The sky churned with dark clouds, flickering blue as lightning tore through the heavens. A heartbeat later, thunder followed—numbing and relentless.
The ocean should have swelled with the approaching storm, its waves rising to meet the sky. But instead, the water seemed confused—shifting erratically, as if unsure whether to surge forward or retreat. And then, it made its choice.
"Ascent!" a voice rang out, followed by hasty clamoring.
The floating docks began rolling to the beaches, as the outer walls shimmered in activation.
And the ships—they began floating, imitating what was about to take place.
To the east, the sea pulled away, but it did not simply recede into the horizon. The waves collapsed and twisted, sinking and rising in unnatural rhythms.
Swirls formed where the water should have flowed back—some no larger than a house, others stretching hundreds of meters wide.
Yet these were no ordinary whirlpools; the pools themselves began to rise.
They spun faster, their forms bulging as if the ocean were sprouting hills and plateaus of swirling water.
More continued to form. Masses of darkness that hid the horizon.
Then—everything exploded into motion.
As if gravity itself had reversed, the water surged upward in deafening booms that shattered the air, drowning out even the thunder.
One blast followed another; continuous jets of water shot into the storm-laden sky like the wails of a dying world. Some of the larger plumes sent out waves that could shatter mountains.
Finch's protective dome—an intricate lattice of enchanted lights—flared with a golden glow, struggling against the relentless assault.
Wave after wave continuously slammed against Finch. Each one powerful enough to crush any regular city.
The central tower pulsed with energy, striving to bolster the city's barriers.
One after another, the upward spirals broke free from the receding sea, their peaks crowned with frothing whitecaps.
The ocean was climbing.
Mist billowed around and over Finch, thick and salty, enshrouding the sea's machinations.
The haze shifted and pulsed in response to the shockwaves, moving inland.
The salty haze did not get past Finch's transparent barriers. That which housed all the ships of the city.
Above the buildings, steel behemoths loomed, deliberately obscuring the sky from most onlookers—to prevent panic and maintain order, for Finch had visitors.
But the floating ships hundreds of meters long did little to block the truly curious.
And when the mist finally dissipated, a sight long stripped of novelty to the Finch folk emerged once more: thousands of streams of water surged skyward, bridging the retreating sea with the raging heavens.
Yet, even the hardened denizens of Finch—those who had witnessed countless Ascents—found themselves in silent awe. This one was different.
For a long moment, the city held its breath.
* * *
A lone figure sprinted along the outer walls of Finch, his dark hair clinging to his sweat-slicked face. His form blurred as he vaulted between battlements, leaping with practiced ease. His inner thoughts raced:
'No way. A 5th Degree Pillar should be impossible.'
It was the same man that signalled the incoming storm.
He locked onto the largest stream—a monstrous, spiraling tower of water stretching kilometers across at the thinnest level.
'The Descent is going to be hell.'
The Ascent itself, he knew, was not the danger. It was what would come when these water Pillars inevitably fell.
He vaulted over a gap, landing near a fractured artifact embedded in the city's ancient wall. Kneeling, he ran his fingers over its engraved lines. With a quick press of a hidden sequence, the artifact flared to life with a dim hum—a relic of a forgotten age, now part of Finch's defensive network.
The damage was minor, but not taking risks was a lesson the Navy had learned long ago.
* * *
Deep within the city, in a dim chamber with a single window overlooking the tumultuous sea, Leon, Nyssa, and Soot stood in silence.
Nyssa's arms were crossed, her small, weary frame tense as she watched the spectacle outside.
Storms were no stranger to her. Tipun had weathered storms so brutal they erased entire tribes from memory. But the ocean… she'd never seen such events.
Their journey to Fenros was uneventful—except for the conventional storms that swallowed half of their fleet.
Leon, meanwhile, stared in silence. His cloudy eyes tracked the rising streams, the distant roar of the tempest, and the city's defenses flaring in response. Soot, the grey snake coiled around his arm, tilted its head; its tongue flickered as if measuring the air—its scales bristled with quiet alarm.
A soft murmur rippled in Leon's mind: 'They're rising fast. How long until they peak?'
It was strange—the sky above the coasts of Fenros.
'It is higher than the skies of Oran.' Something told him that it was only beginning.
'What happens afterwards?'
* * *
On the outer edges of Finch, massive barriers of enchanted steel and sigil-etched stone shuddered into place.
From the central tower, a deep, resonant hum pulsed—the activation of the Navy's emergency system, designed to mitigate the Descent.
Within the tower, a Serth naval officer, his face half-hidden behind a helmet, monitored the ocean. "The Pillars are thinning," he reported in a low, measured tone. "It took too long. Our reserves will deplete before it ends."
Similar conclusions were made. Each one more panicked than the last.
Nearby, a man with a commanding presence stepped forward. His calm bearing soothed the tense air.
An Enlightened.
Admiral Doran Voss.
His eyes, cold and calculating, surveyed the magical displays and floating schematics of the defense system. "Prepare the emotional dampeners. We cannot allow panic to spread."
The man's expression tightened. "We will hold it. Activate the mitigation protocols."
