NOVEL NEXT Chapter 36: A Gamble on Loyalty
The Vice Admiral of Nozar stood frozen on the slick platform of water, her eyes wide, her mouth parted, but no words came out. Anriette's gaze swept across the ocean as if she were trying to deny what she was seeing, trying to convince herself that the screams weren't real. Trying to convince herself that the hands clawing out of the whirlpools and the mangled wrecks of the fleet weren't her sailors, her comrades.
But they were.
Lukas could see it in her face, the silent terror that gripped her tighter than any current ever could.
"Anriette!" Lukas roared, voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. "GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF!"
She flinched, blinking as though waking from a dream, and turned toward him. Her eyes, sharp and pale as broken ice, shimmered with something ancient — grief, maybe, or guilt. Anriette didn't speak for a long moment. And then her voice broke through the roar of the sea. "I have to go."
Lukas stared at her, stunned. What the fuck was she on about? "What? Are you insane? You'll die out there—"
"No," she shot back, steel returning to her spine. "I will die if I stay here and do nothing. Because I will not be able to live with myself knowing that I did nothing to save them." Her eyes darted toward the chaos, toward the men and women who had only hours ago been laughing at the mess hall, sharing bread, mocking the Kraken's appetite and joking about Lukas' strange accent. "They're my people, Lukas. My family." Her jaw tightened. "I won't let them die alone."
Lukas wanted to argue. He wanted to stop her. But in that moment—watching her stand there, trembling and defiant—Lukas realized what had always lingered beneath her strange poise and dry sarcasm: a brutal, unwavering love for her crew. It burned through her like wildfire, stronger than fear, stronger than reason. She turned back to him, her expression softening for just a second. "I hope to see you again, Klein. I understand that you have to protect your people. But I have to protect mine. I must."
And with that, she leapt into the churning abyss—straight into the jaws of the storm.
All Lukas could do was watch her silhouette vanish into the water and feel that strange pang of respect pulse through his chest like an echo. But he couldn't waste another second worrying about the fate of the Vice Admiral. She had made her choice.
They needed to get to Rodan and he immediately sent the platform of water soaring through the skies, closer to the intense surge of magical energy he could feel at the center of all the chaos. The roar of the sea drowned out everything: the howling winds, the splintering ships, the dying cries of sailors caught in the maelstrom. But through it all, riding a thin sliver of water barely held together by sheer force of will, Lukas stood with his arms outstretched, the veins on his neck and forehead pulsing with strain.
The platform beneath them bucked like a wild beast, water threatening to split under their feet as Rodan's overwhelming presence clawed at every droplet.
Lukas had no time to explain his plan into words so he reached into the Crown. The moment his consciousness brushed against it—that ancient, sacred relic etched into his soul—he felt reality bend to his intent. He didn't speak. He showed them. His thoughts unfolded like a tapestry and spilled into the minds of Katrina and the Kraken, woven with images and sensations and instincts.
It was a plan: move fast, get close: close enough for the Kraken to work his magic on Rodan, the Leviathan of the Deep.
Katrina should have questioned it, knowing that Lukas was using the very Legacy that would have made this plan completely illogical. The Kraken's magic shouldn't even work on her father who had been a true Dragon Lord. But it wasn't just the clarity of the vision that convinced them. It was the emotions.
And Lukas was just beginning to realize why this was a worthy Legacy passed down through all the Lords of Linemall who came before him. Through the Crown, Lukas didn't just allow them to see his vision, he bled his very fucking soul into them. His unshakable, near-delusional, courage. The white-hot flame of his belief in them. His stubborn refusal to fall, to bend, to let this sea become their grave.
It hit them like a tidal wave.
Katrina's fists clenched tighter around her warhammer, her muscles straining, her eyes glowing with steel fury. The Kraken's shoulders straightened, his breaths deepened as he readied himself to use his magic when the right time came. They trusted Lukas. They believed in his plan. They believed in him.
