CHAPTER 33: THE LEGENDARY CAPTURE METHOD
FIELD NOTE:
If you try to tame a sea god at full health, the sea god will respond with “no,” followed by “eat.”
My palm was on its scale.
Cold.
Alive.
Vibrating like a drum the size of a mountain.
The leviathan’s eye filled my world. The ocean around us went still like the water itself was holding its breath to watch what happened next.
The system window hovered in front of my face like a judge.
[TAMING ATTEMPT INITIATED]
Target: Rivermouth Leviathan
Level: 60
Status: Blue-Threaded
Difficulty: Impossible
Warning: Failure may result in death
Tip: Do not hesitate.
I did not hesitate.
I pushed.
Pet Taming S surged out of me like a hook. That familiar feeling from Pyon, the invisible thread, the click of connection.
For one heartbeat, I felt it.
A mind.
Vast.
Cold.
Angry.
Then it slammed a door in my face.
[TAMING FAILED]
Reason: Target Willpower: Overwhelming
Reason: Target HP: Too High
Reason: Blue Thread interference detected
The ocean exploded.
The leviathan’s eye narrowed and the water around me turned into a fist.
A shockwave rolled outward. Not lightning, just pressure. The sea itself shoving me away like I was a fly it regretted noticing.
I went under.
Cold.
Black.
Instant drag.
Breath Control held.
Swimming SS screamed.
I kicked up and broke the surface coughing salt and rage.
The leviathan had risen higher.
Its mouth opened.
The pull started.
Not subtle. Not curious.
Hungry.
My body started sliding toward it like the ocean had become a conveyor belt and I was the next package.
“Okay,” I gasped, “that was attempt one.”
The leviathan made a sound like grinding stone underwater.
It surged forward.
A wall of scale brushed past my legs.
The water pressure slammed my ribs.
[HP -1,880]
My lungs tried to panic.
Panic Suppression punched it down.
I slapped a Snap Mend Ofuda onto my chest.
Warm.
Fast.
[HP +840]
[MP -140]
Not enough.
Never enough.
I swam.
Not away. Sideways. Across the suction line.
Swimming SS made it possible. For one breath at a time.
I hit a jagged sea stack and grabbed rock with bleeding fingers.
Athletics SS dragged me up like gravity owed me a favor.
I hauled myself onto slick stone and collapsed for half a second, chest heaving.
Below, the ocean climbed the rock like it wanted to follow.
The leviathan’s eye tracked me.
It was not raging randomly.
It was tracking the anchor smell.
My lockbox hummed hard against my ribs, basically screaming into my bloodstream.
The leviathan lifted its head and the water around its jaw began to churn.
Tsunami Breath.
Hessa’s voice flashed through my mind.
Cut the line. Do not let it take the mast.
My brain supplied a new translation.
Do not let it take me.
I yanked a Purify Salt Packet, tore it open, and threw the whole thing into the air.
The powder burst.
Hit spray.
Hit scale.
For two seconds, the blue veins under its skin flinched.
The inhale stuttered.
The mouth still opened.
The breath came out.
A wall of water slammed the sea stack.
I got launched like a pebble.
For one heartbeat, I was weightless.
Then I hit the water again.
Hard.
[HP -2,260]
My vision flashed white.
The leviathan roared, the sound traveling through my bones more than my ears.
Berserk.
It wasn’t just hungry now.
It was insulted.
I had touched it and dared to pull on its will.
Attempt one had not just failed.
It had offended a tool-god.
I surfaced again, coughing, and for half a second I thought about teleporting.
Then I remembered.
Teleport does not work.
The sea is sitting on the roads.
Great.
I treaded water, eyes burning, and felt my brain do something petty.
“Okay,” I panted. “Attempt two.”
I reached again.
Not with my hand.
With the bond.
Pet Taming surged.
The system window snapped up instantly like it loved watching me make poor choices.
[TAMING ATTEMPT INITIATED]
Target: Rivermouth Leviathan
Difficulty: Impossible
Warning: Failure probability: Extreme
I pushed harder.
This time I tried to be smarter.
I tried to align with it.
Not dominate.
Not beg.
Just match.
For one heartbeat, the thread held.
I felt the leviathan’s mind again.
Not a beast.
A worker.
A thing designed to pull.
To collect.
To obey an upstream hunger.
I tasted that upstream hunger and my stomach twisted.
Then the leviathan’s will surged, furious, and slammed the thread like a hammer.
