Zain jumped off my back and ran.
I watched him disappear into the interior, his steps unsteady but determined. Blood trailed behind him—not enough to kill, but enough to worry. He'd pushed himself too hard in that fight with the armored one. The Shaman of War had cost him.
Good luck, little berserker.
I turned back to the adventurers.
Their leader was gone. Slipped away while I was distracted, probably during the chaos of Zain's escape. Coward. I knew it from the moment I saw her. Merchants' blood runs thin.
The others still fought—slashing, stabbing, clawing at each other like animals fighting over scraps. Twenty of them remained. Maybe thirty. Hard to count when everyone kept dying.
I walked to the dead mage and knelt. His eyes were still open, glassy, staring at nothing. The rhino horn had done its work cleanly—pierced straight through his sternum. Quick death. Better than most would get today.
I grabbed the silver ribbon tied to his belt and yanked. It came free with a soft rip.
One ribbon. Not enough. But a start.
I stood and scanned the deck. Bodies everywhere. Some fresh. Some already cooling. The rain washed blood toward the rails, painting the wood in shades of pink and red. The smell was starting to turn—copper and voided bowels and something else, something sweet that meant organs.
I'd smelled worse. But not by much.
Around me, the fighting continued. Two adventurers clashed near the mast—a woman with twin daggers and a man built like a brawler. She was faster. He was stronger. Neither would survive the next minute if they kept trading like that.
Fools.
I walked past them. Not my fight. Not my problem.
Then my vision shifted.
What?
Colors warped. Bent. Broke.
The sky went blue—then yellow—then black in the span of a heartbeat. The deck beneath my feet turned pink, then violet, then white so bright I had to squint.
I stumbled. Caught myself on a broken railing.
What's happening?
I looked around. Other fighters had stopped mid-swing. Some clutched their heads. Some dropped their weapons. A woman near the fallen mast was on her knees, retching.
So it wasn't just me.
A spell.
Someone was casting on ALL of us. Over a thousand people, spread across the entire ship, and whoever this was had enough power to reach everyone.
No rookie mage could do that. No C-rank. No B-rank either, probably.
This was something else.
"So you're the one who's been attracting attention."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Calm. Amused. Like we were all just toys and someone had finally found the one worth playing with.
I spun, axes raised. "Who's there?!"
The colors snapped back to normal.
A man walked through the crowd.
Hands in his coat pockets. Face hidden by a wide-brimmed hat. He moved like he owned the deck, like the bodies and blood and chaos were just decorations someone had put out for his amusement.
Rookies parted around him like water around a stone. Some scrambled backward. Others just froze, caught between fight and flight.
He didn't even look at them.
He walked straight toward me.
"You did this?" I dropped into my stance, both axes angled for maximum coverage. "Who are you?"
He stopped ten feet away. Slowly, deliberately, he reached up and removed his hat.
Sharp features. Goatee trimmed close. Dark hair, short enough to show his ears. His eyes scanned me like I was a puzzle he'd been given and he was already figuring out the solution.
He smiled.
"My name is Dominio Alreco." The smile widened. "Remember it."
I lunged.
My axes came down where he'd stood—but he was already gone. The blades tore through the deck, sending splinters and wood dust exploding in every direction.
Fast.
I spun, scanning for movement.
A whisper of cloth to my left.
I dodged—barely—as a dagger grazed my ribs. Not deep. Just enough to let me know he could have gone deeper if he'd wanted.
Assassin, then. Or rogue. Something fast.
I pivoted, bringing both axes around in a wide arc. He ducked under them, rolled, came up five feet away. His coat was slightly torn at the shoulder.
"You ruined my favorite coat, ogre lady." He brushed at the fabric like it was the most important thing in the world.
"Too bad."
I charged again.
Faster this time. Lumin flooded my legs, my arms, my core. Every step cracked the deck. Every swing left afterimages in the air.
He dodged everything.
Left. Right. Duck. Spin. Lean back so far I thought he'd fall—then twist away at the last instant. Like he knew where my axes would be before I swung them.
"Man, for your size, you're really fast." He grinned, breathless but still smiling. "Impressive."
He darted in, blade aimed at my forearm.
I let him come.
His dagger struck—
And shattered.
He stared at the broken hilt. "Eh?"
I punched his face.
He flew like a rock from a sling, tumbling across the deck before crashing into the far wall. Wood splintered around him. He slumped for a heartbeat—then pushed himself up, shaking his head.
"That all you got?" I raised both axes, Lumin already gathering at the blades. "Just changing colors?"
I threw three air slashes in quick succession. Crescents of compressed wind screamed toward him, each one capable of carving through steel.
He ripped off his coat and hurled it at the first slash.
BOOM.
Smoke exploded everywhere—thick, choking, blinding. I stumbled back, coughing, eyes streaming. When I blinked the worst away, I couldn't see anything.
Then my vision went black.
Not smoke-black. True black. Like someone had snuffed out the world.
