Mavuto glanced at the troops and then back at him with an expression that said that this was not the time to discuss that topic, but Shiv continued to stare at him until he responded. "You… fought and killed two people that I thought had reached the absolute peak in terms of power."
Shiv nodded. That question had been bothering him since he'd been forced awake. "Alright, when can they set sail?"
"Those you see before you will be ready in an hour."
Shiv glared at Duncan. "You woke me an hour early!" He stood up. "I'm going back to sleep. Don't even think of waking me until the boats are actively leaving the harbor."
He spun around and marched down from the stage, only to be stopped by Esmeralda's voice, barely discernible over Duncan's laughter. "Our boat is ready to sail immediately. We will be the vanguard who push back the initial wave of enemies and establish a beachhead for the rest of your army."
"Fine. I'll sleep on the boat. Now lead the way."
"Why are you so obsessed with sleep all of a sudden?" Duncan asked as he hopped down and pointed in a direction for Shiv to stomp in.
"It increases my healing speed exponentially. And thanks to Cranky here, I've got an exponential amount of wounds to heal from."
"That's not how that word is supposed to be used." Esmeralda informed them stiffly.
"I find that I care very little for your exponentially stupid declaration."
Duncan winced. "Stop trying to use big words. You're failing miserably, and sounding weird. Go back to your 'cool wicked' way of talking."
"Your expo-"
"Look, we're here! Now you can go to the captain's cabin and go back to sleep." Duncan said cheerfully as he led them up the gangplank of a truly magnificent ship. "We should arrive in five days. That should be plenty of time to get all healed up."
Shiv nodded to himself and moved toward the cabin, but stopped suddenly. "Blaze. You're certain she's with Briggs?"
Duncan had been moving in the opposite direction, but he also stopped. "Briggs and I have regular correspondence. I'll have your answer by the time we arrive at the harbor."
Shiv left without another word.
Duncan glanced at Esmeralda, looked down, stepped out of the way of a sailor, and made his way to the prow of the ship. Looking out at the distant horizon, he grimaced and whispered. "Briggs… you better have that girl. And you better be keeping her safe. If she dies… I don't think Shiv will stop at this planet in his journey of destruction."
***
"A fleet, Cap'n!" Shiv walked onto the deck of the ship a day later to find the entire crew scrambling around everywhere, and the captain standing at the edge of the ship with a glass held to his eye.
"It's the church!" The news sent a shock of energy into the crew, causing them to move with even more speed and vigor. "They've got a whole 'ntire fleet headed our way!"
"In case you've forgotten, we've got a fleet of our own." Duncan entered the scene, dropping lightly to the deck and taking the looking glass. "Just out of curiosity, what is your relationship with the Underwater City's government?"
It took the captain a second to realize he was the one Duncan was speaking to. "Well, to be honest-and honest is one thing I am-the royal family hasn't been too pleased with me."
"Why?"
"There was an issue with taxes not too long ago, and I was accused-wrongly, for I'm an honest man- of dodging my taxes. So I was rightly surprised when they gave me such an important job as transporting the vanguard of the army. I see it as them offering a hand in apology, you understand?"
Duncan took the glass from his eye and glanced at Shiv with pursed lips. "You understand?"
Shiv grinned. "We've been betrayed."
"That's my opinion as well, though this could also be coincidence."
"Hmmm. No, it's a trap." Shiv took the glass and looked at the fleet, comprised of four ships, moving at a rapid rate toward him.
"That last thing I said was actually a joke."
"You would make a terrible jester." Esmeralda walked up and waited patiently until Shiv was done with the glass before taking it herself with a polite nod.
"What's a jester?" Shiv wanted to know. "And you guys haven't unlocked flintlock or canons or anything yet, have you?"
"If by flintlock you mean… no. I don't know what that is. Nor canons."
"A jester is a master of comedy who serves people in power and does his best to keep them humble whilst also keeping his life." Esmeralda kindly explained.
