Day 48:
Weskham's intervention granted them a reprieve. Though Ravus had blinded Leviathan, she had become no less destructive. With no targets to snap at, the Hydraean fell into a frenzied rage, which destroyed everything around her. Whole building toppled into the sea. The altar they stood on had cracked, and portions of it had crumbled away, leaving them standing on no more than a few feet of stone while they fought against her.
The Altissian guard joined the field. They took to the tumultuous ocean in boats equipped with massive harpoon launchers. Leviathan did not have to see them to cause trouble for their boats, however. She thrashed in the sea. What boats survived the pull of her tail as it launched from the water and slammed back down were overtaken by the waves she caused. Cries of alarm went up. Some boats were overturned entirely, some were crushed into splinters by Leviathan's serpentine body.
"They will never get close enough that way." Ravus shifted his hold on his sword and made a running leap for Leviathan. He caught a rising coil of her body and, before it dropped back into the sea, leapt again. He climbed the Hydraean. It wasn't until he was nearly at her head that Lunafreya realized what he was doing.
He was giving Leviathan something else to attack. Something specific. Something she could hear and feel, if not see. If she snapped at him, perhaps she would be still enough for the Altissian boats to reach her.
An arm wrapped around her waist, dragging her back a few steps. The Hydraean's tail slammed into the shrinking platform that she stood on and, in the resulting shake, she stumbled and fell backward against whoever had grabbed her.
She looked up into Weskham's face.
"The Astrals are waking up all on their own, hm?" He asked.
"At the Draconian's bidding."
"Mm." He stared up at Leviathan. "I won't ask for the story. We're in no place for that. But tell me one thing: is King Regis safe?"
They had been friends. Up until that moment, she had assumed it was friends in a passing sense. But it was more. Weskham was friends with the king in the same way Ignis was friends with Noctis. He had come all the way out here to Altissia on King Regis' orders, but he had never ceased to be Regis' brother. A companion. A protector. An adviser. He had every right to know what was happening in Insomnia, but she had no comfort to offer.
"I don't know," she said. "The Fulgarian was sent to Insomnia. The Archaean has awakened in Cleigne. Lucis is no safer than Accordo."
None of Eos was, if the Draconian wasn't stopped.
Weskham pulled his eyes from Leviathan and looked down at her like he was searching for something. Did he suspect she was lying or leaving something out?
Finally he nodded. "Then I guess we'd better sort out Accordo and get back to Lucis."
If they could destroy the Hydraean before she destroyed Altissia. If they could get to Lucis before Ramuh and Titan did the same across the sea.
"What do you need to take her down?" Weskham asked.
"I need to be able to cut her ties to Eos," Luna said.
"And you can't concentrate on that while Leviathan is throwing seaweed at you."
"In a word," Luna said. "But that will not kill her. It will only prevent her from coming back. We will still need to strike the killing blow and an Astral can withstand much more than any mortal."
"I guessed that much," he said. "If we can get her restrained, that should give you the time you need. As for the rest… we'll just have to wear her down."
He stepped forward, making a motion in the air as if to grasp some object that wasn't there. And he did. Blue fire flashed and crept along the barrel of his gun as it materialized in his hand. He still had King Regis' magic. If she had needed any confirmation of what Weskham had been to him, that was it.
"Let's cause a ruckus." He levelled his gun and fired.
All around Leviathan, a second wave of boats was advancing. They pulled waterlogged soldiers from the sea and loaded new harpoons into their launchers while Leviathan snapped at Ravus. He climbed her body, using his sword as a piton. Luna watched his ascent, hardly breathing, for several minutes before remembering she had a job to do.
She turned her focus inward toward the magic that bound Leviathan to Eos. 'Search for the ties that allow you to summon the Astrals,' Ravus had said, but it wasn't so simple. The Hydraean was a tangle of power, so intense and bright it was difficult to distinguish any specific line without digging through. Even then, Lunafreya winced against the strength of Leviathan's magic while she sifted through strings and strands.
The rest of the world dissolved around her. The sounds of battle faded to the constant roar of the ocean crashing on rocks. She traced line after line of magic, diving ever deeper as she searched. She was lost in it. Everywhere she turned, she was surrounded by Leviathan's pulsing strength. The only direction she could sense to go was deeper still. So she went.
The meaning of time faded. It might have taken seconds or minutes. It might have even taken hours. It seemed hours. Hours of non-physical toil, leaving her mind tired and stumbling on toward exhaustion. But she could not stop. Not until she found it.
This. The heavy line of magic that tied from Leviathan's core straight down. When she followed it, it led her to the heart of Eos. This was what she needed.
She drew on her own magic, keeping hold of the line while she sharpened her blade. This wasn't the sort of thing Oracles learned. In theory, Ravus claimed it was possible. In practice… she would just have to find out.
Luna sliced her magic across Leviathan's. Like a blade upon rope, the line frayed, unravelled, and snapped. In that split second while Luna remained tangled up in Leviathan's core, she felt the utter shock that tore through the Hydraean as her immortality drained away. When the shock faded but a second later, fury swept in. It flung Lunafreya away. She stumbled back into her body, barely managing to keep upright, just in time to hear the earth-shaking roar that Leviathan released in response to Luna's actions.
In the physical world, Leviathan was bound. Ropes wrapped around her—some attached to harpoons that were embedded in her scales—and tied her down not to the boats, but to the shore. Luna must have taken longer than it seemed if they had done all that since she had first closed her eyes. Between the ropes and the harpoons, she no longer thrashed in the sea, sending waves crashing and as she toppled buildings into the water.
But her head was still free. Free to snap back as she screamed, free to shake and send Ravus flying once more. For a frozen moment, Luna feared he would hit the pavement rather than the sea, but he narrowly missed the stone and disappeared under the dark waters once more. She held her breath, hardly daring hope or fear. Weskham fired one shot. Two shots. Three shots. Before Ravus surfaced again, throwing wet hair from his face and gasping for air.
Luna let out the breath she had been holding. Ravus pushed himself away from the stone ledge he had nearly struck and swam across to her. He hauled himself up onto the edge of the altar. This time when she offered her hand he took it.
"It is done," she said.
"I know," he said. "I felt the snap of power."
Ravus shook water from his hair and stared up at Leviathan. She bellowed, still, forming a rod-straight line from sea toward sky as she threw her head high and mourned her endless life.
"I'm not sure if you had any plan past this point," said Weskham, glancing over his shoulder at them. "But it's going to take more than a few bullets and some harpoons to take her down."
"Will Gentiana destroy her?" Ravus asked.
Shiva turned circles in the air around Leviathan's head. While she might have been willing to protect mortals from the Hydraean's wrath, she would not strike a killing blow on her sister.
Lunafreya shook her head. "No. She will distract or incapacitate, but not destroy."
"If you can fit that blade of yours down through her skull, there's not much that would survive having its brain poked at." Weskham nodded to Ravus.
"I would require a way up," Ravus said.
Every time before that he had landed on her head, she had lowered to him. He may have climbed his way up to distract her, but leaping across coils was different than climbing the slick body of a sea serpent as it stood vertically out of the water.
He appeared to make up his mind on some unvoiced subject.
"Keep her safe," he levelled at Weskham, "Until I return."
He turned and broke into a jog, heading away from the shrine and into the city.
"Ravus—!" Luna shouted after him, but received no response.
"Where is he going?" Weskham asked.
Luna shook her head.
"Wherever it is, I hope it includes a pair of wings," he said. "Godspeed, Commander."
"Be safe, Ravus," Luna whispered.