[TAMING FAILED]
Reason: Target hostility increased
Reason: Mental backlash
Status: Leviathan enters RAMPAGE
My skull rang.
Actual pain.
Like someone had snapped a rubber band across my brain.
[HP -640]
[STATUS]
Mental Shock: Minor
The sea turned violent.
Not one wave.
All waves.
The leviathan thrashed.
A tail swept under the surface and the water around me became a blender.
I got yanked sideways, spun, slammed into something hard.
Rock.
[HP -1,120]
I barely got air.
My mouth opened and the ocean tried to fill it.
Breath Control held by a thread.
The leviathan surfaced closer, mouth opening, suction back, stronger.
It wanted me gone.
Not eaten.
Removed.
Like cleaning a pipe.
The blue lightning in the far storm line flickered like applause.
I coughed and laughed once, cracked.
“Okay,” I wheezed. “Not working.”
The leviathan surged forward again.
The suction yanked me hard enough that my shoulder nearly dislocated.
My body slid toward the mouth tunnel.
And my brain, in that perfect panicked clarity, grabbed the most ridiculous reference possible.
Pokemon.
You do not throw a Pokeball at a legendary at full health.
You weaken it.
You status it.
You do not kill it.
I stared at the leviathan’s eye and a real, clean thought landed.
I am trying to catch a legendary at full HP.
Of course it’s flipping berserk.
I kicked sideways and barely escaped the mouth line again.
Then I did the only sane thing left.
I stopped trying to be mystical.
I started trying to be a gamer.
“Alright,” I gasped. “We do it the dumb way.”
I dragged myself back to the sea stack, bleeding, shaking, furious.
Athletics SS hauled me up.
The leviathan circled below like a shark the size of a cathedral.
It slammed its head into the rock.
Not hard enough to break it.
Hard enough to threaten.
The whole stack shuddered.
It could break this place if it decided to.
It just wanted me to panic first.
I wiped water from my eyes and started pulling things out of inventory like I was building a raid kit mid-boss fight.
Salt packets.
Lanternflash Ofuda.
Mirror Prism Shards.
Anchor Seal Paper.
A vial of lacquer.
My crafting brain woke up.
No forge.
No table.
No time.
Did not matter.
Crafting S does not care about comfort.
It cares about spite.
I slapped paper on rock.
I used lacquer as binding.
Stolen story; please report.
I pressed shrine salt into ink lines.
I crushed a Mirror Prism Shard into powder and smeared it into the seal.
I made three new ofuda.
One with a heavy spiral rune.
One with a jagged line rune.
One with a simple dot-in-circle rune that screamed “sleep” even before it worked.
The system chimed like a monster.
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Bind Ofuda (Rare)
Effect: Movement Suppression (Moderate)
Duration: 4 seconds
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Cramp Ofuda (Rare)
Effect: Muscle Lock (Minor)
Duration: 6 seconds
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Drowse Ofuda (Rare)
Effect: Drowsy (Moderate)
Chance: High on low-HP targets
My hands shook from cold and adrenaline.
The leviathan rose again, eye staring, mouth opening.
It inhaled.
Tsunami Breath coming again.
I threw the first thing I had.
Bind Ofuda.
It flew.
Stuck to the leviathan’s scale ridge under the eye.
It flashed.
The leviathan’s head stuttered.
Not stopped.
Stuttered.
The inhale hesitated.
That was enough.
I hurled a Purify Salt Packet straight into its open mouth.
The salt burst inside the funnel.
The blue veins along its jaw flinched.
The breath misfired.
Instead of a clean wall of water, it coughed a broken surge and the wave hit wide.
The sea stack still got slammed.
But I did not get erased.
I jumped into the water.
Yes.
On purpose.
Because now I had a plan.
Weaken.
Status.
Capture.
I swam hard, using the chaos from the misfired breath to close distance.
The leviathan lunged.
The suction grabbed.
I angled into it, using Swimming SS to ride the pull line like a current ramp.
I hit its head.
Not the mouth.
The side of the jaw, above the teeth line, where the scale plates overlapped.
My katana flashed.
I cut shallow.
Not a kill cut.
A damage cut.
The blade bit into scale seam and blood did not pour.
Instead, the blue-threaded water around it hissed like it hated being opened.
[ENEMY HP REDUCED]
Rivermouth Leviathan HP: 100% -> 96%
The system gave me a health bar.
That alone felt like a personal insult.
“Oh good,” I gasped. “Now you show me.”
