The task force sent to find and retrieve Octavius and reassert the Bull Kingdom’s authority over the Serpentine Isles moved swiftly over the next month. Once it was fully stocked, it moved with all haste to the narrow mouth of the Gulf of Discord, stopped at the Fleet Headquarters on Taurus Island a few days later to fill up on their needed supplies, and then sailed out into the Endless Ocean.

Everyone was nervous. Even if they weren’t heading out with the knowledge that an entire fleet led by three dreadnoughts had gone missing after leaving on this very same mission the previous year, there would’ve been many a heart beating faster than usual in the task force. This journey wasn’t the safest even at the best of times, with pirates looking for easy pickings; flocks of harpies living out on barren rocks in the ocean; roving schools of kraken that can split even a mid-sized ship in half and drag its entire crew down into the briny deep; and ocean nymphs so beautiful that even those with little interest in women could find themselves hopelessly entranced and drawn into their carnivorous embrace.

The task force was enormous, more than enough to deal with these threats if they came up, but many were still worried. Leon wasn’t, but that was mostly because he stayed in his cabin for almost the entire four weeks, only venturing above deck to get Anzu some exercise. Otherwise, he stayed in his cabin working on his enchantments, in his soul realm training with the Thunderbird, or on rare occasions, heading into the common room to spend some time with his squad when he needed the break. Only Maia was able to get him to stop working at will, and even then, she didn’t disturb him too awfully much.

His dedication saw quick results. He finished reapplying most of the enchantments to his armor that had been there before it had been utterly trashed, and they were better than ever. His rapidly advancing skill meant that he was able to refine the enchantment designs enough to use barely more than half the space the old enchantments did, and use less magic power to maintain, to boot, along with the added power and strength that they would bring to his abilities.

His more innovative designs took more work, however. He read every book that Nestor recommended, and diligently attended the old ghost’s classes. Given their circumstances, Leon was grateful that both Nestor and the Thunderbird spent their time mostly brushing him up on his knowledge of water magic, which he even took to occasionally practicing with Maia when she was in the mood—for the most part, however, Maia spent her time reading whatever she could get her hands on, reveling in her new skill, though Leon noticed that she mostly asked for and enjoyed the more fantastical adventure stories that he had in his soul realm than anything more practical or informative.

Leon’s reading was decidedly drier and more technical. He read manuals and scientific reports, even a series of textbooks meant to train younger students in the arts of the Clan. In those textbooks, he found an extremely simple enchantment meant to measure magic power with some degree of accuracy. It consisted of a single light rune modified by two more runes that heavily restricted its output. Channeling in enough power to make the light rune glow was considered by these textbooks to be one ‘aetos’, and through that a mage would be able to, with some degree of accuracy, measure and quantify the magic power they had at their command.

He almost expected a dry and boring name, like ‘magical unit’ or something, but Leon couldn’t help but laugh when Nestor explained its history: the aetos had originally been named after the man who pioneered that kind of measurement, but his name was so long and complicated—and even had a hidden euphemism for penises that wasn’t pronounced—that the powers-that-were in the Thunderbird Clan of the time eventually renamed it to the much simpler ‘aetos’ that was now described in Leon’s textbook. The entire system eventually came to be known as the Democritus Scale, after the man who popularized it rather than its actual codifier.

It took him a few tries, but Leon eventually successfully wrote a spell for that enchantment, using it as soon as he could. It took only the tiniest fraction of his power to make the rune glow, but he was so expectant that it would take more that he accidently overloaded the enchantment and burned a hole right through the spell paper.

Such measurement enchantments, as Leon subsequently learned from Nestor, were more frequently built into rings or inscribed onto the surfaces of crystals—both far more durable than paper—for that exact reason.

Eventually, though, Leon managed to get the enchantment working after putting it on a stray piece of junk armor that he had found in a corner of his soul realm, a discarded leather bracer that he’d used in his experiments to build his flight suit.

After using the enchantment and consulting with Nestor—who told him that an aetos could be roughly equated to the amount of magic power in one cubic foot of air in his soul realm—Leon did some calculations and eventually reached the conclusion that, by these standards, if he filled his soul realm with every scrap of power that he possibly could, and it didn’t grow in response, then he had the room for almost five quintillion aetoi within himself, and millions more within his blood.

