And in the middle of Tideglass Cove, two titans faced off over a net made of repurposed fishing line and very nervous starfish.
Rika Thunderale stood barefoot in the sand, flexing her arms like a pro wrestler at a beach-themed championship. Her swimsuit barely counted as functional, but it had somehow survived the last four wardrobe malfunctions and now held together mostly out of fear.
Opposite her, Freya adjusted her goggles with quiet menace. Her black one-piece looked like it had been designed for underwater demolition. And so had she.
Between them, the ball hovered in midair. It glowed faintly. Possibly out of self-preservation.
Off to one side, Marie Merriwind sat cross-legged with a pail and spade, diligently constructing a perfectly symmetrical sandcastle. She had roped off her territory with tiny sticks and a sign that read “Do Not Disturb (Seriously)”.
She was not watching the game. She was pretending the game wasn’t happening.
Near her, Carmella reclined on a conjured velvet chaise longue, sunbathing in a swimsuit that belonged in a scandal. Black wings framed her like stage curtains. Her halo shimmered gold and wicked. She waved a folding fan slowly, dramatically.
“Remember, children,” she said, voice syrupy with sarcasm. “Father said not to destroy the place.”
“Shut up, Carmella,” Rika and Freya said in perfect unison.
The ball dropped. The air snapped.
Freya moved first.
Her arm blurred. The serve came down like a meteor.
Rika met it with both fists—no subtlety, no finesse, just pure, reckless joy. The ball detonated backwards, catching a tailwind and kicking up a storm of sand behind it.
Carmella caught the gust with a flick of her fan. “So elegant,” she said with a smirk. “Like poetry written by a particularly aggressive volcano.”
The ball reversed course in midair.
Freya didn’t move until the last second. Then her hand snapped up, redirecting it with the casual indifference of someone swatting a mosquito.
The sand behind her split in a trench.
Rika skidded sideways, launched into a mid-air somersault, and spiked the ball down like she was banishing a demon. The ground cracked beneath her feet.
“Is this still volleyball?” Marie asked no one.
“No,” muttered the crab beside her sandcastle.
Carmella raised her fan again. “Truly, the epitome of finesse.”
“Shut up, Carmella!”
Freya lunged. Rika roared. The ball vanished with a sonic boom.
The impact cratered the beach. Seagulls dropped from the sky in confusion. Somewhere in the distance, a cloud changed alignment.
Then came a hand. Freya’s. Upraised. The ball balanced on one finger.
She flicked it skyward with perfect calm.
Rika blinked. “You did not just...”
She launched herself again.
This time, it wasn’t a serve. It was war.
The ball came down like a curse.
And in that moment—just between the arc and the impact, the wind and the scream—something shifted.
A tremor rolled through the shore.
Far off, where the surf met the rocks, Lilith Bloodpetal stood ankle-deep in foam. Her long, silk-black hair drifted like smoke behind her. She gazed at the sea with the air of someone who had just been insulted by it and hadn’t yet decided if death was too lenient.
A ripple. Then a splash.
Something grabbed her leg.
The creature rose—scaly, wet, jagged-toothed. Sea spawn. Sahuagin. Whatever it had been, it wasn’t alone.
Lilith didn’t flinch. She tilted her head. Lifted it from the water by the throat.
“Inadequate,” she murmured.
Then she snapped its neck with one hand and dropped the body into the surf.
Behind her, the sea began to boil.
A blur shot past.
The volleyball.
It screamed overhead like a torpedo, punching through the first wave of monsters—shredding them like soft fruit in a blender.
Rika’s voice followed, wild with joy: “STRIKE!”
The beach erupted.
The Ball tore through the ranks with reckless hunger, bouncing between heads and ribcages like an angry god on a bungee cord.
Seconds later, Rika Thunderale hit the sand like a meteor.
“YOU WANNA DANCE? LET’S DANCE, FISHBOYS!”
