Advent of Eternity - Chapter 135 (Patreon)

Cyll drew Lassie from his back, flicking the huge blade effortlessly and knocking an arrow from the air. It spun to the deck beside him. A sailor cursed, lurching away from the cannons and reaching for his sword.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Cyll asked, grabbing the man by his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted several archers loose arrows from their bows. He knocked the sword from the sailor’s hands and spun him around.

The man screamed, jerking in Cyll’s grip as the arrows slammed into his chest. Cyll tossed him to the side and jabbed Lassie down into his head, silencing his screams. Maya rose to her feet, then dove behind a cannon to avoid an arrow.

“What’s the plan?” Maya asked.

“Plan?” Cyll lunged, grabbing a sailor as the man tried to run him through. He slammed Lassie’s hilt into the man’s hand, forcing him to drop the sword, then ran him through. “Kill them. What else would we need?”

He threw the dead sailor at another man, sending them both crashing to the deck. Yells rose up from all over the galleon as its crew finally realized that it had been boarded. Maya raised her head, then jerked it back down an instant before an arrow nearly sprouted from her skull.

“Shit,” she cursed. “Get behind cover!”

“Why?” Cyll threw himself into a roll and came up beside the sailor he’d just knocked down. Cyll decapitated him, then flung his corpse toward the archers at the back of the ship. It made it about a fourth of the way before crashing to the deck and skidding several feet until coming to a stop before a woman. “Ah, shit. That’s embarrassing. I thought I could throw farther than that.”

An arrow whistled through the air. Cyll tilted his head to the side – and it caught him in the shoulder. He cursed and ripped it out, tossing it to the deck. The woman across from him scrambled to draw her sword. Cyll charged her and swung Lassie, cutting her apart before the blade could make it out of its sheath.

“Embarrassing,” Cyll drawled, ducking behind a mast. The yells coming up from below grew louder as sailors ran to reinforce the top deck. “Maya, what in the Sixteen Seas are you doing? There isn’t going to be anything fun left over if you keep waiting around!”

“How am I supposed to do anything when they’re firing arrows at me?” Maya yelled back.

Three sailors charged Cyll as one. He stepped out from behind the mast, keeping it between him and two of the men as he went to meet the other. Cyll flicked Lassie and metal rang out on metal as their blades clashed.

Cyll lunged, driving Lassie through the man before he could bring his sword back up. The other two men darted to flank him. Cyll kicked the dead sailor toward one of them and leapt at the other.

He spun, narrowly avoiding a strike aimed at his heart, and drove the hilt of his blade into the sailor’s head. The man crumpled and Cyll turned just in time to catch the strike from the final man on Lassie’s pommel.

Cyll kicked the sailor in the chest, knocking him back several feet. He strode forward, ducking away from another arrow before running the man through. Blood raced up Lassie’s blade, vanishing into the core of the sword even as Cyll ripped it free of its victim.

“I’d suggest you start by doing literally anything,” Cyll called to Maya. “It’s better than hiding through the entire fight.”

Maya grit her teeth. She poked her head over the cannon, flinching back as an arrow sailed past her, then sprinted out onto the open deck. A metallic hum filled the air as she drew her blade. It trembled violently in her hand for a second, then seemed to go still.

A large sailor let out a roar and thundered toward Maya, raising a hefty battleax over his head. He brought the weapon down, his muscles bunching as he put all the strength in his body into the blow.

Maya stepped to the side, rapping her blade against the axe’s head. A clean note rang out and a powerful vibration ran down the axe and into the man’s hands. He yelped in surprise as the axe shook itself from his hands.

He lurched toward Maya, but her sword was faster than he was. It carved across his body and she spun to the side. The sailor crashed to the deck, slamming into a mast. The axe continued to hum on the ground, slowly losing its energy and falling silent as the man died.

Maya grinned and turned toward Cyll – nearly catching an arrow to the neck in the process. It shot right past her neck, drawing a thin line of blood across her collarbone. Maya flinched back and cursed, scrambling over the man she’d just killed to take cover behind the mast.

“Pay attention!” Cyll snapped, launching a screaming man overboard and running another one through with Lassie. “And get some of these idiots off me! I don’t want to get stabbed!”

“Yeah, me neither,” Maya muttered. She stepped out from behind the mast and rapped the back of her sword against it. The entire piece of wood shuddered, shaking the sails as it let out a series of low moans and creaks.

Every one of the sailors spun toward her, realizing just how much threat she posed to the galleon’s integrity. Maya swallowed and lowered into a fighting stance.

“I think I got them off you, Cyll.”

A dozen men charged her. Out of the corner of her eye, Maya spotted a man wearing blue robes and bearing a gem studded blade dart out from below the deck, but she didn’t have time to pay him any attention.

She charged into the fight, her blade vibrating in what just might have been a song beside her. Metal flashed and blood flew through the air as she carved through the galleon’s crew. With every man that fell, the blade’s song grew even louder in her mind.

Its notes almost seemed to tug at her body, guiding her movements. A repositioned foot that tripped a man she hadn’t even seen, a small pirouette that let several arrows launch harmlessly past her.

The song seemed to fade in and out with the battle as it grew in intensity. Even with its guidance, there were far more men than she’d originally thought. Several arrows scraped past her and a few had actually slammed into her padded cloak, cutting the skin underneath with what she hoped were only superficial wounds.

