Yes I'm writing a new fic that is completely different from Finally Retired. Maybe getting the unexplored ideas out of my head will help make room for ideas for that fic.

Anyway, have fun reading.

Beidou was having trouble sleeping today.

There was a storm predicted for tonight, and she did not want to try her luck, so she was staying up and alert, ready to sound the alarm whenever the storm arrived. It was currently raining, but nothing too bad. A light shower, when she has seen far worse, was far from enough to get her to go back inside to dry up. She looked at the clock of the ship, and saw that midnight was coming soon, in a few minutes actually.

She leaned on the railing of the ship, looking at the horizon through the fog, before raising her head and looking at the moon. A waxing gibbous.

But then, something very strange happened.

A church bell rang in her ears, but she knew she was far from the mainland, a day away at least. She blinked a few times in confusion, looking around her, and that was a big enough window for the whole world around her to change.

Now, the sea and rain weren't the calming blue she knew but an unsettling red. The smell unnerved Beidou even more, as it smelled like blood. As she stared out, she noticed the moon's reflection, making her look up at it in utter shock. It was now gigantic and a sickly shade of yellow-green.

"What the… What's going on?"

That was when she saw some strange black ooze rise from the depths of the bloody ocean. It reached the surface and an odd, sorrowful looking blue mask appeared on its surface. When she saw it move towards the ship, she sounded the alarm and grabbed her claymore on pure instinct. She was right to do so, as she saw it grow a dozen arms and climb up the side of the ship and onto the main deck. Beidou didn't hesitate before slashing at it, cutting it in half, but the darn thing was determined, as it kept going to attack her, even with half of its body missing. It only stopped once she brought her weapon down onto it's mask, slicing that in half, and making it go limp before turning into some sort of gas. It made her put her sleeve on her face, just in case.

That's then, with the threat in front of her dealt with, that she realized two things.
One: there were more of these creatures climbing up the ship, with a few already onto the main deck.

Two: it was dead quiet, as if no one woke up from her sounding the alarm.

So, she sounded it off a second time as to wake up her lazy crewmates and grab the attention of the creatures, and the attention grabbing certainly worked, as she saw them look straight at her and pull blades out of nowhere, holding them with dozens of hands. Beidou got into a better battle stance.

"Alright, let's have a fight."

As she began hacking and slashing, trying to focus on their masks in order to kill them more quickly, she quickly ended up noticing that nobody was getting up and at least panicking. She didn't want to risk her crew's lives by leading the creatures over to them as they slept, so she was going to yell at them once this was over, and not before that.

As she got surrounded by a good handful of these creatures and saw one of them leap towards her, Beidou smiled and activated her Vision's counter ability.

…

And then pain.

It was only a second before she was stabbed that she realized something terrifying: her Vision wasn't activating, no matter how much she willed it to, so all she could do was try to block as many of the creature's blades as she could, which left her with a deep wound on the shoulder, but it was obvious that, had she realized that her Vision wasn't activating a second later, she would have been hacked and slashed so badly, she would barely be alive right now.

And thus, the stakes were now higher.

Thankfully, as she looked around, there were only 7 left, and none seemed to be still climbing the ship, so all she could do was her best to finish a 7-to-1 fight without her Electro abilities.

Two leapt for Beidou with just half a second of difference, so she grabbed her claymore and slashed upwards, hitting the first one and cutting a few arms off of the second one, which fell on the floor and kept jittering and spasming like a cut lizard's tail, before dissipating into gas, but right now she couldn't cover her mouth, so she simply stopped breathing for a bit. She stared at her enemies and found that she hadn't killed either of the creatures that leapt at her, even if she severely wounded them. She was surrounded, so she had no choice other than staying on the defensive and watch, counter, block, parry, block, counter, avoid, let this one crash into the other one and abuse the chaos of limbs to cut off a good handful. After a few minutes, there were only 3 severely injured creatures left, but Beidou had suffered injuries of her own too, and was getting exhausted, while these creatures showed no sign of exhaustion, putting into question if their stamina was even finite. One jumped at her. With a bit of effort, she raised her claymore and swung, cutting the creature's mask in half, killing it. The other two then went for her at the same time. With a roar of fury, she swung horizontally and cut the remaining two's masks, killing them too. As they dissipated into gas, which she figured wasn't toxic considering that she would be feeling the effects if they were, she looked around. No more arms littering the deck, no more goo on the surface of the sea, no more masks to break in half.

The fight was thus over for good. Beidou put her claymore away on her back and took a moment to rest and breathe, even if the air was thick with the smell of copper. This also let her assess what injuries she had gotten. Her shoulder looked pretty bad, but it was thankfully still usable. A less grave wound to the thigh, and a few minor cuts and bruises here and there. She let out a heavy sigh and began walking towards her cabin, only to find her world shaking, not because of the sea, but because of the exhaustion and blood loss finally getting to her, so she hurried towards the bandages to finally cover her wounds and get the blood to stop flowing out as much. As she sat in her captain's chair, she looked out of the door she forgot to close and saw that her blood was indistinguishable from the blood the sky had been crying for a while now. Nothing made sense right now, and as she looked at the clock, she saw that it had stopped exactly at midnight, which made little sense to her but she was not in the right state of mind to question it, so she simply got up and left her cabin once she got a bit of stamina back so she could yell at her crew and threaten to throw them overboard.

