Massilix was, unsurprisingly, in somewhat rough shape when they rolled in through the still ongoing rain. The city guard barely even had the gate manned—no mana dumps, no [Healer] could be spared to screen anyone—and most of them were out trying to help the city pick up the pieces. Things had blown over. Buildings had lost roofs or had damaged walls due to windblown debris. There was a lot to do, and Ranthia was pleasantly surprised to see the city guard doing what it could to help the people.

  Rather than get underfoot by staying at the guard compound, Leoios made the judgment call to dip into the team funds a bit and get them rooms at a tavern in the area of the city that was almost undamaged (it was weird how some areas could be devastated then a few paces later there were entire blocks left untouched). Ranthia and Republius were tasked with figuring out the availability of four possible taverns he knew of in that area that could accommodate them and their wagon. The rest of the team were going to start buying the supplies they needed. Massilix was (well, was supposed to be; it was hard to say how the storm affected that) a great chance to resupply some of their missing arrows and equipment. He had even promised to get Ranthia some more knives, since she was already running a bit low.

  The day was rainy, and it was still a bit windy; the lingering after effects of the hellstorm, Ranthia supposed. The first tavern was closed up tight and there was no indication of why. So they were walking across to the second when movement caught Ranthia’s eye out from the Ocean. A single little fishing boat, the kind that usually has one or two people on it.

  “Should they be out already?” She asked.

  “Hm? Oh, that boat. Seems early for me, but that’s not really Ranger business.” Republius replied, disinterested.

  “Oh? Good eye, Ranger! Yeah, that old salt has been harassing the dock master for days; he seems to think the best fishing is right after a storm. Y’ask me, I think he just wants a good view of the beachline to see if any good sea monster bodies washed up.” A nearby man chimed in.

  …Then, right before the eyes of the three of them, a gigantic tentacle emerged from the water and a heartbeat later the little fishing boat was a few floating bits of broken wood.

  All three of them blanched, and the local took off his rain-soaked hat and held it to his heart.

  “And that is why I don’t go out on boats ‘round here. Nothing should identify in any color that’s gone vivid, just ain’t right!” The local complained.

  Ranthia and Republius glanced at one another and swiftly decided to move on and pretend they saw nothing. There was no saving whoever had been on that boat.

  Their wagon had been repacked and locked up tight, along with their freshly restocked supplies. On the morrow, they would put up their sign and see what local problems (other than the weather) came up. But for the night, they ate a good meal of seafood stew then piled two to a room into their rooms and turned in for a blissful night’s sleep after being stuck in close proximity during the hurricane for far too long.

  Ranthia bolted upright in her bed, before Secundia even began to stir. For Ranthia, the clamor of the city’s alarm bells—and the screaming that accompanied them—was impossible to miss. Ranthia threw the covers off, ran to the window. …And saw nothing; her room didn’t exactly have a great view. Still, she roused the other Ranger and then they hurriedly helped one another gear up before they ran downstairs.

  Ranthia found herself dispatched for information by their leader almost the very moment she arrived. He and Republius were already waiting, Penticus was on their heels.

  Ranthia went.

  Ranthia’s mind was filled with the foulest, most imaginative curses she could come up with by the time she returned. Pibius was only just barely making his way downstairs, but the others were gathered and waiting for her.

  “Sir, a sea monster sank most of the ships and boats they had docked. Sounds like the one Republius and I saw in the distance earlier. It’s… pretty huge.” She reported.

  “Right. We can assume this out-levels us by a large margin. Placate, Kill, Drive off, or Tolerate?” Leoios asked.

  None of them were well suited to fighting in the ocean. It was (allegedly) too salty for Hail to freeze to level the playing field too. He was pretty sure he would drain the wagon dry without success. Mettlea wanted to try to poison it, but realistically their best option was to Tolerate and hope it left on its own.

  They had oh so nearly settled the conversation and were starting to get into the logistics of helping with the evacuation efforts of the area closest to the water. Then they were interrupted.

  Even more alarm bells started up, far more desperate than before. The screaming had started up again, but it was different now—they weren’t screams of anger or fear anymore. They were screams made in raw terror. Followed by a horrendous crack that filled the night.

  The Rangers ran out of the tavern just in time to watch part of the city wall collapse into The Ocean, pulled in by a massive tentacle.

