The words of Sevrian echoed clearly, louder than the winds and waves of the storm. They reached the ears of the pirates’ captain and wide grin appeared on his bearded face. He looked happy, but there was coldness and hatred within his hazel eyes.

“That is not I wanted to hear, Sevrian. And you know that, damn it!” He shrugged his shoulders mockingly. “You leave me no choice. Men, move this ship over there and let us destroy those bastards!” He pulled out his cutlass and pointed it at the galley. His stance was confident.

Dozens of screams came out of the pirates’ mouths and wide smiles emerged on their faces. Soon the frigate started turning towards the ship of Sevrian.

Ehrir swallowed. The old man’s face was emotionless, while Varhel and Nalia had serious expressions. The sailors were no better – they held their weapons without courage. Those were no warriors and they definitely didn’t look ready to spill blood.

Luckily, the captain of the galley got a hold of himself first. His orders were loud and sharp and soon the whole deck was filled with movement. The sailors were getting ready to defend themselves from a direct attack, but also to maneuver the ship far from the enemy frigate. Soon part of the oars began moving again.

At that moment the old man finally spoke. His voice was trembling.

“Varhel. I need you to damage their shield as much as possible. Be careful not to be hit by spells. I’ll open part of our barrier for you. Get moving, young man. I hope you are successful.”

Varhel didn’t utter a word for an answer nor did he showed understanding in any way. He just took a strange pose and focused his gaze far into the horizon.

What happened next made Ehrir drop his jaw.

The hands of the young man – extended into the air – quickly started changing. One could see the bones into of them getting thinner and new ones forming. Soon feathers grew from his flesh and covered the strange membrane that appeared beneath. The process was quickly finished. Now Varhel didn’t have arms but instead was armed with a pair of giant black wings.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” muttered Nalia. “My brother is a genius when it comes to Creation, but this skill is almost counted as Manipulation.”

“I don’t care what it is counted as, but it’s… it’s insane, honestly.” Ehrir couldn’t take his eyes off of the young man who started waving his wings and ran towards the handrail. Then he jumped on it and his running turned into an elegant flight. He left the barrier around the galley and started soaring in the skies with incredible grace through the raging storm. Different magic powers were blasting from his body and hitting the frigate’s shield – flames, lightning and rays of pure white, blinding light. The pirates didn’t hesitate to counterattack. Their own spells were leaving through small gaps in the barrier, but Varhel was able to evade them all.

Not all of the enemies’ attacks were aimed at Sevrian’s disciple. Some of them striked the shield around the galley, but failed to do any visible damage. Despite that Ehrir could see the intense expression on the old man’s face. It looked like he was putting his whole power into strengthening the barrier.

“Don’t just stand there, younglings”, he yelled suddenly at Nalia and Ehrir. “Get ready! The enemies are approaching!”

There was truth in his words. The frigate had gotten dangerously near and from its deckhouse a powerful stream of magic projectiles was aiming at the galley. Most of them were weak and small when compared to the attacks of Varhel, but from time to time the captain created large balls of purple flames, webs of light rays in bizarre colors or small lightnings.

Ehrir watched this spectacle of power and light in awe. The scene before him was both mesmerizing and scary. After almost half a minute he snapped out of it and looked around. His eyes stopped upon Nalia. She was seemingly focused on the enemy ship. Her body wasn’t moving, but her eyes danced around. When she noticed Ehrir’s gaze, a slight smile appeared upon her lips.

“Watch the enemies’ ship carefully... You’ll see what a real Conquering can do!”

Ehrir turned his eyes towards the frigate. On its deck some kind of chaos had stirred up. The pirates were paling and blood was running from the noses and mouths of many amongst them. Some were falling and quickly losing consciousness.

“What… Are you doing this?” The Undone One felt shocked yet again.

Nalia’s smile grew into a grin.

“Of course. Are you surprised? Eh, I guess it’s understandable. My skills are pretty good for my age, after all.”

Ehrir couldn’t think of an answer. He knew what the young woman was doing – Sevrian had talked to him about this particular discipline in detail – but her power surprised him. The core of Conquering was to directly overpower someone’s soul energy and thus weaken the connection to his body, leading to temporary or permanent paralysis, heavy internal injuries and sometimes death. But a sorcerer had to have an exceptional control of his own power and long training before achieving the level of mastery showed by Nalia. It was truly breath-taking.

But on the enemies’ deckhouse nobody except for the weakest of mates fell to Nalia’s power. The captain didn’t look impressed at all. He was focused onto his own hands which were emitting bright purple light.

“Damn it… This is not going to end well!” Sevrian was drippling in sweat and he was panting heavily. “I cannot hold it up much longer!”

Ehrir shivered. If the mighty Sevrian couldn’t defend the ship from the pirates, what could he do against such a force in a direct fight? He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t…

Suddenly a small revelation surged up in his mind. He could do more than anything. He won in a fight while outnumbered by three people, all thanks to his Changing. In the chaos of this battle he could get close enough to use his power without too big of a danger for his life. The warmth inside of him rose and filled his insides as he grabbed onto the energy of his soul. And then came the calming feeling of the magic burning in his veins. The fear was suddenly suppressed. It didn’t go away, but at least he stopped shuddering.

