A raw, untamed force radiated from Korvin’s clenched fists.
His power pulsed, a stark, brutal contrast to the muted light of the Endless Shallows. It dwarfed the lingering echoes of any lesser reaver Mara had faced.
His strength surpassed even the tales whispered about the Obsidian Guard, a chilling thought.
By sheer might, Korvin could crush anything. Here, however, was Mara’s domain.
This desiccated plain, stretching to a horizon shimmering with salt haze, was her canvas.
Mara could paint a landscape of defiance, or of death.
Walls of mineralized salt erupted from the exposed seabed, rising in a crystalline shield around Mara. Korvin simply plunged through them.
His fists, like battering rams, pulverized the shimmering barriers. White dust exploded, momentarily blinding him.
Unwavering, Mara countered. She called forth a flurry of abrasive salt shards.
Sharp, stinging motes, borne on a sudden gust, screamed towards him. The same technique had ended lesser skirmishes, carving through soft flesh and weaker wills.
Korvin roared, batting a hand. A wave of force radiated outward, shattering the stinging projectiles mid-air.
He had observed her tactics. He’d watched her break others on these barren plains.
Neutralizing the salt-dust barrage, Korvin surged forward. A colossal fist swung, aimed to crush her where she stood.
Then, with a subtle shift in the ground, Mara vanished.
A fissure, sudden and deep, opened beneath her. It swallowed her whole, closing with a soft grind of crystal.
Korvin’s blow met only air, his momentum carrying him past the void. He blinked, bewildered.
Brackish energy roiled beneath his feet. Mara launched a volley of solidified brine-spikes from within the earthen maw.
Explosions of crystallized brine rocked the ground, throwing Korvin off balance. The force of impact rippled through his bones.
Korvin hunched, his muscles coiling. His brute resilience, honed by countless brutal skirmishes, absorbed the shock. He channeled his own raw power, a fiery aura, to reinforce his frame.
He could endure the indiscriminate barrage for a time. But he knew, with a chilling certainty, that prolonged exposure would leave him gutted, without a chance to strike back.
Korvin gritted his teeth, a guttural sound torn from his throat.
“You underestimate me, Weaver! Aaaargh!”
He slammed both fists into the ground. An echoing concussive wave, a skill born of sheer, violent force, erupted.
The very bedrock convulsed. Loose salt and sand flipped skyward. Even the fissure where Mara hid could not escape its tremor.
Mara’s head snapped back. A dull throb pulsed behind her eyes. Her ears rang.
Caught off guard by Korvin’s sudden, devastating retaliation, Mara staggered within the collapsing void.
Korvin wasted no time. He plunged into the widening fissure.
“This ends now, child!”
He unleashed another concussive burst, aiming directly for Mara. A direct hit would pulverize her, atomizing bone and brine alike.
Just then, the ground beneath them shifted again. A mound of saline earth surged like a monstrous wave. It engulfed both Korvin and Mara.
The sheer volume of churning earth and crystal absorbed Korvin’s attack, nullifying its destructive potential.
Korvin, buried alive in the shifting earth, quickly regained his senses. A crushing weight pressed against him. He felt the cold, gritty embrace of the shallow seabed.
First, he searched for Mara. No trace of her, no echo of her power. She had escaped, he concluded, likely to the surface.
Korvin trembled, struggling to rise. He unleashed another concussive burst, tearing through the immense weight of the earth around him. Salt and rock exploded outwards.
He emerged from the churned pit, scanning the horizon for Mara’s next attack. His focus was upward, wary of her aerial assaults or distant gales.
An immense pain shot through his lower body. He looked down, disbelief twisting his features.
A dozen crystalline spikes, forged from the very earth he stood upon, pierced his legs and abdomen. They glittered with trapped briny moisture. He had anticipated attacks from above, from afar. He had made no preparations for a strike from *within* the pit, beneath his feet.
He had assumed Mara had escaped.
Then, slowly, Mara rose from the churning floor of the fissure. Her eyes, pale as the salt flats, met his.
Korvin coughed, a spray of blood mingling with the salt dust on his lips. He stared at her, truly shocked.
He hadn't expected her to deceive his senses so completely, to hide within the very ground he had disturbed.
Manipulating the very earth, the brine, the minerals with such insidious fluidity… a power spoken of only in hushed, ancient legends.
“You… a Brineheart Weaver?”
“A cursed, deceitful gift… Argh!”
Korvin choked on more blood. His legs buckled. Mara asserted her will. The crystalline thorns supporting his ravaged body dissolved, turning back into inert grains of salt.
With their support gone, Korvin crumbled, a heap of broken muscle and bone. He did not move again.
A relieved, shuddering breath escaped Mara. She sank to her knees, every fiber of her being screaming with exhaustion. Her vision blurred at the edges.
Truthfully, the final maneuver had been pure instinct, an improvisation born of desperation. It was a gambit, a frantic hope when her life hung by a thread.
No guarantee it would work. She had trusted the silent hum of the earth, the residual briny energies that flowed just beneath the surface.
Instead of escaping the pit, she had hidden within its collapsing walls, masking her presence with a whisper of briny energy. Had Korvin detected even a flicker, it would have been over. His concussive wave, at such close range, would have ended her then and there.
Mara gasped, drawing ragged air into her lungs. The ground still vibrated faintly beneath her.
Figures emerged from the receding salt haze. Remaining Salt-Reavers, emboldened by Korvin’s fall but enraged by their leader’s defeat, launched a joint charge.