In a corner of the room, a younger officer, barely out of his teens, murmured, "When these Pillars collapse… we'll face a Descent like nothing we've ever seen." His voice trembled with a mix of fear and awe.
* * *
In a quiet alcove just outside of Finch.
A group of elves huddled in a weathered yet orderly stone cave. Their eyes, ancient and wary, betrayed their unease.
They had witnessed many storms in their long lives, but never a 5th Degree Ascent.
Not that the Ascent worried them.
One among them spoke quietly, "The balance is shifting. This chaos… can Serth control it?"
Before the unprecedented storm, they were unperturbed. What worried them was the tumult among the humans.
A younger elf, voice laced with sorrow, whispered, "Finch is their mediator. Our connection with Serth has sustained us for more a decade." He paused.
"The human turmoil is disconnected from us. So we will maintain neutrality." The tribesmen and Fenryn—Fenros inhabitants—were at odds.
Some elves wished to repay their debts to Serth. And some wished to leave.
Their murmurs faded as the sound of roaring water filled the air, each pulse of the vertical rivers a reminder of nature's overwhelming force.
* * *
Leon's eyes narrowed as he surveyed the chaotic interplay of defense and natural fury.
The streams continued their upward dance with unrelenting fervor.
Nyssa's gaze shifted between the streams and Leon's impassive face. "They… are not stopping," she murmured with trepidation.
The have risen past the clouds, but the sea continued to feed them.
Leon's expression remained unreadable. "It's temporary," he replied.
As he said that, the boiling ocean stopped bubbling. The Pillars that were visible—collapsed.
The vertical rivers slowed down.
Stopped.
And fell.
A tense silence settled as the crowd outside—a mix of sailors, merchants, and guards—reacted in subdued panic. The barriers giving them a fragile sense of safety.
"Withdraw!" A simple, yet powerful command by a Naval officer forced them to re-enter their homes.
The once-mighty streams, now mere wisps, slowly dropped back into the sea.
But the slowness was merely an illusion caused by the scale and distance.
'Strange.' Leon's eyes narrowed. 'The ones that collapsed…'
He looked at the clouds.
'Did the rest of their bodies keep going up?'
From the main tower, the Admiral emerged—a figure draped in robes that shimmered with embedded sigils, his presence commanding and somber.
He raised his hand, and in response, a series of protective barriers cascaded over Finch, fusing with the rest. The humming of the defense system grew louder, and within the central dome of light, the atmosphere steadied.
But not all were convinced. In a shadowed room of a small mansion, Belphet watched silently by the window. His eyes were dark, calculating.
A small group of dissident elves, disillusioned with human chaos, murmured their doubts about escape.
"Can we really leave Finch?" one whispered. "The seas are… frenzied."
Belphet's voice, low and resolute, cut through the murmurs. "Serth will become dangerous if we do not act. I promise you, we will depart—if we can secure a vessel."
He glanced up, at the floating behemoths. His words, though soft, carried the weight of inevitability.
Then, Belphet left through the mansion's front doors.
The tension outside was palpable—a delicate balance maintained by defenses and the stifled fears of the people. Fears that were on the brink of breaking out.
The instigators among Fenros had been at work, their influence seeping into the hearts of those who doubted the order.
Back in the room that adorned a single window, Leon and Soot remained unaffected, but Nyssa felt it. Her anger, fear, and confusion surged to unnatural heights, each emotion feeding into the next, twisting within her.
Leon tore his gaze away from the dissipating streams and turned toward her. "What is it?"
Her trembling stilled at the sound of his voice. She met his eyes, uncertainty flickering within her own. "I… do not know." A hand pressed against her temple, as though steadying herself against something unseen.
"I am…" She hesitated, unwilling to burden him.
Leon, however, already had his suspicions. The atmosphere in Finch had grown dense, heavy with something beyond the weather.
The people here—hardened by years of storms and upheaval—should have seen this as routine. Yet, the fear in their eyes spoke otherwise.
And it wasn't just fear.
His gaze lingered on Nyssa, noting the subtle clench of her jaw, the tautness in her shoulders. Anger has taken hold.
"You'll be fine," he said, his voice even, assured.
Nyssa let out a quiet breath. Somehow, those simple words anchored her.
She took a step toward him—then the world lurched.
The streets groaned, the buildings trembled. A deep, reverberating hum coursed through the city's bones.
Leon widened his stance as he caught her, his grip firm, his expression sharpening. The ground beneath them rumbled, a force far greater than any mere quake.
Then, something strange.
Leon's gaze darted to the horizon, where water should have stretched endlessly. Where the vertical rivers have stopped flowing.
Beyond the city's borders, the ocean began to recede. Not in sluggish tides or rolling waves—but all at once. The sea levels visibly sank, pulling back in a way that defied reason.
"How–"
The answer struck him in an instant.
The sensation he felt meant something else. It wasn't the sea that was falling.
Finch—this sprawling dock-city, a structure spanning dozens of kilometers—was rising.
The very foundations beneath them lifted, disengaging from the seabed, shedding its tether to the land.
Then, as if the heavens themselves had chosen to answer, the first raindrops began to fall.