"Final rivet, locked in!"
At Leon's shout, I grinned as I connected the power cable I was holding.
This place, filled with the harsh smell of oil and the intense heat of metal, was a hidden drydock, converted from the inside of one of Silverin's abandoned floating stones.
The massive, hangar-like drydock was a place for repairing and building airships.
This was our own secret sanctuary, provided by a secret patron from the Shipbuilders' Guild as a reward for saving the city.
For the past few weeks, this place had been our playground and our battlefield.
By day, while Leon restored the complex circuits of the Lumina Lip's heart—the Aether engine—I tore off the ripped hull plating and welded on new armor.
By night, I would lay out the junk parts I'd brought from Rust Haven.
Leon would either be horrified at the sight of them or, sometimes, bring them back to life with a stroke of genius.
His precision and my intuition collided and merged, and day by day, the veins and muscles of the Lumina Lip were reborn.
The process felt like we were sculpting a giant life form together.
"What do you think, Captain? My masterpiece."
Leon boasted, wiping the sweat from his face.
I couldn't help but whistle. He wasn't exaggerating.
As the massive hangar doors rumbled open, the new form of the Lumina Lip was revealed beneath the pouring sunlight.
Across the signature sleek, organic curves of Arkelos design, polished copper pipes and complex brass valves designed by Leon spread out like a new nervous system.
A one-of-a-kind work of art, born from the meeting of ancient mystery and modern genius.
My kitbash knowledge and Leon's precision engineering had combined, evolving the ship into a fusion of ancient relic and modern technology.
"It's a little loud for a 'masterpiece', don't you think, Mr. Genius?"
I teased, and Leon shot back, offended.
"That's the sound of its heartbeat! A perfect harmony, tuned by yours truly, Leon Bright!"
The pure pride on his face made me burst out laughing.
I wasn't alone anymore. My first real partner. My crew.
We stocked the cargo hold for the journey ahead.
Thanks to the Shipbuilders' Guild's sponsorship, we meticulously loaded compressed ration packs, water filters, and spare power cells—enough to last for months.
And finally, filled with hope, we departed for the skies of Silverin.
The massive hull ascended smoothly, exiting the hangar and rising above the vast sea of clouds.
In the distance, the view of Silverin's Golden Crossroads, bustling with countless airships, sparkled like a jewel before fading into a remote dot.
"So this is what freedom tastes like," Leon murmured, gazing at the endless sea of clouds from the bridge's controls.
A true sky, free from the Guild's archaic rules and the masters who had oppressed him.
I sat beside him in the co-pilot's seat and nodded.
But our peace was devastatingly short.
It happened the very moment the Lumina Lip left Silverin's neutral airspace.
BEEP-! BEEP-! BEEP-!
A piercing alarm blared through the entire bridge. Leon's face went as white as the urgent siren.
"No way! How could they... already...!"
I spun to look at the rear screen. Several red dots were closing in at ferocious speed.
An Imperial long-range patrol had detected the unique resonance signal of the ancient Aether engine—the one Leon had perfectly restored—far too quickly.
"Imperials!"
As I magnified the screen, my eyes locked onto a squadron of razor-sharp Imperial 'Glaive-class' interceptors.
And emblazoned on the lead ship, a sigil I could never forget: the Sigil of the Red Sun. The same blood-red sigil that had burned my home to the ground ten years ago.
"..."
In an instant, my head went cold. It wasn't anger. It was the return of the nightmare that had tormented me for ten years.
Once again, they had come to take what was mine.
I shoved Leon aside and violently seized the controls.
"Hold on, Mr. Genius! From now on, we do this my way!"
"Jayn! Calm down!"
Ignoring Leon's shout, I yelled.
"Full power, Leon! Now!"
Leon saw the madness in my eyes, gritted his teeth, and shoved the thrust lever all the way forward.
The Lumina Lip's hull flared with blue light and shot forward. The breathtaking chase had begun.
"Are you crazy? That's a floating rock zone! If we go in at this speed...!"
"A place like this is my playground!"
Using the instincts I'd honed in Rust Haven, I dived into the cluster of massive floating rocks, weaving through them like an acrobat.
Leon's screams filled the bridge every time the ship barely scraped past a razor-sharp stone pillar.
A terrible SKREEEE! of protesting metal echoed as paint was stripped from the hull, but I didn't slow down.
I pushed deeper, into the most dangerous territory.
One of the pursuing interceptors failed to follow my unpredictable maneuver and crashed into a rock, exploding in a massive fireball.