Of course, he didn’t have even a fraction of that stored up, but his eyes couldn’t help but bulge out after doing that math. He’d only continue to grow, after all, and being able to place even a moderately accurate number on where he was now was mind-boggling. Nestor tempered things just a little bit when he said that Leon’s magic power was more likely in the higher trillions rather than the quintillions, but that still left him reeling. Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to worry much about aetoi in his day-to-day magical activity, only when enchanting.

For that, he was grateful, but he could already sense a great deal of frustration in his future if he had to deal with that kind of tremendously fine scale to improve his enchanting skills. Math wasn’t his greatest strength, and the prospect of constantly doing these calculations worried him greatly.

His curiosity wasn’t so easily dissuaded, however, and he eventually took a day to try and calculate how much power his armor’s enchantments required to operate. He was surprised to see that even without any additions and with the refinements he made, his armor still devoured magic power at a prodigious rate by the Democritus Scale. Channeling his magic as he usually did when wearing his armor cost him millions of aetoi per minute.

He could restrict that expenditure with more efficient use of his power, of course, but it helped him put what he was doing into some kind of perspective—some of the enchantments described to him by Nestor had power requirements in the septillions per minute, such as the engines that powered the great arks that were powerful enough to fly through the Void, or the weapons many of these great metal beasts were equipped with, which would require sextillions of aetoi for every shot.

Just thinking about that kind of power made Leon’s head hurt, but he did his best to try and keep things grounded. He’d need a lot of time to wrap his head around those numbers. If everything proceeded according to his desires, however, then he’d eventually be working at that scale.

For now, he just needed magic power in the millions, and to try and solve some of that, Leon visited one of the Legion blacksmiths that maintained the gear of the sailors and marines on the dreadnought. The man was gracious enough to attach one of Leon’s emeralds to a silver band for a modest fee. It wasn’t pretty, but Leon didn’t need it to be, he just needed something that he could attach to his armor that would be able to store magic power.

When he was finished, he’d managed to jury-rig together a small magical battery onto his armor that could allow him to independently power some of his new enchantments with the power the battery would siphon from the air, namely a pair of wrist weapons and enchantments on his boots and helmet to help him swim faster and keep his helmet waterproof. He’d probably burn through that power quickly, but it was better than using his own reserves.

When all was said and done, he couldn’t help but be proud of his work, even if the inside of his polished black armor was a mess of tangled silver bearing his many enchantments. It was horrid enough to his eyes that he vowed to find a better solution when he returned to the Bull Kingdom, but it all functioned well enough that he left it as it was.

His one regret, however, was that he couldn’t easily test the enchantments he’d devised to move and survive underwater. The entire task force was hardly going to stop for a few hours every few days so that he could go swimming in the Endless Ocean—not that he much wanted to, given the kinds of dangers that swam within—or so that he could test and calibrate his new enchantments. Not even Maia went out into the ocean, with her telling Leon that she was a river nymph, not an ocean nymph and refusing to elaborate.

The last few days of the journey were fairly quiet for Leon, though. He finished with his work and spent those last days resting and preparing for the task force’s arrival at Kraterok. He caught up with Alix, Marcus, and Alcander, listening to them go a little stir crazy from all the time they’d spent at sea, while also rendering a small amount of assistance with their own enchanting needs.

Finally, he gave everyone, Maia included, a small stack of healing spells along with another small stack of more dangerous spells. Marcus, Alcander, and Maia didn’t have bows, but Alix did, so Leon also shared with her some of his spell arrows. With so much of his time having been spent on his own equipment, he unfortunately didn’t have all that much time making sure that they were as well-equipped as he was, but he was more than willing to share his spells, at least.

On the second-to-last day before they were scheduled to arrive, the first of the Serpentine Isles started to become visible in the distance, perhaps some fifty miles away or so. The haze of distance that rendered everything into a distant gray and brown line started to expand into the volcanic mountains that formed the Isles, their slopes painted a deep, vibrant green from the jungle that covered them.

As it came into view, Leon was invited to a meeting with Sigebert and Gaius to go over their plans one last time. Sigebert would lead the task force on a relatively close pass by the city as a show of force, then he’d lead the landing a few miles down the coast from the city of Kraterok, with Leon using his powers to lead from the front. The rest of the task force would then move on to the city’s port, letting them assault the city from land and sea.

The task force had taken a few light casualties on the way—mostly from a school of hungry krakens snatching a hundred or so sailors off the decks of the ships as they swam past—but they weren’t nearly debilitating enough to call the attack off.