  “Ranger Team 13, go! Prioritize helping people, I’ll write a message. We’ll almost certainly need a Sentinel. Go!” Leoios ordered.

  The seven of them went. Their mission wasn’t to engage with the creature but rather to try to drive it off a bit while they tried to get people clear. Not that any of them were optimistic that the oceanic aberration would play along.

  The situation deteriorated rapidly. The massive monstrosity continued to pull entire buildings apart and had collapsed nearly all of the city wall facing the Ocean. Ranthia and the rest ran about and retrieved people that were in the direst of danger, but they were too late all too often. Buildings were being dropped in rapid succession, unable to withstand the raw power behind the tentacles.

  Leoios arrived with their wagon. The horses barely contained their terror.

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  “Ranger Team 13, we engage! Ranger Pibius, take the wagon; you have priority on the mana from it. I’ve sent the city’s best courier—and I’m pretty sure she’s faster than Ranger Ranthia—with a message to headquarters requesting Sentinel assistance. Ranger Ranthia, Ranger Republius, with me. Ranger Hallus and Ranger Secundia, find a place where you can try your spells on it. Ranger Mettlea, protect them. Ranger Penticus… Do what you can!”

  Penticus, unfortunately, could do pretty little here. He had little to no ranged ability and by his own admission swam quite poorly. And frankly, the idea of trying to withstand any hits from that thing was plainly insane.

  The team split up. Leoios turned on Ranthia as soon as they were alone, aside from Republius.

  “Stick to your restrictions.” He ordered her.

  “What?!” Ranthia snapped in utter disbelief.

  “I’m not going to mess up what the Sentinels started; this situation isn’t that desperate. We should be able to drive it off with some pain. Just do what you can from range and help guard us for now.” The man ordered her in a tone that suggested he knew what he was doing.

  Ranthia seriously had her doubts that he could control the situation, but when her doubts warred with her respect for the man… she followed orders.

  They closed in. The sea monster was like nothing Ranthia had ever seen before. She vaguely recognized it as a squid from her classes, but it was an order of magnitude larger than any of the ones she had reviewed, a true sea monster. …Which suggested that it was a kraken, something they had only had records of through partial bodies before.

  Once they were in position, Leoios and Republius began to fire arrows at it. Not that they seemed to do much. The kraken seemed to have some sort of armor that covered its tentacles and its body.

  “My [Identify] isn’t working! Can anyone get a level off that thing?” Leoios demanded.

  A chorus of no’s came in.

  Ranthia swore even as she ripped her blindfold off and stuffed it into a pouch. There would be questions after this, but leaving them ignorant of the titanic threat they faced was unconscionable!

  “It’s triple classed! [Kraken – Coral] level 786! [Kraken – Steam] level 703! [Kraken – Dark] level 548!” She called out.

  “…I have an evolved form of [Identify].” She explained when Leoios gave her a look.

  Several of the Rangers were spewing their own renditions of profanity. They already knew that they were disadvantaged, but there was a world of difference between disadvantaged and actual knowledge of just how deadly a threat they faced.

  “Stick to your restrictions.” Leoios repeated after a long pause.

  “Rangers, press your attacks! Let’s drive it off and buy time for the Sentinels to respond!” Their leader called.

  As if it wouldn’t take weeks for reinforcements to arrive.

  Ranger Team 13, though scattered, moved slowly closer as they pressed their attacks. Spells flew from Hail and Secundia. Arrows continued to rain across the kraken’s body from Leoios, Republius, and a wholly ineffectual Ranthia (she was aiming for tentacles since she couldn’t fire far enough to hit its body). Its armor—Coral presumably—deflected every attack, rarely ever even losing a colorful bit of the delicate-looking material. Even shots aimed at its massive eye only seemed to bounce off ineffectually. Republius’ efforts to bind it were completely wasted, which was probably why he gave up on them swiftly.

  “Something’s wrong! I can’t get my spell to blow beneath it! I know it works underwater, but it’s like… Oh, by all the spiteful gods, I think it might be seizing control over my steam!” Pibius blasphemed.

  “Switch to using your Earth class, do what you can!” Leoios called out.

  Now, suddenly, having Pibius with the wagon was a problematic miscalculation. Secundia or Hail would have made better use of its mana.

  The aquatic nightmare dragged itself into even shallower water to get closer to the city. Another, even larger tentacle thrust out of the water and immediately pulverized buildings and the ineffectual fortifications that were meant to keep the city safe from nightmares like this.

