The dragon had just caught Arius out of the air after he had killed a sea serpent in a single blow.

"Thanks, Urru!" Arius cheered. The back of his gloved hand swiped the blood and water away from his eyes. "How many is that?"

"That would be eighteen," the dragon, Urru, said in a deep, rumbling voice.

"Great! Let's see if we can get past twenty by the time that Tavras shows up." Based off of the joyful tone of Arius's voice, he was having far too much fun in killing these sea serpents.

Val did not even like sea serpents, but she knew when someone went too far. Arius had passed that point about sixteen sea serpents ago, she would estimate. All of the blood seemed to be drawing more sea serpents to the area, providing Arius with fresh victims to cull.

Once again, Arius leaped from Urru's head, but this time he sent his red energy outward in a slash. The wide razor swung through the air and sliced the sea serpent's neck clean in half. The decapitated head of the sea serpent slid out of place. The flesh and scales oozed blood while the upper part of its spine grated free. Then, the sea serpent's head crashed into the water below.

The remaining portion of its body lingered stiff and upright for a few seconds. All the while, the sea serpent's headless body sunk lower in the ravaging waves. From the stump of its neck, blood spouted outward, almost fountain-like. It took a few seconds for the body to tip over and splash after the head.

The manner in which Arius laughed maniacally upon killing that sea serpent exacerbated the cruelness of his deeds. The joy that he derived with each sea serpent's death made a strong case for him as some kind of sadist or psychopath. He was a god of war, after all.

Even Val felt a little bad for the sea serpents. She would have winced and turned away as the third one was killed in a similarly violent manner, if only she had a body in which to react in these visions.

"Now, we are at twenty!" Arius said.

"You are at eighteen," Urru snapped. "I am at two." Not wanting to take any of the credit, even his dragon expressed disapproval of Arius's slaughtering of sea serpents.

"Aw, are you jealous?" Arius cooed down to Urru. "I could let you take the next few, if you would like."

Rather than humoring the human on his back, Urru opted to change the topic. "Tongueless, we can still turn back."

A short laugh came from Arius. He draped his arms behind his head and his feet kicked up onto some spike. Like this, Arius lounged along Urru's back. "Oh, come on buddy. You're not getting cold wings on me, are you?"

"I just want you to reconsider the potential risks and rewards of this fight. We will spare the Sea Itself should we win, but he would not extend that same courtesy to us."

"Why should that matter?" Arius snapped, sitting up. "We are all warmed up, aren't we?" He leaned back with a big sigh. "Ah, I have never felt more ready for anything in my life!"

"Tongueless," Urru snapped. Fire curled from his lips in the curt way that he addressed Arius. "From my understanding, you humans are much like dragons. The old ones are more powerful. You are a baby, and I am a wyrm, and we will cease to exist if we carry on in this trajectory."

A sneer came from Arius, the grown man that he was. Based on the timing of this vision around ninety years ago, Val would guess Arius to be around thirty years old—very much within a mortal's lifespan still. He disregarded Urru with a wave of his hand. "That is nothing but a myth that the old gods and dragons use to keep us down. We will take the world by storm. That is how powerful I am!"

"If that is the case, then you could always find your tongue."

There was a pause. Throughout the entire conversation, clouds of red energy gathered around Arius, many times more than he had produced to kill a sea serpent in one shot.

At last, Arius said in a long, drawn out way, "No. I think that I would rather ruin Tavras's life today. The longer that he takes to show up, the stronger that we get!"

In confirmation of that statement, the swell of power around Arius and Urru could be felt as time passed. Arius must have some kind of ability that made him stronger the longer that he was in a fight. The sinister red haze that manifested around him seemed to be the most destructive manifestation of his power.

Arius's eyes shifted to where the horizon swelled up in the distance. "It looks like the man of the hour has finally arrived!"

The horizon lifted up vertically in a way that should not have been possible. The edge of the ocean was rising up in a wall, coming from far enough away that the curvature of the earth had hidden it previously. A shadow cast over Arius and Urru. As the tsunami continued to advance on them, the surrounding area turned dark for miles behind them. Never mind the oppressive storm, the wall of water turned the ocean as black as night. That was just how big the wave was.

Aside from the red haze ever-glowing around Arius, there was a blue light coming from the wall of water. It emanated outwards in an eerie way, the same way that Val remembered from when Tavras had pulled her under the water and threatened to crush her. At the heart of this network of blue, veiny waves, Tavras commanded the wave upward and onward. His angular eyes, entirely in their blue coloration, could be seen from here with their harsh light.

The slow, heavy tongue of Urru lifted in question. "Are you certain that it was a good idea to attack the Serpent's Circle while Tavras was on the other side of the world? The Sea Itself has brought quite the wave with him."

"I have never been more sure about anything in my life." Arius leaped up with a flip in the air and landed back on top of Urru's skull, evenly between his horns. More than just for show, that movement gathered all of the red haze into a concentrated sphere. "Are you up for a game of chicken, Urru?"

The bottom jaw of the dragon dropped open. It moved as if he wanted to say something before he managed to find his words. "Uh, Tongueless, I think that you might be massively overestimating me."

Arius just laughed and pointed out towards Tavras's wave.

This was the point in time in which Val had found with Insights of the Past. It was the beginning of the fight in which Tavras and Arius had come to hate each other.