Worryingly, they hadn’t found any trace of the previous fleet anywhere. Not a single plank floating in the water, no signs of the magic in the air having been disturbed by a great battle, and the scouts reported no signs on any of the small barren islands they passed of any wreckage or survivors. After weeks at sea, however, many of the task force’s anxieties had abated in favor of boredom, and, at least those that Leon was able to overhear, seemed more than willing to fight if only to break up the monotony of their voyage.

Leon, however, wasn’t too bothered by that monotony, and spent the remainder of the journey resting in his cabin and ensuring that the rest of his small squad were just as well rested.

---

Jormun took a deep breath, savoring the clean, if humid air of the first island in the Serpentine Isle chain, the one his people knew as Serpent’s Head. It was a hot day, but the sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the seas were calm. The water itself was a gorgeous light blue, while the way the sun reflected off the nearby jungle trees and plants made their leaves practically sparkle.

It was a fantastic day, the perfect backdrop for Jormun to finish up his work.

He and his crew weren’t in Kraterok, the de facto capital city of both the first island and the Isles as a whole, but rather were deep in the jungle, far enough away from the city that they weren’t going to be disturbed. The privacy was nice, but it wasn’t why they were so far away from the ocean. Instead, most of the pirates were there watching Jormun carve hundreds of glyphs into the face of a cliff.

It might’ve been boring to watch for anyone else, but for almost all of the pirates, it was a riveting sight. This was the culmination of years of work, and they were entranced.

Only a handful of people weren’t so into watching Jormun’s art, but none were willing to voice their discontent or ask why they had stopped in their other duties for this—not that Jormun would’ve minded explaining. Each of the Serpentine Isles were like locks on a cage; they each had to be unlocked before the Serpent’s final seal could be undone.

The Penitent Paladin had, years before, done some of Jormun’s work for him when he destroyed the three southernmost islands in the chain. It was a crude, but effective method, but one that Jormun wasn’t too keen on reproducing. Most of his crew followed him out devotion to the Serpent, viewing him as its prophet, of sorts, but they were also from the Serpentine Isles and likely wouldn’t react well if forced to choose between the Serpent or their homes and families.

And Jormun still needed his crew, at least for a little while longer.

As Jormun was putting the finishing touches on the massive, frighteningly complex enchantment he’d carved into the small cliff, one of the local aristocrats from Kraterok came running into the circle of praying pirates, followed by almost three dozen guards. A strong force, but not enough to challenge Jormun’s crew, so he wasn’t worried that this was an attack. Instead, he assumed that the guards were simply there to protect the aristocrat from the dangers of the jungle, something which seemed to be confirmed when the guards appeared to relax once they’d joined with the pirates. A few even seemed to know some of Jormun’s crew, if the greetings they gave each other were anything to go by.

The aristocrat, however, was less than happy to see Jormun—or maybe was just less than happy in general; he always seemed to wear an expression on his face like he’d just smelled something terrible, at least in Jormun’s experience. He was a fourth-tier mage, but soft around the middle by fourth-tier standards, with smooth hands that had likely never seen a single day of physical labor in his entire life, a round face, and beady black eyes. His hair, normally perfectly braided down his back, seemed to have come loose during his journey through the jungle, being now barely held together in a slightly twisted ponytail.

“Captain Jormun!” the aristocrat called out.

“Dene,” Jormun replied as he plastered a good-natured smile all over his face. “What brings you all the way out here?”

“One of your krakens returned bearing the arms and armor of a Legion sailor!” Dene shouted back, his high-pitched and nasally voice slightly panicked and nervous. “We started getting the defenses ready as you instructed, but we’ve just got sight of their ships a few hours ago, they’ve sent at least two fleets! By our estimates, there could be as many as three or four! We won’t be able to hold off that many, especially not after—”

Dene caught himself right before he made a mistake, but Jormun’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and subtle glee.

“Not after what, exactly?” the pirate asked as he wiped his hands down to get rid of all the dust that had accumulated during his carving. His smile remained unmoved on his face, but he began to threateningly advance on Dene, his mere presence enough to intimidate even without a more menacing demeanor.

Dene visibly gulped and said, “It’s nothing. But we don’t have the manpower to hold off that many people. We’ll need the support you promised if we’re to hold back these tyrants!”

Jormun simply walked over and gave Dene a friendly clap on the shoulder, the man flinching as his face went white with terror. Jormun reveled in that reaction; he’d had to make quite a few examples in Kraterok in order to bring it out in people, and he always loved to see his hard work paying off.

