Maia silently roared in frustration as this gargantuan horned serpent shrugged off everything she could throw at it. Every water dragon was torn apart by the serpent’s own water magic, one even having been completely stolen from her as it was invaded by the serpent’s magic power, then frozen in place in an insulting testament to her loss.

After less than a minute, it had become clear enough to Maia that even with the assistance of the fire demon, battling this creature on the ground was not going to work. So, she quit the field and retreated to Anzu, who carried her into the air. From the sky, she had rained her magic down upon the massive serpent as it slowly slid its colossal body out of the ground.

The demon seemed to come to the same conclusion as she did, for only a few seconds after she’d taken back to the skies with Anzu, yellow fire began to burn along its calves and shoulders, the latter of which almost appearing like stubby, vestigial wings. However, that fire seemed to carry a great deal of force, as the demon rose into the air with seeming ease and an obviously fine degree of control. It even had more than enough control to launch great lances of flame out of its arms at the serpent, scoring its flesh but inflicting barely any discernable damage.

Whatever this thing was, wherever it had come from, it was terribly powerful, and its body was extraordinarily tough. Its hide was thick and its body was strong, more than enough that it could concentrate on slithering its gargantuan form out of the ground even as Maia and the fire demon hit it from all sides, neither holding anything back as they launched the greatest of their magics at the monster.

Water dragons conjured from the lake, and flocks of bat-like wyverns formed of rainwater circled around Maia, diving in at the serpent whenever she saw an opening. The demon, meanwhile, took a more active approach, darting in and hitting the serpents head with hellish dark-red flame with abandon, only dodging out of the way when the serpent retaliated with great blades of water assembled from the rain that continued to pour.

It became clear enough to Maia from the sheer fact that neither her power, nor that of the demon, seemed to be harming the serpent that it was time to go. Finding Leon was still the most important task in her mind, but that wasn’t going to happen with this colossal serpent set loose upon the islands. With little fanfare, she stroked Anzu’s feathers and the griffin unashamedly started to fly away from the battle.

Neither of them gave the demon much thought. They were unsure of its allegiances, and at the moment, if it was hostile to the serpent, then all the better. That would give them more time to prepare some kind of answer for that monster.

They didn’t get far before the lake that filled the crater began to roil and churn, and a terrifying spike of magic power had Maia staring over her shoulder in fear. The serpent had largely ignored the demon’s attempts to halt it, and after pulling its entire massive form out of the hole it had crawled through, it had slipped down into the lake. The demon now stood upon the shore of the island, impotently hurling fireballs at the serpent as it vanished beneath the waves.

However, the lake wasn’t growing more energetic simply because the serpent had gone for a swim, but rather because it was doing something down there, but what that was, Maia couldn’t be sure. All she could tell was that whatever it was doing, it was using more power than she’d ever seen one single being use at any one point. She wasn’t even sure if her mother’s power could compare to what this serpent was wielding.

At first, all of the power that the serpent was pouring into the lake just made it choppy and agitated, but as the waves grew larger and more violent, all of the water in the lake began to move in a counterclockwise direction around the central island. Only a few seconds after the lake started to spin, the rain and the clouds above started to do likewise, creating something of a watery vortex around the crater that Maia and Anzu only just managed to fly beyond before the wind speeds trapped them within.

Within that vortex, the storm raged on even fiercer, and given how wrathful it was outside of the crater, that was quite remarkable. Maia, unsure of what was happening, stopped messing around and immediately urged Anzu on toward Sigebert’s flagship.

Behind her, even with the howling wind drowning out nearly all other sound, she heard a titanic crack. She didn’t spare even a single second to look back and see what had just happened.

The wind picked up as Anzu carried her away from the crate, rushing back toward the crater almost as if some great eldritch thing were inhaling, filling their lungs with all the world’s air. The rain outside the crater gradually stopped over the course of several minutes, but at the same time, the great vortex that the serpent had called forth expanded out to the crater walls. The black storm clouds descended from the sky, shrouding the crater from view. The clouds about the shattered island then darkened even further, plunging the entire archipelago into near-night conditions, with the only lights around being the lights of Legion ships, the burning pirate ships, and the occasional flash of dark red light as the demon continued to try to battle the great serpent within the crater, to what Maia could see with her magic senses as quite limited effect.

When Anzu landed upon the deck of Sigebert’s flagship several minutes later, Maia found it in quite a state—along with the entire Legion fleet. The mighty fleet had been reduced to a little more than half of its full strength, but that was still quite a considerable number of ships, most of which had either come into the channel directly encircling the crater or were spread across several other key locations around the archipelago, locking it down against more mundane threats. And all of these ships were in relative chaos with all that was now happening. They seemed caught between retreating further from the crater, the source of all this strangeness, or stalwartly soldiering on until their mission had been concluded.

