Storm’s Path Part IV

Despite their best efforts to escape the storm, it felt like it was chasing after them. Even with Leona's aid to Kaeli's wind spell the ship didn't seem like it was getting anywhere.

"Can't we just turn back?!"

Leona shouted to Charlotte who was trying her best to keep the ship stable by grappling the wheel by the helm.

"I would if I could! There's something wrong with the waters! It's like we are getting dragged away!"

'Dragged away?'

A feeling of anxiety began to grow in her chest. Cold sweat permeated her back as she glanced at Luka who was staring intently at her from the other side of the deck, seemingly awaiting for her orders.

"Check the stern of the ship!" Leona urged him. "Report back if you see anything unusual!"

"Yes! Ma'am!"

He quickly finished tying another rope from the sails and rushed to the back of the ship. Meanwhile Leona kept her wind spell going at full power in order to keep the vessel at least in place.

"Save your strength Leona." Kaeli, who was right beside her, warned. Despite using way more mana than her, the potency of her spell didn't show any signs of mana fatigue. "That thing is still out there somewhere."

"You mean Akamui?"

The archmage turned to Leona with a surprised expression on her face.

"How do you know its name?"

"I-"

"Lady Leona!" Luka's desperate voice cut their conversation short as both of them turned to the wide eyed young man. "There is a giant maelstrom behind the ship!"

Without saying a word, she dashed towards the edge of the starboard railings and looked behind the ship. White bubbly foam circumvented the gigantic whirlpool of death and the violent swirling waters created a wind draft towards it that felt like a tornado sucking up matter.

"What the-?!" At the time she wasn't able to come up with an explanation to the uneasiness that she felt during the storm. But looking at it from a distance, it was obvious why she felt so pressured. "It can't be…"

The ocean waters as well as the air around the whirlpool were shining with mana as if the very air was charged. Below the surface, a red bulbous head awaited its prey while swirling its tentacles with great speed. Kaeli was now using both hands to cast wind spells simultaneously which was barely keeping the ship in place as she shouted to her.

"Hey! Leona! What's wrong?!"

"It's trying to drag us beneath the ocean!"

The magnitude of the whirlpool would spell death to them if the ship was to be caught in its center. The wind was becoming even fiercer with mana in the air being dragged inwards the vortex.

"Do any of you have any idea how to kill this thing?!"

A male voice came from behind Leona which startled her as she jumped forward before turning with her blade pointing at the man behind her.

Soaked down to the bone, Yuriel stood towering above her with a confused expression.

"What's wrong Princess?"

"Yuriel?!" Charlotte shouted from the helm as she was still struggling with the wheel. "Where the hell have you been?!"

"I've been hanging on the hull of the ship for the past couple of minutes, Cap'." He reached over the railings and pulled out his battleaxe from the ship's hull. "It was painful."

"Enough of that, come help me you doofus!"

"Aye aye."

He climbed up the stairs to the helm and aided her in keeping the wheel in place. The tactician stood there without knowing what to do. It was a mixture of panic with anxiety while shouldering the responsibility of all the lives on that ship including her own, she didn't have any room to make mistakes.

"Leona!" Kaeli's voice snapped her out of her dreadful thoughts. The high elf's eyes were sharp and gleaming with confidence as she looked into the tactician's eyes. "We need a plan to kill this thing! My magic may keep it at bay but I don't think I can land a killing blow!"

"Do you think we might be able to kill it if we cut its head in half?"

"Its brain is right between the eyes, even if we were able to get close to it I don't think-" For a brief moment, Leona glanced at the tip of the longsword on her hand before sprinting up the staircase to the helm. "Hey! Wait! Where are you going?!"

The tactician reached the two struggling with the steering wheel and suggested the unthinkable.

"Charlotte! Can you make us go along the edges of the maelstrom?!"

"Huh?! Are you out of your mind?!"

"We have to kill that thing! If we don't, we'll run out of mana before we can escape it!"

Despite sounding like the idea of a lunatic, Leona's eyes were filled with unwavering confidence that surprised even Charlotte which prompted her to ask.

"Do you have a plan?!"

"Yes! But I need your skills to get us through! Steer the ship around the edge of the maelstrom as close to the center as possible!"

