Heretical Fishing

Book 5: Chapter 48: For the Love of Seafood

Book 5: Chapter 48: For the Love of Seafood

Heretical Fishing

The reason for their breakthrough was as simple as it was contradictory. The longer Paul considered it, the more he wanted to laugh.

Being a commander or leader meant giving orders, but that didn’t mean you were a dictator. No matter how much experience one had, it was still possible to make a mistake. Which was why it was important—vital, even—for a commander to take the opinions of others into account. It was even more vital in this case because Paul, Toby, and Theresa were three individuals of the same rank. If ever they disagreed, the only way for them to remain a unified front was through compromise.

Which was exactly what they had just done. Compromise. And, somehow, that had been significant enough to trigger their breakthrough.

By pushing their ideal aside...

What kind of an ideal wanted you to defy it?

Looking back, it made a weird sort of sense to Paul. His partial breakthrough had also stemmed from defiance, when he’d denied the obtusely pragmatic part of himself that had wanted to subjugate Toby and Theresa. This time too, he had ignored his ideal, forcing it to the side so he could make what he believed was the right decision. Toby had done the same.

And Theresa had been ignoring her ideal the whole damned time, following her instincts to shove it aside and do what she thought was right. In holding on to their ideals, Toby and Paul had believed she was being immature—indulging her childlike tendencies despite the stakes at hand. Perhaps that was all she’d been doing, but it didn’t matter now.

Their breakthrough had arrived.

Paul’s entire body crawled with power. It pressed into his skin and flowed down into the channels his chi ran along. There, he felt it push against the System’s influence. The System relented, removing the shackles that reduced his strength.

Paul bellowed, and so did Toby and Theresa.

***

My smile was so wide that my cheeks ached, the ascension before me even more enjoyable than the arrival of Barry, Dodge, and ten crab-people had been. The battlefield had frozen again. Even the god-empress and Cinnamon were unmoving, the god-empress floating above the ocean on a platform of golden light, my bunny pal perched atop the mast of a lesser ship.

The three little rascals had really done it. They’d finished their partial breakthrough from less than a week ago, and the System had removed the limits placed on their cores. Power flooded out into the world, announcing to the universe that they’d earned the System’s approval.

Before I could consider the implications of that, Eustace asked a rather reasonable question.

“What is wrong with you people?”

I smiled over at the Seer’s baffled expression, her gaze locked on Paul, Toby, and Theresa.

Despite how close we were, and the fact a breakthrough of this calibre usually resulted in a massive explosion, I knew we had nothing to worry about. Our three tacticians wobbled on their feet, but their resolves were ironclad, and they ordered the explosive chi to flow out across the bay in an intentional web whose purpose was beyond me.

What wasn’t beyond me was the part of that web that flowed into my body. I took an involuntary gasp of air as it refilled a third of my essence. No. That wasn’t it. I frowned down at my abdomen. Whatever they’d done had increased the capacity of my core, letting it draw essence from my surroundings. I glanced up at the children, who had been caught by Teddy, but were now once more standing with their own strength. Then, I looked out at the bay. The brilliant red aura surrounding my friends glowed brighter. Just like mine, the capacity of their cores had increased.

Fern repeated Eustace’s question. “What is wrong with you people...?”

“Huh?” I asked, feeling much more jovial now that I had some spare chi. “The children back in your kingdom don’t ascend as commanders?”

“We don’t let children come to battles,” Eustace said. “Let alone lead them.”

“There’s your problem! How are your younguns gonna learn if you don’t let them get any experience? This Kingdom of Light of yours has it all backwards.” I turned to grin at them. Besides, that was nothing. You’ll find this next bit downright shocking.”

Maria groaned at my pun, then yelled “Forty!” as Barry leaped onto a neighboring ship, grabbed some fella by the waist, and suplexed him. The entire vessel broke in half. Barry leaped onto the next boat, but before he could dole out any more sweet moves, she arrived.

Corporal Claws didn’t so much streak through the sky as she just kinda... appeared. She floated a hundred meters or so above the ocean in her elemental form, her body blue and translucent. Held to the side was RPM, gripped by the scruff, limbs splayed wide as he let out a villainous chuckle. Protruding from her pocket, I could see the hilt of a... was that a sword? She held a multifaceted dagger in her other forepaw, and as she angled it down toward the god-empress, she grinned, revealing her needle-sharp teeth.

The god-empress stared back in defiance, finally drawn from her stupor. She summoned a golden spear in her right hand and hefted it back, aiming it for Claws’s glowing form.

“Slimes, aerial forces,” Paul said. “Withdraw. You too, Pistachio and Shelly. Stop firing. Don’t draw attention to the shore.”

“Cinnamon,” Toby said. “Stand by.”

“Claws, RPM,” Theresa whispered. “Strike once.”

Corporal Claws obeyed. A trill screamed from her throat as she started gathering chi in her dagger, then launched RPM down toward Theoris. Spherical, the devious raccoon raced down towards the Prime Cadre and Seer Anius, who took up defensive stances as Slimes and the pelicans retreated.

