Ronnie and Erick looked over the railing and out toward the sea. Erick was smiling and Ronnie was complacent.

“Thanks for everything Ronnie. We would have died back there if it hadn’t been for you.”

Ronnie nodded his head, “It was nothing. I just expect you to return the favor if I’m ever down on my luck.” He chuckled.

Duke Fourgon and Aldweck were sharing a bottle of alcohol as they sat at a table peering out at the sea. The sun was beginning to rise and a warm glow began to cover the waves as birds flew through the air. The clouds were large and puffy cotton balls in the sky, hanging so far above the rest of the world.

Aldweck had woken up and enjoyed the luxury of seeing this beautiful sight. The Duke came up to him and waved the bottle at him and with all of Mitch’s worries and stress it was hard to refuse.

Mitch had never been big on alcohol. The burning sensation that ran through his body, coupled with the relaxing and soothing feeling that overwhelmed his once tense muscles gave him sweet release.

“Ahh, Knight Aldweck. You truly live up to your title. To save another country’s knight and that of the Harbrights is an even greater act of heroism. You are a true friend who always has the back of those in need. I raise my glass to you.”

They cheered and downed the drinks, “You are flattering me. I merely followed my heart.”

“Oh? You aren’t saying that with Lady Monica around are you? You might just break her heart after all the kindred love you made to her on the ship.”

Mitch’s cheeks flushed as the memories ran through his mind that didn’t belong to him. Duke Fourgon saw this and busted out in laughter.

Lady Monica held the hems of her dress as she marched over with a stern look, “What are you saying about me, Duke! I’ll have you know that Aldweck might just have fallen in love with me.” She raised her chin high, her eyes peaking for approval from Aldweck.

Mitch was way too flustered for this and he just grinned real wide, “I’m just happy to be alive right now. With everyone else here that is. I can’t thank the Duke enough and all of his men who were here to help us.”

“Oh, no need--no need. You flatter us too much.” Duke Fourgon said.

“What a bummer. After as many times you bedded me you simply shy away from my proposal. Oh, my heart. You lady killer, Aldweck!” She held her chest and held her hand to her forehead mockingly.

“Hey, hey now! You still have the old Duke. Don’t get all sad on me.”

Duke Fourgon wrapped his arm around Monica’s hourglass figure.

“Oh, you flirt.”

And then a loud crashing sound interrupted the calming state of the ship and chaos ensued.

~ - ~ - ~

“You need to calm down Zaya!” Aldweck said, holding his hands up.

Over the calm waves, Duke Fourgon’s ship sailed silently through the southern hemisphere. The only thing that was disturbing this peace was Zaya’s fury. Her aura projected outward and made the ship creak and the boat feel weak on the sea. The water was volatile and crashed against the ship as Zaya’s rage affected the environment around her.

Even Duke Fourgon was holding tightly to the mast as if his life depended on it, his inner squeal tried to plead for integrity, “Please Knight Zaya. Come to your senses! Aldweck merely saved you from drowning in that wreckage.”

“I didn’t ask to be saved. Let alone by that weak and fungus of a man. I would have rather drowned in the pits of hell with magma running through every vein of my body.” She smacked her chest and a magical vortex opened up. Zaya pulled out the handle of a sword and the length kept coming and coming as she pulled out the blade. The blade part of the sword was made completely out of lightning. Its crackling thunders zipped across the air and made Mitch feel helpless.

The underside of Mitch’s eye twitched.

“Look, I saved your fucking life. You should be thanking me! But instead, you’re pulling your sword out and ready to kill everyone on this ship along with yourself because you’re too selfish to look at anything but your own feelings.”

Erick was beside Aldweck and nodded with his arms crossed, “What master said! You honestly don’t expect to beat him twice in battle anyways right?”

Mitch’s heart threw up.

Why the fuck would he say that? Erick is a death trap for anyone. Why hadn’t Mitch realized this sooner? Even if he saved him before, would it have mattered if Erick was just going to send him to his death anyway?

“What!?” Zaya swung the sword and cut the mast in half. Leaving the Duke’s hair a little shorter as the mast slumped over and plummeted into the water below.

“You think I can’t beat this small fry? I am Zaya the Conqueror! I am one of the strongest knights in the world and you dare speak to me with such lowborn squalor?”

