Rafael watched as the immeasurable gate opened a fraction.

  It was enough.

  Water surged inward with titanic force, dragging dozens of two-hundred-foot galleons into the Garden. Against the sheer scale of the gates, the ships looked like children’s toys—tiny slivers of wood swallowed by towering slabs of golden alloy. The doors stretched inward like an endless corridor, their impossible thickness etched with countless blessings. No corrupted god could ever hope to escape once sealed within.

  Their construction had been an expensive necessity.

  A joint effort of every god within the empire, the gates were a half-ethereal monument of divinity—a prison forged to contain immortals. There was no other way to wage war against beings who would otherwise return again and again, thirsting for vengeance.

  The Garden functioned as a portal into the Veil.

  A place where all creatures were stripped to their truest selves.

  Within it, divinity was consumed. Concepts unraveled. Gods were reduced—shed of eternity and power—until they emerged as mortal vessels that could be harmed, broken, and killed.

  This process was called washing.

  Those who surrendered fully drifted from the Veil into the Deep Abyss, a place reachable only once all that defined them had been devoured. What remained were fragile clay forms, often composed of rare and precious substances—materials harvested to further strengthen the empire.

  That was why each galleon carried a god.

  They served as wardens and harvesters, collecting the drifting vessels expelled from the Garden. Every opening of the gate unleashed waves of weakened, drowned gods, and their remains fed the ever-expanding Light Empire.

  Rafael felt sorrow at the cost.

  Many of the devoted would die on the journey—criminals, the destitute, the forgotten. It mattered little. He cared for his followers all the same, and he understood something many gods did not: without the bonds of faith, he too would have hollowed out long ago, like so many others had.

  The Father did not care for the countless lesser entities shaped by belief.

  The Light only valued strong gods—those who could expand its borders. All sentient life would one day belong to the empire. It was not conquest.

  It was destiny.

  The gates shifted further.

  Their world-shaking weight disrupted the watery veil that cloaked the Garden’s magic, and the first wave of lesser drowned gods burst forth like locusts. Their wails, roars, and alien chirps split the air.

  The ships came alive.

  Humans rushed to their assigned stations. A hundred blessed copper cannons were primed, barrels glowing faintly with etched prayers. The moment the fastest drowned gods closed the distance, the guns thundered.

  Rafael felt his priest’s plea before he heard it.

  He answered.

  Divinity flooded the hull, light spilling across gold- and silver-inlaid plates fixed to the galleon’s wood. The ship gleamed like a floating reliquary, its radiance spreading through sailors and soldiers alike.

  Below deck, defenseless settlers huddled together—men, women, children with no divine gifts. Precious cargo. He would protect them above all else. Their faith fed him, and they would become his followers in the new world.

  Once new decrees were issued, recalled gods would be permitted to remain—tasked with converting the natives. This mandate came directly from His Majesty and the Father. It was their highest priority.

  Some gods had already failed.

  The first conquistadors’ massacres had forced new laws into place—decrees meant to curb cruelty and exploitation. To protect the new faithful.

  They had not been enough.

  Greed persisted. Atrocities followed. War ignited.

  The natives fought with ferocity born of devotion, their strange gods wielding dominion over both life and death. Not beasts. Not demons.

  Equals.

  Rafael banished the thoughts as the first wave struck.

  Lesser divinities slammed into the lead ships, only to be met by blinding light as his brothers and sisters answered in kind. Cannons tore apart man-faced fish. Flying eels swarmed overhead, hurling spears of lightning that shattered against blessed hulls.

  The horde doubled.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Muskets cracked in relentless rhythm as creatures leapt from the waves, claws and jaws reaching for any sailor slow enough to falter.

  The Garden had opened.

  The Journey had just begun.

  -

  Rafael watched as they advanced through the corridor, his attention fixed on anything too dangerous for the galleon to confront directly. Even when sailors were seized by slick, purple tentacles and dragged screaming into the depths, he did nothing. He waited—conserving his strength for the waves yet to come.

  Already, the lesser drowned gods had begun to overtake the foremost ships.

  Their guardians were forced to unleash divine power, reaping the weak divinities that composed the endless swarm. When their reserves thinned, the front line slowed, allowing the second row of galleons to surge ahead and take the lead.

  The armada renewed its momentum.

  Like a spear, the formation plunged into the horde, cleaving apart soft, fish-like bodies by the thousands. Broken forms dissolved into the water as the ships pressed deeper.

  As they fully entered the Garden, a thick mist enveloped them.

  Within it floated countless decaying faces, scaled and bloated, straining against an invisible barrier. They clawed with frantic fury at the veil that imprisoned them, mouths stretched wide in silent screams.

  Waves slammed into the galleons with crushing force.

  From beneath the murk, those same dead eyes glared and snapped, jaws grinding against the blessed hulls. Beyond them rose vast coral spires—entire forests of impossible color stretching away from the gate. They hummed with growing intensity as power gathered within them, responding to the mounting frenzy.

  The assault on the veil intensified.

  Rafael expanded his halo until it encompassed the entire ship.

  Radiant light flared outward, repelling grasping limbs and warped bodies before they could breach the hull. The halo cleansed minor wounds as it passed, purging festering corruption before it could take hold. Many of the drowned gods recoiled from the brilliance, retreating into the miasma-choked fog that had masked their approach.

  For a moment, the pressure eased.

  The corruption lurking within the water itself shrank from the holy radiance. Rafael’s halo—a blessed ring gifted by His Majesty upon his ascension in rank—burned away the rot clinging to corporeal forms, asserting divine order against the encroaching abyss.

  But Rafael knew the light would not be enough forever.

  The Garden had only just begun to stir.

  -

  As they emerged from the treacherous mist and passed into the immense coral forest beneath the waves, another shift occurred—this time from below.

  Schools of minor gods gathered in the depths, but unlike the frenzied assault at the gate, they did not attack. Instead, they watched.

  The schools began to circle one another, their swift, synchronized movements weaving power together. It did not take long before the water itself responded. Vast whirlpools formed, tugging at the galleons and straining their blessed hulls.

  That was when the gods acted.

  Lances of concentrated divine light pierced the waves, boiling the water and cooking the creatures within. Ghostly apparitions tore free from collapsing bodies, wailing as their mortal vessels perished. Forced into a new cycle, the stripped spirits fled in panic, veering away from beams of light that threatened to erase them entirely.

  When the schools were finally dispersed, nets were cast into the glowing water.

  They hauled in the luminous remains of minor gods—fragile, clay-like vessels drifting lifelessly in the current. Many had taken the form of long, silver-scaled fish. Rafael suspected true traces of silver lay within them, judging by how some sailors attempted to conceal pieces before being corrected by their officers.

  The first day of the journey ended as the fleet exited the first coral forest and entered the deep abyss of the veil.

  The harvest had been abundant.

  Yet Rafael felt no relief.

  The abyss was said to house only lesser drowned gods, but the silence here felt deliberate. Watching. The dark seemed to press inward, heavy with unseen presence—as though something vast and patient lingered beyond sight, waiting for the light to grow tired.