Sitting down beside Allen, Syllian looked around the empty food hall. Beside him, Helen sat down with a worried frown on her small face.
Crude looked to Syllian and asked him what everyone was thinking:
"How did she survive?"
Usually, common sense was to hold conversations like these behind the prying ears of children.
But these weren't normal times and common sense no longer applied.
"Helen hid in the Captain's Cabin."
Nodding understandingly, Crude kept quiet this time and motioned with his eyes.
'Does she know?'
Syllian shook his head, he didn't know how to tell her either. Even if he knew what to say, he wasn't the best at communicating.
"Alright, let's get started then."
Crude looked to the young man who survived by the skin of his teeth first, "This is Theon; he's a cook."
"Hey guys." Theon's eyes were bloodshot, he still lacked sleep and time to digest yesterday's battle.
'Cook?'
Syllian was pleasantly surprised, they didn't have to suffer with trash, outskirts-level food for the foreseeable future.
"The blonde one in the black tunic is Riley."
"I know most of you except for the young, dark-haired boy in front of us." Riley pointed to Syllian curiously.
Syllian replied, "I'm Finch, I was under the Sailing Master's guide before, but now I'm just another crewmate."
"I can attest to that, I've been friends with him for a while." Allen backed him up.
"Oh, okay, nice to meet you." Riley raised his hand to shake Syllian's.
Returning the gesture, Syllian turned his eyes to the final two.
"These two are Daniel, you can just call him Danny, he's my friend, and Orland." Crude pointed at one dark-brown-haired older male with sharp eyes, Danny, and the other was a shorter, red-haired middle-aged man, Orland.
"I'm a carpenter." Danny kept his sentences short.
"And I'm from the Gunnery." Orland had a warm voice.
"Let me start-"
"Wait." Riley interrupted Crude and looked at Syllian.
"What is it, Riley?"
"It's not to do with you, Crude, I have a question for Finch instead."
Syllian stared into the man's eyes, "Go on then."
The neutral smile on the blonde-haired man's face melted, replacing it was a judgemental gaze brewing with anger.
'...?'
"You all saw that Mutant attack and kill the Captain right?"
No one responded but Helen's face twisted and Crude had a dark scowl grow on him.
"Well, I happened to hear something he said."
And then Riley uttered with a voice strung with hatred:
"Thank Finch, he said."
Everyone's eyes turned to Syllian, not even Allen could stop himself from looking at his friend with a slight accusatory look.
If Riley is telling the truth, then things aren't looking good for Finch.
"So, Finch, what do you have to say for yourself."
Syllian surveyed the faces of everyone in the food hall in silence, then after taking a deep breath, he told them the truth.
At least partially.
---
"So this thing was the murderer."
"Not murders, suicides."
"Him..."
"I spoke with him a few times."
They stood around the corpse of the Source while Syllian explained all his findings in a way that seemed natural.
"That explains everything now, sorry for doubting you Finch, but I have one last question."
Riley was almost fully convinced, but he had just one burning question left.
"Why didn't you tell the Captain?"
"Oh that, I didn't get the chance to, we were attacked right before I planned on doing so. I thought I still had a little more time to put together everything properly to convey to the Captain, but..."
"That's enough."
Crude interrupted Syllian, putting an end to the questions and answers.
Getting some closure was good enough, and knowing that Finch wasn't responsible for the deaths of many was also good.
Now that they were at the hospital room a few of them picked up the medical items and started patching themselves up.
Syllian sat to the side with Helen beside him.
She stayed quiet throughout everything, her facial expression was also stale for the majority of the time.
Allen walked up beside Syllian and sat on the floor with him. Allen had also taken care of his injuries as well as he could with his lack of medical expertise long before this meeting.
Unlike before, Allen had no smile.
He wasn't frowning either, nor sad.
Just neutral.
Allen raised his knees and rested his head on his kneecaps, "Last words?"
Syllian thought about it for a moment, wondering what was the best thing to tell the living sibling.
'What would I want someone to tell me in his situation?'
What if his mother had been murdered, and someone witnessed her final few moments?
What would he want them to say to him?
What would be the best response-
The noise in the hospital room clouded the area between them as Syllian pondered.
Silence grew between them for a minute, and then, Syllian spoke three words.
"He wanted you."
-the best response would be the most beautiful lie.
Allen sat quietly for a second, then uttered with a quiet voice:
"Okay."
Then dropped his face to his knees, smothering his thoughts between them.
Beside Syllian, Helen shuffled slightly closer to Syllian.
Tap.
Her tiny fingers pulled his shirt.
Looking at the little girl, her dark eyes stared back up at him.
"What is it?"
She didn't respond, the little girl, instead, chose to shuffle even closer to him. Practically burying her body beneath his.
And there she stayed.
Unmoving.
Frozen.
Syllian didn't mock her or mutter any sly remarks.
He knew what it felt like to lose a family member, it wasn't pleasant, and in such a situation, the only salvation was...
'Oh.'
...nothing.
There was no salvation.
It forever stuck with you, haunting you at the back of your mind.
When it was time to sleep; when it was dark, when you felt lonely.
It would constantly ram into your mind, reminding you of the stark truth.
Clench-
Her fingers dug into his torso, but they were too weak to agitate his injuries.
Syllian removed his gaze from her and chose to watch the other crewmates for the moment instead.
