Rathen stood near the quarterdeck rail and stared at the sky like it had become a battlefield by mistake.

Because that was what it looked like now.

Not chaos. Not desperate flailing. A controlled kill zone.

The flock had been large, too large for comfort. A black smear that should have overwhelmed a ship simply by existing. And yet, minute by minute, it was being carved apart by timed volleys and disciplined rotations. Splash impacts staggered targets out of flight. Shields absorbed the feather storms without a single breach. Ludger’s runic fireballs ruptured formations and turned clusters into falling debris.

The sky wasn’t full of monsters anymore. It was full of problems being solved. Rathen’s expression shifted slowly from caution to disbelief. His mouth fell slightly open before he could stop it.

He’d been a guildmaster for over twenty years.

He’d organized escorts, negotiated contracts, survived politics that could eat honest men alive. He’d seen veteran squads, real ones, fight beasts on land, in forests, on roads, in caves.

And he didn’t think there was a group in the Empire that could do what he was watching.

Not like this. Not with this coordination. Not with this firepower and fire rate. Not with enough mana to keep pressure on the enemy without collapsing into exhaustion or sloppy mistakes.

No one was hurt. No one had panicked.

The trainees, kids, moved like a unit that had been blooded in a dozen real battles. Their timing wasn’t perfect, but it was consistent. Their discipline didn’t shatter when the feather volleys hit. They rotated on command. They trusted the shield wall. They attacked as a group instead of as frightened individuals.

And Ludger… Ludger looked like a disaster wearing a child’s body, casually rewriting the rules of what a ship could survive.

Rathen blinked hard, as if that would make the scene less ridiculous. It didn’t. He slowly turned his head to the side, still holding the rail, still watching feathers fall and bodies drop.

Viola was there. Smug.

Not loud about it, she didn’t need to be. She wore the expression like a quiet badge, chin slightly raised, eyes half-lidded with satisfaction.

She almost looked like she had trained those kids herself. Rathen stared at her for a second, then back at the sky, then back at her.

“…You’re enjoying this,” he said, voice dry.

Viola didn’t deny it. Her lips curled just a little.

“I told you,” she said simply. “Watch and learn.”

Rathen swallowed and forced his mouth shut. The sky roared with distant explosions and splashing impacts. And Viola stood there like the whole thing was just proof of something she’d never doubted.

That was the most unsettling part.

The last of the crows peeled away like a torn banner.

One by one, black shapes broke formation and fled, some limping through the air with damaged wings, some diving low to skim the water and vanish into the distance. No new dots appeared on the horizon.

For the first time in what felt like forever, the sky stopped trying to kill them. A slow exhale moved across the deck.

Not a cheer. Not yet. More like everyone’s lungs remembered they were allowed to work again.

Shields lowered in cautious increments. Arms shook out. Hands unclenched. A few trainees slumped against the rail with that half-laughing, half-sick expression you got when adrenaline realized it had done its job and was now unemployed.

Then the grins started.

Small at first, stolen, disbelieving smiles exchanged between friends like we’re still here. Then wider, brighter, a few quiet fist pumps and shoulder bumps that turned into the first real wave of pride.

They’d won. Their first battle. On a ship.

Renn and Marie tried to keep order, but even they couldn’t fully hide the relief on their faces. Bramm let out a breath like he’d been holding it since childhood. Jorin laughed once, sharp and incredulous. Tali rested her halberd butt on the deck and looked like she wanted to hug it.

For a heartbeat, it almost felt like celebration. Then Ludger ruined it.

He stepped to the rail and lifted a hand. The ocean answered.

Water rose in a smooth column, twisting into a controlled arc that reached down like a giant’s hand. It plunged beneath the surface, paused, then came up again carrying shapes, dark, limp bodies caught in a spinning cradle of water.

A few trainees stiffened instantly. Shields came up again, reflexive. Hands found weapons. The grins vanished like someone had slapped them.

Ludger didn’t even glance at them. He guided the water arc onto the deck and let it spill the bodies out in a wet heap, two, three, then more, crow-things that had fallen close enough for him to retrieve.

They hit the planks with dull thuds and the slap of water.

Dead. Broken. Still unnerving. Ludger walked toward them and crouched.

He didn’t look triumphant. He looked curious, like he’d just acquired a puzzle piece.

Viola stepped closer, peering down at the bodies with a mix of disgust and interest. “Are you thinking about eating them?”

Ludger ignored her completely. He grabbed one of the creatures by the wing and spread it open, examining the feather structure. His fingers ran along the quills, then pinched a cluster and tugged hard.

The feather didn’t bend like a normal feather. It resisted. Stiff. Rough. Dense. He plucked a single black feather free and held it up to the light. It didn’t sway. It felt… heavy.

Ludger rolled it between his fingers, brows knitting, then tapped it against the deck.

Clink.

Not quite metal-on-metal. But close enough to make the hairs on the back of the neck rise.

Viola’s expression shifted. “That’s—”

“Not normal,” Ludger finished, still testing the weight. He scraped his thumbnail along the shaft and felt the hard texture, almost like layered scales pressed into feather form. The edges had micro-serrations that caught the skin if you weren’t careful.

Almost like the creature had been designed to turn its own body into ammunition.

He looked back at the shields along the rail, where several dark feathers were still embedded, quivering slightly from impact.

“Metal,” Ludger muttered. “Or something close.”

