08

The ship gradually began to bend to the right side, which had more portals connected to the seabed, tipping the balance that kept the vessel afloat. And with more portals surfacing, Kael had a bad feeling that something sinister would happen if he didn't intervene.

The question now was, how would he? Stepping anywhere near Leo's orbit was suicide, thankfully the water that rose to his chest didn't cause him much difficulty, because of his magic.

However, the ship couldn't take more of this insane pressure, as even more water and junk laying to waste channeled into the ship.

Kael knew that the only person who could stop this madness was Leo. But then, the near-capsizing ship wasn't his only concern.

"Tch. What's taking them so long?" The teen hissed, letting out frosty smoke from his nostrils turning the water into ice.

The ice weighed a tonne and hastened the ship's demise, constituting a greater problem than the seawater, which was still pouring in!

"This is bad, I have to go see for myself." He let out, finally deciding to abandon ship and check in on the others. "I might just have to freeze the surface." The weary teen sighed, a wearisome expression etched onto his face.

Without sparing a single second, he leaped out of the tossing ship onto the raging sea, running over its surface to the already halved ship, his instincts guiding him towards the half that sunk slower than the other.

The half which held Leatrix

On the ship, Leo could see all that transpired but couldn't even move a muscle to stop it. The most he could do was wriggle his fingers and lower his jaw.

The stone had somehow shifted from his stomach and now resided in his chest. At the very least that was how where the flow of energy emanated from. Although he didn't feel pain, the overwhelming power surging through his veins needed to be dispelled.

Immediately.

Not only was it too much for a five-foot-eight average Joe, but Leo soon found out that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't copy one of the spells he had witnessed. Didn't his natural affinity fall under at least one of the displays he had seen?

Was he just that hapless?

'I feel like my body is being stuffed with bright light, stretching my skin till I burst.' Leo thought, taking shallow breaths, he felt energized no doubt. But without an outlet, he was like a balloon consistently being pumped with air.

At this point, he was regretting swallowing the damned thing and would rather have his guts ripped out than undergo the mental torture centered around the possibility of blowing up any second.

To worsen his predicament the deck was a freezing mess thanks to Kael, if the feeling of being over-bloated didn't kill him then frostbite might do the trick.

'I have to dispel...'

The heavens seemed to have heard his request because almost immediately a portal directly above him widened. For the first three seconds, nothing but shadows hovered over Leo, fuelling his imagination over what the portal could have brought in.

Before Leo could take a guess, tens of bodies fell upon him, assaulting him from above!

'It's raining corpses?' ideally he was disgusted by the dripping wet corpses falling all over the ship. However, from a realistic approach, he couldn't have been more glad.

The corpses which fell at an alarmingly fast pace managed to knock Leo out of the circle, shutting the gate, and subsequently deactivating the teleportation portals.

An exhausted Leo fell on his back, landing on a heap of freezing corpses with cracked skulls. As a result of landing head-first on ice, their numbers managed to split the ice into smaller factions.

"I'm. Fucking. Alive." He exhaled, saying each word after a heavy pant, his chest dramatically rising and falling. Thanks to the cold, Leo wasn't subjected to the repugnant odor of the older corpses and for once could take a breather.

"And now you're dead." A soaking wet Leatrix, flippantly remarked raising her golden stiletto knife over her head, bringing it down with full force, aiming at a kill point.

Leo closed his eyes in preparedness for his fate, this would be his second time dying, and at that while trying to help others.

That fact made him feel pathetic.

'Shit!' he tightly clenched his jaw, as his senses dulled and his body plunged deeper into a dark sea of numbness, seizing his consciousness into an endless loop of how he had died in his past life.

------------

"No! Stop!" Leo's panicked voice screeched, his body painfully transitioning from a laying position into a tight sit-up. He gritted his teeth, the numbness he previously felt was sharply replaced with a kicking stretch at his lower back down to behind his calves.

"You're finally awake."

With a hand resting on his stone-cold chest, Leo tilted his head toward the source of the familiar voice. He let out a sigh when his gaze landed on Kael, adding more coal to a fire.

The only difference with this coal was that it turned purple when caught up in flames and released the faint scent of peppermint.

"Where am I?" Leo pensively asked, the back of his left palm instinctively rubbing against his eyes, wiping off the liquid at the side of his face.

"Tears?" He blinked twice, stunned that he was crying in his unconscious state. Leo shook his head and focused on the more pressing matters, such as how everything remained perfectly still under him, yet he was meant to be on a boat.

Before Kael could answer, the door Leo failed to take notice of, opened, allowing Leatrix to walk in. Her blonde hair was packed into a high ponytail, exposing her flawless collarbone.

She walked over to the wooden bed he laid down on, "it's alright Kael, I'll watch him, so get some sleep."

"Understood." He answered alighting a rocking chair and heading straight for the door.

Leo flinched when the woman's seasoned gaze was cast directly on him, rather on his exposed chest. He wanted to look down and confirm if there was an extra head growing there but ultimately decided against it.

Just when Leo believed that the situation couldn't get any worse, Leatrix suddenly lunged forward, and pushed a confused Leo onto the bed, caging both his wrists over his head.

Perhaps, it was because he was just too weak at the moment, or maybe due to a manipulation in gravity on her end. Whatever might have caused it, Leatrix's hands felt like heavy gold bars, crushing his wrist.

"Hey lady, what are you..." Leo's protests fell on deaf ears, as the busty woman pressed her ear against his bare chest, directly where his heart should be. Her soft melons squashed over his sore abdomen, her nipples prodding at his skin through the thin layer of fabric.

Leatrix gasped upon a certain discovery, she brought her head back up and gave him an incredulous stare.

"My strike never misses, so how come..." She took a dramatic pause, and the doubt in her eyes reached Leo's confused gaze.

Just as he was about to push her off him, Leatrix went on to say..." How come you're alive without a heartbeat?!"