But the Imperial hounds were relentless. They fanned out wide, using a 'Wolf Pack Tactic' to cut off our escape routes by narrowing the distance.
Above, another squadron was gaining altitude, waiting for a chance to dive-bomb us. A perfect pincer movement.
The direction they were herding us toward left only one path.
A giant wall of despair.
It was the infamous Aether Storm Zone, known as the 'Sky's Graveyard'. It churned like a living catastrophe, a mass of black clouds the size of a continent.
Thousands of purple lightning bolts writhed within it like giant serpents, devouring each other. A roar that wasn't sound, but a crushing pressure on the soul, vibrated through the bridge.
"It's over..."
Leon whispered in despair. But my eyes, contrary to his, were blazing at the sight of the maelstrom.
"No. It's just beginning," I said, making my captain's decision.
"We're heading straight in!"
"Are you insane, Jayn? That's a death zone!"
"Better than being dead! Hold on!"
Leaving Leon's screams behind me, I pushed the controls forward. The Lumina Lip plunged into the storm.
Leon's prediction of a violent CRASH! and the ship being torn apart was completely wrong.
Whaaaaaaaaaam—
The moment the Lumina Lip entered the storm, the ship found a strange stability, like a fish returning to water.
The patterns on the ship's outer armor glowed blue and opened, and from within, vast 'Aether Sails' unfurled like an aurora, beginning to absorb the storm's rampant energy.
"No way... The ship, it's eating the storm!"
Leon pointed at the energy gauge, his eyes wide with shock. The output meter was skyrocketing.
The ship fed on the storm's energy, surfing the river of purple lightning as it glided forward.
We were no longer fugitives. We were a blue comet, slicing through the heart of the storm.
The Imperial interceptors chasing us didn't even have time to witness the magnificent sight.
They dared to follow us in, but their situation was different from ours.
One was struck directly by a massive pillar of lightning, turning to ash in an instant. Another lost control in the violent turbulence, collided with its wingman, and vanished in a red explosion.
It was our complete victory.
But the price was steep.
When we exited the storm, all that lay before us was a silent sea of clouds, unrecorded on any chart.
"The navigation... it's all dead."
Leon's voice was hollow. The storm's unknown Aether had fried every precision instrument.
We had shaken the Empire, but in doing so, we had vanished from the world.
Weeks passed.
We used every bit of knowledge we had to find a route, but it was useless. The compass spun madly, and the constellations were like nothing we had ever seen.
We survived by occasionally deploying the emergency sails to drift on the wind, or by landing on uncharted floating islands for fresh water. But we had reached our limit.
"...This is the last of it."
I managed to tip the last drop of water onto Leon's cracked lips. He was slumped motionless in the co-pilot's seat.
The emergency rations had run out days ago. Our hope and our strength were fading with them.
I leaned my own forehead against the control yoke, barely breathing. My whole body felt like lead.
"I'm sorry, Leon. I... I made the wrong... choice..."
My voice cracked.
That's when it happened.
"Jayn... outside..."
At Leon's faint whisper, I turned my head and my breath caught.
Outside, in the darkened sea of clouds, a strange light was seeping in.
A shoal of hundreds, no, thousands of 'Starlight Coral Fish' had come to find us.
They were the docile sky-fish of legend, with translucent bodies and fine, stardust-like particles of light swimming within them.
They swirled around the Lumina Lip like a galaxy, each one emitting a gentle glow.
They weren't afraid of us. Instead, they enveloped the ship in their soft light, as if comforting a lost child.
And in that moment, I felt it. Deep inside me, the Blood of Arkelos resonated faintly with their light, and a strange vitality began to fill my parched body.
"We have to... follow them."
With a strength that seemed impossible for someone who had been dying moments before, I shot up from my seat and grabbed the controls.
Leon stared at me, his eyes dim with disbelief.
"You're crazy... That's just... a school of fish..."
"No."
I cut him off. This wasn't logic. This was the same wild instinct that had kept me alive for ten years.
The Lumina Lip moved slowly, following the river of stars created by the Starlight Coral Fish, heading into the thick fog and clouds.
All visibility was gone. We relied only on the river of stars that surrounded us.
The mystical light danced across the dead instrument panels on the bridge, and the space that had been filled with despair was now filled with a dreamlike silence.
I don't know how much time passed.
When the fog finally cleared, we both gasped.
Before us was something as vast as a mountain range. And a part of that massive body moved slowly, very slowly, turning its head toward us.
It was an eyeball, as vast as the sea of clouds itself.