Cain woke up inside the skeleton of one of the Deep Ones. He had a buzzing headache, but could still hear Marko yelling orders near him.

"Alright, we have to continue moving! Listen to what your job is! Team 1 is on identifying the dead and making a roster! Team two is on removing the identified dead. Remember to search the bodies! Teams three and four are scraping one of the frigates to repair our last 2 ships! Understand!"

"Yes, Sir!" The seamen scattered to their duties, and Marko sat down on the broken set of stairs up to the helm.

Cain watched Marko as he tried to exit the skeleton, during which he saw someone walk up to Marko.

"Marko, because we lost so many men, I'm transferring over to the other ship. My men and I know it well since it's my flagship. Glad it was one of the last to survive."

Still exhausted, Marko simply waved his hands. "Sure sure, Dolion. Oh yeah, we might not have materials for repairs so only do the important stuff first like the hull and sails"

"Excellent, we will use the materials wisely."

As Dolion trod off, Cain was already walking over. He looked around to see a clean deck with only bodies littering it at this point.

"You guys did a good job cleaning up after the celebration."

"Of course, we've been sitting at sea for 2 days. We have to raise the anchors and continue soon. Otherwise, those other powers might beat us to the fountain."

"You seem sure it's not a myth."

"We've lost too much for it to be a myth."

"Indeed."

Cain bitterly looked at the corpses littering the deck, some bodies he knew, and a few he even knew quite well, one was even a good friend he and Thomas played games with during the journey.

But now they were just nameless casualties on a list.

...

Working like ants, both the Red Titan and Dolion's flagship were majorly fixed before nightfall. With the anchors raised, they continued to head deeper into the unknown territory.

Cain made sure he would not make the same mistake again and was on watch constantly. Although his body was weakened, he still didn't need too much sleep and could force himself to go weeks on end without rest.

Whenever Deep Ones were spotted, he would immediately spread out his mist and deal with them. Any attacks that were attempted were stopped before they could even begin.

Surprisingly, the rest of the journey was smooth sailing. It seemed Cain, in some way, earned a reputation from the monsters. They must if thought he was dangerous prey. It showed they were at least somewhat intelligent.

As they continued deeper, more and more sea stacks appeared. They were getting so condensed that the two ships began going single file through the field of rocks.

Only after who knew how long, did their bounty finally enter their sights. As they were sailing the rocks and pillars suddenly stopped. Before them was a vast empty body of water with a giant island at the center.

Nay, it wasn't an island but a giant floating city. It had to be.

A city of massive proportions was laid bare before the crew. Its presence solidified the certainty of the Fountain of Life. With rusted structures and collapsed buildings, a city on the scale of hundreds, if not thousands, of Free Cities was before Cain.

Like a rising tide, the city's height escalated before a giant temple that seemed to be embedded into a mountain, came into view past the fog.

Moonlight bounced off the low-hanging clouds and made the entrance of such a city that of a lost treasure.

It was a secret waiting to be uncovered.

"What. The. Hell?" Rose tipped her hat up to see what she was looking at more clearly.

The whole crew was in a similar state as her, in shock and awe.

Cain's eyes remained on the city for a moment before looking at the grand temple that was so much larger than the rest.

He could feel it, feel the energy around him being pulled towards it.

If he closed his eyes, perhaps he could picture a vortex forming around the mountain, a vortex of whatever energy was being produced by the core of this place. It was at that moment his priorities changed from the Fountain to the core.

It could lead him to his answers, it was far more important than a simple fountain.

"Uh, Captain? Look behind us."

From the crow's nest as always, Jaxith kept to his duties and watched the waters behind them.

Upon his words, some looked back while others remained staring. Those that turned grew wide-eyed as their jaws dropped.

It was hard to see, but the fog wasn't that abundant.

Figures that appeared to be ships entered from the line of sea stacks surrounding them. It would be fine if it was one or two, but that wasn't the case.

As if taking a page from the Deep Ones, endless waves of ships exited from the towering rocks.

All around the ancient city, more and more ships exited their cover and entered into the giant lagoon. Unknown and known factions no doubt came to make their claim to the Fountain or perhaps even the Core. It was already known two factions had the backing of their rulers.

"Holy Shit! Those are man of wars! Why are there so many? Even their supporting ships are frigates! Did both countries bring their entire fleets?" Thomas kept spewing words from his mouth. It was amazing how he kept the liquor in his mouth as he spoke.

Connie's face grew grim before she turned around and with as much air as she could hold in her lungs, she yelled as loud as possible.

"Stop Gawking! Make it to port! Hurry!"

Like a sonic boom, her words were the wind-up this band of scallywags needed to operate. More sails were drawn, and the two ships were moving at full speed toward the city.

Waiting to hit port like the rest, Cain felt his shoulder touched. He looked over to see Marko beside him.

"Do you think it makes sense for all those ships to only enter now? They can't all be from the same force... It can't be a coincidence."

Cain smirked and responded to Marko's prudence with confidence. "They're definitely not all one group. Most likely there was an alliance or treaty of some sort going on. The most plausible reason that they all started to move is because of us."

"They were waiting for us?"

"Unlikely. More so, they saw us heading for the city, so they too started to move. Every man for themselves as they say. Don't worry, we surely won't be ganged up on. We're obviously the weakest here."

Marko held his arm, and his face turned dark. "That doesn't make me feel any better. Just means we have a higher likelihood to not leave this place alive."

Seeing his comrade so shaken, Cain gave a compassionate smile and placed his hand on Marko's shoulder.

"Don't worry, we won't die. Everyone else will be too busy fighting each other. As long as we put survival first and don't make ourselves known, we should be okay."

Just as he finished the pep talk, the anchor was released, and Connie once again spoke in her loud commanding voice.

"We're here, everyone get off! Into the city we go! Stay together and plunder as much stuff as you can hold!"

Many of the men were having the same thoughts as Marko, but with their Captain's voice, their spirits seemed to be healed. As everyone left the ship, Dolion came from the other ship with a few men.

"Cain, wait up!" He caught Cain's attention before letting the small group join them. "I and the rest won't be joining you. We will hold them off as long as possible. Since we're men of Fume, we can't let the Fountain fall into those Kiok bastard's hands!"

Giving him a nod of confirmation, Dolion smiled warmly before joining back with his crew and undocking.

Cain followed behind the crew, he kept glaring at the temple, and he was beginning to get anxious.

'I have to hurry. I can't let anyone else get to the core!'