The fog in Yokohama only grew heavier, turning from a ghostly white to a bruised, metallic grey. It clung to the rusted hull of the Eternal Maru like a wet tongue. Damon Silverstar stood on the main deck, his left hand gripping the railing. The cold steel felt like ice against his palm, but the sensation was grounded. It reminded him he was still here.He looked down at the harbor. The tide was coming in, but it wasn't the rhythmic surge of the ocean. It was a slow, oily crawl. The water was the color of a dead man's eyes, thick with salt and the slow rot that had begun to eat away at the world’s edges."Damon-niisan, the core is getting louder," Isolde whispered.She stood beside him, her small frame wrapped in an oversized scavenger’s coat. The sapphire marble in her chest was thumping with a rhythmic, low light. Every time it flared, the grey mist around them seemed to shrink back, as if the ocean’s heart was terrified of the sapphire’s purity."How far?" Damon asked, his voice a d

"Niisan, you’re dreaming again," Isolde’s voice was a soft anchor.She was sitting by his bed, her sapphire core shimmering with a gentle, pulsing light. She was holding a damp cloth, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. "It’s not a dream, Isolde," Damon rasped. "It’s a memory. But it’s not mine.""The God of Death?" "Maybe," Damon said, closing his eyes. The moment the darkness took him, the sound of the ship’s engines faded. The smell of grease and salt vanished. He was falling.****In the vision, there was only the deep trenches. Damon felt the pressure, a weight that would have turned a normal human into a red smear in seconds. But here, in this memory, he felt nothing but a cold, hollow peace.He wasn't Damon Silverstar. He was a presence. A fragment of a consciousness that had existed long before the first Gates opened, long before the Sovereigns decided to play with the Earth.He saw it then. The Trench of Souls. He saw the God of Death.WEEP!God was weeping. Every tea