The leviathan roared and thrashed.
I got thrown off the head and nearly swallowed.
I kicked away.
I slapped a Pulse Mend Ofuda on my ribs mid-water.
Warm burst.
HP climbed.
[HP +1,420]
[MP -310]
I swam back in.
Hit.
Cut.
Shallow.
Withdraw.
I started fighting like a mosquito with a knife.
Each cut shaved a sliver.
Each sliver mattered.
The leviathan’s attacks were too big to block.
So I didn’t block.
I dodged.
Swimming SS became dodge.
Athletics SS became burst.
Breath Control became survival.
I cut again.
HP 96% -> 92%.
Again.
92% -> 89%.
The leviathan’s eye narrowed.
Its mouth opened wider.
Suction intensified.
I got dragged.
I slammed a Cramp Ofuda onto its lip ridge as I passed.
Flash.
The lip muscle locked for a breath.
The suction stuttered.
I escaped.
My system chimed like it loved this.
[NEW SKILL ACQUIRED]
Subdual Intent (Rank F)
Effect: reduces lethal damage, increases capture compatibility
Note: congratulations, you are officially a monster catcher
I barked a laugh into seawater.
“Yep,” I wheezed. “That checks out.”
I kept cutting.
Shallow.
Precise.
Nonlethal.
Subdual Intent kicked in and my blade started feeling like it was choosing pain over death.
HP 89% -> 80%.
The leviathan went crazier.
It slammed the sea stack hard enough to crack rock.
I felt the vibration through the water like a warning.
If it breaks my platform, I lose my craft corner.
If I lose my craft corner, I lose my status kit.
So I committed.
I swam under the jaw.
Up along the throat.
Cut along a blue-vein ridge.
The salt on my skin burned.
The water tasted metallic.
HP 80% -> 72%.
The leviathan’s eye rolled.
It looked less insulted now.
More focused.
It was learning.
So I did too.
I used Bind Ofuda again, stuck it to a fin.
The fin stiffened.
I cut the fin base, not severing, just bruising.
HP 72% -> 65%.
My arms were burning.
My legs were burning.
My lungs were burning.
My MP was dropping.
I slapped another Pulse Mend.
[HP +1,380]
[MP -300]
“Okay,” I panted. “We go to catch range.”
I kept shaving.
HP 65% -> 52%.
The leviathan’s movements slowed slightly.
Not tired.
Annoyed.
Then it did something worse.
It dove.
Straight down.
And the water around me followed.
The suction turned into a whirlpool that pulled me down with it.
The ocean darkened.
Pressure squeezed my chest.
Breath Control strained.
My vision tunneled.
The leviathan was dragging me into deep water where I could not breathe long enough to play capture games.
Smart.
I gritted my teeth.
“Not smart enough,” I whispered.
I reached into inventory.
Grabbed two Mirror Prism Shards.
Crushed them together.
The shards sparked, reflecting light weirdly.
I smeared the powder onto a salt packet and threw it down into the whirl.
The packet burst like a flashbang underwater.
The blue thread flinched.
The whirl stuttered.
I kicked up.
Swimming SS tore me upward like a torpedo.
I broke the surface gasping.
The leviathan surfaced too, shaking water off its head like it was irritated.
HP bar blinked.
52%.
Still too high.
Still too dangerous.
Still not catch range.
I stared at it and remembered another Pokemon rule.
Status first.
Paralyze.
Sleep.
Anything.
Make it stop moving like a god.
I pulled the Drowse Ofuda.
My hands were shaking, but my aim felt clean.
I waited.
The leviathan inhaled.
The mouth opened.
Suction started again.
Perfect.
I let myself get pulled.
Not all the way.
Just close enough.
Then I slapped the Drowse Ofuda onto the inside of its jaw as I passed.
The paper stuck for half a heartbeat.
Then it flashed.
A soft shimmer.
Not light.
Lull.
The leviathan’s eye widened slightly.
Like surprise.
The suction weakened.
The mouth closed halfway.
The leviathan’s head dipped.
[STATUS APPLIED]
Drowsy: Moderate
I stared.
It worked.
I laughed, wild.
“Oh my god,” I panted. “Pokemon was right.”
The leviathan’s movements slowed.
Not asleep.
But slower.
More sluggish.
More catchable.
I did not waste the window.
I cut again.
HP 52% -> 44%.
Again.
44% -> 38%.
The leviathan jerked awake enough to thrash, but the Drowsy kept it from going full storm god again.