That explained the weight behind the volleys. Why the feather storm sounded wrong. Why does it hit like thrown nails instead of fluff?

Viola leaned in, eyeing the corpse like it might jump up and bite her out of spite. “So their wings are basically crossbows.”

Ludger didn’t answer. He was already studying the joints, the thin ribs, the unnatural wing geometry. A weaponized flyer.A guarding flock. He frowned, and the deck around him seemed to tighten again. Because the crows weren’t the real problem. They were just the warning system. And if this was only the warning… then whatever waited at the labyrinth was going to be worse.

Raukor approached the pile of bodies without hurry, like dead monsters were just another material inventory.

He crouched, plucked one of the black feathers from the deck where it had embedded itself, and weighed it in his hand. His claw scraped lightly along the shaft. The sound was wrong, too hard, too sharp.

“They make for fine arrows,” Raukor rumbled.

He brought it closer, sniffed once, and his nose wrinkled. “Smells bad, though.”

Viola made a face. “That’s an understatement.”

Ludger didn’t care about smell. He cared about patterns.

He stood, feather still in his fingers, and looked at Raukor. “More attacks?”

Raukor shook his head. “Not today.”

Ludger’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”

Raukor’s ears flicked, a beastman shrugged in miniature. “They do not waste.” He gestured toward the sea, toward the horizon they’d come from. “They attack when the ship approaches. They leave when the ship survives.”

Ludger absorbed that, then asked the more important question. “And at the labyrinth?”

Raukor’s gaze hardened a fraction. “Crows attack anyone around the spider labyrinth. Always. Day. Night. They circle. They strike when they can.”

Ludger nodded slowly. That meant they weren’t just an interception force. They were a perimeter problem. A constant pressure.

His mind immediately built the next checklist: rotating watch, shield coverage even during rest, mage stamina management, emergency alarm signals, lighting discipline. If the crows could strike from the dark, then complacency would be fatal.

“We’ll need sentries around the labyrinth at all times,” Ludger said.

Raukor nodded once, satisfied.

Ludger glanced up at the sky, then back at the deck where the trainees were starting to relax again, too eager to let the danger feel finished.

“Most likely,” he added, voice flat, “they hit at night.”

Raukor’s ears flicked again. “Yes.”

No drama. Just confirmation. Ludger looked at the feather in his hand one last time, then snapped it in half with a sharp twist, not because it was weak, but because he wanted to feel how much force it took.

It resisted like a thin rod of metal. He tossed the broken pieces into a bucket.

“Good,” he said quietly. “Then we plan for the night.”

Ludger let them breathe for a few minutes.

Long enough for shaking hands to steady. Long enough for the first battle-grins to fade into something less wild and more useful. Then he called them in again.

Not with shouting. Just presence and a short, sharp gesture that made the officers snap their lines back into order.

The trainees gathered near mid-deck, some still flushed with adrenaline, some pale with the aftertaste of fear. A few had feathers lodged in shields they held like trophies. Others kept glancing up at the sky as if expecting the crows to reappear the moment they blinked.

Ludger stood in front of them and let his gaze sweep across the group.

“You did well,” he said.

The words hit them harder than praise should have. You could see shoulders lift, eyes brighten. A couple of kids straightened like they’d just been handed a title. Ludger didn’t smile.

“But that was just the first battle,” he continued, voice flat enough to keep them from floating away.

The mood shifted. Focus returned.

“Relive those moments in your head,” he said. “Every order you followed. Every second you hesitated. Every time your shield arm shook. Every time you almost broke formation.”

He tapped his temple once, slow. “Don’t forget it. Use it. Next time, you’ll be faster. Cleaner. Less stupid.”

Some of them flinched at the word. No one argued. Ludger gestured toward the rail where shields still bore black feathers like embedded nails.

“You had the power to attack,” he said. “You had the equipment to defend. And you had magic to heal yourselves.”

His eyes hardened.

“And a single mistake is all it takes for all of that to be useless.”

Silence tightened around the deck. A kid swallowed loud enough for the people near him to hear.

“Drop your shield at the wrong time,” Ludger said, “and you lose an eye. Step wrong when the ship rolls and you go overboard. Fire magic too close to the rigging and you cripple the ship. Panic for one second and you give the enemy a gap to climb through.”

He let the words sit. Not to scare them, fear was already present. To sharpen it.

“Remain focused,” Ludger finished. “So everyone returns home in one piece.”

Then he lowered his hand. For a heartbeat, no one moved.

And then the line nodded, enthusiastically, almost too eagerly. Some nodded like they were trying to prove they weren’t scared. Some nodded because they were relieved to be told what to do. Some nodded because being alive felt addictive.

Renn, Marie, Bramm, Jorin, and Tali echoed the posture, their eyes hard now with the quiet pride of people who’d held a line and lived.

Good.

Ludger turned away before the moment could grow sentimental.

He walked back to the bow and stared at the horizon again, letting the wind dry the salt on his face.

And there, past the shimmer of heat and water, something dark began to rise.

An island.

At first it was just a smudge breaking the clean line between sea and sky. Then it became shape: jagged cliffs, low greenery, a crown of rock like broken teeth.

Their destination.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed.

“Alright,” he murmured.

The ocean rolled beneath them, steady and indifferent, as the island grew larger with every minute, and the real work drew closer.

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