  Yet Pallos sometimes loved to remind humanity that their best was barely even a nuisance to some that lived there.

  Mettlea charged at the tentacle and began to punch it.

  The tentacle flicked to the side with sudden, explosive force. Mettlea was unable to even react, let alone get clear, and ended up pulled under the tentacle. In horror, Ranthia watched as a man—her comrade, a friend—was transformed into a smear of gore. One instant he was there. The next…

  “Sir!” Ranthia shrieked, desperation coloring her tone.

  “Keep your restrictions!” Leoios snapped, each word spoken between arrows he fired.

  Brilliance-backed buster arrows bounced off, unable to do much more than snap some coral and mildly inconvenience the monstrosity. Republius’ plants were mulched before they could grow enough to even count as a mild inconvenience, he wasn’t even trying to restrict it—just establish more options.

  Another massive tentacle lashed out. The watchtower that Hail was on collapsed. There was no sign of the man after.

  Ranthia wanted to claw her own skin off as she watched it fall. She felt helpless. Her team was dying before her eyes and she was supposed to stand there?! She didn’t want to protect Republius and Leoios while they hid at range! She had to get in there. It was rare that obeying their leader’s orders felt wrong, but for the love of Xaoc…!

  The kraken dragged itself partially out of the water. Penticus was the next to fall. He had tried to leap at the sea monster now that it was closer. A tentacle just smashed him back into the rocks where he popped like a horrendous gore-filled bubble. His vitality and defensive skills meant nothing compared to the stark difference in their levels.

  Ranthia trembled while she bit her lip until she tasted blood. In her mind’s eye she once again watched her guardians, Tatius and Pupius, die without her. She hadn’t seen their fall, of course, but that nightmarish scene had plagued her dreams for much of her life. And now it played out in real time with her team. They had spent over a year together; they had come together. Even Pibius had become somewhat tolerable!

  Her loyalty and respect for Leoios was shattering. Doubts chased her impotent frustration. There was, rationally, damned little she could do—but what the fuck was the point of standing there uselessly?! She wasn’t an [Archer], and she was being denied any opportunity to even try to be useful!

  “Fuck this!” Pibius’ voice rang out and pulled Ranthia from the spiral of her increasingly destructive thoughts.

  The man tried to turn the wagon around, but the horses were clumsy with terror. They didn’t want to follow orders. The motion and their frightened whinnies drew the monstrosity’s attention. A tentacle snared the wagon, coiling around it. Ranthia could do nothing but watch as Pibius’ flesh was torn by the barbed suckers. Then horses screamed while the wagon was lifted and pulled into the ocean, where it cracked like an egg.

  They were four.

  “Get in closer, spread out! Staying at range is just letting it pick us off!” Leoios ordered.

  He then looked Ranthia in her dark, dead eyes.

  “Keep to your restrictions. That is a direct order.”

  Ranthia cursed him in her heart. Respect turned to ash and churned into hate. Her mind was made up.

  “Fuck you!” Ranthia snarled at the man.

  She rushed forward, as close as she dared to one of the tentacles, before she threw one of her knives using [Sustained Chaos] to imbue it with [Void Edge], [Flowing Momentum], and [Echoes of Devastation]. The blade sliced into the tentacle. It left a true wound—as far as she knew it was the first attack that had even drawn blood from it. Yet she wasn’t even sure if the kraken noticed. The scale of the monster was just… unfair.

  Every time Leoios fired a shot he immediately used his Radiance class to throw himself in a random direction before the squid could retaliate. Republius made use of the night’s shadows—Ranthia had nearly forgotten it was night; she had to watch the horrors unfold in perfect daylight to her own perception—to hide and skulk about, firing from different hiding places. And Secundia…

  Wait, where had she gone?

  After a precious moment, Ranthia found her. She was running for a small house; there was a child watching her out the window. And there was a tentacle in the air over the house.

  Ranthia screamed and ran desperately. She had to get there first…! She could get an image there, but it was too far to shift!

  Not that there was time.

  The tentacle came down, directly on top of the house.

  Directly on top of Secundia.

  Ranthia had only succeeded in getting close enough that the force of the impact threw her back into the wall of a sturdy stone building. Her head cracked against the wall—and things went black.

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  Nozomi Matsuoka.

  Sarah "Neila" Elkins.