"Drop the torch or we both burn right here!" Lyra warned, her hands shaking slightly as she held her guardian staff flat across her chest.The cultist lieutenant let out a low, raspy laugh that sounded like dry gravel scraping inside a wooden box. He lowered the flickering flame another inch, hovering the red embers right over the open black powder crate. "You think I care about living through this night, girl? The red eye demands a blood sacrifice, and your ship will make a fine altar.""I am not going to let you blow up my friends," Lyra whispered, her jaw tightening as she planted her boots on the slick, tilting floor.The thick smoke in the lower magazine was getting worse by the second. Hot embers fell from the burning wooden rafters above, popping against the dark floorboards near their feet. Sweat ran down Lyra's face, stinging her eyes as she locked her golden gaze on the lieutenant's glowing yellow eyes."You have nowhere to run," the lieutenant rasped, leaning his weight for

"Marcus is down!" Lyra screamed, her voice cracking as she threw herself across the blood-slicked stone floor of the courtyard.Marcus collapsed sideways off the iron platform, his heavy body slamming onto the flat black slabs like a fallen tree. His solid black left eye rolled back into his head, and the skin around his throat turned a dark, bruised purple where the tiny iron dart remained buried in his pulse line. The purple venom moved through his veins with terrifying speed, causing his skin to harden and turn into rough, blackened ironwood bark right before their eyes."Behind the pillar!" Silas roared, pointing his dripping broadsword toward the stone archway where the cultist assassin was trying to melt back into the shadows. "Guard unit three, pin that sniper!"Two Blackwood riflemen raised their weapons in perfect unison, firing a heavy volley of lead shot that shattered the stone column and cut the assassin down before he could load another dart."Is he breathing?!" Silas ba

"The threshold belongs to no man!" Marcus shouted, his voice cutting through the roaring mountain gale.With a sudden burst of his localized gravity pull, Marcus launched himself off the crumbling stone ledge. He sailed ten feet through the freezing open air, his heavy boots slamming down hard between the spinning bars of the floating iron cage. The sudden impact made the suspended structure swing wildly on its purple light beams, groaning under the double weight as Marcus landed directly opposite the masked figure."You speak of things beyond your understanding, surface boy!" the Supreme Sea Lord rasped, his voice echoing loudly from behind his smooth coral mask.The Sea Lord did not hesitate. He spun his double-bladed glowing coral staff in a blinding circle, the solid red mineral humming with incredible magical force. He thrust the tip downward, driving the energy straight into the open air beneath the cage.BOOM-RUSTLE.Three hundred feet below the shattered tower, the ocean sea r

"Push the throttle to maximum before those walls come crashing down on us!" Silas roared, his hand slamming the copper steam valve wide open.The ruined hull of the Shadow Crest groaned as its twin paddle wheels churned the dark water into foam. Plunging straight off the crumbling stone ledge of the third island, the heavy ironclad slid down a steep slope of falling rocks and dropped directly into the newly formed ocean canyon.All around them, the world was split in two. The sudden collapse of the third cosmic eye had torn the seabed wide open, creating a mile-deep rift line that stretched across the ocean floor from east to west. Instead of immediately rushing in to fill the massive chasm, the sea was held back by the lingering, unstable gravity fields. Two towering walls of vertical ocean water, over a mile high, stood frozen on either side of the narrow channel, leaving a thin path of dark rock and shallow water for the ship to traverse."Silas, the starboard water wall is vibrati

"Clear the bow and load the forward guns before those phantom vessels enclose our perimeter!" Silas bellowed, his deep voice echoing across the silent subterranean waters.The Shadow Crest drifted smoothly over the calm, crystal surface of the underground sea. High above, the massive rock ceiling glittered with millions of pale blue crystals, casting a cold, eerie light over the ancient stone ruins rising from the water. Far ahead, hidden behind the stone columns, a massive archway opened into a wide, dark tunnel network. Ancient carved glyphs along the rock walls indicated that these forgotten water passages connected all four original anchor points beneath the central continent."Silas, look at the harbor entrance!" Clara screamed from the wheelhouse window, her brass telescope pointed toward the stone archway. "We have incoming ships!"Out from the deep shadows of the stone tunnels, a fleet of silent, majestic warships glided onto the open water. They were not made of wood or black