"Ughhhnn! Pull harder, you idiots!" Meera screamed.
They were hauling the rope with everything they had, but the overwhelming pull of the Scar was fighting them for every single inch. They were close to the ship, yet the distance felt impossible to close.
It didn't help that the ship itself was desperately trying to sail away from the vortex as fast as the wind would allow, exactly as Meera had ordered, given how dangerously close they had drifted to the abyss.
"We're trying, Captain!"
"It's too heavy, Captain!"
"What did you just say...?"
When Meera's glowing blue eyes shot up toward the deck, every man on the line flinched and immediately began heaving with frantic, renewed strength.
"Pull, dumbass!"
"Do you want to die!?!"
As they dragged her upward, Meera groaned, her arm locked strongly around Ulrich's chest.
"Hey! You're alive, right?! You had better be alive, I'm telling you!" She shouted, looking down at his unconscious face.
But Ulrich offered no answer.
His skin was freezing cold, and though she couldn't pinpoint exactly why, something about him felt different.
She gripped him tighter as the crew hauled them higher and higher, until finally, with a heavy splash of seawater, they were dragged over the rail and collapsed onto the deck.
Meera coughed up a lungful of brine, landing hard on the wooden planks. Her long, sea-blue hair was entirely drenched, plastered flat against her face. She quickly brushed it back with both hands, struggling to her feet as she looked down at Ulrich.
Edmar stepped forward, staring at the noble lying on his side. He was soaked from head to toe, wearing barely more than scraps of cloth. His expensive breeches had been torn at the knees, and his fine shirt was in tatters.
Laying there like that, he didn't look alive in the slightest.
"Told you, Captain. He's dead."
"What kind of idiot goes near the Scar anyway?"
"The real question is, how the hell did he manage to escape in one piece?!"
"And I swear I saw something in the water pulling him, guys!"
"Must have been the Leviathan. We need to get the hell out of here, right now."
The crew rapidly descended into a panicked clamour as the terrifying reality of the situation finally hit them. They had just pulled a man out of the Scar, in one piece.
They had never heard of a single ship or boat surviving the Maelstrom, let alone a lone man. The fact that they had managed to get this close and survive was a miracle in itself, though they all silently attributed that entirely to their Captain's unnatural luck.
But as for how Ulrich had survived... they didn't have the faintest idea.
"Shut up, you idiots," Meera snapped. She dropped to her knees beside him and rolled him onto his back. "There's water in his lungs," she said, resting her palm flat against his chest.
"Of course there is, Captain! He drowned!" One of the sailors cackled, only to immediately receive a slap to the back of the head from Edmar.
Meera ignored them. Her hand remained pressed against his chest as she leaned down, her face hovering mere inches above his.
She stared at his pale features for a couple of seconds before she pressed her lips tightly against his.
The crew gasped, and a few immediately started whistling and catcalling, but Meera entirely ignored them, focusing entirely on the task at hand.
The hand resting on his chest began to glow with a faint, pulsing blue light. She deepened the kiss, and slowly blue veins began to glow vividly along her neck. The luminescent lines crept upward, spreading across her cheeks until they reached the corners of her closed eyes.
Her throat worked as she swallowed several times. Then she pulled back sharply, turning her head to spit a mouthful of seawater onto the deck.
Without missing a beat, she sealed her lips over his once more, her hand still glowing against his chest, as the entire crew fell silent, mesmerized by the display.
Meera furrowed her turquoise glittering brows in concentration before slowly lifting her hand away from Ulrich's chest. As she did, delicate, bluish threads, looking exactly like ribbons of flowing water stretched between her glowing palm and his chest, connecting them.
She held the connection steady, and then further deepened the kiss, her tongue plunging boldly into his mouth.
Finally, she brought her hand down hard, striking him sharply on the chest.
Ulrich's red eyes snapped wide open instantly.
The first thing he registered was Meera's lips pressed against his.
Seeing his eyes fly open, Meera immediately squeezed hers shut and continued, or rather, pretended to continue her emergency treatment.
Ulrich, entirely out of breath and unable to expel the water trapped in his throat, reached his hands up weakly, gripping Meera's shoulders.
Setting aside his physical exhaustion, he felt as though his mind were spinning sixty times a minute. The sudden, intense sensation of her lips and tongue completely overwhelmed his dulled senses.
After a few more seconds, Meera finally pulled back, spitting a last mouthful of water over her shoulder. She remained on her knees, smiling down at him.
"Back from the dead?" She grinned.
Ulrich immediately tilted his head to the side, spitting out the remaining seawater that had pooled in his throat onto the deck.
He gasped for air, placing an unsteady hand against the wooden planks to prop himself up until he was sitting upright.
He continued to pull in heavy, ragged breaths, looking around with blurry, unfocused eyes as if he had been locked in total darkness for months.
Every single member of Meera's crew stared back at him, jaws slacked open in stunned disbelief.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Ulrich's gaze finally settled on Meera, who was still smiling at him.
"You came back," he said.
"A promise is a promise. I am a woman of my word," she replied, her expression turning solemn, maybe too much for her…
"Even though it's been more than seven days—"
Grover started to speak, but another sailor instantly clamped a hand over his mouth.
Ulrich glanced briefly at Grover before turning his attention back to Meera.
"A week," he said softly.
"More or less," Meera nodded. "And I cannot believe you actually came back alive. What kind of freak are you?"
Ulrich rested a weak arm across his bent knee, still breathing hard.
"I had a broken mana core," he said.
"Broken?" She asked, surprised.
Ulrich stared up at the dark sky.
"An extreme case," he added. "I had, at most, until my thirtieth year before I would have died."
Meera's eyes widened in shock.
She had never heard of anything like that. She knew a broken core could be deeply painful, but she had never heard of a case so extreme that it was terminal which was entirely normal, considering Ulrich's specific condition was the only recorded case in history.
"So," he said, brushing his drenched, crimson hair back from his forehead, "it was either die quietly in my bed, or die trying to survive. I chose the latter."
"You are insane," Meera replied, a slight grimace twisting her features.
Ulrich lowered his gaze back to her, and a faint smile curled on his lips.
"Perhaps."
Meera's heart skipped several beats at the sight of his smile, a sudden rush of pink flooding her cheeks.
"Y—You know..."
Thuddd!
Before she could finish her sentence, the entire ship tilted sideways, groaning loudly as if it had just been struck by another ship.
"What the hell was that?!" Meera shouted, scrambling to her feet in panic.
"Something hit us on the port side, Captain!"
"Something giant!"
"I—I knew it! It must be the Leviathan!"
Panic instantly spread in the Blue Wind.