Mitch searched Aldweck’s memories quickly for any kind of solution to this problem, but as usual, it wasn’t realistic to expect an entire internet archive of tools and useful information from one person. Mitch was really missing the internet.

He had one gamble and if it didn’t pay off, he was sure to lose his life here. Not that they had much hope with a broken ship.

“Through chambers of stolen breath, plundered treasure stained with the blood of the fallen, and the corporeal eyes that pierce the mist--”

“Hmph. Do you think your spirit beast can even begin to match mine!? You really are a fool.”

She put the sword back in her magical dimension and raised her hand to the air.

“From the crevices of hell and the pinnacles of heaven, I raise and decree the god of gods. Bound by chains and lifted by wings, the demon angel--Hellpeter!”

A huge swath of water exploded out from the ocean and made rainfall as a giant head emerged from the sea. It rose and it rose until it felt like the giant’s figure reached the clouds. It looked down on the group of people on the ship, moving seemingly in slow motion.

Aldweck’s legs started to tremble uncontrollably.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing!?” Aldweck screamed at the top of his lungs as the giant shadow cast down on the ship and everything turned black.

~ - ~ - ~

The darkness felt similar to how he had just been brought unwillingly to this world a few days ago. Except there had been a strange warmth that had left him feeling dazed and somehow comfortable despite all that had transpired.

Now, his skin felt as if he were rolling in the snow of Alaska. His body was an intrepid icicle that dared to crack and slide into the unknown. His heartbeat was slow until it felt like it had reached an imperceptible slope. One couldn’t hope to even ponder the slightest thought as time crawled and turned into a thoughtless abyss.

Aldweck had reached the end, and Mitch along with him. Time was no more and space was a concept too far above the dead who resided in nothingness.

In that darkness and nothingness, a simple warmth invaded the cold and wrapped around Aldweck. It was a warm bubbled pocket that slowly swept him up in the darkness. The warmth soon turned to heat and particles of light drifted down on the darkness, revealing Aldweck’s body that drifted aimlessly.

Two hands reached into the water and wrapped around Aldweck’s corpse as they pulled him up and his body appeared from the sea and onto large driftwood from the wreckage.

Erick leaned over and poured all of his might into drawing the water out of Aldweck and putting air back into his lungs. Zaya stood on a magical platform behind Erick, “Why are you even saving him? I proved that I was stronger, and that should be the end of it.”

Erick ignored her as he pumped his master’s chest in a methodical way before closing his nose and drawing air into his mouth.

“If he dies, it’s his fault. Not mine. It’s not like I was trying to kill him but it sort of just happened! Not that I care what some slave of a puny Knight thinks anyway.”

Erick continued his procedure as Zaya continued her dialogue, but he just kept silently working on Aldweck and kept focus on the task. His eyes did not deviate and they did not change in texture. Erick was completely tuned in on this task.

It was only several minutes after he had been doing this, Zaya chuckled, “You could do it for hours but that scum is finally dead! For good. You can’t bring him back. Even dark cultists couldn’t revive a dead person.”

Erick continued his cycle once more before his eyes dropped and looked down at Aldweck’s unbreathing body. His shoulders fell and his eyes closed as he hunched over and held his face to Aldweck’s chest.

“Y-You promised me…”

"Ha! That scum couldn’t keep a promise if he tried. All the women he’s slept with and cheated on. His cowardice and indecency make him the most unworthy of the title of knight.”

“Shut up...you don’t know anything about Aldweck. You’re just a bitch.”

“What?! You really must want to die.”

Zaya pulled out her lightning sword. Her eyes were full of selfish rage.

“Aldweck always told me not to use my powers on people weaker than me, but he never said anything about using them on those who are stronger than me. Right? You are stronger than me? Right, Knight Zaya?

“I hope you enjoy the afterlife, kid.”

Zaya swung her sword and sent out a wave of lightning that rippled through the air and dared to capture Erick in its grasp. Erick put up a magic barrier that immediately shattered, but by the time the lightning arrived, he was behind Zaya.

Her eyes widened as she realized how fast Erick had moved.

“Impossi--”

A fist caught her jaw and sent her flying back in the air. Erick and Zaya stood on magic disks, staring each other down.