Her swimsuit lasted exactly one impact. Not on purpose. It just couldn’t handle the physics.
Her Magical Maid Armour ignited mid-flight—runed gauntlets, glowing steel, boots that cratered sand. She caught The Ball on the rebound with both hands.
“BOOMERANG SPIKE!”
She hurled it again. It howled through the air.
A sea spawn stepped in her path.
She hit it so hard it turned into red mist on the afternoon air.
Not a quake. Not an explosion.
Just a disturbance.
A shift in atmosphere. A rumple in the narrative fabric. Enough to ruin a mood.
And that was enough.
Carmella Ravenshroud rose.
She had just finished positioning herself—elegantly draped on a conjured velvet chaise, halo catching the light, one leg crossed just so, wings posed with theatrical perfection. The breeze had been cooperating. The sun had been kind. She had been glowing.
And now?
Now her parasol was knocked askew. A glob of ichor had landed near her ankle. Someone had screamed during her good side.
Unacceptable.
She did not stand. She ascended.
Black wings unfurled in symmetrical wrath. Her halo flared—pure gold flame radiating divine disapproval. The air bowed around her in reverent apology.
Her swimsuit evaporated into ash.
What replaced it was vengeance clad in velvet and steel: A corset of midnight plate. A skirt that shifted like shadow. Lace-trimmed greaves that clicked like clockwork. Her sword materialised in her grip with a sigh, as though it, too, had been waiting.
Her eyes glowed with righteous fury.
“Oh dear,” she said, voice cool as wine over ice. “You’ve interrupted me.”
She rose higher, cloak snapping dramatically—ignoring wind, physics, and good taste.
Then she spoke.
“Let the veil be lifted. Let grace be forged anew. Witness now, the wrath of heaven’s castoff— The blade that mourns. The wing that judges. The smile that ends civilisations. I am Carmella Ravenshroud. And this is your final verse.”
Even the sea flinched.
Then she moved.
Each swing of her sword painted light through air and bone. Graceful. Effortless. Fatal.
The beach burned in symmetrical arcs.
Because Carmella had been interrupted. And now the world would learn better.
Lilith didn’t join the main fray. She didn’t need to.
She danced along the edges of the chaos—quiet, cold, clinical.
A dagger at a throat. A whisper behind a spine. A kiss on a cheek, followed by silence.
Her movements were art. Her violence was personal.
By the time anyone noticed her, they were already dead.
Marie Merriwind sat calmly under a parasol. Her clipboard rested on one knee. She made a few notes.
Beside her stood Freya Ironfist, arms folded, brow faintly furrowed, armour summoned but unbloodied.
“They’re enjoying themselves,” Marie said mildly.
Freya grunted. “Rika broke the sound barrier again.”
“She’ll feel it later.”
“She’ll deny it later.”
They watched The Ball curve mid-air and obliterate a group of spawn with a thunderclap.
“She calls that one the ‘Fishblend Express,’” Freya added.
“Charming.”
A lone sea spawn staggered too close—half-dead, twitching, confused.
Freya didn’t look.
She just kicked sideways, armour-boot meeting skull with a crunch like a fruit under stone. The creature went limp, flopped once, and stopped existing meaningfully.
Marie glanced at it. “Unfortunate choice of direction.”
Freya shrugged.
Above the sand, Carmella hovered in golden silhouette.
One final wave of spawn charged.
She extended a hand.
A ring of radiant fire pulsed outward—searing, symmetrical, absolute.
The monsters disintegrated mid-scream.
Her wings folded.
Her cloak settled.
She descended to the beach like a curtain closing on judgement.
Rika flew past.
Horizontally.
She hit a dune, bounced, and vanished into a crater of sand.
Carmella didn’t blink.
She fanned herself once, slowly.
“Well,” she said. “That was a mistake.”
The tide roared.
From the sea, something huge emerged—barnacle-armoured, jagged-clawed, dripping malevolence. A sea spawn titan, easily five times the size of the others.