They didn't question. They acted. The platform surged forward, Lukas shaping it like a blade through the air, weaving around the shattered remnants of warships, past drowning marines and dead-eyed corpses. Every meter forward was a battle. Rodan's Divinity reached for the water beneath their feet, trying to unmake it and cast them down into the very seas that he controlled. Lukas countered with pure instinct, threading his will into the sea itself, locking every drop into place with brutal concentration.
Even then, it was barely enough, Rodan's grasp was too vast, too complete. The seas wanted to obey him. He truly was Lady Kaitlyn Drakos' son. What better way to show that he was the offspring of the greatest sorceress the Seas of Linemall had ever seen than this?
Lukas snarled and slammed his will deeper into the platform, wrestling control back like a beast writhing under his grip. From behind him, a thunderous clang: Katrina. She swung her colossal hammer with impossible grace, smashing apart a serpent of water that had risen from the deep to intercept them.
Another tendril shot toward Lukas but the Dragonborn threw herself in front of it, letting it crash against her armored shoulder and dissipate with a hiss. Her eyes burned with unrelenting fire. She would let nothing touch him. Beside them, hunched and silent, the Kraken's magic reached a level that Lukas had never sensed before.
The battlefield around them opened up and before them was a sight that Lukas would never forget. Towering ships of liquid carved from Rodan's will sailed through whirlpools like wraiths. Water-forged soldiers screamed as they tore into the Nozar fleet, their swords and limbs melting and reforming like liquid silver. Flames flickered uselessly and were extinguished in seconds, arrows snapped in the air. The Nozar navy, the strongest military force the Kingdoms of Humanity had to offer, was being drowned not just in water—but in despair.
Still, Lukas pressed forward, even as the air grew heavier with magic, even as the tides clawed at his lungs, even as Rodan—unseen at the center of it all—became the eye of a storm unlike any the world had ever seen. The sea foamed around them, rising and falling like the breath of some slumbering god.
As the trio pushed forward atop the struggling platform, Lukas felt the pressure building and it was not from the waves or the winds, but from a presence ahead that grew heavier with every heartbeat. And then, suddenly, the water parted.
Before them loomed a vessel unlike any other on the battlefield. It was massive, but not in the way the Nozar dreadnoughts were. No iron plating. No cannons. No battlements or crude spikes. This ship floated like it was born of the sea itself: gilded with treasures pilfered from the dead. Gleaming gold lay on the deck. Jewelry dangled like seaweed from the mast. Silk banners fluttered like ghosts in the stormwind, and shattered figureheads from conquered ships were nailed along its sides like trophies. It was beautiful in the most ruthless way possible: a monument to slaughter, built from the bones of the fallen.
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Standing at the center of it all, atop a raised platform of polished obsidian wood, was Rodan Drakos. Katrina's father. His older brother.
Lukas blinked.
For a heartbeat, he thought his eyes betrayed him. Rodan was...unassuming. He was no towering warrior. He was no draconic monstrosity. He was tall, yes, but slim, lean in a way that suggested agility rather than strength. A perfectly tailored suit hugged his frame, the cut clean and elegant, though not ostentatious. Deep navy and charcoal tones rippled with faint silver threadwork, catching the light when the lightning cracked overhead. A dark cloak flowed behind him like smoke. He even wore a magician's tophat which Rodan somehow pulled off flawlessly.
His hair—sandy blonde, somewhere between sun and dust—fell in soft, tousled waves, nothing like Katrina's flowing locks. His features were sharp but gentle, the kind that might belong to a nobleman or a charismatic diplomat. Rodan had the air of someone who would apologize if he stepped on your foot.
But his eyes…
Lukas stiffened. The chill hit his spine like a knife of ice. Rodan's gaze was what broke the illusion. Those eyes weren't warm. They weren't even human, they were one of authority. Those were the eyes of a fucking Dragon Lord of Linemall's Seas. There was no malice in them. No hatred. Just calm. Perfect, clinical calm. Rodan's gaze was the gaze of a man who had watched countless die and categorized them like insects.
The kind of gaze that never flinched, not even when watching something burn. Detached, measured, and infinite. And then, Rodan looked up.
For the first time, their eyes met. Two brothers who had grown up together, one who believed the other forever lost to an eternal slumber. A subtle shift, Rodan's brows drew in just slightly, as if squinting at a light in the distance. His gaze narrowed. And immediately the very magical energy around them changed. It wasn't like before.