I threw a Bind Ofuda on the tail fin.
Flash.
Tail stiffened.
It could not whip me as easily.
I cut.
Shave.
Withdraw.
HP 38% -> 31%.
My body screamed.
I was on fumes.
My MP was low.
My HP was stable only because I kept patching.
My stamina was running on Second Wind and pure stubbornness.
The leviathan’s eye narrowed again.
It was starting to adapt to the salt.
Starting to hate the ofuda.
I needed the capture now.
Catch range.
Now.
I pushed harder.
One more cycle.
Two more cycles.
HP 31% -> 24%.
HP 24% -> 18%.
The leviathan went still.
Not dead.
Not calm.
It hovered in the water, drowsy and furious, like a god forced to sit in a chair.
My system chimed, crisp.
[CAPTURE COMPATIBILITY: HIGH]
Recommended: Taming attempt
I took a shaking breath.
“Third time,” I whispered.
Then I did it.
I swam close.
Open palm.
Not a weapon.
The leviathan’s eye locked on mine.
Its mouth opened slightly.
A weak suction started.
Then stopped.
The Drowsy held.
I pressed my palm to its scale again.
Pet Taming surged.
This time, the bond thread didn’t hit a wall.
It hit resistance.
It pushed.
It held.
The leviathan’s mind crashed into mine like a tidal wave.
Anger.
Hunger.
Tool-purpose.
And underneath all of it, something that made my stomach twist.
A leash.
It was not fully free.
It was bound upstream.
That leash yanked it whenever it tried to pull away from the siphon pattern.
I pushed into that leash.
Not to break it.
To claim priority.
To overwrite.
To become the closer command.
The system window trembled.
[TAMING ATTEMPT 3/3]
Will contest: Active
Blue Thread interference: Present
Subdual Intent: Active
Status: Drowsy
My skull throbbed.
My vision flashed.
The leviathan pushed back.
Hard.
A mind like deep ocean pressure.
And then, just as I felt my consciousness start to crack, the system chimed like a bell struck at the bottom of the sea.
[TAMING SUCCESS]
Companion Acquired: Rivermouth Leviathan
Bond Type: Contract Anchor
Warning: Companion disposition: Hostile
Note: Congratulations. This should not have worked.
The ocean went still.
Not just around us.
All around.
Like the water itself paused to process what I had done.
Then the XP hit.
A wave of it.
A physical sensation like my bones were being filled with electricity.
[EXP GAINED]
Leviathan Taming Bonus: Massive
Solo Bonus: Applied
Threat Differential: High
[LEVEL UP]
Kenta: 40 -> 41
Kenta: 41 -> 42
Kenta: 42 -> 43
[SKILL RANK UP]
Pet Taming: S -> SS
Subdual Intent: F -> D
Breath Control: F -> D
Cold Resistance: E -> D
[NEW TITLE ACQUIRED]
Leviathan Tamer (Unique)
Effect: aquatic companions resist Blue Thread influence (Minor)
Effect: mounted sea travel efficiency increased (Major)
I floated there, panting, eyes wide, like my body hadn’t caught up with reality.
Then the leviathan’s mind pressed into mine again.
Not gentle.
A voice formed, not words at first, just meaning.
Small. Insolent. Temporary.
Then, actual words, slow and heavy, like the leviathan was learning how to fit language into a mouth built for water.
You bound me.
I coughed water and laughed once.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I did.”
The leviathan’s eye narrowed.
I am not a pet.
“Good,” I said. “Neither am I. We’re both miserable. Teamwork.”
The leviathan’s mind radiated fury.
Release.
I stared at it, salt burning on my skin, arms shaking.
Then I said the most honest thing I could.
“No.”
The leviathan went silent for a beat.
Then its presence surged again, cold and contemptuous.
Your kind is brief. You will die. The bond ends.
I blinked.
That was intelligent.
That was also not comforting.
I snorted.
“Humans live like sixty to eighty years,” I said, breathless, and hated myself for how casual that sounded. “You can handle a small roadstop.”
The leviathan’s eye blinked slowly.
Roadstop?
“Yeah,” I said. “An annoying detour. A bad layover. You’ll survive.”
The leviathan’s mind pulsed with a word that felt like it had been carved into rock.
Insufferable.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Then my brain caught up to the absurdity.
Final Fantasy leviathan scene.
Now Pokemon capture mechanics.
What next.
I stared out at the sea, panting, and muttered, “Is every game I’ve ever played going to make an appearance in this world somehow.”