It howled.
The Maids went still.
Because they knew.
The dune cracked.
Rika stood.
Steam rolled off her skin. Her eyes glowed.
She dragged The Ball up from the sand like lifting the moon by the neck.
And she was no longer grinning.
Her form warped—broader, taller, painted in glowing sigils. Red skin. Black markings. Hair wild as a comet’s tail.
She pointed at the behemoth.
“You. Me. Now.”
She charged.
The titan lunged.
Rika ducked low, slid beneath its outstretched claw, and came up behind it in a burst of red light. Her hands locked around its midsection.
Then—she lifted.
Not a toss. Not a throw. She lifted the entire creature above her head like a sacrifice to a very disappointed sky god.
Veins bulged across her arms. The Ball pulsed, mirroring her rage. The sea spawn flailed.
She didn’t flinch.
Rika brought it down.
Straight onto her rising knee.
There was a sound—wet, sharp, final. The spine snapped. Not cracked—shattered. Bone and cartilage exploded, ribs folding like snapped branches.
The creature wailed. Rika snarled.
She threw its limp body to the sand, climbed atop its chest, and started punching.
Not just hard—angrily. With rhythm. With purpose. With both hands wrapped in gauntlets that hummed like angry furnaces.
Each strike drove shockwaves into the ground. The sand cratered deeper beneath them. Shell fragments and grey flesh sprayed outward like confetti at a particularly upsetting parade.
The Ball orbited overhead, vibrating in sync with every blow like a tiny, feral moon.
Ash drifted. Waves recoiled. The sand trembled under each impact.
The Maids watched from a safe distance.
Freya scratched her chin. Her expression was unreadable, but there was a faint twitch at one eye.
“Is she done?”
Marie flipped a page on her clipboard, perfectly calm. “I think she’s done.”
Rika roared— grabbed the titan’s shattered spine— and tore it free in a spray of ichor and splinters.
Then she beat the corpse with it.
Repeatedly.
Marie paused. Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses.
“…Maybe not.”
Rika let out a final grunt, hauled what remained overhead, spun once for momentum— —and hurled it into the sea.
It skipped. Once. Twice. Then vanished with a distant, fleshy splash.
Marie made one last note with the crisp authority of a librarian stamping a death certificate.
“Ah. Now she’s done.”
The chanting had stopped.
Varnax had become something else.
And now the others were catching up.
The surviving cultists screamed—high, wet sounds that peeled back into silence. Their bodies spasmed and warped, flesh bubbling under their robes as resonance flooded through them like molten wire.
Eyes melted. Joints cracked. Claws tore free from sleeves as fingers overgrew into hooks and bone.
They weren’t ascending. They were failing.
One of them lunged toward Sylvie, screeching—half-human, half-carrion.
She didn’t flinch. She simply stepped aside, skirts whispering against the stone.
The creature crashed into the altar behind her, shrieking and twitching.
Sylvie looked down at it, parasol resting against her shoulder, one knee bent as if curtsying to the moment.
“My,” she said mildly. “A feisty one.”
It spasmed again—then began to drip. Not blood. Not quite. Its form softened, smeared, like it had been left too long in the sun.
Resonance unspooled from its mouth and back, like threads tugged loose from skin.
And it began to move—not away, but toward.
Across the floor, tendrils of corrupted flesh and pulsing energy dragged the twitching remains toward the throne-like mass of Varnax’s new form. His body loomed at the far end of the chamber—no longer man, not quite beast, something between a vessel and an altar.
The mutating cultist reached him— —and vanished into him.
Absorbed.
Another followed. Then another.
One screamed as it was pulled across the floor by its own spine. Another tore open at the chest as its ribs reached forward, desperate to join.
The Weave in the room writhed—narrative pressure rising, spiralling, fusing.
Varnax was growing.
Not physically. Not just physically.
He was becoming more.
