Soliz watched in horror as fish-headed men began invading La Esmeralda.

  The galleon’s faith shield had been breached by a gathering cast of crabs. Their shells gleamed with silver and gold, their massive pincers cursed implements etched with blasphemous symbols. Together they had pried open a wound in the ethereal barrier, then set to cutting into the blessed wood beneath.

  Soliz felt the constant rasping vibrations shudder through the deck as they tore at the keel—the very source of the ship’s power.

  The figurehead affixed there sang a mournful tune as it suffered the onslaught. The spirit bound to the vessel strained, its song faltering as it struggled to maintain the countless blessings etched into the wood. If it was destroyed, they would be as good as dead.

  Many of Soliz’s greedy and vicious companions had already fled, cowering behind the experienced soldiers who rushed up from below to reinforce the retreating sailors. Soliz himself had hidden behind a stack of barrels, unable to move. His eyes were transfixed on the battlefield, trembling as soldiers were torn asunder before him.

  Through the gaps between his fingers, he watched flocks of flying fish crash against the phantasmal light-god that guarded the people of the lower decks. The entity fought back again and again, but even divine order strained beneath the sheer chaos of the assault.

  The god unleashed waves of humming light that sliced through the air, carving apart clouds of writhing horrors. Corrupt blood rained down upon the deck, burning like acid wherever it fell.

  What will become of us? Soliz thought, clamping his hand over his mouth so tightly he feared he might dislocate his jaw. His body shook uncontrollably as the slick, scaled heads of the fish-men drew closer to his hiding place.

  Their clouded eyes seemed to see nothing as they swallowed an entire soldier whole. Their forms retained their shriveled lower halves even as fully armored bodies disappeared down their gullets.

  The creatures wore nothing, their naked flesh reeking of blood and fish guts. The stench was overwhelming, burrowing deep into Soliz’s mind and nearly forcing him to vomit as they passed.

  Tears welled in his eyes, dripping down to join the growing puddle beneath him.

  In all his years of service, Soliz could not recall a journey that had ever been this treacherous.

  -

  Rafael fought against the grotesque, half-transformed drowned gods. He fired beams of concentrated light and sweeping horizontal waves of energy, trying to clear the skies with little success. His holy halo had burned through its reserves in the first moments of the assault. Now it rested upon his head, dim and ashen.

  His once-perfect body was coated in corruption that gnawed relentlessly at his divinity. What little life force his ghostly form possessed was being siphoned away, smothered beneath a thick blanket of malice. It was as if the drowned gods had cursed their own flesh and blood—rotting themselves from within—solely to drag the light-gods down with them.

  To keep his form intact, Rafael was forced to expend increasing amounts of faith. The meager devotion offered by his followers aboard the galleon was no longer enough to hold back the tidal wave of foul divinities. Gritting his will, he reached beyond the ocean and drew from the distant temples of the empire.

  Power flared.

  He ignited in unison with his brothers and sisters, divine radiance piercing the abyss. A single, overwhelming release of light tore through the battlefield.

  Countless minor gods—those that had surged upon reaching the heart of the deep—were obliterated. Their mutilated carcasses floated upon the ocean’s surface, scorched and broken by the combined rays of holy fire.

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  For a brief moment, the waters stilled.

  Then Rafael felt it.

  The skies above and the inky depths below began to darken with a madness he recognized. A pressure not born of chaos alone, but of something watching.

  Waiting.

  -

  Salutaris cackled beneath the waves, eyes blazing with hunger steeped in hatred. Within him yawned a vast, hollow void—one he longed to fill with the blood of the defenseless flock Rafael so desperately guarded.

  Against a major god, he alone could do little.

  But the impromptu alliance—born of shared hatred and mutual ruin—had granted him something far sweeter than victory. It had allowed him to witness his precious master reduced to this wretched state.

  The hordes of lesser and minor gods had been perfect fodder, thrown into the grinder to set the stage. Corruption spread across the sea’s surface like oil, thick and iridescent. Flesh and blood, offered freely—sacrifices to leaders who waited patiently in the depths, just as Salutaris had.

  He felt it when the cursed blood seeped into Rafael’s manifested form, burrowing toward the divine core. Malicious thoughts clung to it. Poisonous ichor—harvested from countless drowned clans—ate away at the light from within.

  Salutaris trembled with anticipation.

  He could already imagine the expression on Rafael’s face when the feast began. The despair. The recognition. The moment he realized his flock was no longer protected.

  Ready for the ambush, Salutaris shifted forms once more. His flattened, vertical body compressed into a thick cylindrical shape. Fleshy wings burst from his sides, membranes veined and twitching with corruption.

  The light-gods’ final attempt to purge the battlefield had been the opening he’d been waiting for.

  As the gods of light flared in unison, Salutaris and the three drowned gods bound to his pact surged as well—unleashing their hoarded corruption all at once.

  Purple light drowned the world.

  Massive shadows manifested, blotting out sky and sea alike. Sacred chants—blasphemies etched into the bones of forgotten gods—rose in volume, repeating endlessly in warped cycles.

  Nearby galleons’ gods watched with growing dread, powerless to intervene as their own ships were beset once more. None of the assaults were as deliberate, as personal, as the cage Salutaris had meticulously constructed.

  Oh, the expression would be exquisite.

  Rafael faltered beneath the pressure, dodging clumsily on tattered wings. His body resisted him—restrained by malice—his soul shaken by old recognition, his mind bending under the weight of a presence he had once known.

  Salutaris laughed as he collapsed an entire side of the galleon.

  The ship lurched violently, timbers screaming as it tilted, threatening to roll and spill its living cargo into the abyss.

  That was when Rafael awoke from his stupor.

  Holy light erupted from him—raw and searing. It charred Salutaris’ wings into useless husks and cracked his scales into brittle fragments.

  Salutaris hissed, then inhaled sharply.

  The surrounding corruption rushed into him in a single, gluttonous breath. Flesh knitted. Wings regrew. Scales hardened once more.

  Almost whole again.

  He slithered around the major god, mocking him openly now, crushing fragile human bodies beneath his coils. The screams—pleading, desperate—fed his euphoria, swelling his power.

  “Did you ever imagine,” Salutaris murmured from the shadows, circling slowly, “the sacrifice you would be forced to endure… even after the first?”

  He waited as his allies finished their games with the humans.

  Patient.

  Hungry.

  Certain.