of almost-solid white light rose before the pulsing black liquid, blocking it just in time to prevent direct contact with the ship. But despite the immediate success, everyone's vision was suddenly consumed.
It was as if they'd been plunged into a frying pan forgotten in hell.
The ship, which seconds earlier was still visible through the scarlet rain and flickering lightning, now appeared as a charred cylinder, completely shrouded in an opaque, boiling black film. The structure had become a misshapen shell—a floating lump of coal in a world without light.
The monster didn't just attack with force… it spat out concepts. It corrupted matter. It defied logic.
The mages were still trying to understand the substance's nature when a horrific sound—like molten iron—cut through the tense silence.
The shields began to melt.
Cracks opened in the magical barrier that protected them. White fissures cracked like breaking glass, and a viscous liquid began to seep onto the deck.
A few drops escaped containment and dripped onto the wood.
And then… the horror revealed itself.
Like living lava, the drops pierced through the deck wood, rushing abnormally fast through every level of the ship like transcendental acid. They created micro-holes—thin but dangerous lines, as if a new kind of cosmic termite had awakened.
Screams rang out.
With trained synchrony, the mages chanted in unison. A new magic circle opened above the ship, and a colossal hurricane began to form outside, spinning with brutal centrifugal force.
The vortex pulled the black liquid back like the world's drain, sucking the deadly goo away from the weakened shields. The ink spun through the air, gradually exposed to the magical wind that evaporated it with shrill whistles.
But the monster wasn't done.
Its tail emerged from the water—a wall of twisted tentacles. Blue sparks began to crackle across its surface, flickering like the synapses of a diseased brain.
Then, with a piercing hiss, hundreds of lightning bolts were released all at once.
The electric charge split the sky in multiple directions and struck what remained of the defensive barrier. The goo still clinging to the shields acted as the perfect conductor, and wherever the lightning touched, explosions erupted with devastating violence.
The ship shook as if the whole of Atlas had trembled.
The hull was thrown backward, pushed like a leaf in the wind, sliding violently over the waves.
Deep cracks echoed, fractures appeared in the lower structure of the ship—serpentine fissures winding through the wooden corridors.
The heat surged absurdly. The deck felt like a furnace. The air, now dry and thick like powdered charcoal, made breathing difficult.
The mages at the railings lost their footing.
They were thrown like dolls onto the deck, crashing into ropes, barrels, and half-melted structures.
Drakk sighed.
His eyes, hollow and tired, turned back to the creature now floating over the river's violent surface like a bad omen. The black substance that had once corroded the magical shields still dissolved in the air, but the white light shields that had protected the vessel shattered with the glassy sound of something sacred breaking—golden shards falling like glowing splinters of glass.
The mages' distress was clear.
Concern finally flickered in the eyes of even the veterans.
Even for men and women accustomed to the aquatic dangers of Atlas, they knew well: this creature was different. Too strong, too fast, too intelligent. The things that usually emerged from underwater dungeons didn't act with such synchronicity, nor did they demonstrate strategy. But this one did.
From the raging sea, a second creature—identical, without the gaping hole in its belly—rose like a monolith of flesh and fury. As grotesque as its mutilated twin, it emerged with a surge of black water, forming a living wall beside the vessel.
The two aberrations positioned themselves like demonic gargoyles, ready to spit out the end.
The two white orbs conjured by the mages continued their assault, launching pure energy blasts—beams of light that tore through clouds and vaporized water for kilometers ahead. The scent of ozone and burned flesh mingled with the red rain still falling.
The creatures roared. The impact struck them, warping parts of their grotesque bodies, but it wasn't enough to stop them. The aberrations merely staggered back for a moment and then, in perfect harmony, turned back toward the ship.
Both mouths opened.
Their tails crackled.
More ink. More thunder.
More end.
Amid the chaos, Drakk walked.
Slow. Solemn. His steps made the warped wood of the deck groan. The black marble case on his back remained still, indifferent—as if it weighed nothing on his broad shoulder.
The air around him fell silent.
Skaryss watched from a distance, wordless, as if witnessing a prayer being spoken.
And then, the two creatures unleashed their attacks simultaneously.
Black ink, like the absence of everything.
Lightning, like a god's wrath.
The mages retaliated with everything they had.
Magic circles flared, runes exploded, winds screamed.
But everyone knew… it wouldn't be enough.
Drakk stopped.
In the palm of his hand, a small red glow of prana began to form.
A hammer—rudimentary, like the tool of any beginner blacksmith. But there was nothing ordinary about it.
The energy that flowed was ancient, powerful, primordial. Every atom pulsed with the fury of a thousand forges.
And then… the hammer began to grow.
First, the size of an anvil. Then a cart. Then a horse. Then a ship. And finally… larger than the vessel itself.
The red aura around him lit up the world like an aurora.
Drakk raised the hammer with a single hand. A gesture without haste. Without strain. Without anger.
Only necessity.
And then… he brought it down. A single swing.
The world trembled.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM"
The sky exploded in light.
Sound vanished.
Time froze.
Space screamed.
All were blinded.
When the light finally faded, the sun shone once more as if nothing had happened. The black clouds were gone, swept away by a wind that shouldn't exist.
The creatures… were gone.
The sea, once violent and red, was now a calm mirror, tinted only by the reflection of the clear sky.
But the ship…
The ship was in the sky.
More than fifty meters above, in free fall.
Drakk's hammer had obliterated everything in front of it.
Aberrations.
Waves.
Clouds.
Part of the world.
The impact had catapulted the vessel as if it were made of paper.
And now, with the threat gone, the mages realized a new problem.
"SHIT!!! We're… falling!" one of them shouted, watching the deck crack mid-air.