"Ordinarily, what would you do in this situation?" Duncan asked the captain.
"Well, ordinarily I wouldn't be involved in a war against the church. Heresy or no."
Shiv laughed at the annoyed face Duncan assumed, and spoke. "It doesn't matter, regardless. We're going to fight and sink them. Then we're going to continue on to the city, which will probably be a lot less defended, and we'll sink it, too."
Duncan grimaced. Shiv took that as an affirmation of his plan, not that he particularly cared either way. "I do want to know, however, if that army is going to be following us to help take the city or not."
Esmeralda was the one who answered. "There's no way to tell for certain just yet. I would imagine the answer to be yes, however. Just in case we survive this encounter. He doesn't seem like the type to take chances, and not supporting us would be a massive one."
"Unless the church has warriors strong enough to kill a team that killed his parents. In which case, we better be wary." Duncan advised.
"I guess this is as good a time as any to test it." Shiv said, earning curious looks from his comrades. "I was kinda hoping to save this until a really tense moment, and then break this out and save everyone's lives, but… I guess I'll do that for the next skill." He pulled a bowl of soup from his inventory and took a bite before gesturing at the fleet that was bearing down on them. "Watch."
The entire ship had gone still as everyone watched the fleet. There was an uncomfortably long time in which everyone stared at the ships, waiting and waiting.
Even Shiv started to feel uncomfortable. "This place is deeper than I thought." Just as he finished speaking, a narrow, pointed mountain burst from the ocean, scything through the two lead ships and dumping a good portion of their crews into the water when they were cut in half.
The sudden appearance of the mountain made the water go wild. Waves and whirlpools appeared everywhere, even around Shiv's ship, which was several stadium-lengths from the mountain, was rocked violently back and forth.
Shiv's crew cheered despite this, and he grinned. "Oh, I'm only getting started." He canceled [Seismic Eruption] and activated the other ability he'd unlocked upon defeating the powerful king and queen of the Underwater City: [Summon Tsunami].
First, the sea level dropped as metric tons of the water retreated to a point to the north of the oncoming ships, which were faced west. At that point, the water rose to terrifying heights, and suddenly lurched toward the reduced fleet at a menacing, almost slow, pace. Esmeralda, with the glass in hand, could see the terror on the faces of the priests and crewmen in the fleet. Some of them were scrambling around, searching for something to hold on to, or something to hide behind or under. Others were frozen in fear. Some were even jumping ship.
As she panned across the fleet, she saw someone looking at her. Someone she was intimately familiar with. Someone she hated almost as strongly as she loved her daughter.
Then the wave hid the hateful figure from view.
The result of Shiv's skill was the utter destruction of the fleet. Only the occasional piece of debris was seen floating by as the ship continued its journey.
Shiv had promptly collapsed upon the activation of the first skill, and the second skill had sent him into the land of slumber. He quickly awoke to say, "Bring me all of the food on the ship." and immediately relapsed into unconsciousness.
When he next awoke, the floor next to his bed in the captain's cabin was covered in crates of food. "I told them that just two crates would be plenty, but they insisted." Duncan yawned from where he was hanging in a hammock of air. Or Shiv assumed it was air, and that it was a hammock. Because if it wasn't, Duncan was lying on nothing and swinging steadily back and forth… also on nothing.
Shiv simply sat up and grabbed the first edible item his hand could reach, a pepper of some sort, and devoured it. He continued without hesitation to eat every pepper in the crate, ignoring the heat in his mouth, then moved on to the next crate. And the next.
"You ate that last one just to spite me, didn't you." Duncan laughed… until Shiv ate half of the next crate of food as well. "Where the hell are you fitting all of that food? You're far too skinny to have that stored anywhere inside you."
Shiv drank some water that he pulled from his inventory, coughed, and stood up with a shudder. His strength was returning, taking away the extreme feeling of weakness that had been pervading his being. He hated that feeling.
"Oh, we're within sight of the port, by the way." Duncan casually stated.