The foul puddle that had been the fox-traitor hadn't even fully soaked into the earth, but a sickening panic was already spreading through the tribe. Gareth had moved fast, locking down the situation and putting the fox clan under guard, but the mountain-like shadow of the Dawn's Hope and Cecilia's invasive mental touch had planted a seed of deep fear in every heart. The air itself felt thick, not just with sulfur and rust, but with a silent, suffocating dread.
Liam knew better than to try and give a pep talk. Right now, empty words were worthless. Only action, only a real, tangible counter-punch, could pull their spirit back from the brink.
He stood in the long shadow of the Emberstrider's frame. In front of him lay the heavily modified steam harpoon ballista and the three dark red Rust-Resonators. His gaze, cold but steady, swept over the tribespeople, and the simple force of it brought a temporary, fragile quiet. It was what he needed.
He turned to the circle of orc artisans, their faces a mix of awe and deep doubt. He needed an answer.
"My King, in theory... it could work," rumbled Warrick, the chief artisan, an old wolf-orc with a nasty burn scar across his muzzle. His thick fingers traced the cold metal of the harpoon. "But the problem is syncing the energy resonance and the harpoon's strength. This resonator needs a huge, instant shock of power to fully wake up. The impact force of the harpoon alone... I don't think it's enough. Unless..."
"Unless we give it a 'spark' before it hits," Elara cut in, kneeling to examine the connection point. "Like using flint on tinder. You need that first burst of flame."
Liam's eyes traveled over the Emberstrider's massive skeleton, finally landing on the huge Volcanic Ore crystal set in its head like a great eye. "The Emberstrider itself is the best battery we have," he stated. "We need a temporary power line, running from the main keel to here. The moment we fire, we channel a raw burst of Volcanic Ore energy into the resonator. To 'ignite' it."
Warrick's eyes lit up. "Like jolting a stalled heart! Brilliant! We can use Ragnarok's tendons, braided with refined rust-iron, to make a conduit. It should hold for one big surge!"
"But aiming? Timing?" challenged a burly bear-orc artisan. "That iron tub is moving. However fast our harpoon is, it takes time to cross the water. How do we make sure it hits, and the spark catches at the exact right moment?"
"We need eyes," Elara said, straightening up and scanning the hazy sky. "Eyes that can see through this muck and tell us where to aim."
No sooner had she spoken than a sharp cry pierced the air. A rust-hawk, its wingtips gleaming like filed metal, dropped through the mist, circled once, and settled neatly onto Elara's silver-armored forearm. It was Sharp-Eye, one of the surviving scout-beasts from the Silver Wolf Knights.
"Sharp-Eye can be our spotter," Elara said, stroking the bird's cool feathers. "He can see through some of this fog, give us the ship's position and heading. But getting that information back to us in time..."
"Sound," Liam said abruptly, pointing to the orcs beating the war drums. "We use the drums. Different beats for distance, direction, speed changes. We'll be his ears down here."
A crude but workable scout-and-command system was thrown together faster than anyone thought possible. Sharp-Eye took flight again, vanishing into the gloom. Below, a wolf-orc with exceptional hearing lay flat near the Emberstrider's head, his ear pressed to a large copper listening horn, translating the faint, high-pitched cries into a series of rhythmic drumbeats.
Boom--- boom-boom--- boom---
The heavy drumbeats started echoing through the valley, the signals being tested and refined over and over.
Meanwhile, work on the ballista was frantic. Warrick and his team carefully connected the temporary energy cable—a mix of Beast-King tendon and conductive paste laced with Volcanic Ore dust—to the ballista's base, the other end ready to plug into a power port on the Emberstrider's keel. The work demanded perfect precision. A single mistake could mean a catastrophic energy leak or explosion.
Liam left them to it. He moved aside to check his Boiling One armor. The chest crystal was steady, but the energy tether connecting him to Elara felt sluggish, strained. He watched her, saw the sweat beading on her forehead, the pallor of her skin. The blood-loss, the damaged Beast Spirit—maintaining this deep mental link was pushing her to her limit.
"Can you hold?" he asked quietly, coming to her side.
She didn't look away from the sky, just gave a tight nod. "Yes. I have to." She paused, her voice tense. "Sharp-Eye reports the landing boats are heading for the 'Jagged Reefs' to the north. There's a hidden cave there. Could be their landing zone."
Liam's eyes narrowed. An opportunity, and a potential trap. Hitting the boats might give away the ballista's position. But letting them land could mean getting hit from behind later.
"Gareth!" he barked. "Take your best fighters to the Jagged Reefs. Your job is to harass and delay, make it look like we're trying to stop them. Do not get drawn into a real fight. I think this is a distraction."
Gareth slammed a fist against his chest plate. "Understood, my King! We'll be like rust-gnats in their ears—annoying, but hard to swat!"
The bear-orc chief quickly picked twenty of his toughest warriors, and they melted away into the shadows of the rust-wood forest like ghosts.
