Half a day later, the calm had passed and only a turbulent experience remained, fighting viciously against the 29 vessels that sailed ahead.

Massive waves that towered up to a hundred meters in height or more, became a commonality that required those aboard the ships to use their abilities to fend them off, after all, it wasn’t simple waters that made up these waves.

The ocean which had taken a darker colour scheme hours ago, when the last specks of sunlight still lit it up, had now taken on a dreadful shade of ebony which had potent, poisonous properties.

Many among the Factions derived that this was likely because of the mysterious ash that fell after Jiggorrhax burned the skies and the mana. It must have mutated the waters, making them harmful even to the Mythical grade vessels if they were soaked in them for too long – especially the hulls and deck. The keels were rather resistant though, because of the congregating, lifeless figures that defied the ocean’s resistance against the ships’ movement.

The relevance of the ship’s was finally showing.

However, the virulence of the ocean was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to what concerned its striders.

The sky acted as an indicator as to just how deep the voyagers were into the terrifying territory. It was much darker, and rather than looking like it had scars, like before, the sky looked as though it had been shattered to pits that would have fallen into Aigas if not for some unseen force that kept them suspended in the air.

Beyond these absurd mass of separate chips – which insinuated the existence of a second sky – there were uneven, mouldy smears, like burnt plastic, as if deadly gaps in Aigas had been patched by a poor plastering job.

What made this sky troublesome to deal with, was that at irregular intervals, droplets – as large as the ships or more – of what looked like liquefied sunlight would fall from the sky, sink into the sea, light portions of it up, and release a scalding vapour that thankfully, was warded off by the umbrella-shaped barrier perfectly. However, the droplets themselves, if they happened to fall directly over the ship… melted it with ease.

Two unfortunate case studies existed for this, setting an example for everyone else.

It didn’t put anyone at ease to discover that only a single Incandescent Stager from both these ships had survived, and that was after he activated his Territory in the nick of time.

Eaniss had been kind enough to invite him aboard her ship, though he was likely to be an additional force of hers now, at least for this journey.

All that said, there was still one more threat.

As the Emissary had said, spatial abilities of any kind were hampered intensely, but the cause hadn’t been as anyone had thought at all.

In fact, it was a bit more dangerous when having finally come into contact with it.

Replicus had decided to call the cause of the odd spatial restrictions and distortions, Reverse Clusters.

Indeed, there looked much like Clusters, only without the distinction in colour, and there was no shortage of them. They were large cracks in or above the sea that scrambled space at a moments’ notice.

They could infinitely elongate a given stretch of space, pull on it, push it, or simply eradicate it, which had led to another of the Factions’ ship suddenly being slowed into one of the large cracks, never to be seen again. This tempering of space outside their bounds, served as an apt reason to why the word ‘reverse’ was added to these Cluster-like existences.

As they first appeared, they marked the point where Replicus could no longer retrieve refills for his Mana and Null Life Essence reserves from Deign to the ship through the spatial means he had employed, meaning that the need to use their reserves wisely arose.

Unfortunately, there existed more fearsome examples of what these pseudo-natural oddities were capable of beside restricting spatial manipulation, which gave further credence to what the Emissary said.

 A sort of Reverse Cluster that had kept disappearing and reappearing in random spaces had shown itself merely half an hour ago. It had successfully caught one of the Unions’ ships, but didn’t swallow them for eternity, as many had dreaded.

Those aboard, as well as their vessel emerged on the other side of it, but…

The ship had aged.

It looked to have lived through a hundred millenia in a deep sea, and had suddenly surged, hull torn apart and soggy, half its keel gone as well as the sanctity of its deck which had been covered by a now deceased umbrella glow.

The crew had turned into what seemed like wet mummies, with lively seaweed and coral growing over them… somehow. Oddly, there were absolutely no traces of mana from them. Replicus had even ventured to think that they weren’t the same people.

With all these disasters afoot, there had been no more conflicts to rise among the Factions. For some time, there even seemed to be some form of truce between them, after all, apart from the passive threats, there actually existed monstrosities in the ocean born and bred by the calamities.

They would attack the ships while skilfully wading through the Reverse Clusters and Scorch Tears – as Replicus had named the liquefied hell glow – seeking to destroy the ships and devour those on them. Some of these monstrous beasts turned out to be Cluster beasts with their own Cluster Generals.

It should have, by all accounts, been depressing to have an assortment of beasts of different abilities hurrying towards them with the cruel conditions at hand, but each surviving Faction was actually relieved and rejuvenated.

Their purpose was to hunt down the excessive abominations that plagued the southern half of Aigas, and so seeing willing objects of their job description swim and leap towards them was a great, bloody pastime.

Grim was especially ecstatic, as well as Allora, who after finally getting tired of feeding her infinite mana to the ship, was released from duty. She had been practicing how to use the other aspect of her Hidden Class abilities on the unlimited range of enemies, and had see positive results.

Pherdanta was satisfied with steering the ship, while retaining the responsibility for spotting everything that could sought them all harm.

Baddan continued to meditate while Araeyn resumed dazedly looking ahead from the bowsprit, seemingly unbothered by the effects of the Scorching Tears and the peppering of poisonous ocean water.

Replicus on the other hand, was busy working on the fallen Paladin Champion, attempting the various means of revival and recovery that he could think of.

As for the result…