Endless Sea—August 4.
Cycle 3, Day 21—Sunset Bay.
Rhine didn’t return to the lighthouse isle.
Not after what he’d seen in the Sea Lantern Guards’ eyes.
Instead, he used Locate Fishing Spots to pick a quieter patch of water—far from the main shipping lanes, far from curious patrols—and went to work.
The first thing he dragged up was a snake.
It looked like a length of rusted chain given muscle and hunger. Its scales were the color of old iron, and its mouth was full of needle teeth that kept trying to bite even after it hit the deck.
Rhine put it down with Flint.
[SYSTEM]
Flint Fusion Progress +1.0%
Total Fusion Progress: 4.0%
Material Acquired: Bloodthirsty Rustwater Snake
The second catch was another rustwater snake—smaller, weaker, but still nasty.
[SYSTEM]
Flint Fusion Progress +0.5%
Total Fusion Progress: 4.5%
Material Acquired: Rustwater Snake
The third pull was worse.
A slick, pale tentacle slapped onto the boards, still twitching. It smelled like wet rot and old blood, and for a heartbeat Rhine thought he felt it trying to taste the air.
[SYSTEM]
Material Acquired: Slick Demon Tentacle
Clue Acquired: Sea Lantern Guard’s Strange Farewell Letter
Rhine and Skye brought the snake bodies and the tentacle to a materials shop inside Windrest Keep. The clerk didn’t ask questions. In a city still rebuilding, everyone had learned to mind their own business.
Once the trade was done, Rhine didn’t go home.
He went straight to the Maritime Police station.
*
The captain on duty listened to Rhine’s report without interrupting. He only frowned deeper the longer Rhine spoke—especially when Rhine described the lighthouse painted red.
When Rhine finished, the captain opened a thick register and flipped through it with a practiced thumb.
“North harbor lighthouse isle,” he read aloud. “Decommissioned ten years ago.”
Rhine’s stomach tightened. “That’s not possible.”
The captain gave him a flat look. “The current lighthouse is at the south breakwater. Blue paint. Active crew. Supply logs. Everything accounted for.”
Rhine forced the words out. “Then who did we talk to?”
The captain’s gaze slid to Skye, then back to Rhine. “You tell me.”
Skye didn’t even try to meet his eyes. Her face had gone pale.
Rhine asked, “Did anyone get reassigned from that island? Sea Lantern Guards?”
The captain snorted. “Sea Lantern Guards? Kid, there haven’t been guards on that rock since the day it was shut down.”
He closed the register with a thud. “If you’re saying you boarded a patrol boat tied up at a pier that hasn’t been used in a decade… then either someone’s running a very bold scam, or you walked into something you shouldn’t have.”
Rhine didn’t argue. He couldn’t.
Not with nothing in his hands but memory.
*
Outside the station, Skye finally spoke. Her voice was tight.
“Don’t go back.”
Rhine stared at the street, thinking of a boat that shouldn’t exist. Thinking of two men whose fear had looked too real to be an act.
“I’m not going back onto the island,” Rhine said. “But I need to confirm what we saw.”
Skye’s mouth flattened. “From a distance.”
They went to the shore and looked out.
The lighthouse isle sat there like a dead tooth.
No fresh paint. No clean pier. No patrol boat. The wooden walkway was half-collapsed, and the chain they’d supposedly used to tie off a boat was nothing but rust fused to stone.
Skye hugged herself. “We’ve been there four times.”
Rhine said nothing.
Because there was only one conclusion left, and he hated it.
They hadn’t been visiting a place.
They’d been stepping into an echo.
Skye swallowed. “If your Talent ever points you there again… ignore it.”
Rhine nodded once. “One percent fusion isn’t worth getting dragged into whatever that was.”
*
Over the next few days, Rhine quietly dug through old records.
Ten years ago, two lighthouse keepers had died on that island in a storm. A father and son.
Their surname matched the two men Rhine had spoken with.
That was all Rhine could prove.
And it was enough to make his skin crawl.
*
Endless Sea—August 10.
Rhine’s life settled into a brutal routine: Locate Fishing Spots, hunt, fuse Flint, repeat.
By the time the sun rose on the tenth, his total fusion progress had climbed to 12%. He’d advanced again—Tier 2, First Grade Hunter.
The System reminded him what he was really racing.
[SYSTEM]
Personal Quest Requirement:
Among surviving players, at least one player must successfully advance to Tier 3.
Time Limit: 8 game cycles (deadline: one hour before the end of Cycle 12).
Reward:
Stop 1 Realm-Fusion event.
Delay the next batch of players by 3 months.
Current Progress: Tier 2, First Grade
Halfway through Cycle 5… and he’d only cleared the first tenth of the climb.
Rhine let out a slow breath.
The grind wasn’t what bothered him.
It was everything else.
He was young. Unmarried. Conveniently famous. And—thanks to the Sea King’s decree—politically valuable.
So his doorstep filled with invitations.
Tea salons. Private dinners. “Friendly gatherings” that were nothing but marriage markets with better tablecloths.
At first, Rhine attended a few. He needed information—anything about gargoyles, anything about the old castle from his visions.
But most nobles didn’t talk about secrets.
They talked about boredom.
They talked about gossip, betting pools, and which designer had stitched whose dress. They talked like Windrest City hadn’t burned. Like corpses hadn’t walked the streets a few weeks ago.
Rhine didn’t have the patience for it.
So he did what he always did when he didn’t want to play someone else’s game.
He left.
Every morning, he dragged Skye out of the Keep and onto the water. After fishing, they wandered the outskirts until night fell, staying scarce and hard to pin down.
Skye didn’t complain.
In the Keep, she was a target.
Outside, she could breathe.
And on those long walks, she told Rhine things most people never learned: old island histories, half-forgotten cults, the meaning behind certain runes scratched into storm-warped stone.
She even knew bits of Troll tongue.
“Found something,” Skye said one evening as they returned at dusk. “A book in the Keep’s library. Written in Troll.”
Rhine arched a brow. “You can read that?”
“Some of it.” Skye sounded reluctant, like she hated admitting it. “It’s… a story. A folktale.”
Rhine waited.
Skye looked out toward the darkening sea. “It says Thunder-Electric Sea Eels aren’t just beasts. They’re evil sea-sprites. They guard treasure under the deep.”
Rhine’s hand tightened on his cane.
“Treasure belonging to stone gargoyles,” Skye finished. “The ones that used to be dragons—before they broke their vow to the Gargoyle Mother.”
Rhine felt the word land like a hook in his ribs.
“Stone gargoyles?”