Tides That Should Not Rise
Far beyond the Jade Serpent Isles, the ocean churns with unnatural rhythm.
Storms dance in spirals not born of wind, but ritual. A trench long sealed — the Chasm of Hollow Tide — cracks open once more.
From it sails the Bone Armada.
Ship after ship — not crafted but grown — of blackened coral, marrow-hull, and rib-bound sails, rise with no crew of the living. Each vessel screams silently, carried forward by waves that bleed shadow.
At their head: The Devouring Hand — the elite Hollow-Touched enforcer known only as Vhorr-Kael.
A gaunt frame clads in veils of kelp and soul-steel, his jaw unhinged as he chants through mouths not his own. The ocean itself seems to listen.
"The Crown beats. The Coil fractures.
We sail not for war, but for Unmaking."
Behind him, something vast shifts below the waves.
A leviathan, not beast nor ghost — perhaps the body of a drowned god, now wearing storm and reef like armor.
Its name is not spoken.
Scene II — A Drowned Warning
At the edge of the Isles, Reed watch Hold, a Pavilion outpost built atop cliffs of living reeds, is the first to see the fog.
Lookouts raise their horns. Sea-wards chant defensive rites.
But the fog does not part.
It devours.
From its folds, bone harpoons arc through the air. One pierces the central tower. Another erupts from beneath, dragged by a spine-sheathed eel.
Screams. Flames.
And then the silence of swallowed breath.
In the sanctum, a lone Pavilion envoy — Warden Hu'Lang — activates a Sea-Glass Beacon, sending a flare across the Isles.
One word: "Invaded."
Scene III — A Call Across the Grove
The warning reaches the Grove like a struck gong.
Lan'Fei's bonded beast howls. Luo Fen's serpent tattoo tightens.
Feng Xian feels the flare like a blade of cold fire against his spine.
"They're here," he murmurs. "And they're not alone."
The Oracle coils in alarm, vines writhing with old instinct.
"One of the Seven is what they seek," it says, "but they would drown all to seize it."
Scene IV — Atop the Lead Ship
Vhorr-Kael stands atop the Skull spire, windless and serene.
Beneath his command, ritual anchors are cast into the waves. The Hollow Sea Gate begins to open — not a portal, but a wound, pulling spectral currents into the living sea.
He raises one hand.
"Let this shore be the first," he says.
"By tide, by shadow, by death's old tongue — let them remember."