Just before RPM struck, Claws’s elemental chi exploded from the dagger. The bolt of lightning that left its blade was thicker than Theoris’s mast. It tore a jagged line down toward the god-empress, whose eyes went wide as the bolt approached, arced past her, then slammed into some poor bloke in the center of the flotilla.

The god-empress frowned down at her follower as he was sent flying over the decks of five different ships, everyone in his path leaping out of the way. At the sixth ship, a woman finally took pity on him, spreading her arms and standing in the path of his lifeless form—only for her to get flooded with the electricity still wreathing his body when she caught him. Both enemies collapsed on the spot, their cores emptied, rendering them unconscious.

“Interesting,” Paul said, seemingly to himself.

“Thirty nine!” Maria called. A ship at the back of the flotilla had succumbed to the crustaceans atop it, who’d then leaped across to the closest vessel.

What Paul said next was sent out to the whole battlefield. “If we deplete their cores with a single strike, their allies can’t help them recover. Focus on powerful strikes that—Claws! What are you doing? Theresa said to strike once!”

“Yes she did...” chittered Claws, her grin even wider than before. “My dagger’s passive made me miss. It didn’t—” Claws cut off as the god-empress’s golden spear rocketed toward her heart.

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My stomach dropped when I sensed the spear’s power.

The god-empress had been drawing more and more chi from the surrounding containers, and the chi now condensed into the single projectile about to pierce Claws made every hair on the back of my neck rise. I wasn’t sure I

could take a direct hit, even if I hadn’t surrendered most of my essence.

Claws scrambled to dodge, but the spear was too fast. It caught her in the side, and I took a step forward, reaching for my chi, but there was nothing I could do. I stared up in horror as Claws clutched her side, doubled over, and slowly, weakly, lifted her head.

Maria reached for her chi and summoned a pink cloud of essence. I offered my power to her, praying it would be enough. We both froze when we caught the look in Claws’s eyes.

“It didn’t count,” she finished, flashing her sharp grin as she straightened and let go of her side, revealing a patch of fur that had been shaved off by the golden spear’s deadly tip.

Before the god-empress could release another attack, Claws released hers. The bolt of lightning thundered down, looked poised to tear its way right through the enemy monarch, but again turned at the last second.

It struck somewhere else this time, but only because the mage it was targeting had recently been sent flying roughly six ships over. Claws howled with laughter as it cracked down towards the exact same bloke as before.

Two of the mages on that ship had gone to help the unconscious enemies. Claws’s lightning wasn’t like normal lightning. Rather than seeking the path of least resistance to the ground, it sought chi-filled cores. Thus, the pair of well-intentioned enemies trying to assist their fallen comrades were much more attractive targets than the two whose cores had already been drained.

The lightning forked and slammed into both of them, hammering them down into the deck.

“Thirty eight...” Maria said somberly, biting the inside of her lip as the ship blew apart.

Like me, she knew how close we’d just been to losing a friend. If Claws could be destroyed by a direct hit from one of those spears, anyone could.

“That-one-didn’t-count-either!” screeched Claws.

Paul, Toby, and Theresa ignored her, instead turning towards Borks, who was sitting by my side. “Daggers,” they said.

Borks opened a portal and leaped through. I didn’t see where the other side appeared.

Claws’s third blast of lightning slammed directly into the god-empress’s chest, causing Claws to look a little annoyed. Her disappointment didn’t last long. She let out a victorious trill as the god-empress’s smoking form crashed through the deck of a ship towards the front of the Divine Fleet, oblitering it. A plume of seawater fountained into the air, carrying with it the debris of the destroyed vessel.

“Thirty seven!” chittered Claws, zipping in my direction.

Stunned as they were, two of the Prime Cadre were present enough to launch attacks at Claws as she shot by, Evan with a spear, and a woman with a volley of arrows. The tricksy otter easily dodged the projectiles. She retorted with small bolts of lightning shot from the tips of her dual-wielded finger guns. Both mages flared with golden light as their chi countered the relatively weak strikes.

I frowned. Where was RPM? Wasn’t he supposed to be battling the six people aboard the Theoris? He was nowhere to be seen. Before I could even consider using some of my limited chi to find him, Claws slammed into my chest. I caught her, and she rested her rump on my arms as she grinned at Maria and me.

When she saw our expressions, her joy faltered, replaced by confusion, then understanding. She nuzzled my chin and stroked my face, consoling me the only way she knew how. “I’m fine, Master!” She flopped to her back and rolled onto her side. “See? The evil lady only hit my fur! Everything is fine!”

I wished I believed her. The sharp pain from earlier stabbed into my chest.

Though my doubt hadn’t returned, I couldn’t help but worry for the safety of my friends. I knew that letting them struggle was the best way to ensure Tropica thrived long term, but that didn’t alleviate my anxiety. Any one of them could be struck down by the god-empress if she released another of those spears.

I finally spotted Borks. His right legs were standing on Pelly, his left legs on Bill. The rest of the pelicans trailed close behind. They were dropping weapons. Daggers. Dozens of them. The multifaceted blades rained down, each finding their way into one of the claws, hands, or paws of Tropica’s forces.

