Forbidden Constellation's Blade-Chapter 163: The Leviathan

"That’s...!" Braum yelled out.

But Ryn already knew what it was.

The monster’s large, serpentine body, along with massive gaping jaws and its scale-like body, made it crystal clear:

"Leviathan."

Braum did not hesitate.

"Airship. Now!" he ordered.

The command cut cleanly through the chaos. Surviving dwarves moved at once, hauling the injured and abandoning what little could be salvaged.

Fritz helped steady Hadrik, who was half-conscious and coughing seawater onto the floor.

Ryn didn’t look at the serpent again, but instead at the light once more.

It hadn’t flickered or weakened at all. Whatever happened to Leviathan had not disrupted the source.

"Shit, that thing was the result," he said quietly as they moved toward the airship’s lowered ramp.

Amelia glanced at him but didn’t argue.

They boarded as the first tremor rippled through the sea again. The airship’s engines roared to life, manalite cores flaring beneath armored plating.

The vessel ascended fast, rising above the ruined harbor just as another surge of water crashed against what remained of the docks.

From above, the devastation was clear.

Pearlreach, which was once a bustling harbor city, was now gone beneath the waves.

Dwarves cried out or clenched their fists in anger, reminiscing the home they once had.

Leviathan thrashed beyond it, dark matter still writhing across its scales as the beam continued to connect sea and sky.

"Take us closer," Ryn said.

Braum’s gaze shifted to him. "Closer to what?"

"The beam."

A brief silence followed.

"That’s suicide," one of the dwarven officers muttered.

"Braum, remember the blueprint I showed you?" Ryn replied evenly.

"If that machine is still active, then everything down here is secondary."

Braum studied him for a moment longer, then gave a short nod.

As they drew nearer, the ocean’s surface began to change.

What had looked like churning chaos from a distance turned into a kind of oasis.

A vast radius opened beneath the beam’s origin, stretching a bit wider than Pearlreach itself. The sea had receded in a perfect circle, water held back unnaturally along its perimeter as though an invisible wall prevented it from rushing inward.

It was way bigger than Ryn ever thought.

Massive spires of blackened alloy were driven deep into the ocean floor, arranged in a circular formation around a central core that burned with blinding intensity.

Conduits connected each pillar, pulsing in rhythm as they drew in power from the outside.

Ryn looked to the side to finally see the pieces clicking into place.

Manalite, not scattered remnants or small pieces.

Whole fields of it.

Crates shattered open. Raw deposits ripped directly from veins and stacked in crude pyramids.

The air above the basin shimmered from heat as reserves were consumed at a rate even higher than the airship they were currently on now.

"They’ve been building this for months," Ryn said quietly.

Looking up, the figure who gazed at him with their piercing golden eyes were nowhere to be seen.

But something else was there.

In the depths of black, layers upon layers of luminous structures stretched beyond the veil, vast and incomprehensible.

They were not stars as mortals understood them, but something else entirely.

Ryn felt something lock onto him as his Blessing flared once more.F

Pain erupted from his eyes as his knees dropped to the deck.

"Ryn!" Amelia’s voice sounded distant.

The airship blurred. The roar of engines faded. Even the beam seemed to thin as his vision tunneled inward.

They were looking at him.

They were immensely far and yet...impossibly close at once. Their forms were not defined by shape, but by the way everything around them bent.

One of them shifted.

A golden lance of light tore free from the expanse and descended toward him in rapid speed.

Ryn couldn’t move, his eyes blank as the pressure crushed thought from his mind.

The beam closed in, invisible to the naked eye but barreling straight toward his being.

But then, something else stepped in between.

A silhouette made of pure light, graceful and somehow...familiar?

The woman raised a hand before the golden strike shattered against an unseen barrier.

The entities beyond recoiled.

Then the system ignited right in front of him.

[Aquila acknowledged.]

[Orion acknowledged.]

[...]

The final line burned brighter than the rest.

[Cassiopeia has intervened.]

The woman turned to face Ryn once more, then smiled softly before vanishing into, disappearing into the light.

Reality snapped into place once more.

Ryn gasped, collapsing fully against the deck as the roar of the world returned all at once.