Mara, still reeling, looked up. Their crude blades and sharpened tools glinted, seconds from impact. No time to evade. A cold resignation settled over her.
Then, an intangible force swept over her head.
The charging Salt-Reavers staggered. They fell, limbs splayed, their weapons clattering uselessly to the salt-crusted ground.
Their spilled blood, dark against the pale earth, splattered Mara. She only grimaced, spitting out a fleck of crimson.
Kael’s voice, rough as ground salt, reached her ears.
“Still letting your guard down, child. Always more shadows in the Shallows.”
Mara lowered her head, shame burning her cheeks. She had no words. He was right. She had almost died again.
“Still much to learn, little Weaver!”
Kael’s words, though harsh, felt like a vital, stinging balm against the numbness that had begun to creep in.
---
Kael wielded the Whisper. He swung the bladed staff, sending a shimmering wave of force through the air. It carved through the remaining Salt-Reavers, felling them instantly.
Kael’s prowess, his ability to wield the Whisper with such effortless power, was a thing of legend. Lyra, however, stared not at Kael, but at Mara.
“Great Shallows! A Weaver who can command the very ground itself?”
Lyra had wandered the Endless Shallows for decades, encountered countless Awakened. But a Brineheart Weaver, one who could manipulate the desiccated earth with such subtlety, was beyond her wildest imaginings.
Lyra glanced at Kael. His expression remained hard, dissatisfied.
Kael was displeased Mara’s lapse in focus had nearly cost her everything.
‘So, the whispers were true,’ Lyra thought. ‘The monster of the salt flats, indeed. And the old man cultivates her.’
Now, Kael’s reasons for traveling with Mara seemed clearer. In a world defined by its parched, mineral-rich expanse, a Brineheart Weaver held ultimate, terrifying potential.
Mara’s abilities, while still raw, promised boundless growth.
After silencing the last of the Salt-Reavers, Mara walked unsteadily towards the Brine-Crawler. Her face was etched with exhaustion. For this one battle, she had poured out every last drop of her strength. Imagination, residual briny energy, every shred of physical endurance had been squeezed dry.
Fighting beasts was hard. Battling humans, especially those who wielded power, was harder.
Exhaling heavily, Mara ascended the wide ramp of the Brine-Crawler. Lyra and Wren greeted her. Kael was nowhere to be seen.
“He went inside,” Wren offered, her voice soft. “Said his eyes were about to rot from watching you.”
Mara sighed. Lyra chuckled. “His standards are impossibly high. You fought well, Mara. You survived.”
“Worked hard,” Wren added, stepping closer. “Come, rest. I’ll guide you to your quarters.”
Mara followed Wren without hesitation. The young woman led her to a small, enclosed space, carved from the Brine-Crawler’s metallic shell.
“Rest here,” Wren said. “I’ll bring you something simple. Just soup, perhaps.”
Wren left Mara alone, pulling the heavy door shut behind her. Mara sank onto a cot, made of stitched hide over a stone slab. She stared at her hands.
They trembled, a faint, uncontrollable tremor. Today, she had ended many lives. They were Salt-Reavers, yes. But they were still people, much like herself.
Taking lives, even those of predators, exacted a heavy toll on her spirit. She had killed before. This felt different, heavier. Before, it had been chaotic survival, deaths often accidental, borne of desperation. Now, it had been a systematic, deliberate unraveling of life.
The guilt was immense, a crushing weight.
“Still,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, “I must overcome this, mustn’t I?”
Mara forced her trembling hands to stillness. She could not wallow in guilt forever. This harsh, unforgiving world demanded hardened resolve. It demanded survival.
Though momentarily shaken, Mara had understood the brutal laws of the Endless Shallows long ago. Her hands steadied. Now, in the quiet, she could finally reflect on the recent battle.
---
Lyra entered the room where Kael was resting, without bothering to knock. Kael sat, staring fixedly at the Whisper, laid across his knees.
“The Whisper has changed,” Lyra observed.
“Infused it,” Kael grunted. “With the heart-stone of a Geode-Leviathan.”
“You granted the Whisper a crystalline core? A bold, dangerous experiment.”
“For a hundred years,” Kael’s voice rasped, “I’ve never forgotten my purpose. Not for a single moment.”
“Phew. A hundred years is enough time to forget everything,” Lyra said, a shadow of an old memory crossing her face.
Kael’s expression darkened. He had buried the memories of that day. He dismissed it as an unavoidable catastrophe, beyond human capacity to comprehend. Instead, he had focused solely on the protection and prosperity of the Sunken-Deep Tribe.
Even while he lived only for his tribe’s welfare, Kael lived for one solitary purpose. Such dedication was not easily achieved. Among all the people Lyra had ever known, Kael was the only one. That’s why he seemed both foolish and admirable.
“As it is, using the Whisper might shatter it. I’ll find the young ones. We’ll stabilize it.”
The heart-stone of a Geode-Leviathan contained tremendous, volatile energy, a living furnace of crystalline power. Absorbing such a force had pushed the Whisper’s tolerance to its absolute limits. Without careful stabilization, its strength would diminish, its form would crack.
Kael handed the Whisper to Lyra. The moment she received it, Lyra staggered. The Whisper’s weight felt enormous.
This blade, this staff, bore the weight of Kael’s entire life. The man had lived a hundred years with this weapon, pursuing one, solitary goal. He still did.