“You stupid kid! I underestimated you for one second, but I won’t again.” She summoned three fireballs and sent them hurtling toward Erick like tracking missiles. He flew around on his magic disk and kept narrowly avoiding them as Zaya controlled the fireballs where she stood.

Erick expertly maneuvered around in the air sending off his own fire arrows that caused Zaya to have to narrowly avoid them. A locket of her hair was seared off as one passed right by her cheek.

“How are you so efficient at magic?! You’re nearly at the level of a Knight!”

An ice-cold, “Nearly?” drifted into Zaya’s ear as Erick appeared behind her with a fireball in his hand. Her eyes widened and she got away by the skin of her teeth.

“Fine! I was holding back, but I’ll treat you with the intent to kill.”

She cloned herself several times over and summoned lightning blades. All of the clones charged at Aldweck and sent off lightning flashes that attempted to fry him.

“You killed him. So, you’re going to pay for breaking the promise we made to each other! You’re the devil!”

“You don’t know the devil!”

She increased her speed as Erick struggled to get away.

“He saved your life and you repaid him by killing him! What kind of person does that make you?”

“And I didn’t ask to be saved by him.”

“He didn’t ask to be killed by you! You’re a fucking hypocrite.” A wave of explosive fire emanated out from Erick and consumed all of the clones, turning them into dust.

But as soon as he opened his eyes, Zaya was upon him and swinging her lightning sword into his chest. He was able to lean backward and avoid the piercing of the sword, but the electricity traveled throughout his body and made him falter. He nearly lost grasp of the magic disk he was standing on but gritted his teeth.

His hand grabbed hold of Zaya’s leg as she completed her motion, and sent the electricity back through to her, causing her to gasp in pain as she floated backward.

“You really know no limits. If you were ten years older you might even stand a chance against me. Hell, I bet you could become Mariotta’s next knight. So why are you so beat up about Aldweck’s death?”

“Even if I explained...it to you. You wouldn’t understand or care to listen. You’re so full of yourself and selfish that I could die a thousand times and you wouldn’t shed a single tear. Why explain something to someone who is so heartless and without basic human compassion?”

“Screw it. I knew this was pointless. It’s a shame a rare talent like yourself has to die wasted.”

“You only ever see people as resources. What a shame you’re still living.”

Erick made a water ball of magic that grew stronger and stronger by the second until it was the size of a small hill above his head. It swirled violently as water from the ocean started to gravitate towards it, capturing fish and other creatures inside of the rigid and terrorizing storm that rotated inside.

Zaya had cast a spell that summoned over a hundred blades of fire. These blades were then pointed at Erick with no means of escape. They circulated around Erick and then went for the kill as Zaya attempted to pierce him inside of the ball of burning blades.

Erick used the raging water sphere, exploding it outward and sending large swaths of water in every direction. This extinguished all of the blades and left them back to where they started. Erick’s face had started to turn pale and sweat rolled down his body. His breathing was heavy and his eyes dragged down to his cheeks.

“Heh, it looks like your mana is almost all used up. You know what happens if you run out right?”

“I’ll die.”

“So, let me end your life here. So you can find peace with your so-called master.”

“There will never be peace again.”

He motioned his hand and ten huge water balls dropped high from the sky toward Zaya.

“No way.” Zaya looked up in disbelief.

“You had summoned more the entire time?”

Erick didn’t acknowledge her back-handed compliments.

“You’re seriously awesome. You should come join the Harbrights if you would let all of this foolery go. Aldweck isn’t worth your future. You can have one without him.”

She shot a powerful wave of air at the water balls and dispelled them in the air, making more rainfall.

“I will kill you, even if it means death.”

He summoned ten more balls of water, as he coughed up blood. The balls of water surrounded Zaya.

“Hey! Kid, you’re actually going to die if you use any more magic.” She floated out of the encirclement and easily dispelled the water balls, showing her experience and edge over Erick.

“Don’t cast any more magic. You’ll die!”

“Just a minute ago you didn’t care…why should I stop now?” He struggled to keep his eyes open as he held his chest. His breathing was erratic and heavy.

“I know but--”

“Just watch me, master. I’ll avenge you.” Erick raised both of his hands as high as possible as the sea started to ripple. A burning flame appeared below the water and shot out like a volcanic geyser, engulfing Zaya.

“You said you wanted to drown in the pits of hell...magma running through every orifice of your body.”

Erick collapsed into the water.