The sharp hiss of salt and brine crept higher with each wave that slapped against the hull, but it wasn’t just the sea that moved with intensity tonight.
The creatures had grown bolder.
Several of these Tritons began scrambling up the ship’s side. Their claws, jagged like rusted fish hooks, clung to the wooden planks and scraped deep gouges into them. The sound was a shrill grind, sharp and shrieking against the otherwise quiet night. Their ascent was unnatural, too fast, as if gravity was an afterthought to them—nothing more than a gentle inconvenience.
Their voices were not quite screams, not words either, but something in between—a rasping mix of gravel churned through rusted pipes, broken by guttural clicks and wet snarls. The ship groaned faintly, reacting to their weight and intent, as the creatures swarmed like reef-born lizards racing toward blood.
Ludwig tilted his head, watching one of them breach the railing. Its wide, flat mouth parted in something like a grin, fangs draped with seaweed and foam. Its throat pulsed with each breath, eyes fixed and wide. But before it could plant a foot on the deck, Ludwig rolled his wrist.
Durandal’s chain retracted in a blur, sliding across his arm like a serpent of glinting steel. It snapped tight with a hiss, the transformation blooming in the air like a silent command. The shard of Durandal shifted—its shape folding inward, then twisting back out—and in his left hand, it reformed into a black-bladed scythe.
The creature didn’t even register what was happening before its world inverted.
Its head had already left its shoulders, but its mind hadn’t caught up. It blinked, confused, and the image of its body slumping backward—spurting dark-blue ichor from the neck—was the last thing it saw before vanishing beneath the railing, dead before its feet had even landed on deck.
Ludwig didn’t pause to admire the strike.
More were climbing. Dozens.
He moved through them like a whisper of wind, not so much aggressive as inevitable. The scythe spun from his fingers in practiced arcs, severing muscle and bone, splitting thick hides with soundless grace. For each one that made it over the railing, another fell. Two. Then three. A fourth tried leaping over him from above, spear raised high—but Ludwig turned just slightly, angled the curve of his blade upward, and impaled the beast mid-air.
By the time the ship crew noticed anything, the deck was already slick with blood. Alien blood. Pungent, metallic, almost bitter-sweet like rusted wine.
From deep inside the ship, a panicked shout finally broke through.
“We’re being attacked!” a sailor howled, his voice shrill from fear, not command.
Wooden doors slammed open. Two of the cloaked Vampire Hunters burst onto the deck, weapons drawn, breath already ragged from having run up the stairs. One of them was the man Ludwig had previously conversed with—the one with the falchion—and the other a taller one, younger, clean-shaven, pale-faced.
“What in the blazes is happening?” the older one barked, eyes darting wildly from corpse to corpse. Triton bodies were strewn in pieces—halves, thirds, some with their skulls cracked clean open, others folded in ways that no creature should be.
The younger hunter moved toward Ludwig, who was now casually pulling his chain free from a twitching corpse.
“What’s the situation?!” he demanded, stepping in too close.
Ludwig didn’t look at him.
“You can see for yourself.”
It wasn’t a smug answer. It was just truth—flat, dismissive, uncaring. The kind of reply given by someone already ten steps ahead.
But arrogance doesn’t like being ignored. The Vampire Hunter straightened, ready to lash out.
“Listen here you—!”
A breath of wind passed between them.
And then silence.
The Vampire Hunter froze in place, mouth still open. He hadn’t felt anything. Not the scythe. Not the near-miss. But he’d heard something—a hiss, like air snapping in protest—and now he stared at Ludwig, confused.
Then came the sound. A wet, gurgling cry behind him.
A Triton—one that had been creeping up behind, ready to drive its spear through his spine—was now bisected, split from clavicle to hip by a diagonal slice. Its entrails clung to the railing before the corpse pitched overboard.
The chain was already whirling back into Ludwig’s hand.
“As you can see,” Ludwig said, not unkindly, but with a weariness that suggested the entire encounter was beneath notice, “we’re being attacked. And I’m handling it.”
He rotated his wrist and caught the retracted scythe cleanly.
“You’re free to return below. I’ve got this.”
The Vampire Hunter blinked. He opened his mouth, but nothing came. Then finally, rage tried to push through the fog of humiliation.
“D-do I look like some coward to you?! I’m not going to hide behind a noble! I’m a Vampire Hunter! Let me show you how we do things around here!”
His voice wavered, but Ludwig merely shrugged and stepped aside.
“By all means.”
Whether it was pride or desperation didn’t matter. The man threw off his cloak, revealing a lean but muscular frame, dressed in dark leather reinforced with burnished metal over the shoulders and arms. A utility belt lined with daggers crossed both thighs, while his hips bore two oversized Sais—sharpened to needle-like tips.
He drew the Sais with a flourish and darted into a sprint.
One of the Tritons hurled its harpoon at him, its aim swift and clean—but the hunter twisted in mid-air, arcing above it like a gymnast before landing squarely in front of his attacker.
The creature swiped downward, claws extended.
But the Vampire Hunter rotated his right Sai upward, catching the swing mid-strike. The center blade speared through the palm. The creature shrieked.
Without hesitation, the hunter twisted, locking the monster’s arm behind its back in a blur of movement, and drove his second Sai into the side of its neck, severing cartilage and spine with a practiced jab.
Another Triton lunged toward him, harpoon raised.
The hunter didn’t even pull his embedded blade free. He let go, free hand darting to his thigh and drawing four daggers in one smooth motion. They flew in quick succession—one struck the incoming creature’s eye, another its throat, the third buried in its heart, and the last embedded deep in its belly.
The creature collapsed before it hit the deck.
Ludwig, watching from the railing, let out a single sharp whistle.
“Well done,” he muttered.
The Vampire Hunter grinned. “That’s how we do it here,” he said, standing tall.
Before the smug grin could settle, Ludwig raised a single finger without shifting his gaze.
A small orb of orange light sparked into existence.
“Wait, what are you—” the hunter started.
The Fireball was gone before he finished the question.
It roared toward the edge of the ship and collided—mid-flight—with a Triton that had just crested the railing. The explosion lit the deck in a brief wash of golden flame, hurling the creature’s charred remains into the sea with a hiss of evaporating water.
The others saw it. And they understood.
In an instant, the remaining Tritons screeched in alarm. The clicks and shrieks from earlier now changed, becoming more desperate, more organized. Those mid-climb dropped back into the water with panicked slaps. Those on the deck leapt backward into the sea. The fire had told them everything they needed.
There was a mage on board.
And worse still—he wasn’t even trying yet.