The captain glanced at Yuriel who seemed to understand what she wanted to say and let go of the steering wheel. Charlotte began to spin it to the right which made the ship slowly turn and be dragged along the edges of the whirlpool. Thanks to Kaeli's potent wind spell, the captain was just barely able to keep the ship sailing along the edges of the deadly maelstrom.

Leona quickly jumped over the railings down to the deck and grabbed a nearby lengthy coil of rope before handing it to Luka.

"Huh?" She didn't say a word and instead quickly tied one end of the rope to her waist. "Wait! Lady Leona! What are you going to do?!"

"I'm going to kill that thing!"

"By jumping out of the ship?!"

She looked at him with fire in her eyes.

"It's our only way!" He grabbed the knot that she made and gave a firm pull, easily undoing it. "Hey what are you-!"

"Let me do it. If you really have to do this, at least let me be the one who'll help you."

He quickly spinned the end of the rope around her left thigh and from there he managed to secure all of her limbs with a knot safely tied behind her back serving like a safety harness. She moved her arms and legs and it almost didn't feel like she was tied at all.

"Thank you."

He nodded and she rushed off to the right side of the ship that was facing the center of the vortex. Now that she was planning to go to the eye of the whirlpool, she began to notice just how massive Akamui really was. Its tentacles, although cut, were controlling the waters in such a way that it was able to create an impossible maelstrom in the middle of the ocean.

"You'll need more if you want to go near it!" Yuriel carried four thick coils of ropes, two on each arm before tossing them on the deck. "Luka tie these together!"

He was just as tall as Krieg and if the size of his arms was anything to go by, it reassured her a bit that he coiled the other end of the rope to his right arm as Luka was frantically making sure the ligaments were completely secured.

"I don't know what you intend to accomplish with that but-" Kaeli didn't need to put as much effort in keeping the sails steady since they were going with the trajectory of the wind so she decided to join Leona. "-it'd be a problem if you fail to save this ship."

"I need to get close enough to land a killing blow." Leona let the longsword slide along the fingers of her right hand before her pinky stopped by the blade's pommel. Her gaze was distant yet there was resolve in her eyes. "Luka."

He glanced at her quickly as he was about to finish tying the last coil of rope. Her unusually serious tone surprised him.

"Yes-?!"

"Get something to tie this sword to my arm."

"At once!"

He rushed off to one of the nearby barrels where they stored more rope. Kaeli raised an eyebrow when she noticed there was a gap between her right hand and the guard of the longsword.

"You can't possibly be considering…"

Without looking at her, Leona uttered.

"This is our only chance. If magic as powerful as yours can't kill it, then the only one who can have a shot at it is me."

"You have no guarantee that you will be able to kill it either!"

"Oh?" She glanced at Kaeli with a warm smile on her face. "I didn't know the person who was sent out to kill me cared so much. For someone so sinful you sure are virtuous in your own way. Kaeli."

Her eyes widened as she took half a step back in astonishment.

"You-!"

Leona laughed a bit but her smile soon turned into a bittersweet expression as she lightly bit her inner lips. Beneath that playful remark, Kaeli noticed just how intensively her arms were shaking.

The tactician had been through life and death situations before, but none of them had such weight on top of her shoulders. It was no longer only her life on the line but of everyone on that ship. She swallowed dry before taking a deep breath. Her right fingers tightened around the sword's handle as the forced muscle tension helped stop the shaking of her arm.

That wasn't the time to dwell whether or not she was capable of accomplishing it, she had to. If not they were all as good as dead. She swallowed dry as she reached for the bag where her mother's gauntlet was before putting over her right hand.

"I brought more rope!" Luka had a thinner rope that he quickly tied one end around the sword's guard in an x before gently looping the other end around Leona's forearm, he noticed the strange metal gauntlet but instead of saying anything he simply smiled at her. "You won't need to worry about losing your sword with this."

"Thank you."

Peering over the edge of the railings she could see the red tentacles swirling the waters below them. She took another deep breath and stepped back a few times to create some distance in order to jump as far as she could before using magic.

"Leona!" Kaeli's voice came from behind her and as she was about to turn around, the high elf gave her a light tap on the backside of both her shoulders. "This will help you in getting there."

From where she held her, there was a tingling sensation at first before a sudden burst of mana filled her body. As opposed to when she had to protect Krieg against his own overwhelming flooding mana, Kaeli's was concentrated yet not overbearing to her senses.