It's when she stepped into the crew's dormitory that she saw something deeply disturbing.

Not a single person was sleeping as they should. Instead, in their place, were coffins. So many coffins. Beidou was stunned for a second, her stomach dropping in the soles of her feet. She traced the edge of one with her hand. This wasn't an illusion. This was an actual coffin. The wood was real. She did not dare open it though. As she stumbled out of the common dormitory, she saw where Kazuha should be, and saw yet another coffin, but this one was a bit different, with an Anemo symbol adorning it and pastel green intricacies lining the coffin, mainly it's edges.

"So… Not even a Vision protects one from this… Coffin… But why are they all in them then? Why aren't I in one too? Did… Did one of those things get in here and kill them, putting them in coffins, while I was fighting them on the deck? Arg, there's no use wasting my time over this, I need answers. I'll go back to Ninguang as soon as I can, this trip be damned."

Beidou looked at her bandaged shoulder. "I'll also have to explain what happened to people… I just hope they don't think I've finally lost it."

It was now nearing mid-day, and Beidou woke up in her bed, startled when she saw someone at it's foot, but quickly soothed as she recognized their ship's nurse, Yinxing.

"Calm down there. Don't move too much. Whatever you did, it made you lose a lot of blood. We didn't find any outside of your cabin, probably because the rain washed it away, but we were all very worried when we found you passed out on the stairs of our dormitory. So now, just rest."

Beidou let out a heavy sigh of relief. "We need to go back to the mainland. There's something out there, I don't know what it is, but it's too dangerous for us to be out in the middle of the sea, where we're basically defenseless."

Yinxing giggled a bit. "Come on now Captain, with you around we can take on anything."

Beidou sat up, not without a bit of a struggle, just so she could stare deep into her crewmate's eyes. "Do you not realize that whatever is out there has done this to me? I'm no god, and I can't defeat everything in the world. And besides, I would hate seeing one of you get hurt because I'm only one woman against an army." She grunted as she rubbed a hand on her injured shoulder.

Yinxing frowned. "Hm… You're right… Do you want me to tell the others then?"

Beidou shook her head. "I'll do it myself." And she then got out of bed and up on unsteady legs, making the surgeon panic and reach out to help her.

"If you say so, but at least let me help you walk."

Beidou didn't say anything and simply smiled at her crewmate as she used her shoulder for support and the two of them walked out of the cabin. The simple noise of her door opening, even through the rain, stopped all activity on the deck as they all stared at their captain, seeing if she's alright, and frowning or gasping when seeing her needing support in order to walk.

"Men, we're going back to Liyue. There's something out there that's really dangerous, and I'd hate to see you guys get in trouble because of one or two guys getting past me. Understood?"

Concern grew among the crew, but that was to be expected when Beidou, their hero and sometimes their goddess, told them that they had to go back because something was too much of a threat. But, ultimately, they followed her command, because something that dangerous cannot be tackled on the sea, that much is for certain.

Beidou was led back into her cabin so she could keep resting, but to the seasoned warrior, this was agony. She was powerless, the new enemy was strong, and for some reason, during that time where the sea was blood and the moon was huge, the time when the creatures came out, her Vision was completely out of order. Next time she would get a better look at it, just to make sure.

"I'm not going out again to say something so small, but… What happened happened during the night, at midnight to be precise, but I don't want anyone to be hurt, so while they should stay on guard, they should barricade themselves first and foremost. We're staying on the defensive."

"Understood captain. I'll go tell the others, I'll be right back."

Beidou sighed again as she stared at the ceiling. This was going to be a long day, stuck in her bed.

And she was right, but now that midnight was approaching, even if she could stand, she still could not fight, so she nervously switched from looking outside to looking at the clock.

11:56 pm.

"Don't worry Captain, the door is locked and secure, only a Mitachurl on steroids could bust it down."

"I know, I know, but still... "

"Even if that happens, I'm here to protect you, and Kazuha is ready to defend the rest of the crew. We took every precaution, as you asked."

"I know, this is the third time you told me in the past half hour. I get that you're trying to comfort me, but I'm nervous and nothing will change that."

The guard suddenly felt really bad and shut up.

Beidou kept looking in the distance, counting the seconds until midnight. And as soon as it hit, once again, the church bell rang, and once again, after she blinked, the air turned heavy with the scent of copper, the sea turned red and the moon turned gigantic. She turned around to look at her guard, and found a coffin standing upright in his place. Once she got over the initial shock, she tried putting two and two together.

"So… It's not an issue of them being attacked, or them being asleep… It's just that when midnight hits, they turn into coffins. So why not me?..."

She was suddenly pushed out of her thoughts by the sound of skittering and metal hitting metal. She looked out of the closed window, she wasn't dumb enough to leave it open, and saw the black ooze coming towards the boat again, and the creatures forming and climbing up the boat once more.

A mask held by a jet black hand suddenly hit the window, making the seasoned warrior reach for her claymore, especially when more hands appeared and started knocking against the glass, which had been reinforced a long time ago. Not too long after, the door began being pushed to no avail, thanks to the precautions they took.

Needless to say, the night was long and stressful, and Beidou was, for the first time in a long time, really looking forward to setting foot on land.

I don't have much to say yet, so...

Farewell, my subjects

Your Saltyness.