The minutes ticked by in a nerve-wracking rush. The fog overhead was indeed thinning, just as the Empire wanted. Patches of sunlight broke through, dappling the Emberstrider's skeleton, making the silver-brown metal gleam like the living shell of some ancient creature.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The drumbeat suddenly shifted, becoming rapid and hard. The listening wolf-orc snapped his head up. "Target turning! Ship's bow shifting portside, speed... almost dead in the water! Distance... four thousand yards! It's lining up its shot!"
Every heart hammered against ribs. The Dawn's Hope had finished its calculations. Its big guns were about to speak.
"Energy link, now!" Warrick yelled, his voice ragged. The last connector was slammed home onto a keel node. The whole makeshift system hummed to life. The Volcanic Ore crystals along the main keel glowed softly, one after another, like power flowing through a vein, all focusing down the cable to the ballista, which now pulsed with a faint silvery light.
"Load the resonator!" Liam commanded.
Two heavyset orcs strained to lift the modified harpoon, its tail dragging the energy cable, and slotted it into the ballista's rail. The dark red resonator core flickered with an inner light the moment it connected, like a slumbering beast stirring.
Liam stepped to the firing controls himself, his hands gripping the lever. He squinted through the crude sight, focusing on the colossal shape growing clearer in the fading mist. On the flank of the Dawn's Hope, a massive gun port, like the mouth of a deep-sea monster, was slowly grinding open, revealing the terrifying barrel within.
"Standby for power infusion..." Warrick muttered, eyes glued to his makeshift energy gauge—a Beast-King scale that was now glowing a worrying red.
Right at that moment, it happened.
A sharp, vicious mental spike—like an invisible, poisoned needle—shot straight into Elara's mind! She cried out, her body seizing. Her face went bone-white, and a thin line of blood trickled from her lip. High above, Sharp-Eye screeched in pain, his flight path wobbling wildly.
Cecilia. She'd been waiting for this.
Liam, linked to Elara, felt a stab of agony in his own head, his grip on the lever faltering for a split second. At the same time, the Rust-Corrosion inside him, feeling its kin, erupted. The dark patterns on his skin writhed up his neck. The flesh beneath his armor felt like it was tearing apart.
"Liam!" Elara gasped, fighting through the pain.
"I've got it!" he snarled, a raw fury in his eyes. He didn't fight the curse. Instead, he grabbed it—that chaotic, destructive power—and mashed it together with the steam energy from his armor, the Beast Spirit force from the pact insignia, and the pure, raw Volcanic Ore energy flooding down the cable from the Emberstrider. Different, wild energies, all forced into one terrible strand by his will alone, and he poured it all into the firing lever.
HHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMM—!
The energy cable attached to the harpoon exploded with a blinding mix of silver and red light. The whole ballista shuddered violently, metal screaming in protest. The dark red resonator core blazed like a tiny sun, its surface alive with phantom, spinning gears.
"NOW!" Liam roared, and threw his whole weight onto the lever.
KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!
It wasn't the sound of a cannon. It was deeper, like the sky itself was being torn in half. The heavy harpoon didn't just fly—it was launched, enveloped in a screaming column of silver-red energy mixed with steam and rust, moving faster than the eye could see. It tore across the water, and where it passed, the rust in the air ignited, leaving a burning, distorted scar in the atmosphere.
For a heartbeat, time seemed to stop.
Everyone watched, breathless, as the spear of light crossed the open sea.
The Dawn's Hope saw it coming too late. A frantic barrage of smaller defensive guns spat fire, trying to intercept, but it was useless against that raw, hybrid power.
The harpoon struck home, hitting the base of the massive forward gun turret just as its port was closing.
There was no giant explosion.
Something worse happened.
The thick armor at the impact point didn't shatter. It began to rot. It rusted, softened, and fell apart like wet paper, the dark corrosion spreading outwards like a vicious disease. Metal lost its strength, rivets popped, welds split open. The super-charged resonator was unleashing the pure, primordial rusting power of Ragnarok itself.
GRRRRRIND—CRRRREEEEE—K-K-BOOM!!
The sound of dying metal, a deep groaning and shrieking, carried faintly over the water. The Dawn's Hope's bow dipped sharply. The massive forward turret visibly crumpled and sagged, its gun barrel going dark, like a broken fang. Thick black smoke and a strange, rust-colored dust boiled from the wound, lit from within by the flashes of secondary explosions.
Silence.
Then, the tribe erupted. A deafening wave of cheers, disbelief, and sheer, raw relief.
Liam, however, collapsed to one knee. The light of his Boiling One armor flickered and died. The Volcanic Ore crystal on his chest was webbed with fine cracks. The backlash from forcing those warring energies together, plus the curse's kickback, had wrecked him from the inside. He coughed, hard, and the air tasted of rust.
Elara stumbled to him, holding his arm, her silver eyes wide with fear.
"It's not over..." Liam rasped, wiping rust-tinged spittle from his mouth. His eyes were still sharp, fixed on the horizon. "We just broke one tooth. That beast... is now pissed off."
As if to prove his point, the wounded Dawn's Hope didn't retreat. Its remaining turrets began to swivel wildly, hunting for a target. More searchlights than ever before stabbed through the mist, sweeping the coastline like furious, searching eyes. And then a steam whistle blew, louder, shriller, and more full of rage than any they had heard before—the roar of a wounded leviathan.
The real fight was just getting started.