Every passing second brought more exhaustion to Maya’s shoulders. Her blade might have been obeying her commands, but it was far from an easy beast to control. Each swing felt like a dozen, and every time she allowed its vibrations to pass into something else, it felt like her own body suffered a portion of its suffering.

A man sailed over Maya’s head, screaming. He crashed into the mast with a loud crack and fell silent, falling to the ground and forcing another sailor to dive out of the way to avoid getting crushed.

“You’re slowing down, Maya,” Cyll yelled, carving the sailor Maya had been fighting in two with Lassie and shoving him out of the way. “I hope you’re not getting tired.”

“Of course I am,” Maya hissed, drawing in a grateful breath. “There are hundreds of them!”

“Three dozen at most,” Cyll said flatly.

“Close enough!”

Maya ducked behind her trusty mast. An arrow thunked into it. Cyll stepped with her, nodding toward the back of the ship.

“Say, you mind taking care of that for me?”

“Taking care of what?”

Maya stuck her head back out from behind the mast. Cyll grabbed her by the shirt and yanked her closer to him as a torrent of churning water shot past her nose. The water carved into the deck, cleaving a thick chunk of the wood away.

“Sixteen Seas,” Maya cursed. “Someone’s got a strong path.”

“Yeah, and I’m trying not to get too cut up. I distracted him a bit while you fought the other idiots, but most of them are dead now.” Cyll said. He patted Maya on the shoulder. “You got this.”

Maya glanced around the mast, then swore and threw herself to the deck. Cyll did the same and a scythe of water screamed through the air. It splashed against the mast harmlessly.

“Guess he’s smart enough not to keep cutting up his ship,” Cyll said with a chuckle. “Well, off you go!”

“Why me? You literally can’t–”

Cyll clapped a hand over Maya’s mouth. He leapt to his feet and pulled her up with him before giving her a hearty slap on the back. “In you go, girl! I’ll finish off the rest of the little scurrying rats.”

Maya stumbled out and locked eyes with the man she’d spotted emerging from below the deck a minute ago. His blue robes were drenched and his chest heaved in desperate breaths. He raised his sword, pointing it at Maya.

She dove to the side as a stream of water erupted from the sea and slammed into the deck where she’d been standing moments before. Maya rolled to her feet and charged toward the stairs, vaulting over several dead sailors.

Her sword sang a warning in her head and she launched herself backward, narrowly avoiding getting decapitated by a sudden blast of frothy, white water.

“You’ve got a sword!” Maya yelled at the man. “Come use it!”

“Why would I do that, pirate?” the man asked with a snort. Despite his bold words, he had to take a few moments between several of the words. He was just as winded as Maya was – possibly more.

Another man’s scream vanished over the side of the deck. Maya resisted the urge to glance back to see how Cyll was doing. She tightened her grip on her sword, her thoughts flying. The man smirked down at her and flicked his blade.

Watery tendrils erupted over the side of the deck and extended toward Maya. She instinctively cut them as they grew close. To her surprise, the tendrils shuddered, transforming into fine sprays of tiny droplets before pattering against the deck.

Maya glanced from her sword to the man, who looked equally as surprised as she felt.

“Huh. Look at that,” Maya said, spinning the blade in her hand. “You might want to fix your control a little bit, there. Not a good look.”

“We’ll see about that,” the man growled. He grabbed his sword with both hands and raised it into the air. The gems inlaid into its hilt shimmered, and a line of blue energy raced down from the weapon and into his body.

A dull blue light lit just below his chin, and his eyes took on the same hue. His cheeks bulged and he doubled over as water poured out from his lips, cascading down the stairs in a deluge.

Maya sprinted up the stairs on the other side of the deck, hoping to reach him before he recovered from whatever it was he was doing. She reached the top deck as he started to rise, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

With a snarl, Maya lunged and thrust her blade at the man’s neck. A tendril of water shot out from beneath his cloak and slammed in to her stomach, throwing her back and knocking all the air from her lungs.

Maya hit the deck hard and rolled, slamming to a stop against the railing with a grunt. She staggered to her feet and pressed her hand to her chest, wincing at the pressure. Something was either fractured or broken.

“That good enough for you?” the man asked, blue light pouring out of his mouth. “Behold, Selenia’s true strength. Her blessing flows through me. Kneel to the Gods, cretin.”

Maya flicked her sword and lowered into a fighting stance. “More like a cheap trick. It won’t work twice.”

She repressed the pain and dashed toward him again. Water surged from beneath his robes again, but this time Maya was prepared. Gritting her teeth, she slammed all her weight down on one foot, coming to a stop and ducking out of the way as a watery tendril flicked past her head.

Maya surged forward and swung her sword. It touched his robes, but got no further. A wall of water surged over the side of the ship and slammed into Maya, slamming her to the ground and forcing a pained cry from her mouth.

She instinctually rolled to the side, and the thunk of a sword biting into the deck to her left told her that she’d made the right decision. Maya threw herself in the opposite direction and agony flared in her chest as she put pressure on it. She grabbed onto the railing near the ship’s wheel and pulled herself upright, pushing her wet hair away from her eyes.

“Won’t it?” the Scion asked, running his tongue along his lips. “One more time should be enough to crush you beneath the sea’s weight, I think.”

Maya pushed away from the railing and raised her sword again. The last dredges of her strength came to her limbs reluctantly and she bared her lips in a dry smile. “Don’t act too cocky. You nearly got ran through last time. I think you’re out of luck.”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” the Scion asked, raising his sword.

Maya matched the gesture. Then she charged.