XXXI
Helterium’s army spread across the plains joined by a few members of Tyrannust’s legion, met by the Army of Light and Purity atop a green hill. It was the break of day, and the sun had begun peeking above the horizon as Fulcan brought his entire force to the edge of Mainland Grozorg. Though Helterium had many on his side, he was still outnumbered. We were stranded on the shore of Helterium’s island; there was no bridge that linked to the main island anymore when the Hydromancer destroyed its water bridge as the last statue crossed. The exchange between the overlord of water and the king of light was still audible from where we stood; a small gap lay between the water domain and Mainland Grozorg. Fulcan’s army had a line of long cannons behind the frontline on the crest of the hill, and every soldier was equipped with either a sword or a spear. The overlord gave a low laugh at the useless sticks and short blades.
“Fulcan!” Helterium shouted from his end of the battlefield. “Yer end is nigh! I’m afraid there's no other choice for ye! If ye choose to surrender, ye’ll still die in me hands today! Prepare to crumble before me mighty buccaneers!”
“Your words are meaningless, overlord. Not everything you see is everything that is against you. We will see who wins today!”
“What er ye even seying? Buccaneers, attack!”
The overlord raised his arms and the entire four thousand stone warriors stomped towards Fulcan’s army. The statues were towering and surprisingly fast, and in a matter of seconds, the unimposing frontlines were already broken through.
“Cannons! Fire at will!” Fulcan commanded.
“Hydromancer!” The overlord responded quickly.
Some payload from the king’s cannons smashed the statue warriors into pieces, but most were deflected by a powerful wave of water summoned by the Hydromancer, shielding most of Helterium’s army. Though it was a blur from where I stood, it was evident that Helterium’s army was overwhelming the Army of Light and Purity at ease. For every statue destroyed, thirty soldiers or so of Fulcan’s army had lost their lives. This was not a war in our favour at all, and our two guilds couldn’t do anything but stand on the other island, helplessly watching the unbalanced forces.
“Not doing so well, are ye, me king? Why not just give up? Slakaris, attack!”
The overlord cackled wildly, and there was no response from Fulcan. The war raged on, the clashing of stone against steel resounding through the nation. Suddenly, large scaled beasts leapt over our heads, swiftly clearing the twenty meter gap between the two islands impressively and aiding the army of water in its onslaught against the Army of Light and Purity. The cerulean dwellers were the size of three grown men, and the twenty of them ran on four legs with many fins protruding their slimy, spiny derma. Faster than an average land creature, the Slakaris devastated Fulcan’s royal army all the more, shielded by the powerful Hydromancer from the crushing cannonballs.
“Distract the Hydromancer!” Tarsus shouted suddenly. “If we can get it to come back here, more statues might fall to the cannons, and so will those creatures!”
“On it!” Pyrrhon replied.
Luckily, the water domain was the closest elemental island to Mainland Grozorg. Pyrrhon concentrated his mind, palms folded and clenched, until his ember eyes burned a bright incendiary red and his hands shone a magnificent yellow.
A blaze shot out from his suddenly extended arms, a trail of fire smoking the Hydromancer from the back. Although Pyrrhon had concentrated on his elemental attack for a long while, it was but a disappointing attempt, a thin trail of fire nearly licking the hem of the cloak that draped the master of water. However, the Hydromancer lost all momentum from the scorching element, only to quickly recover and drift towards us, enraged.
Pyrrhon kept shooting small flames towards the Mancer, but the Hydromancer’s elemental power was unparalleled to. The Hydromancer whipped its hands up, and a tidal wave behind Pyrrhon rose up and crashed down, drowning him into the deep ocean.
“Work together!” I shouted. “Sylvan, fire your arrows! Foku, use your lance! Whatever weapon you got, distract the Hydromancer! It’s the best chance we can get for Fulcan!”
The guilds worked in unison, attacking the oncoming Mancer from every which way along the shore of the island. Foku blasted his electrical lance while Sylvan fired arrow after arrow towards the Hydromancer. Drog pulled out his long whip and slashed recklessly while Chrikhil spun a large blade attached to a cord towards the Mancer. The synergy was impressive, each member aiming for a different region of the Hydromancer’s small body; however, it was able to evade our strikes swiftly and counter each attack with an elemental barrage.
“Keep it up!” I spoke as a beam of water exploded into my chest, throwing me high into the air and slamming me down. I quickly recovered and regained footing, lunging towards the Hydromancer again. “Tarsus, approach up-close left. I’ll go right!”
Tarsus hooked his shuang-gou and rapidly spun it above his head while I pulled out my krises and spun around as well. We approached the Mancer and attacked it from both sides. The Hydromancer summoned a protective wall of water around itself from the endless assault of both long-ranged ammunition and our two melee attacks.