“Don’t be so nervous, my friend,” he whispered as if Dene were an old friend. “I’ll follow through with my promise, I am a man of my word! The recent unfortunate turmoil in the city due to my ascension as Lord of the Serpentine Isles shall not impair its ability to defend itself!” Jormun held his hand up to his chest as if he were swearing upon his heart and gave the aristocrat a beaming smile. “You don’t need to hold off for long, I assure you of that! When the time is right and their fleet commits to their actions, my fleet will rush in and rip the horns right off this Bull! Make no mistake about that, Kraterok will not fall while I’m around!”

It took a few more platitudes for Dene to calm down, though he never quite relaxed in Jormun’s presence. After a while, though, he obviously noticed something strange, an absence of a certain notable individual.

“Where’s the Prince you stole from the Bull’s dungeons, if I might be so bold as to ask? I don’t see him around here…”

Jormun’s smile widened a tad. He’d wondered if Dene would notice. “I can’t help but wonder why you’re so curious?”

‘Probably just wants him as a hostage or bargaining tool for the battle to come,’ Jormun thought to himself.

“Such a person ought to be held in Kraterok, wouldn’t you agree?” Dene replied, his eyes darting around nervously as a bead of sweat formed on his brow.

“That young Prince will stay with me, so you needn’t worry about his safety,” Jormun replied. “Though I will pass on the sentiment that he’s greatly missed in Kraterok. I’m sure he’ll be very pleased.”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” Dene responded, clearly not assuaged but at least sufficiently intimidated to drop the line of questioning.

Jormun stood there staring at the aristocrat for a long moment, waiting for anything else he might have to say. When the aristocrat said nothing, Jormun asked, “Do you not have the defense of Kraterok to see to?”

“Yes, of course,” Dene said, and he turned on his heel and left as fast as he could without breaking into an all-out run.

Jormun watched him leave with amusement written all over his face.

‘These fucking people,’ he thought to himself, ‘utterly pathetic. It’ll be fun to watch that one in particular die.’

As if having the same thoughts, one of his oldest comrades, Rolf, the giant of a man, walked over and whispered to Jormun, “We don’t need him, why do we indulge his whims and those of the other corrupt nobility?”

Jormun merely smiled and replied, “I don’t like throwing away tools unless they’ve been used to the point of worthlessness. The people of Kraterok will serve our needs well. If they hold the Bull Kingdom here for a few days, then that gives us a few more days to finish out work.”

“Is not the work already finished, though?” Rolf asked, his voice rising in volume to an angry whisper that most of the other pirates could hear. “We didn’t have to go around carving runes in places for the Serpent’s other seals!”

“This is the last seal, my friend,” Jormun replied, his eyes gleaming in the sunlight. “It was also the first and the most powerful. If we mess this up, we’ll invite a whole host of calamities upon ourselves. You remember the power that the Central Empires displayed when we raided the southwest? When we stole that ship full of Titanstone from the Sky Devils, along with everything we stole from their own seaborne merchants?”

“How could I forget…?” Rolf responded with a shiver of muted terror, which Jormun noted was mirrored in many of his other nearby crew who were listening to their conversation.

“The Bull Kingdom is nothing, they’re a Kingdom on the decline, if their recent civil war is any indication. We don’t need to worry about their intervention, they won’t stop us in time even if they flatten Kraterok in an afternoon. Not with what we have in store for them. But if the Empires, or even worse, the one even they fear catch word of our actions here, then we’re all in for a world of pain that mortal minds cannot comprehend.”

Rolf nodded, his fear keeping him quiet, but slowly turning into resolve.

“That, my friend, is why we must carve these runes,” Jormun continued. “We must get this right on our first try. If we don’t, all of our labors up to this point will be for naught. The Serpent will remain in its tomb, and no god will be born unto this world.”

As he spoke, Jormun turned his attention to the rest of his crew, all of whom had quieted down to listen to their captain and one of his most loyal followers speak to the worries many of them had.

“But take heart, my friends!” Jormun loudly shouted for them all to clearly hear. “The Serpent is with us! We shall not fail in our holy task! When our ritual is complete, the Serpent will be reborn! It will ravage the lands and boil the seas! All but our people will be swept away in a great flood of blood and salt, and when the Serpent leaves for the higher realms, its work finished, this world—scoured clean of all that have spit and shit on us for millennia!—shall be inherited by us! The children of the Serpent!”

As he spoke, his voice became louder and louder, and when he roared his final sentence, the hundreds of pirates in his crew raised their arms and roared with him, firing themselves up for the war to come, the war that would see them made into the new Lords of Aeterna.