A moment after I landed upon the deck, the pressure supporting my descent vanished completely.
I looked up. Augustus and Defender Aurora were already gone. As though they had never been there to begin with. That left me standing alone in the middle of a ship large enough to qualify as a floating city.
The deck beneath my feet was made from a strange dark material that looked like black wood at first glance, yet when I focused on it with Insight, I immediately realized it was neither wood nor metal. Countless layers of condensed matter had been compressed together and reinforced through runes that stretched throughout the entire vessel. Streams of pale silver energy flowed beneath the surface.
The realization barely settled before I noticed that the entire deck had gone silent. Dozens of figures had stopped whatever they were doing and were staring directly at me.
A few seconds later, dozens became hundreds.
Workers paused.
Sailors froze.
Guards stopped moving.
Even the strange bird-like creatures carrying cargo across the ship turned their heads toward me. Every eye on the deck was fixed on me.
I quickly understood why. I was alive. A breathing body of flesh and blood standing openly in the Null Realm among the dead. Apparently that was not something people saw every day.
A woman carrying a crate dropped it entirely. Nobody even looked at it.
An older man wearing a dark captain-like coat blinked several times before speaking.
"That’s... a living one."
His words spread across the surrounding crowd.
"A living?"
"Impossible."
"How did he get here?"
"Is he real?"
"I thought those were just stories."
I resisted the urge to sigh. Apparently I had become a tourist attraction.
The silence lasted only a few moments before several armed figures began moving toward me.
Unlike the guards I was familiar with, these people carried weapons that seemed partly physical and partly formed from soul force. Curved sabers, guns carved from glowing crystal, and spears wrapped in silver chains appeared throughout the crowd.
One of the guards stopped several meters away. He was a broad-shouldered insectoid with gray scales and a jagged scar running across one side of his face.
"Hands where I can see them."
I looked at him. Then at the dozen other guards surrounding me. Then back at him. The situation suddenly felt very familiar.
"No."
The guard frowned.
"You are aboard a Dex vessel."
"Good for me."
His expression darkened.
"You appeared out of nowhere on a restricted ship."
"Also true."
Several more guards moved into position. The crowd continued growing. The insect tightened his grip on his weapon.
"You will come with us for questioning."
That sounded reasonable. Unfortunately I had absolutely no interest in being locked in a cell immediately after arriving.
"And if I refuse?"
The atmosphere shifted instantly.
"We make you."
I nodded slowly. At least he was honest. My perception spread outward and the highest rank I found among them was grandmaster. None of them were remotely threatening. Even the strongest soul aboard the vessel barely registered as a Medium Grandmaster.
The difference between us was so absurd that I genuinely wondered whether I should laugh. Instead I simply released a tiny fraction of my aura.
Silver-violet soul force drifted outward from my body. The effect was immediate. Every guard froze. Weapons stopped moving and the crowd went silent. Even the air seemed to become heavier.
Shock appeared across dozens of faces. Several guards immediately went pale. One of them dropped to a knee.
The guard’s eyes widened. I could practically feel his instincts screaming at him.
Saint.
I was not sure if they knew what that meant. Only that something overwhelmingly stronger than them stood in front of them. I took a step forward, simply walked through the crowd and started exploring the vessel while the crowd remained frozen.
The vessel was even larger from the inside.
Entire streets existed beneath the upper decks. Shops, taverns, workshops and residential areas stretched through the interior like a miniature city. Thousands of souls lived aboard this single ship alone.
Everything operated using soul force.
The engines consisted of enormous chambers where condensed soul energy flowed through rotating runic structures. The sails overhead did not capture wind but rather currents flowing through the Soul Sea itself. Even the lanterns illuminating the corridors burned with tiny fragments of refined soul force.
The entire civilization functioned on an energy system completely separate from Essence. That alone fascinated me.
Eventually I reached what appeared to be the command center. The doors opened automatically.
Inside stood a large circular chamber filled with floating maps and projections.
My attention moved immediately toward the massive projection occupying the center of the room.
It showed the Soul Sea. Or at least a tiny portion of it. Thousands of ships appeared throughout the map and there were marked routes between them.
Several locations were marked in crimson. Others in silver.
While I was studying the projection, I noticed one of the operators watching me nervously from the side of the chamber.
He was a strange-looking soul. Tall and extremely thin.
His skin carried a faint gray glow and where normal eyes should have been, he possessed a single vertical eye running from forehead to chin. The eye blinked sideways occasionally while he continued glancing between me and the frozen guards outside the command room.
Eventually I looked toward him. He immediately straightened.
"I need some information."
The operator hesitated for a moment before nodding.
"Of course, sir."
At least the aura display earlier had made things easier. I pointed toward the projection.
"When is this armada entering the Prime Territory?"
The operator moved closer and studied the routes for a few seconds.
"We are not."
I looked at him.
"Not at all?"
He shook his head.
"No, sir. We don’t have any scheduled drops inside the Prime Territory."
That was unfortunate.
"So this ship never goes there?"
"It does very very rarely. Just not this voyage."
I frowned slightly.
"If I wanted to make a deal to get inside the Prime Territory, who should I talk to?"
The operator immediately looked surprised. Then curious. Then slightly concerned. For several seconds he seemed to debate whether answering was a good idea.
Eventually he nodded.
"Actually that part is simple."
He gestured toward the projection.
"May I?"
I stepped aside.
"Go ahead."
The operator approached the floating map and began manipulating it. The projection expanded instantly. Large portions of the Soul Sea shifted aside before a section of the armada appeared.
I hadn’t realized how large the formation truly was. Dozens upon dozens of ships moved together across the silver waters.
The operator zoomed further toward the front.
"There."
My eyes followed the image.
Twenty-three vessels appeared. Unlike the others, these ships traveled in a perfect horizontal line, each maintaining exactly the same distance from the next. Every one of them was enormous. Almost Fortress-sized.
Covered in enough soul force that even the projection could not fully hide it.
And ahead of them all was a monster. A ship so large it looked less like a vessel and more like a floating capital. Its crimson sails stretched for hundreds of kilometers while entire districts appeared built atop its deck.
I stared at it for several moments.
"What is that?"
The operator’s vertical eye widened slightly.
"The General Ship."
He pointed toward the twenty-three vessels behind it.
"Those are the Commander Ships. Each belongs to one of the twenty-three commanders that govern the Armada. The Dex Witches don’t have a king. The commanders vote. The General Ship handles coordination and administration, but actual authority belongs to the twenty-three."
I studied the formation again.
"So if I want a deal."
The operator immediately understood.
"You need one of them."
He pointed toward the commander vessels.
"Any one of the twenty-three can authorize smuggling routes, transport contracts, territory access, identity papers, escort arrangements and special movement permissions."
I looked toward him.
"And which one is the easiest to convince?"