The leviathan did not answer.
It just hovered, drowsy fading, hostility simmering, contract binding humming between us like a chain.
Then I felt it.
The upstream leash.
Still there.
Still tugging on the leviathan’s mind.
But weaker.
Not because it broke.
Because my bond had layered over it.
I could feel the difference between a tool and a companion now.
The leviathan was both.
And I was going to use that.
---
I got onto its back by accident.
Not elegantly.
More like clinging to a moving island.
The leviathan surfaced higher, grudgingly, like it was letting me breathe out of spite.
I grabbed a ridge along its spine and hauled myself up.
Athletics SS did the rest.
Water poured off my clothes.
My arms shook.
I sat astride a scale ridge like a rider with no saddle and a very expensive life insurance problem.
The leviathan’s mind pressed against mine, offended.
Do not sit there.
“You are literally the ocean,” I panted. “You have room.”
The leviathan made a low sound that vibrated through my thighs.
It did not throw me off.
That was progress.
Now the immediate problem.
The leviathan had been blocking anchor paths.
It was still here.
And if I stayed near Mizunagi, the town would eventually notice that their local sea god had a hero sitting on it like a bench.
So I did what I always do after a big win.
I got paranoid.
Overlevel.
Overprepare.
Farm.
Because if the world was going to throw me into a sanctuary with Mina under watch, or a frost fjord, or a black sand coast full of angry locals and one very angry Lyra, I needed more than courage and snacks.
I needed stats.
Skills.
Gear.
I leaned forward and pressed my palm to the leviathan’s scale again, this time not taming, just communicating.
“Go,” I whispered. “Away from shore. Deep water. Hunting.”
The leviathan’s mind surged.
No.
I pushed a little through the bond.
Not domination.
Direction.
The contract anchor hummed.
The leviathan’s body moved.
Not fast.
Not eager.
But it moved.
It turned, pulling away from the river mouth, away from Mizunagi, toward open sea.
Good.
I clung tighter.
Spray hit my face.
The leviathan accelerated.
And suddenly I understood why people worship these things.
The ocean stopped feeling like a place.
It became a road.
A dark, rolling road.
The leviathan swam beneath me with effortless power, cutting through waves like they were suggestions.
My Swimming SS pulsed anyway, syncing to the motion.
My system chimed.
[NEW SKILL ACQUIRED]
Mounted Travel: Aquatic (Rank F)
[SKILL EXP]
Mounted Travel: Aquatic +28%
Of course.
Of course the system gives me a skill for sitting on a sea god.
We reached deeper water where the sea smelled colder and older.
The leviathan slowed.
Its mind pressed into mine again, sharp.
Why hunt.
“Because I don’t trust anything,” I whispered. “And because I need materials.”
The leviathan’s contempt rolled in a wave.
Greed.
“Survival,” I corrected.
Then the water under us rippled.
Not wind.
Not wave.
Life.
Blue-threaded movement.
A school of Vein Eels.
Bigger than the dungeon ones.
Saltwater versions.
They darted toward the leviathan’s underside like parasites sensing an engine.
The leviathan’s mind flared with disgust.
It surged.
But instead of fleeing, it angled its body.
Like presenting them.
To me.
I blinked.
“Oh,” I whispered. “You hate them too.”
The leviathan did not answer.
It simply held position, letting the eels swarm.
Fine.
Farm time.
I drew my katana.
Watercut.
Slash.
Ofuda dart.
I struck into the water, cutting eels as they surfaced, using the leviathan’s back as a stable platform.
Not stable. Better than drowning.
Eels hissed.
Blue threads popped like nerves.
My system chimed.
[ENEMY DEFEATED]
Vein Eel (Saltwater) x12
EXP gained: High (Solo bonus applied)
[ITEM DROPPED]
Vein Eel Spine x12 (Uncommon)
Blue Thread Node x3 (Rare)
Saltwater Shock Sac x2 (Rare)
My inventory filled.
My brain smiled.
The leviathan watched, silent, as if judging my method.
I threw a salt packet into the water and watched the blue threads around the dead eels flinch and dissolve faster.
Good.
Salt works.
More ripples.
Another pack.
This time, something bigger.
A Rift Jelly, translucent, drifting, with faint star-notch patterns pulsing under its bell like a heartbeat.
My lockbox hummed hard.
The leviathan’s mind tensed.
Leash-pull.
Tool pressure.
The upstream leash tugged, trying to steer it back toward the river mouth.