Sylvie watched with a quiet smile. The grip on her parasol tightened just once.
She looked down at the boy in her arms.
“Things are getting crowded,” she murmured. “Time to leave the party.”
Then she turned and ran.
Through broken archways and slanting tunnels, up spiralling paths torn by quake and flame, leaping cracked stone and burst root—still carrying Norrin without a pause. Her parasol stayed miraculously balanced over one shoulder the whole way.
Behind her, the sound of merging bodies and rippling resonance chased her steps.
Something old had just awakened. Something hungry had found a voice.
And Sylvie?
Sylvie was already thinking about who she’d give the bad news to first.
The sand still smoked. The sea murmured softly, as if unsure whether it had permission to be calm again.
Rika stood barefoot near the centre of the destruction, still steaming slightly, still mostly naked, holding The Ball in one hand and her patience in the other.
Marie finished recording the last kill count beneath her parasol.
Carmella was reapplying lipstick. Lilith watched the ocean like it had wronged her.
Freya had just removed a cracked barnacle from her shin guard with surgical precision.
Then— A rustle. Footsteps. A distinctly unnecessary twirl.
Sylvie emerged from the beach path, parasol over one shoulder, ribbons fluttering, and Norrin tucked in her arms like a parcel of fainting misfortune.
She was panting lightly—clearly pretending. Not a single hair was out of place.
“Delivery~!” she called sweetly.
Rika blinked. “Wait, why are you—?”
Sylvie deposited Norrin directly into her arms. Rika caught him by instinct and immediately panicked.
“Why is he breathing?!”
Sylvie flopped into the sand, dramatically fanning herself with her free hand. “So many stairs. I carried that boy like a fragile teacup the whole way. I deserve sugar water and applause.”
Norrin stirred. Groaned.
Then opened his eyes.
He woke up staring into Rika Thunderale’s flushed, oversized, mostly bare chest.
His eyes widened.
Then widened again as he looked past her: Carmella, radiant and terrifying. Freya, staring at him like a misfiring nailgun. Lilith, crouched and watching him with mild hunger. Marie, making notes.
He made a small sound that might’ve been a whimper.
“…Am I dead?” he asked.
Freya snorted. “Not yet.”
Carmella tilted her head, halo gleaming. “He’s adorable. May we keep him?”
Marie, without glancing up: “Subject appears traumatised. Blush intensity suggests embarrassment, fear, and possible onset of magical imprinting.”
Lilith moved slightly closer. Norrin visibly stopped breathing.
Rika looked down. “Why am I holding him?!”
Sylvie, now lounging across a conjured chaise of driftwood and flair, waved lazily. “You looked emotionally available.”
Freya took a long breath. She gestured vaguely at the smoking battlefield, the cratered sand, the shredded sea spawn, and the unconscious boy in Rika’s arms.
“…Was this you?”
Sylvie’s smile grew just slightly sharper.
She twirled her parasol.
“Me?” she said, all innocence. “I simply took a walk.”
Norrin fainted again.
The Maids collectively stared at him for a moment.
Then Marie flipped a page on her clipboard.
“Excellent,” she said dryly. “Now we’re collecting strays.”
A pause. She reached out, almost absently, and ruffled his hair.
Realised. Froze.
“...Why did I do that?” she whispered to herself.
Her ears twitched.
She vanished behind Carmella.
Deep beneath Tideglass Cove, the chamber pulsed with residual resonance.
The floor writhed—stone turned to skin, altar to organ.
Varnax no longer stood. He spread.
Flesh bloomed like coral. Limbs curled like roots.
And from the centre of the pulsing mass, a face began to form.
Squid-like. Inhuman. Beautiful in the way deep pressure is beautiful—dangerous and crushing.
Eyes opened.
Not one pair. Many.
They blinked in sequence. Then all at once.
And somewhere—through a hundred voices speaking with one will—the thing that had once been Varnax smiled.