He needed something to alleviate his mind too.
-----
3 days had passed since the attack.
Freezing rain showered from the pitch black, starless, stormy sky.
Splash-!
Waves of dark water consistently rammed into the hull of The Adler, the swaying ship, however, maintained course.
And stood at the helm was a short boy with dark hair tied into a mini ponytail.
Syllian.
Allen stood next to him with binoculars in hand and an antique pocket watch hung from the brown-haired boy's neck.
This was the Captain's watch that he used to measure the time.
Syllian searched for Creeping Horror and any other items that might have been left behind, but they were all gone.
He didn't know where to and he didn't care enough to investigate it either.
The boy knew his limits, and using items that only those with supreme power could control was way beyond those limits.
It was funny, just a little while ago Syllian was admiring those supreme warriors from afar, and now he was fighting through a Trial of Ruin and had witnessed a fight between two powerful beings.
He had also gone through his own fair share of fights.
And survived through each one.
Syllian scoffed and inwardly chuckled.
'Scratch that.'
He killed through each one.
What felt even weirder to Syllian was that if he passed, no, when he passed this Trial-
'I will become one too.'
-he would turn from a normal mortal to a being of said supernatural powers.
RUMBLE-!
Streaks of lightning struck the neverending waters, lighting the sky for a brief second.
"Starboard, 3 notches."
Syllian held onto the secondary steering wheel, the one connected to the rudders, and shifted it to the right by 3 notches.
A few seconds later, Allen shouted again, "Cease turn."
Syllian followed the order and returned the rudder to its neutral position.
"Good."
Standing still again, Syllian patiently waited once more and took a look behind him.
Sitting just 2 metres away, the little girl, Helen, stared at him as usual.
She hadn't stopped staring at him for the past few days.
He didn't know why and didn't bother asking why either.
Not that he didn't before, just that when he did ask her 2 days ago, she didn't bother answering.
"How's it looking up there!"
Below the stern, Crude shouted up at them while Danny stood beside him with wooden planks and a hammer in hand.
"We're getting closer, should be able to see it from the ship in just a few minutes!"
"Alright!"
A minute passed.
Tap- Tap- Tap-
"Hey, can you stop it?!" Allen turned to the little girl behind them.
Helen had been nonstop smashing the hull of the ship with her feet for the last minute, and she clearly wasn't going to stop anytime soon.
Tap- Tap- Tap-
"Finch, tell her to stop too!"
Syllian shrugged and nonchalantly said, "Helen, stop that."
She didn't stop.
"Oh my days..."
For another few minutes, the tapping continued without end in sight, until finally...
Tap- Tap-
...she stopped to Allen's relief.
RUMBLE-!
Another flash of lightning shot down, and in the distance, a vague silhouette outlined the horizon.
Allen picked up his binoculars again and looked at it once more.
"We're getting close! Finch, port side, 2 notches!"
Following orders once more, they adjusted The Adler on course with whatever Allen was seeing.
"Crude! Danny! We can see it now!"
Down below, the two carpenters happily stopped working and ran into the belly of the ship.
They were on their way to call up the others.
Riley and Orland were tasked with making sure The Adler didn't get flooded, and Theon was focused on maintaining food supplies and keeping track of how long they could survive with what was left.
The aftermath of that battle destroyed a lot.
Seconds later, the other three were on the deck with them. Helen, Syllian, and Allen all walked down the stairs of the stern to join up with the others.
"Did we reach it?" Theon was excited to finally leave this hell hole of a ship behind.
"Not it, but we did reach something, I just can't tell exactly what yet."
The binoculars were odd, they gave I'm the ability to spot the oddity from afar, but the oddity was clouded in a foggy mist.
It was impossible to see clearly.
They ran up to the bowsprit while avoiding all the holes littering the ground that had been shoddily patched up.
Stood on the edge, they all looked in anticipation.
Especially Syllian.
Ship of legends?
The ocean?
What was so good about it?
He'd rather stand on stable ground.
RUMBLE-!
Another flash of lightning flooded the night sky, but this time it lingered for an extra few seconds.
In those seconds, everyone on the ship saw it.
A statue that rose 100 metres high, its open right palm reaching for the sky with the flawless face of a woman carved into its head with a blindfold wrapped around its eyes. It wore a cloak so vivid that it looked like it was fluttering in the winds.
And beneath this magnificent, grey statue, was a small patch of land littered with trees that slowly rose up to the feet of the statue.
"Wow..." Syllian unwittingly uttered the first word that came to his mouth.
'How could someone make that...?'
It looked too real.
'It's like a real person was frozen in time. Stranded for an eternity.'
As Syllian admired the view.
As he thanked the gods that he no longer had to stay on this ship-
The devil himself reached out with its finger, caressing his face it slowly reached his ear...
And whispered...
[Third Trial]
[The call of the night beckons all; the call of the night swallows all.]
It stopped whispering, and at that moment, a bone-chilling feeling shuddered down Syllian's spine.
[The call of the night approaches.]
Sweat dripped down Syllian's body, completely overturning the neverending rain crashing down his skin.
The frosty air grew brighter; stronger, and more dangerous.
...More palpable.
And with his blood pumping across his wildly beating heart, the devil returned.
Blood dripped in its voice; terror etched in its tone; horror carved into its webbing.
It muttered.
[Run]