The Symphony of the Sea, the largest landmass, Castello Island.
Nineteen Fra'al aether masters in violet-gold robes led over three thousand warriors in an assault on the primitive walls built of stone and timber.
On the frontlines of the Fra'al attack stood ten psykers and a thousand warriors.
Atop the wall, directly facing the firepower of the ten psykers, stood a woman holding a wooden staff topped with the skull of a sea beast.
Her features were both sharp and gentle. A broad, smooth forehead, and eyebrows thick yet delicate, like strokes of fine ink.
Her tea-brown pupils blazed with fury. Lifting her fair, delicate left arm, a blue bolt of lightning tore across the sky and coiled around three psykers.
Crackle-BOOM
Countless tiny arcs of electricity slithered into the Fra'al warriors' bodies like living things, crackling violently.
Bathed in blue light, the psykers spat blood from their mouths and noses. Their white hair charred into ash as their bodies trembled and collapsed.
The remaining seven psykers raised their staves to attack the wall. Their cunning as space pirates drove them to target weaker islanders to wear down the stronger enemies.
Flames surged upward, mercilessly engulfing islanders wielding Vostroyan las rifles.
Some islanders, who fought back with chainswords, were lifted into the air by invisible forces and smashed into others on the wall.
In an instant, dozens of islanders were severely wounded by the psykers' brutal assault.
The female psykers bit her lips. She aimed her staff at the commander beside her, who had lost half his body.
With an infusion of biopysker energy, his bronze-hued body visibly began to regenerate.
The commander pushed himself up with one hand and looked at the woman beside him.
"Shaman Marlena, you should flee. We can't hold this place."
"No," Marlena, her nose bridge high and proud, raised her chin and said firmly, "I saw it. The Mother Sea showed me a giant descending from the sky. He will save our home."
The commander slashed a Fra'al warrior and kicked the body off the eleven-meter-high wall.
Looking up at the blue sky, he saw three Aeliphas, creatures with orange-yellow bellies and blue wings, flying overhead.
A bitter smile tugged at his lips. He was convinced the Shaman's prophecy had been false.
'She just said that to boost morale.'
Just as he was about to look away, a tiny red dot in the sky began to grow larger.
He rubbed his eyes, then suddenly screamed.
"They're here! Reinforcements are here!"
Marlena smiled. Raising her staff with both hands, she unleashed all her power.
Within dozens of meters, the hearts of every Fra'al warrior began to pound wildly. Their blood boiled, skin darkened, and they collapsed unconscious with howls of pain.
Even the seven surviving aether masters grew weak and dropped to the ground.
Marlena staggered, leaning heavily on her staff to stay upright.
She looked up and saw a giant in the sky, exactly as she'd seen in her vision.
She turned her head, eyes locked on the descending figure.
He crashed into the midst of the xenos. The ground shook. The walls trembled.
Over a hundred xeno scum were crushed to death on impact. Hundreds of raiders stumbled and fell.
The aether masters, just regaining their strength after the "boiling blood" effect, were hurled skyward by another wave of immense force.
They tried to turn their heads. With their wide field of vision, they had only just turned halfway before seeing the giant standing before them, and then they lost consciousness.
The commander watched seven mighty xenos' heads fly off in an instant, dark purple blood gushing. Mouth agape, mud flew into his mouth.
After spitting it out, all he could see were xeno limbs and gore.
Nareth kept moving, bringing Maria and two others with him as he charged toward the Fra'al.
Earlier, when descending over Castello Island, Nareth had seen that most of the island had already been ravaged by the xeno raiders. Only the largest city and three smaller towns were still resisting.
As Nareth slaughtered xenos, Szczesny excitedly leapt off the assault boat into the blue sea.
The moment his body hit the water, he felt like a fish returning to its element, completely at ease.
A nearby aether master, drawn by the splash, rushed to the beach and hovered above the water with telekinetic power.
From the assault boat, two soldiers from the Vostroyan Fourth Regiment raised their laser rifles and fired at the Fra'al psykers.
The aether master raised a force field.
The beams struck the shield, sending ripples of invisible aether waves through the air.
Just as the psyker blocked the attack, he felt his ankles being grabbed.
Before he could summon his energy, he was yanked downward and fell into the sea with a splash.
He tried to repel Szczesny with telekinesis, but Szczesny's hands, now covered with shimmering illusory fish scales, clamped down tighter.
The aether master opened his mouth in pain, and seawater rushed in.
Though he had a shark-like head, Fra'al weren't true aquatic species. Like other drowning beings, the more he struggled, the faster he sank.
The "Sailor" was unaffected. He'd tested this before; he could dive over 17 minutes unaided.
The xeno sank fast. Though a master of aether, he lacked psyker spells to generate oxygen, deadly for a breathing creature like a Fra'al.
Szczesny felt the resistance fade. He looped his arms around the xenos' neck and snapped it with a twist.
Underwater, the Sailor could unleash superior strength. The Fra'al's neck broke clean.
He kicked the body downward and swam upward.
Within seconds, Szczesny ascended over 100 meters, only to sense a disturbance in the waters below.
Drawing his waterproof chainsword, he pressed the ignition and scanned downward.
'The xeno corpse was gone.' Szczesny grew more alert, scanning the surroundings.
After a moment with no results, he reluctantly surfaced; he still had to lead the assault on the second-largest island, Trinio.
Within five hours of landing on Castello Island, Nareth had cleared all the xenos.
He met the female psyker he had noticed from the sky. Her tea-brown pupils met his gaze, and to his surprise, her eyes narrowed but didn't show pain.
'Her will is strong. Even when locking eyes with me, she was uneasy—but not in agony.'
'Even stronger than Howard or Maria. She's the strongest I've seen since crashing in Vostroya System.'
As Nareth pondered, the shaman bowed, and in Low Gothic Vostroyan she said:
"Marlena Skala greets you. Thank you for the rescue."