An assault shrimp leveled its new weapon at an opposing mage. Water chi flowed from it and slammed into the woman. Golden light flared around her, then faded completely. She collapsed, her core emptied by the strike. The assault prawn’s eyes twinkled as they stared at the weapon. He poured more chi into the dagger, then set the tip of its blade against the deck.

Thirty six.

Seeing that ship blown apart, a recon crab redirected its dagger from an enemy mage to a neighboring vessel. The dagger’s passive kicked in, making the blast do a 180 and obliterate the ship that crab stood atop. Claws laughed so hard she almost choked.

Thirty five.

Before the blast had changed course from the targeted vessel, a mage had panicked and leaped off its deck. He really should have checked the water first. He found himself directly in the path of Joel, who was racing sideways between the Divine Fleet, carrying five unconscious enemies back to shore.

Joel’s arms were full, so he didn’t have a dagger. Jess did though.

She slid across the ocean in his wake, and the empowered blast of water shot from her blade slammed into the man before he made it halfway to the ocean. Joel plucked his unconscious body from the air and threw it over his shoulder. Claws’s tittering got louder with each successful attack.

Thirty four.

Even more of the assault shrimp and recon crabs had weapons now. Eight vessels were destroyed within moments of each other.

Twenty six.

Still perched atop a mast, Cinnamon had been laying low, obeying her orders to ‘stand by’. The moment she caught a dagger, that changed. She smiled deviously and unleashed a half-dozen martial aura attacks in so many seconds. Each one resulted in the destruction of a vessel, the crustaceans atop it leaping to a nearby vessel and joining the cluster of assault shrimp and recon crabs already on that deck.

Claws had leaped down onto the sand. Her forepaws were weaving through the air, and she blew a merry tune on her wooden whistle as she pretended to conduct the battle.

The Divine Fleet was in shambles. It no longer seemed to hold any sort of formation. Though the Prime Vessel Theoris and its sister galleon Elegos remained in their original positions, what lesser vessels remained floated in a chaotic pattern, adrift between the flotsam of so many destroyed ships.

“Twenty,” Maria said.

Cinnamon shot a sidelong glance at the three tacticians, expecting to be reprimanded. I hadn’t heard from them in a while, so I looked at them too.

Paul, Toby, and Theresa were obviously talking—I could see them doing it—but they weren’t making a sound. Whatever conversations they were having, or orders they were giving, were taking all of their attention.

Anxiety flared in the pit of my stomach as I felt energy shifting within the ocean beneath the Divine Fleet. Great torrents of divine chi. They were flowing inwards, being drawn towards a single point. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end again, and a chill ran down my spine.

A moment later, my fears were made manifest when the god-empress reemerged from the waves looking like a god of vengeance. Her entire body glowed with her holy power. It carved swirling lines through her skin, concentrating around her neck, chest, and hands.

“I am the divine bridge!” she shrieked. I winced and covered my ears. “You dare defy me?”

She extended an open hand toward one of her own ships, then closed her fist in the open air, yanking it toward her as if pulling up a crab pot. There was a terrible screeching sound as the artifacts lining the ship’s hull were ripped open, freeing the clouds of condensed chi within. They flowed up toward her, and the golden swirls marking her skin flared, growing brighter as she consumed the chi.

No wonder my instincts were screaming to be wary of her. She had absorbed the chi from every sunken container.

And she’d just absorbed more.

Someone beside me let out a derisive snort. “Divine bridge?” Eustace called out into the bay. Are you gonna tell her? Or shall I, Anius?”

Anius blanched, his expression caught somewhere between hatred and pleading.

“We made it up,” Eustace continued. “You really thought you were the divine bridge? Our Seer powers haven’t worked in centuries. You were just the first Victus girl to come along who showed the vaguest hint of humanity.”

Someone popped up from behind a nearby dune. “Truth!” Theo called, before he was pulled back down from either side by arms that looked like they belonged to Peter and Danny.

Eustace’s mouth twisted in disgust, not taking her eyes from the god-empress. “So much for that. You’re not as mad as all the Victus failures before you. You’re worse, Aletheia. Far wors—”

“Do.” The god-ripped open another ship’s artifacts. “Not.” Another. “Call.” Two more. “Me.” She spread her arms wide, the golden swirls covering her skin spreading to consume her. “Aletheia!”

Most of the power she’d absorbed came roaring back out in hundreds of thick and winding tendrils. They wound across the battlefield and connected to her followers, making the same patterns swirl across their skin. Each divine mage’s eyes flew wide, their pupils, irises, and sclera consumed from within by liquid gold. Even the unconscious mages were affected as their cores were refilled with the light of their god-empress’s will.

They floated into the air, pulled by unseen strings. They looked like an army of marrionettes, each hovering a foot above the decks of enemy fleet. Their expressions were all blank —including Anius, whose frustration with Eustace, and fear of his god-empress, had been replaced by mindless obedience.

As one, they attacked.