"Ryn!"

Amelia was already at his side, gripping his shoulders as he struggled to draw breath. His pupils were unfocused for a split second too long.

"Hey! Hey, come back to me!"

His fingers twitched against the metal plating beneath him, cheek still dry with fresh blood.

"I’m...fine," he barely managed, coughing just a bit after.

Below them, the basin trembled.

Because this time, the Leviathan had finally noticed them.

The massive serpentine form shifted in the churning water, its corrupted eyes lifting toward the airship.

"Shit..." Braum muttered.

"Helm!" his voice thundered across the deck. "Full ascent! Get us out of here!"

The engines roared louder, manalite cores flaring as the airship angled upward sharply. The vessel climbed just as the water beneath exploded.

A column of seawater shot upward, missing the hull by mere meters. The spray battered the side of the ship.

"Port side surge!" a dwarven navigator shouted.

Another wave tore upward, not from below but from the flank, as if the sea itself were being hurled at them.

The helmsman jerked the wheel hard, and the airship rolled sharply to the side, the deck tilting violently as crates and loose debris went flying off.

Leviathan surged, raising from the sea and causing a gigantic wave.

Its immense body cut through the water as it propelled itself forward with terrifying speed.

"It’s targeting propulsion!" Jay shouted, eyes locked onto the path.

"Maintain altitude!" Braum barked.

For a moment, its entire upper body cleared the surface, dwarfing the airship beneath it. Its jaws opened wide enough to swallow the bow whole.

"Brace!" Amelia shouted.

The helmsman dove the ship sharply downward.

The Leviathan’s bite snapped shut where they had been a heartbeat earlier, the pressure wave from its jaws rattling the airship’s hull and throwing several crew members off their feet. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

The serpent crashed back into the ocean with a detonation of water that sent another violent wave upward.

"Starboard, now!" Braum commanded.

The airship banked hard, engines screaming as they skimmed just above the surging water. A massive tail whipped upward from below, barely missing the underside of the vessel as it sliced through empty air.

Ryn forced himself upright, one hand gripping the railing as wind and water sprayed across the deck.

Leviathan turned beneath them with terrifying speed. Its body did not move like a beast thrashing blindly. The corrupted eyes followed their airship as if it was calculating the ship’s path.

"Altitude failing on the rear thrusters!" a dwarven engineer shouted.

Another swell began forming ahead of them, the sea rising on both sides, forcing them down a single line.

"SHIT!" Braum shouted.

There was nowhere left to dodge.

"Hard starboard!" Braum barked.

The helmsman spun the wheel, but the airship had already lost too much momentum. The next surge would clip them for sure, maybe not destroy the hull but enough to send them spiraling into the sea.

That was when a strange sensation entered Ryn.

He stepped forward without meaning to.

The roars of the engines and screams dulled in his ears. The beam still burned brightly behind them.

Leviathan’s shadow loomed beneath the surface closing the distance again.

His gaze had met the beasts’ abyssal eyes.

Something inside him responded, writhing as the pressure built in his chest.

He opened his mouth—

"Stop."

The word left him before he fully understood it.

It was quiet, almost lost to the wind.

The walls of seawater around them dropped.

Leviathan’s body shuddered mid-surge, its ascent breaking just long enough for the rising swell ahead of them to collapse in on itself.

The immense form beneath the water twitched as if struck by an unseen force.

The airship shot through the opening.

For one suspended heartbeat, the serpent hovered beneath them, its corrupted gaze fixed on Ryn alone.

The ocean detonated as Leviathan crashed back into the depths, sending a shockwave that rocked the airship.

Crew members stumbled; one dwarf slid across the deck before slamming into a railing.

Amelia seized Ryn by the shoulder before turning him around to see his face.

"What did you just do?"

He didn’t answer.

Because he wasn’t sure.

The pressure that had filled his chest was already fading, leaving behind only a faint chill and the lingering sense that something had listened when it shouldn’t have.

The airship blasted through the open skies, now safe to travel back to Khaz Vordun.

Ryn exhaled a sigh of relief, his body swayed—

Before the world went black.