The sailors on the flagship’s deck embodied this cautious and quietly terrified indecisiveness as they went about their duties on the still-slick deck, some manning the Flame Lances and training them vaguely in the direction of the crater, while others had set about preparing the ship to flee.

“Naiad!” Gaius called out as Maia slid off the back of Anzu and rejoined the rest of Leon’s retinue. “Did you find Leon?!” the young knight asked in a slight panic. Beside him was a fifth-tier mage dressed in Legion colors—one of the higher-ranked members of the fleet, Maia presumed, though she’d hardly paid enough attention to such small fry to recognize her at a glance.

[No,] Maia succinctly replied before quickly explaining everything that had happened in as few words as possible.

Gaius almost physically reeled from her story of the demon, angel, and serpent. The entire fleet knew of the former two, or course, since they’d fought in the air and had been none too subtle, but it was another thing entirely to hear first-hand of their power. Her relaying of the serpent was of more concern, though, as the Legion knight ran off to report to Sigebert as soon as Maia was finished explaining what had happened.

“Shit…” Marcus exclaimed. He and the others had been listening in, and Maia had included them in her short story. Marcus glanced at the vortex of swirling black clouds that had engulfed the crater, barely visible in the storm as it was only by the lights of the Legion ships encircling it.

“You can say that again…” Alcander added. “I feel useless. How are we supposed to fight against something like this?!”

“We might have to get below deck and help out wherever we can,” Alix said. “I still have some of Leon’s explosive arrows, but if even Naiad couldn’t scratch that thing, then I have no idea what I can do…”

As she spoke, a great wave of magic power washed over the entire island, sending the water beneath them into turmoil. At the same time, a great dark red pillar of demonfire could just barely be seen within the vortex by the higher-tiered mages, but it was quickly snuffed out as another, slightly weaker wave of magic power erupted from the crater.

A moment later, the horns of the flagship began to sound, and Gaius translated their meaning, “We’re retreating. Whatever’s going on is not something we can take right now. We’re not ready for it…”

Maia wanted to protest. Leon was still within that crater somewhere… But after seeing the power of the demon and the serpent, she knew that this was the correct course of action. She could only clench her jaw and hope that Leon was still alive somewhere in there. Their connection was disrupted, so she couldn’t sense him at all, but there was a tiny place deep in her heart that told her that he was still alive. She could only place her trust in that tiniest of voices and fall back with the Legion.

But if she saw even a hint of Leon anywhere, she was going to abandon this pathetic human fleet and go to him, no matter the obstacles in her way. She wasn’t with him when he vanished, and she couldn’t help but think if she had been, then he wouldn’t have disappeared.

Slowly, the Legion ships began the arduous and lengthy process of escaping from the channel through the jagged waterways available to them, but after a couple minutes, a tremendous blast of magic power rocked the seas, sending the already turbulent waterways into absolute anarchy—many of the smaller Legion ships began capsizing, dumping their crews into the water. The larger Legion ships largely fared much better, but some had taken serious damage in the fighting, and with the water tossing them around into the rocks, they began to take on water and sink. Legion water mages did their best, but the rough waves consumed four war galleys.

Only a few seconds later, the walls of the crater, just barely visible to the naked eye through the whirling vortex of black storm clouds, began to shake as if it were being struck. The marines that had already landed were in a hurry to evacuate, but they were numerous, and their transports were not immune to the raging seas. One transport was thrown by the waves onto the rocks, while another had a hole punched into its hull as it was tossed about by the rocky shore. The marines were unable to evacuate before whatever had been making the crater walls shake—Maia presumed it was that giant serpent—hit it hard enough to open huge cracks in the ground, into which many marines fell, and many more were separated from their transports.

Another titanic blow was struck against the crater walls, and not too far away, one of the more artificial portions of the wall began to splinter. Again, it was hit from within, and the wall was fractured, sending countless boulders sliding off its face and into the channel.

Maia, noticing this, didn’t bother shouting much of a warning. She didn’t think it would do much good if she did. Instead, she focused on conjuring a great water dragon to protect the ship.

“What’s going on?!” Gaius shouted, seeing her do this.

[The snake is coming,] she growled back at him.

Gaius’ eyes widened as he turned toward the command tower and frantically began to signal with his arms, but before he could say much, the wall of the crater started to crumble in earnest as it was struck again.