My body locked up. Muscles rigid. Joints frozen. I couldn't move—couldn't even twitch.
What—
A woman's voice, close: "Your strategy worked."
So he wasn't alone. A mage. A binding spell, layered on top of the color magic.
I strained against the invisible chains. Nothing.
Then—
Pain.
My stomach. Open. Bleeding.
Another cut. My arm. Another. My leg.
Dominio was working on me, fast and precise, while the mage held me still.
Heat bloomed across my chest. Fire. Focused and intense, slamming into me again and again. The rain did nothing to weaken it—if anything, the steam made it worse.
I screamed. Or tried to. No sound came out.
No. No no no.
I flexed. Muscles straining. Veins pressing against my skin. The chains held.
Come on. Focus.
I remembered his voice. The old man who'd given me these axes. The words he'd said when I was small and scared and didn't understand the world.
"You'll be a mountain. You'll be remembered. But when you shrink to a pebble—and you will—they'll forget. They'll kick you. Play with you. Discard you. But mountains? Mountains don't stay down."
I wasn't a pebble.
I was a mountain.
Lumin surged through me. Through blood. Through bone. Through every cell that remembered being small and scared and fighting anyway.
Harder. Harder. HARDER.
The chains shattered.
"Wait! How is that possible?!" The woman's voice cracked—genuine panic now.
"So they weren't lying about ogre strength." Dominio's voice, closer than I expected.
Blind. But my senses were back. Heightened beyond normal. I could hear her breathing—fast, frightened. I could hear him moving—soft footsteps, circling.
I ran toward her.
"Wait!" she screamed.
I punched—
Nothing. Air.
He'd moved her. Fast. Faster than I could track blind.
Footsteps. Multiple. Then cuts. Everywhere. Across my arms, my legs, my torso, my face. Dozens of them, shallow but bleeding, each one a message: I could kill you. I'm choosing not to.
I focused on the sounds.
Hard step. Soft step. Hard step. Soft step.
He's not stupid. He'll try to trick me. Soft step when I expect hard.
Hard step. Soft step. Hard step. Soft step.
Pattern. Predictable. Too predictable. Which means—
Hard step. Soft step. Hard step. Soft step. Ha—
I grabbed his face.
"Got you." I smiled wide, feeling his jaw in my palm. "You badger."
My left hand seized his hair. My two lower fists hammered his abdomen—once, twice, three times, four, five, each punch wetter than the last. Blood sprayed. Bones cracked.
The mage's spells weakened. Dominio was their brain. Take him out, I win.
I hurled him at her.
My vision returned.
Colors bled back into the world—slowly at first, then all at once. The deck. The bodies. The rain. Dominio lying crumpled against the far wall. The woman kneeling beside him, her face white with shock.
I looked at her. "Your leader's dead. Too bad."
Her expression didn't change.
Neutral. Docile. Calm.
That's not the face of someone whose ally just died.
Unless—
Blood trickled down my neck.
I knelt, hand clamped over the wound. Now I could see the damage—cuts everywhere. Hundreds of tiny slices, each one weeping red. I looked like I'd been fed through a grinder.
This is why humans wear armor.
I stared at her. Her blue eyes never left mine. Piercing. Calm. Wrong.
Movement to my left.
Dominio stood there.
Hands in his pockets. Cigarette in his mouth. His coat was gone, his shirt bloodied, but he was standing. Smiling. Alive.
I looked at the corpse. Back at him.
"How?!"
He pulled out the cigarette and exhaled—smoke shifting from gray to green to peach as it curled toward the rain.
"Listen." He walked toward me, each step unhurried. "I understand. We all understand. You're strong. We've seen it. Felt it. Others paid the price for challenging it."
He stopped before me. Knelt to my level.
"But here's the difference." He tapped his bicep. "You rely on strength here." Then his temple. "But you lack the strength here."
His eyes locked on mine. Serious now. No games. No smile.
"You're a strong woman. I can't deny it. Stronger than me, even. But humans?" He gestured vaguely at the chaos around us. "We've been through enough bullshit throughout history. Wars. Famines. Plagues. Monsters. Things that should have ended us a hundred times over."
He leaned closer.
"And we're still here. Still on top of the food chain. You know why?"
I didn't answer.
He tapped his temple again.
"Intellect."
Then—
He jumped back.
A blade flew between us. Grazed his cheek. Drew blood.
We both turned.
There, at the edge of the deck, blade raised, eyes burning with barely contained fury—
Zain.
His claymore gleamed in the rain. His new armor caught the light. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths—not exhausted anymore. Not broken.
Ready.
Dominio touched his bleeding cheek. Looked at the blood on his fingers. Then at Zain.
He smiled.
"Well, well." He put his cigarette back in his mouth. "The berserker finally joins the party."
Zain didn't answer. Didn't move. Just stared at Dominio with an expression I couldn't read.
But I knew one thing.
The fight wasn't over.
It was just getting interesting.