On the enemy ship Hildos was forming a big purple sphere of energy while his first mate slowly shrank the size of the frigate’s defensive barrier. Because of this the highest point of the masts and the bow were exposed to the blows of Varhel and annihilated by him, but the pirates didn’t even lay an eye on the destruction caused by the young man. Their gazes were fixated upon the captain and there was admiration within them.

Hildos quickly finished his sphere and let it fly towards the ends of the barrier. But it didn’t go out of the shield. Instead it… somehow merged with it. The shield started changing its color to purple and on its surface appeared hundreds of small sparks.

“Now, Remto!” The captain’s thunderous voice sounded suddenly. “Extend the barrier!”

The first mate grinned. It was obvious that holding the ship’s defenses was hard on him – he was sweating and shaking as if he had a fever, but this didn’t make his smile less worrying.

The shield started extending fast. Sevrian’s expression became even darker. He muttered something under his breath. Ehrir knew it was swear. And it not of the nicest ones, either.

“Everyone, grab onto something!” He shouted and his voice rang full of might. “What’s coming is going to shake us a little bit… Damned pirates! Blending magic like that…”

Ehrir watched in fear – because even the warmth of the magic flowing through him couldn’t match the horror rising in his mind – as the frigate’s barrier got bigger and bigger and it finally stopped at just a few steps from the galley’s defense. And then from its purple surface giant bolts of lightning started rising and hitting Sevrian’s shield. Every hit was accompanied by a boom that resonated around. The sheer might of the lightning meeting the shield made both ships shake wildly.

Ehrir counted the thunderbolts in his mind. He had nothing else to do in the middle of all this. Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five. The lightning wasn’t just aiming at the barrier. It was hitting the water surface all around the enemy ship and created a thick web of light and electricity around the frigate’s ship. Varhel couldn’t even get near it so he flew to a distant and safe position.

Twenty-eight. The old man was holding onto the galley’s handrail. His whole body was trembling. Twenty-nine. On the barrier around the ship countless small cracks had appeared. Thirty. Nalia’s face had a dark expression on it. Another two of the enemies’ mates fell, but that didn’t matter.

The thirty-first lightning shattered the shield with an ear-piercing boom. The waves rushed towards the galley and the whole ship shook. Ehrir grabbed onto the handrail and threw off into the sea. He felt as if his intestines were dancing inside of his body.

When the barrier was shattered the thunderbolts from the frigate stopped too. The last one hit the galley’s mast and its top was immediately covered in flames.

“Well, well…” The powered voice of Hildos surpassed the loudness of the storm. “You don’t look too good, Sevrian. But it’s a little bit too late. Remto, lower this shield. Men, go straight towards the other ship! Let’s do a fine and quick boarding! If you do well enough… then the wine on the following feast will be on me!” His words were accompanied with laughter that made Ehrir shiver.

“The frigate was quickly nearing. The defense around it fell instantly. Varhel’s attack started raining toward the deck, but it was met with a steady stream of spells which nullified almost all of them.

The mates on the enemies’ deckhouse took the chance and soon the galley was bombarded with small spears of light and balls of flames. The sailors starting falling one by one and chaos broke amongst them. In this situation the shouts of the captain were useless. The seafarers weren’t used to battles and military formations. Only a handful of them kept their calmness and got ready to defend themselves against the pirates.

When the frigate got close enough for boarding almost quarter of both crews wasn’t in condition for fighting. The mates did their jobs fine, but Nalia was merciless too.

“Remember, men – don’t destroy anything more than what needs to be destroyed! This is a fine ship, after all… Why burn it down when we can take it for ourselves?” Hildos screamed for one final time before the pirates started jumping on the galley’s deck. Their steel was met by the sailors’ weapons. Soon screams pierced the air and blood was spilled.

Ehrir watched all this in horror. He felt sick inside. The warmth had gone away. He would’ve probably be in this passive state until someone dealt him a mortal blow if it wasn’t for the desperate yell of Sevrian.

“Fight, young man! Damn it all… you have to fight!” The old man was doing well, as every enemy that got near him received a quick energy blast to the head. There were no real threats to him for now, as both the first mate and Hildos were still on the frigate’s deckhouse, just standing there while smiling widely. But the overall situation for the galley’s crew wasn’t good. They desperately needed another mage.

Happily, Ehrir got a hold of himself after hearing the old man’s cries. He turned around and it took him a second to localize one of the enemy’s mates that were surrounding Nalia. She was doing well against so many sorcerers but obviously her Conquering was too weak to overpower all of them. The Undone One jumped towards one of the mates and punched him in the back with all the strength he could gather. One second was just enough for the warmth of magic to fill him. The man fell on the ground and didn’t stand up. Ehrir had turned his bones into glass.

From this point on the Undone One sunk into the chaos of the battle. The fear was still raging within him, but he had given up fighting it. Instead he embraced his animalistic instincts. And they told him to kill or be killed. The warmth just empowered them additionally. Soon under his hands many people fell. People with blood turned into boiling water or bones changed to wood.