"Wait you-"

"If you use half of this mana to reinforce your body, you might just be able to not lose your arm." The high elf explained while lightly squeezing her shoulders. "I was taught by my mother to pay back the debt we owe. Do not die just yet, Leona."

"Huh?!"

Those last words made her turn to the side in order to look at Kaeli, but as she was about to glance over her shoulder she suddenly got her back pushed forward, forcing her to run towards the railings. Without looking back, Leona broke the full sprint by jumping on the railing before leaping overboard into the open sea.

Her original plan was to use a burst of wind through her feet in order to launch her far enough in hopes of getting close to deliver the killing blow, but unexpectedly, Kaeli wasn't done with just giving her mana and as her feet was leaving the wooden railing, she heard the high elf chant behind her.

"Winds of time, grant thy power upon myself, Windshot!"

"Wait?! What are you-?!"

By having her open palm against Leona's back, Kaeli used the spell enchantment 'Windshot' to send her flying as if she was throwing a projectile. With a split second decision, the tactician reinforced her body with the mana she was supplied earlier.

"Leona!" Luka exclaimed as she was thrown into the air. He turned to the high elf right after with his hand above the saber's handle. "Are you trying to kill her?!"

"She won't be able to get near it otherwise." She uttered while raising her left arm towards the tactician. "Winds of time, release thy might, Wind Blast!"

About ten meters up in the air, Leona was less than halfway to the center of the vortex.

"I won't reach it like this…!" She turned her upper body around in order to unleash a wind spell behind with her left hand before she noticed a blast of wind aspected mana coming in her direction from the ship. "Thank you, Kaeli."

She reinforced herself once again with mana just before being hit in the back by the spell. Her body emitted a pale light blue sheen as the wind accelerated her body diagonally through the air.

"Winds of time, grant thy power unto myself, Wind Blast!"

Normally a spell cast by a mage follows three basic steps. First is the accumulation of enough mana to cast the spell through parts of their bodies that contain a mana gate like the wrists, ankles or neck; second is the application of part of the spell's mana to protect the caster from backlash; third and finally, the release of the spell itself.

However, by purposefully skipping the second step and allowing herself to be hit by the spell's recoil, she managed to launch herself at even greater speeds while keeping herself safe with the use of mana reinforcement, a technique that usually burns quickly through one's mana reserves but thanks to Kaeli's assistance, she had more than enough for the time being.

She was flying directly to the center of the storm. Raging gales circled the whirlpool alongside the dark clouds with bolts of lightning striking periodically from them. Akamui was in the middle of it all, seemingly controlling even the weather in hopes of turning the tides against those who managed to wound it.

She brought her right hand holding the longsword to her left side and held it firmly with both hands. She turned her body slightly counter clockwise in order to get the most out of the momentum carrying her by winding up the blade. Mana began to pour out of her left wrist into the sword, releasing a bright blue light that was visible from the ship that was navigating through the edges of the whirlpool.

"This is it! There are no second chances!" She was beginning to fall through the air and with her she was bringing down the bright mana sword. "Meet your fate!"

With both her mana reinforcement and Akamui's gelatinous body she didn't suffer any injuries from falling between its eyes as she brought down the mana infused blade. A bright slash followed the swing of her sword, but it was stopped right before landing on its head by four already cut tentacles. She clenched her teeth as she forced the blade down and although they were already wounded appendages, they were still limbs from a monstrosity many times larger than her.

"Aaaaaaaargh!"

Blue copper blood sprayed against her face and body as each of the tentacles were being cut by the mana blade until she hit the surface of the monster's head and the sword stopped after digging about half a meter into its flesh.

'No! I can't let it end like this-!'

Her fingers clenched the hilt as her teeth grinded against each other, she had to put all she had left in that one strike.

"Rend! Yoshitsune!"

From the ship's deck, it seemed like there was a bright blink for a split second and what followed thereafter seemed like something of a fairy tale.

"Wha- what is that?!"

Luka exclaimed with his jaw half dropped. Even Kaeli couldn't believe what she was seeing as she stopped her wind spell in disbelief.

"No way…"

Not only Akamui's entire head was cut in half by a golden rift of pure mana that extended from the ocean to the sky, but the storm itself was parted from the attack as it revealed a clear blue morning sky behind the dark clouds.