As the wall splintered apart, the fleet got a few glimpses of what was on the other side: dark green scales, an ivory horn that glowed in the gloom of the storm, and a pair of green eyes that glittered with malice. Killing intent flowed out into the channel like a tsunami, and many of the weaker Legion mages collapsed under its terrible weight.

“Shit!” Alix exclaimed.

“Are there any spare bows around?” Marcus called out to some nearby Legion marines as they helped the sailors prepare the ship for its immediate retreat.

“What in the hells…?” Alcander murmured as he stared in terror at the few murky glimpses of the serpent he got through the vortex.

The Flame Lances were still operational, and began to swing around in the direction of the crumbling wall. Maia could sense the weapons filling with magic power, but as the wall shook again, she didn’t think it would be enough.

With one last strike, the serpent burst out into the channel, the crater wall it had broken through now nothing but dust behind it. The monster roared in challenge, a high-pitched shriek that tore through the ear drums of everyone who heard it, sending panic rippling out through the fleet.

Sigebert’s flagship sounded horns again, but Gaius was too petrified to translate.

As the serpent slid over the remains of the wall and into the channel, the turbulent waters suddenly became much less chaotic—but in the worst possible way. Instead of tossing the Legion ships around randomly with little rhyme or reason, suddenly the water beneath the ships began to actively work against them. Great pillars of water exploded beneath the ships, sending many of the remaining smaller ships rocketing into the air and pushing the bigger ships into the rocks on the other side of the channel.

A moment later, the massive horned serpent erupted from the waves beneath one of the heavier war galleys only a hundred feet or so away from the flagship. It was so large that it was easily able to wrap its titanic jaws around the sides of the ship and lift it into the air like a toy, its many teeth digging into the hull and overwhelming its defensive enchantments. The Legion sailors and marines aboard tried to resist, but their attacks did about as much to the serpent as Maia and the demon’s had, and after only a few seconds, the serpent’s jaws snapped the entire ship in half. Hundreds of Legion personnel fell into the water, where they were immediately pulled under the waves. A moment later, the serpent fell back into the sea, sending great waves rippling out from its impact point to buffet the nearby ships.

Again, the serpent burst from the water, and again, the Legion lost another war galley. This time, however, Sigebert’s Flame Lances were finally at a good enough angle to take a shot. The powerful weapons spat red-hot molten stone at the serpent as it rose into the air, its jaws fixed around the second doomed war galley. However, much like the demon’s attacks, the Flame Lance’s shots struck the monster’s hide and seemed to do little more than blacken its scales.

Though, it was an effective enough attack to draw the creature’s attention, and as it fell back to the seas, the serpent turned its malevolent gaze in the direction of the flagship, and the water all around the ship immediately froze, causing the ship to come to a violent halt. Nearly everyone below the fifth-tier was knocked off their feet by the sudden stop.

But then, the serpent burst from the water again, only a few seconds after dragging the remains of the second galley down into the deep. The serpent crashed into the flagship, its jaws sinking deep into the hull around the ship’s midsection. The beast thrashed about, ignoring it completely when Maia unleashed her water dragon upon it. The ship was tough and strong, but trapped in the jaws of such a beast, there wasn’t much it could do; its defensive enchantments held out a little longer than those of the war galleys, but they were soon overwhelmed as the serpent shook and tore the ship apart.

A few horn blasts sounded from the command tower, and Gaius helpfully shouted, “Abandon ship!”

Maia’s heart sank in panic and terror as she glanced out into the local waters. If possible, she did not want to touch these seas. Instead, she recalled her water dragon, ordered Leon’s retinue to jump onto its back as she scrambled onto the terrified Anzu, calming him slightly with her touch.

Several nearby Legion ships rained their own artillery upon the serpent as it destroyed the fleet’s flagship, but to little effect, and less than a minute after attacking, the serpent pulled back, the flagship’s central half now little more than splinters of Heartwood, both of its Flame Lances utterly trashed.

Maia and Anzu took off from the deck as the serpent pulled back, with Gaius, Alix, Marcus, and Alcander atop the back of Maia’s water dragon. With little word, Maia began to direct everyone away from the crater as quickly as she was able, taking full advantage of the serpent shifting its attention to the war galleys that had threatened it. As they retreated, the ice beneath the remains of the flagship swiftly melted back into liquid, and the ruined ship sank. How much of the crew survived, Maia couldn’t say—she couldn’t see Sigebert among those in the sea, and even if she could, many of them were being dragged under the ship by the currents in the wake of the ship’s sinking, while others were being submerged by the immense waves kicked up by the storm.

None managed to return to the surface, as far as Maia could tell, and with every second that passed by, more ships joined their flagship beneath the waves as the serpent ran over the fleet, unstoppable in its power and unrelenting in its fury.