God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The docks were a wound in the city, raw steel and black water bleeding into each other. Cain smelled salt, rust, and diesel before he even saw the ships: half-sunk hulks chained to rotting pylons, their hulls eaten through by years of storms.

District Twelve's shoreline had always been a place of castoffs. Cargo left to spoil, men left to die, secrets left to rot. Tonight, though, it carried something sharper. Cain felt it in the rhythm of the tide, in the gulls circling silently overhead instead of crying. Even the sea seemed to wait.

Susan leaned heavily on him as they advanced down the pier. Her face was pale, mouth set against the pain. "You're sure this is where they'll surface?"

Cain nodded once. "The last fragments Steve pulled—patterns in the grid—they're moving shipments off record. Straight into the water."

"Illegal cargo's one thing," she rasped. "But monsters?"

Cain didn't answer. The sea said enough.

Steve's voice crackled in their ears. "I've traced heat blooms along the dockside. Three barges, two tugs. At least two dozen signatures that aren't human."

"Not human?" Susan repeated, coughing into her sleeve.

"Unless human lungs burn at eighty degrees, yeah. You've got company."

The pier groaned beneath their boots. Cain drew his blade. The steel hummed faintly in the damp air, a low vibration, as if eager to taste salt.

From the water, something answered.

A pale arm, too long, too jointless, draped itself over the barge's railing. Then another. Then five more. They pulled a shape onto the deck, slick with brine. A face surfaced, half-formed, skin translucent like jelly. Its eyes burned a cloudy yellow.

Susan hissed a curse. "Deepborn."

Cain didn't waste breath. He surged forward, blade cleaving the first creature in two before it even touched the pier. Its body collapsed with a wet slap, ichor steaming as it bled across the planks. The tide swallowed the pieces greedily.

More followed, dragging themselves up the sides of the barges, spilling onto the docks in writhing knots of limbs. Their bodies pulsed with the rhythm of the tide, as if the ocean itself was exhaling them.

Cain moved like a storm. His blade cut through flesh that wasn't flesh, spraying salt-stench ichor across the boards. Sparks flew where steel struck barnacled armor.

Susan, staggering but unyielding, raised her pistol. Each shot thundered against the dock, dropping creatures back into the sea. She reloaded with one hand, blood smearing the magazine, refusing to fall.

The water churned. Something vast shifted beneath.

Steve's voice spiked, urgent. "Cain—whatever's down there—it's bigger. Way bigger. The heat signature's spiking."

Cain snarled, carving a path toward the edge of the pier. He peered into the depths, where shadows moved like cities collapsing in silence.

Then it rose.

The water erupted, flinging waves across the docks. A leviathan form surged upward: barnacled, plated, its head crowned with spines of rusted metal. Chains hung from its jaws, broken cargo containers dragged along like toys. Its eyes opened, glowing with the same cloudy yellow as the Deepborn.

Susan staggered back, eyes wide. "That's not… that's not supposed to exist."

Cain braced himself. "It does now."

The creature roared. The sound shattered glass along the shoreline. Windows burst, alarms screamed. The city could no longer pretend not to hear.

Deepborn poured onto the pier, their screeches blending with the monster's roar. Cain cut them down, one after another, but their numbers swelled. For every one that fell, two more crawled from the water.

Steve's voice bled static. "Cain, listen to me—you can't fight it here. Not on their ground. Pull back!"

Cain's blade sang as it split a Deepborn from skull to chest. His answer was a growl. "If they claim the sea, they'll come for the land next. Then there'll be nowhere left to fight."

The leviathan lunged. Its massive jaw slammed into the pier, splintering wood, dragging entire pylons into the water. Cain threw himself aside, pulling Susan with him, the impact rattling his bones.

The dock split open. Water surged through, pulling bodies, crates, and blood into the tide. Cain struggled to his feet, soaked, blade still gripped in white knuckles.

He looked up. The leviathan loomed above, framed by the city's broken skyline, chains swaying like ornaments of conquest.

The war wasn't waiting anymore. It was here.

Cain squared his shoulders, lifted his blade, and breathed against the weight pressing down on his chest. "Then let's end it where it began."

The sea answered with another roar.

The leviathan's roar still echoed when Cain lunged forward again, blade flashing with wet light. He struck at the smaller Deepborn first, carving a path to clear Susan's line of fire. She steadied her pistol with both hands despite the pain in her ribs, unloading round after round into the crawling tide.

Each bullet tore chunks of translucent flesh apart, but the things kept moving, dragged by instinct rather than will. One leapt, jaws unhinged, only to be split midair by Cain's sword. The pieces hit the water and dissolved back into brine.

"Cain!" Susan barked, voice hoarse. "The big one—don't let it close the gap!"

He pivoted just as the leviathan's head swung, chains cracking against steel pylons like whips. The dock exploded in splinters. Cain rolled, shoulder aching, then hurled himself upward onto a twisted crane arm jutting above the pier. The metal groaned under his weight.

The beast's eye turned toward him, massive, glowing, blind with hunger.

Cain's grip tightened on the blade. "Come on then."

The leviathan lunged. Its maw opened, teeth like rusted anchors. Cain sprinted along the crane arm, momentum carrying him straight toward the gaping abyss. At the last instant, he leapt, blade descending in a two-handed arc.

Steel met flesh. The strike sank deep, carving a furrow across the monster's face. Brine and ichor sprayed, burning his skin like acid. The creature thrashed, slamming its head into the crane. Cain was thrown hard, tumbling across the shattered pier until he crashed against a pile of crates.

Susan screamed his name, firing into the leviathan's wounded eye. The beast recoiled, its bellow shaking the sea itself.

Cain staggered upright, coughing salt from his lungs. His blade dripped black water, his hands shaking but steadying as he raised it again.

The fight wasn't finished. Not yet.