The leviathan resisted.
Barely.
It hated the leash.
It hated me.
It hated being pulled.
That hatred was useful.
We hunted.
I cut the jelly with Watercut and the bell split, releasing prism-like shards that glittered in moonlight.
[ITEM DROPPED]
Rift Jelly Prism x5 (Rare)
Anchor Slime x1 (Hazard)
My system chimed.
[LEVEL UP]
Kenta: 43 -> 44
My body felt denser.
Stronger.
More anchored.
I sat on the leviathan’s back, breathing hard, and realized something.
I was grinding mobs on a sea god I had caught like a legendary.
This world was completely insane.
I love it.
I hate it.
Both.
When the farming slowed, I did what I always do.
I crafted.
On the leviathan’s back.
Because I am a problem.
I pulled Anchor Seal Paper and lacquer.
I pulled salt.
I pulled Vein Eel spines.
I made a harness.
Not a saddle, that felt disrespectful in a way that might get me eaten.
A harness.
A set of straps that hooked around scale ridges and gave me handholds and a tether point so I didn’t get flung into the abyss when the leviathan decided to sneeze.
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Levi Harness (Rare)
Effect: Rider Stability (Major)
Effect: Bond Conductivity (Minor)
Warning: companion will hate this
The leviathan’s mind pressed into mine like a glare.
You make chains.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m good at chains. Sorry.”
I added one more thing.
A salt-inlaid charm that hung from the harness knot.
A purifier talisman.
Not to hurt the leviathan.
To dampen the upstream leash.
To reduce the blue-thread tug.
[CRAFTING SUCCESS]
Salt Anchor Charm (Rare)
Effect: Blue Thread dampening around companion (Minor)
Effect: leash interference reduced (Minor)
The leviathan’s mind shifted.
Not gratitude.
Less strain.
It noticed.
It did not thank me.
Of course it didn’t.
I tied the harness.
Strapped in.
Breathed.
Then I pulled out the Mirror Core and held it in my palm.
It glowed faintly, reflecting the moon in a way that made the ocean look like a mirror.
I focused.
Fellowship Echo.
The skill pulsed.
The map sensation returned, not fully visible, but present like a compass in my skull.
Lyra burned on the Ash Coast.
Roth steady in the far north.
Mina locked behind thick authority lines.
And now, with the Mirror Core close, I could sense direction better.
Not coordinates.
Not teleport.
But a pull.
A way to aim.
Good.
I put the Mirror Core away and sat back.
The leviathan floated.
Quiet.
Hostile.
Bound.
It was intelligent enough to sulk.
It pressed a thought into me, slow and cold.
You will regret binding me.
I wiped saltwater from my eyes and smiled faintly.
“Maybe,” I whispered. “But not today.”
Humans are brief.
“Yeah,” I said. “I heard you. Sixty to eighty years. Big whoop.”
The leviathan’s mind pressed again, sharp and contemptuous.
You think you know time.
I paused.
That sentence hit different.
Not because it was deep.
Because it was true.
I did not know time here.
Not really.
The system had already rewritten my body once.
It could rewrite it again.
Lifespan buffs.
Longevity passives.
Hero nonsense.
I swallowed and decided to not think about it too hard.
Thinking about it felt like inviting it.
Instead, I looked at the sea.
At the dark road.
At the faint blue storm line far away.
At the idea of traveling to my people.
And the question settled in my chest like a weight.
Who first.
Lyra was closest.
She was fire.
She was also my strongest mage and my best source of raw damage and control.
Roth was far.
He was steady.
He was my shield, my anchor, the one who didn’t panic when the world went loud.
Mina was trapped.
Under watch.
A symbol being used by people who smiled with knives.
And my attempt to reach her had been logged.
If I go for Mina first, I might start a war.
If I go for Lyra first, I get my mage, and maybe Pyon, and maybe a stable anchor for another Mirror Gate attempt.
If I go for Roth first, I gain the safest partner for whatever comes next, but I lose time, and time feels expensive now.
The leviathan floated under me, breathing slow, like the sea itself had lungs.
It did not like me.
But it was mine.
A mount.
A weapon.
A problem.
I gripped the harness knot and stared toward the horizon where the Ash Coast should be, somewhere beyond the dark.
Then I stared north, where the cold lands waited.
Then I closed my eyes and pictured Mina’s white room.
I exhaled.
“Okay,” I whispered to the ocean, to the leviathan, to myself.
“Who do I save first.”