This wasn't the chaotic, ambient domination Rodan had unleashed across the ocean. This was targeted. Focused. Personal.
The platform trembled. Water screamed as it was torn between two wills. The water obeyed Lukas' command, born of desperation and raw training, but its loyalty was being put to the test by Rodan's authority, ancient and absolute. It was like trying to wrestle the tide with bare hands. Lukas gritted his teeth, hands outstretched, pouring everything he had, all of his Mana into the platform; and it continued forward but slowly. Sweat beaded down his temple. The veins in his arms bulged with strain. He didn't have the strength to win this contest outright—not against him. Not yet.
Rodan raised a single hand, fingers relaxed, palm open; and the water lurched as if gravity itself had shifted. The platform buckled, groaned, nearly splintered beneath them. But Lukas had never intended to win. That was not his intention, no matter how much it did hurt his pride. Even as the ocean screamed beneath them and Rodan's pressure mounted with monstrous force, Lukas had kept one thing in mind.
Lukas didn't need to overpower Rodan—he only needed to get close enough. He just had to hold on. And he'd held on long enough for the Kraken to play his part in the plan. The moment his giant familiar turned to him and gave a single nod—sharp, grim, ready— Lukas let go.
The platform shattered. Water exploded beneath their feet in a thunderous burst, casting shards of liquid force in all directions. The trio dropped, swallowed by the collapsing waves but Lukas was more than prepared for the sudden drop. He reached out, grabbed the Kraken by the tentacles and with every ounce of strength he had left, hurled him through the air like a spear loosed from the depths of the sea.
Rodan's expression shifted but just slightly. A flicker of something unfamiliar. Surprise. And then the Kraken struck. But it was not any physical blow. No, it was a spell potent with the Kraken's magic, the magic of the Cthulu: the Sea Dragons' greatest ancient enemy.
Lukas knew that he'd made the right move before the Kraken had even cast his spell. He didn't need to. Everything he had heard, everything that had been said about Rodan was that he was a good man. He would not voluntarily leave his people, his mother and his daughter just for the sake of becoming a fucking pirate.
He was a Dragon Lord of the Seas.
The moment the spell landed, Rodan's eyes went wide. Not with pain. Not even with shock.
But clarity.
Something shattered within him, chains that had shackled his mind for the last decade.
The ocean followed suit and with that, the seas fell still.
The difference was instantaneous. Where there had been shrieking winds and monstrous currents just a heartbeat before, the sea now seemed almost to… exhale after holding its breath for far too long. It was like the world around them had been held by a throat-tightening pressure. Now, it had finally begun to breathe again. The towering waves softened. The whirlpools died. The ships that had been clawed apart mid-scream now drifted in silence, the water around them eerily calm. Even the skies, still dark and brooding with storm, seemed confused without their master pulling the tides.
Lukas crashed into the water with a giant splash, with Katrina right behind him.
As they surfaced, he looked around and what he saw nearly took his breath away. Ships—dozens of them—once locked in brutal formation, were now torn to driftwood. Many had been capsized completely, their hulls caved in like eggshells. Others barely had any resemblance to the warships that they once were, simply wooden and metal scraps that floated on the ocean. And among them, water still moved, shaped in forgotten geometries: arms, torsos, heads: constructs made entirely of water, shaped like soldiers, like serpents, like monsters of the deep.
But without Rodan's control, they were melting. Fading back into the sea.
Lukas stared up at Rodan.
He stood still, the Kraken beside him, one clawed hand still outstretched as the last echoes of the spell drifted away like foam on the tide. Rodan didn't speak. His expression hadn't twisted or broken. But the difference was clear. He was free.
And Lukas knew, deep in his bones, that he'd gambled everything—and won. His disappearance had never been because Rodan hadn't resisted but because he had not been able to fend off the Kraken's magic. His older brother had never betrayed his people. He had made a gamble on that man's loyalty and the risk had paid off immensely.
Rodan Drakos had been and still was the rightful Lord of the Seas and finally after a decade, he had returned.