{Chapter: 44 Cast into the Sea And Plague}
The cage swayed with the movement of the ship, iron bars groaning as sea wind howled across the deck. Harry stood within it, clutching the cold metal, his knuckles white with tension. Far ahead, through the gaps in the rusting bars, the silhouette of Mobis Island slowly came into view—dark cliffs rising like jagged fangs from the ocean, draped in mist and shadow. There was no welcoming harbor, no sign of life—only wild, untamed wilderness and the promise of long-term suffering.
This was the end of the road.
He inhaled deeply, the smell of saltwater and mildew thick in his nose, and exhaled with quiet dread. Mobis Island, the remote prison colony of the Principality of Marton, was notorious even among its own people. It was a place where the unwanted were dumped like trash—where the exiled were forgotten, where enemies of the state were left to rot. Harry had read about it in secret military briefings during his days as Commander, and now, here he was—another condemned man about to be cast upon its forsaken shores.
Behind him, the clink of chains and the soft groans of injured men filled the air. The remaining Ar soldiers—his soldiers—shared the same miserable fate. Once proud warriors who had marched across the countryside with golden banners and triumphant horns, they were now little more than shattered husks. Some lay sprawled on the cage floor, bloodied and unconscious. Others had been drugged, their limbs limp and eyes glazed over, barely aware of their surroundings. A few sat in silence, eyes vacant, their spirits crushed by the weight of defeat and betrayal.
They looked like dying dogs—unfed, unwashed, forgotten.
Harry's jaw clenched. The shame was suffocating. His people, his brothers-in-arms, reduced to cargo. He turned to look at them, and for a brief second, his heart cracked open. He had led them into this. He had believed in the righteousness of their cause, in the strength of their unity, and in the invincibility of their command. All of it had shattered like glass.
How had it all gone so wrong?
They had been noble once—disciplined, idealistic, ready to fight for freedom and honor. And now they were the ones being herded like animals, stripped of their dignity, left to float toward a godless rock in the middle of nowhere.
He lowered his head, the iron taste of humiliation coating his tongue. He wanted to scream. He wanted to curse. But the presence of Marton soldiers—leaning on spears, grinning smugly as they patrolled the deck—silenced his fury. Their swords gleamed in the light of the early sun, each a quiet reminder that words could quickly become bullets.
Instead, he locked the anger away in his chest, buried it beneath layers of grit and cold calculation. There would be time for revenge. There would be time for reckoning.
One day, he vowed in silence, this debt will be paid—every scar, every insult, every drop of blood. I will return it all. A hundredfold.
As the fleet drew closer to the island's coast, the ships slowed in unison, sails drawn and anchors dropped. Orders barked from the pilot vessel were passed down the line, followed by the raising of colored flags that fluttered high above the masts. The soldiers moved with methodical precision, trained for this moment.
From the sides of the ships, long wooden planks were extended, one by one, like tongues from a giant beast. They rested just above the water's surface, slick with sea spray, waiting for their next victims. Below, the waves rolled in gentle rhythm, but Harry knew better than to be lulled by their serenity. There was always something waiting beneath the surface.
The prisoners were rounded up, herded to the planks. As if to mock their helplessness, the Marton guards began tossing pieces of driftwood at their feet—chunks of broken barrels, carved logs, and bloated debris bound with rope. These makeshift floats were to be their life preservers.
There were no boats waiting for them. No rafts. Just crude planks, rough seas, and the mercy of nature.
The intention was clear: if they drowned, they drowned. If they reached the island, they would be hunted by hunger, sickness, or worse.
Harry stood at the front of the line, flanked by two spear-wielding guards. The plank creaked under his boots as he stepped forward, the salt-laden wind pushing his tattered cloak against his legs.
His heart pounded, but not with fear. With contempt.
He stared down at the water, narrowed his eyes, and thought he saw something—a dark shape, smooth and gliding. A fin? A shadow? A trick of the light?
He straightened, adjusted his stance, and turned slightly to face the soldiers beside him.
"You're quite confident there are no sea monsters, right?" he asked, his voice calm and even. "No sharks? No creatures with rows of teeth the size of daggers waiting just below?"
The guards exchanged puzzled looks, caught off guard by the question.
"Don't misunderstand," Harry continued, gesturing behind him. "I'm not worried about me. I can swim. I can fight. I've survived worse than this. But those men? Half of them are unconscious. If there's even one predator in the water, your little plan fails. And I assume your commanding officer doesn't enjoy failure."
One of the younger soldiers shifted uncomfortably, clearly unsure. After a moment of hesitation, he turned and sprinted toward the command cabin at the center of the pilot ship, his boots thudding against the deck.
Harry smiled faintly to himself. Even now, I can still sow doubt. Still make them question. That's power.
A moment later, the soldier returned, breathless. He shouted to the rest of the crew, "General says this time of year there aren't many predators in the bay. Says even if there are some, they're probably full. They won't eat more than a few. Just throw them in and let them float. They're criminals—they deserve it."
Laughter broke out among the Marton troops, some nudging each other as if they'd heard the punchline to a dark joke.
