ttznovel Chapter 200: THE RULES OF THE OCEAN
Chapter 200: THE RULES OF THE OCEAN
[Boat — Transit Sea — Day 4]
The first sign that they had entered the Transit Sea was traffic.
Not much — just two commercial ships on the northern horizon, one fishing boat to the west with its nets still in the water. But after three days of seeing nothing but ocean, any sail on the horizon felt like a city.
"Transit zone," said Max from the helm. "Here, the continent’s rules still apply. Further on, they don’t."
"When is further on?" asked Maya with her notebook open.
"Two days. Maybe three with this wind."
Maya made a note.
---
It was Jessica who asked directly.
"Do you know how to sail?"
Max looked at her.
"Enough."
"That doesn’t answer the question."
"Yes, it does." Max. "Enough means we get there."
Viktor from the lower deck without looking up:
"The Heralds moved him by sea when they needed to avoid the Temple’s Inquisitors. He learned basic navigation out of necessity."
Max looked at him.
"You didn’t have to say that."
"It was relevant information."
"It was my information."
"And now it’s everyone’s." Viktor. "You’re welcome."
---
Max finally gave in.
He sat on the deck with the ocean map spread between him and Jessica, who already had her notebook ready with her pen in hand before Max opened his mouth.
"Five pirate factions," said Max. "Each controls a different zone of the ocean. They don’t kill each other."
"Why not?"
"Because the ocean is big enough for all five." Max. "They kill each other when someone crosses a line. And each faction has its lines in different places."
"What kind of lines?"
"Depends on the faction. Some don’t tolerate you sailing their zone without a flag. Others charge a toll. Others attack without warning if you’re carrying a certain type of cargo."
Jessica noted. "And the sea creatures?"
"They have their own routes." Max pointed to three lines on the map that didn’t correspond to any marked commercial route. "These three are seasonal migrations of S‑rank and above creatures. The ships that respect them make it to the other side. Those that don’t—"
"Don’t make it," finished Jessica.
"Don’t make it."
Jessica wrote faster.
---
"And the Eastern Island?" asked Emily from the railing.
Max folded the map for a moment.
"Reputation for being inaccessible." A pause. "Not because no one knows where it is — the problem is the last three zones before reaching it."
"What’s there?"
"The Empty Fleet." Max with a slightly different tone than before.
"The most dangerous of the five factions. They’ve controlled access to the Eastern Island for generations."
"Why are they called the Empty Fleet?" asked Jessica.
"Because when you’re done with them, the ship is empty."
Jessica looked up from her notebook.
"Of crew?"
"Of everything."
Jessica processed that for a second.
"I didn’t really understand." She made a note. "But it sounds fun."
Max looked at her.
Viktor from below coughed something that might have been a laugh.
---
Raven was at the gunwale when the back appeared.
A cut in the water two hundred meters from the boat, the slow movement of something very large that was in no hurry. The back was visible above the surface for about three seconds before submerging again.
Larger than the boat.
Quite a bit larger.
"What was that?" said Maya.
Kira already had Predator’s Sense active, her amber eyes following the animal underwater. The signature read on the reading plane as a dense, dark mass moving south without deviating.
"Estimated level: four hundred eighty."
The deck went silent.
The back appeared once more to the south, further away, before disappearing definitively below the horizon.
---
Alex had followed it with Soul Sight from the first moment.
The animal’s spiritual signature — ancient, enormous, completely alien to anything that existed on land — moving with a direction of its own without any specific purpose or concern, not considering the boat as anything relevant to its purpose.
*Is it the same one?* he thought.
He smiled a little.
The first time he had seen a Leviathan was on the trip to Kira’s island. Emily, Raven, Grim, and him on a smaller boat than this one. The back cutting the water a hundred meters away. And him telling Grim that someday he would kill one.
Grim had answered something like **"Interesting goal."**
That Leviathan had been level six hundred.
This one was four hundred eighty.
*Progress,* he thought.
"Level four hundred eighty?" said Alex.
"Yes," said Kira.
"Good." Alex looked at the horizon where the back had disappeared. "More reasons to train."
---
"Wait," said Emily. "You’re thinking of fighting that?"
"Eventually."
"Alex."
"Not now." Alex looked at her. "Eventually."
Emily looked at him for a second.
"Grim," she said.
**"He already tried to convince me before,"** said Grim from Alex’s shoulder. **"On the trip to the island. That one was level six hundred."**
"And what did you tell him?"
**"That it was an interesting goal."**
Emily looked at Alex.
"Great. You’re both crazy."
"That one was level six hundred," Alex repeated. "This one is four hundred eighty. Mathematically, success is more likely hahaha."
"That’s not how it works."
"A little bit it does."
Maya looked up from the map.
"Does anyone else want to weigh in on whether fighting a level four hundred eighty creature in the ocean is a good idea, or is it just me?"
"I say no," said Kira without taking her eyes off the horizon.
"I also say no," said Raven.
"I say it would be very interesting to document," said Jessica.
"Jessica," said Emily.
"I said interesting. I didn’t say it was a good idea."
Max from the helm, without turning around:
"If anyone fights a Leviathan on my boat, I’m throwing them overboard first."
---
The Transit Sea was left behind that afternoon.
The two commercial ships on the northern horizon disappeared. The fishing boat too. The ocean became nothing but water again in all directions.
Maya on the deck with the updated map — the Transit Sea route marked, the zone of the five factions labeled with names and the approximate lines Max had drawn from memory.
*The main continent is four days from here,* she thought as she looked at the map. *And it already feels like it was a month ago.*
*That should feel strange.*
She looked at the ocean.
*It doesn’t feel strange.*
Akari jumped onto her lap and settled on top of the map.
"Akari."
The golden eyes looked at her.
Maya sighed and worked around her.