“The wall is weakening!” Tarsus shouted, swinging his blade unrelentingly against the Hydromancer.
“I’m running out of arrows!” Sylvan shouted.
“My lance is powering down!” Foku added.
“Just a bit more! We need something big to knock it out!”
“Give it all you got!” Lexon yelled. He approached the thick wall of water and flung a series of rapid, powerful punches. The two guilds used the last of their efforts furiously to break through the protective aqua wall, and the Hydromancer was tiring, but it wasn’t relenting.
In fury, the Hydromancer slammed its arms down, the aquatic wall becoming a powerful, radial blast of water that sent all of us flying away from the master of water.
As we scrambled to our feet, a huge cannonball flashed before our eyes and into the oncoming Mancer. The Hydromancer quickly vanished in a black vapour as the cannonball passed through the mist of its body, and it was nowhere to be seen.
Lining across the horizon of Helterium’s ocean were a hundred ships that flew ten different jacks.
“Let’s end this war once and fer all!” An all-too-familiar voice shouted.
There was a smile on my face that could not be wiped away. Famming and the Confederacy came right on time; the turning point and the winning edge Fulcan desperately needed. I rushed to the edge of the island to observe the progress of the war. The king and his army was defending well against Helterium’s statues; Mainland Grozorg’s powerful grounded cannons that was built during Zxyx’s reign able to take out the bronze shields and metal armour of the statue army as opposed to the smaller cannons on a naval battleship. But even without the Hydromancer’s protection, the statues and sea beasts were pressing onwards, and more lives were lost in the war than stone statues demolished.
Famming extended her right arm out, and the blue sky was suddenly blanketed with thousands of lead payload fired in unison. The cannonballs crashed into Helterium’s unprepared statues from behind and a deafening boom thundered across the vast nation. The heavy payloads suddenly exploded, myriads of sharp fragments flying in every direction. A thick, heavy cloud of smoke rose high above Mainland Grozorg as hundreds of thousands of statues crumbling beneath the exploding barrage.
Famming took no chances. Three more waves of explosive payloads devastated the main island before the cannon fire was halted.
As the thick black cloud cleared, not a single Slakaris had breath within them, and the remaining statues that had survived the explosive attack stood in one piece, frozen in a stance, returning to nothing but a statue. Helterium’s disfigured body lay in a crater where he once stood, deceased among his stone army hundreds of meters away, parts of a cannonball buried deeply into his exploded chest.
And just like that, the war was over.
Famming’s Confederacy approached the shore. She leapt out of a Taniwha ship excited as the rest of the different fleets celebrated loudly together, some dancing, some singing, many drinking.
“Is that where you went while we were still stuck on the ocean floor?” I asked, a huge smile breaking across my face.
“Well, I figured we had to somehow use those explodin’ payload. And since the champion cannon got destroyed, I wondered if any of the fleets in the Confederacy had cannons compatible with those explosives. Turns out, most of them did! I guess the Vindors were behind on weaponry. Well anyways, the old is gone and the new is come. We git to rebuild our fleet now, and I’ll fer sure remember to git some explosives in me arsenal.”
The captain grinned and shook my hand and Tarsus’ messily.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” I started.
“Brother, overlord, first mate, first traitor - it’s all the same now. I’ve learned to cut ties with those that seek accomplishment through immoral ways. It’s strange; I don’t feel any guilt or grief. Only relief.”
“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Tarsus spoke with a large smile also spread across his face.
“Now ye’re wrong about that one. Ye couldn’t have done it without the Confederacy. To the everlastin’ Pirate Confederacy!”
Famming pulled out two pistols and fired towards the sky. The fleets roared and celebrated all the more louder, laughter filling the seashore.
“Well, ye best git back to Fulcan on the other side. Though this war may have ended, I’m sure another one’s already begun. Tough life, eh?”
“You’re right. Well, best of luck to you and the newly-formed Confederacy.”
“‘Till we meet again, guild leaders. Good luck on the rest of yer journeys!”
“Till we meet again,” I replied, nodding my head.
She grabbed our hands one last time and shook it firmly, winking at both of us.
“Send me regards and congratulations to the king, please. And remember, I’ll be here if ye be needin’ assistance. If ye need support, ye know where to go.”
She gave us a quick wink, clicking here tongue.
“Confederacy, we got a lot of fixin’ around here to do! Set sail!”
Famming boarded the same Taniwha ship as the fleets retrieved their anchors, preparing their voyage beyond the horizon. We stood on the shore and waved our goodbyes to the Confederacy as the naval vessels drew farther and farther away into the sunset.
The serene ocean glimmered mystically under the dying orange sun, and the calm waves overlapped each other rhythmically, hypnotically. From a distance, the gleaming water was soothing. Pleasing.
Beautiful.