Harry's expression remained cold. He gave no reaction. But deep down, his fury boiled.
"Just a few"...?
That was how little their lives were worth to them. Just a few bodies, a few more corpses floating face-down in the tide, and the rest didn't matter. That kind of thinking... that arrogance... it would be their undoing.
Without a word, he turned back to the plank. The ocean waited. The island waited. His men waited. And somewhere beyond the clouds, the gods watched silently.
He stepped forward—and the soldiers immediately pushed Harry, who was shocked, down with long sticks.
Due to the anesthesia, Harry could only watch their actions helplessly. He couldn't even try to avoid them. His body was as slow as an old lady with rheumatism.
Looking at the sea that was about to touch him, he glared at the soldiers above and opened his mouth: "You, remember this..."
Before he could finish his words, the sea water filled his mouth.
The water swallowed him whole.
It was cold, colder than he expected. The impact shocked his body, stealing the breath from his lungs as he plunged beneath the surface. For a moment, the world was blue and roaring and endless, the weight of the sea dragging him downward. But he kicked with powerful strokes, surfaced with a gasp, and reached for the nearest piece of driftwood.
He clung to it, coughing seawater from his lungs. Around him, more splashes echoed across the bay as the others were shoved off one by one. Some screamed. Some wept. Others said nothing at all. They simply vanished beneath the waves, and moments later reappeared, clutching their floats with trembling fingers.
Together, they drifted toward the dark shore of Mobis Island.
And as Harry floated, eyes fixed on the looming cliffs ahead, he whispered words no one could hear:
I will return. Stronger. Wiser. And when I do, this entire world will remember the day they tried to break me.
---
Royal capital.
Dex lounged in an ornate, high-backed chair carved from dark wood and reinforced with strips of engraved bone. A calm, sinister confidence radiated from him as he crossed his legs with calculated ease, his posture relaxed yet commanding. The room around him was dim, illuminated only by faint green candle light flickering on aged stone walls. Strange glyphs pulsed with a sickly glow under the floorboards, and the faint scent of herbs mixed with the acrid tang of rotting leaves filled the air.
Floating before him was a glowing, ethereal halo of light blue. It shimmered like the surface of a still pond on a moonlit night, but within it danced the image of a distant beach. He watched the scene with an almost childlike curiosity, the corners of his lips twitching with satisfaction.
Through the translucent screen, a man was being hurled onto the white sands of Mobis Island, his soaked body dragged ashore by the rhythm of the relentless waves. Dex's eyes narrowed as he recognized the figure—Harry, the first to reach the island. The spell was flawless.
The halo was the result of a reconnaissance incantation known simply as [Telescope], a potent magical lens that allowed the user to spy upon distant locations. The spell itself was elegant in its simplicity, yet deeply complex in terms of power scaling. Its effective range and clarity were entirely dependent on the strength and will of the caster. For Dex, who had delved into the abyssal roots of plague and entropy, it was child's play.
He laced his fingers and leaned forward slightly, eyes glinting with the cruel anticipation of a man watching the beginning of something extraordinary.
"The first phase of the Death Plague experiment is complete," he muttered to himself, his voice soft but laced with dark amusement. "Now the second phase begins."
He paused for a moment, savoring the weight of his own words.
"If the plague can alter an organism's state at the cellular level, then... could it also restructure its body? Could it rewrite its genetic blueprint?"
He chuckled quietly, the sound echoing with eerie resonance throughout the chamber.
"All of this... all of it leads to one outcome—to create the perfect zombie. Not the rotting, shambling caricatures written in fiction, but something more... enduring. Evolving. Alive in death."
A deep breath left him, as if he were calming his own fevered excitement.
"So many worlds—so many authors—have toyed with the idea," he mused. "They danced around the edge, depicting plague-born creatures as mindless husks. But they never got close. Never understood the potential. What I'm creating is different. This isn't fantasy. This... is evolution."
Dex was not a scholar of science, nor did he claim mastery over the realms of biology or molecular theory. Yet, in his world, science and magic often converged in curious ways. There were concepts in sorcery that mirrored scientific principles—only they were interpreted through different symbols, different understandings.
Thanks to his unique power, the [Source of Death and Plague], Dex could perceive that which most could not. This ability gave him unparalleled insight into the microscopic—where plague and pestilence whispered their secrets. The power acted as a third eye, a gateway into the unseen. He could see the transformation of the infected in real-time, watching cells mutate, split, and die only to rise again in twisted configurations.
To others, such knowledge might require decades of experimentation or libraries filled with scrolls and formulas. But Dex operated on an entirely different wavelength. Where a scholar might use a microscope, he used magic. Where others would see only sickness, he saw opportunity.
The plague was more than a tool. It was an extension of his will. A silent, unseen servant that obeyed his every whim. It infected reality, danced through the veins of the world, waiting for his command.
He knew he was still at the beginning. His understanding of the plague was surface-level compared to what it could become. He believed it had the potential to transcend disease—to become a shaping force, a medium of creation and destruction alike.