Hysilens

Styxia, the coastal city of intoxication and dreams, where echoes of old songs still drift among the waves.
Helektra, Daughter of the Sea, Chrysos Heir who cleanses the Ocean's Coreflame, dispels the murky undercurrents and orchestrates a banquet of revelry for the heroes beyond the sky.
The show must go on. Even if hope is as fragile as bubbles, the waves will keep surging forward.

When sunlight filtered down through the surface, the sea's breath shimmered with a kaleidoscope of colors. That was the merriest time of day for the sirens.
"♫ Plop ♫" "♫ Pika ♫" "♫ Bo-pom ♫"
The siren princess chased bubbles in delight. Her favorite moment was when one paused on her nose, just before it popped and rippled a burst of color across the water.

Amid coral stretching for miles, the sea sirens sang. The pearls there sparkled like stars, perfect ornaments for a bowstring.
Music flowed from Helektra's fingers like a gentle current, brushing past companions basking in the joy of honey brew.

"♫ Look, on that bright and bustling ship, how happy the humans must be. ♫"
"♫ You long for the one you saved as his voice still echoes in your soul. ♫"
"♫ Noble princess, carefree Helektra, where will you go? To the frigid northern sea, or the boundless world of men? ♫"

The drunken sirens gathered around her, curiosity swaying and curling like seaweed.
"♫ The world above is loud, the pole too cold... ♫"
She brushed a bubble and shook her head with a smile:
"♫ I'll stay where songs still carry... ♫"

But soon, a horn of warning echoed from the deep, cutting the revelry short.
The sirens followed Helektra into the depths, as the Queen of the Ocean addressed her people...

"♫ Dark tides will taint our crystal currents, so we shall summon the sacred waves, draw the filth into the Grand Chalice, until Strife shines back against the black tide... ♫"
"♫ Children of the sea, have you chosen your course? When the black tide recedes, go to Styxia. There, people on the land will raise their glasses in your honor! ♫"

Day after day, Helektra led the sirens through the darkening sea, washing away the corrupted undercurrents.

"♫ Don't give up, my friends, not until we've drowned ourselves in triumph. ♫"
"♫ Don't forget, my friends, we'll swim toward the distant place. ♫"
"♫ Onward, my friends, vibrant hope is stirring the air. ♫"

And day after day, Helektra sang. As a Titankin, she knew guarding these waters was the fate written into her very soul...

Helektra dove into the abyss, her song fading until it became the lone light left in the dark ocean.

The once-lush coral reef had become a graveyard of lifeless stone.

The first time she drove her blade into the Black Tide Creature, her hands trembled ever so slightly.
The hundredth time she faced a corrupted former friend, her dull strings could slice through flesh without hesitation.
The thousandth, the ten thousandth... Pearls from her instrument scattered over the sea, and the deep water had turned to blood...

In the silent ruins of that forgotten palace, only Helektra remained at her solitary feast.

"♫ The people on the land will throw feasts that never end, to honor our sacrifice... ♫"
The mournful song echoed through the sea as the Titan of Strife took up the fight against black tide. And for the first time, Helektra rose from the dark waters with joy in her heart.

She adorned her face with pearls. Her tail split into legs. The seafoam on her body became a gown. The crashing tide no longer roared over her head, but whimpered beneath her feet.
Seabirds cried overhead in chilling tones. The waves stilled for a moment, then rolled away again.
As if the dream had popped like a bubble and never truly existed.
She bore each step toward the Promised Land of Styxia with searing pain, like walking on knives...

The land reeked of pungent air as corpses piled high. Conflict and fire ravaged every corner... But the feast promised by the gods was nowhere to be found.

"I... Hy...si..."
Her voice rasped in the polluted air.
She had tried to learn the language of humans, but their noisy, jagged words made it impossible to sing as she once did. So, she slowly chose silence over speech.
"A blade that would never rust," "A melody of cruelty"... What accompanied her day after day were the twangs that pierced flesh, and the cries of lives bleeding out...

They said the swordmaster from the sea could play like no other, yet she stayed distant and mute, never revealing what lay in her heart.
She had seen many hands reach out to her. Some sought to erase her, others offered help. They had lit one flame after another, only to let each flicker out.

"Hysilens, where are you headed?"

She couldn't answer.
Her old instrument had long become two blades, with only sharp requiems now echoing from the strings.
She had once wished someone might understand the longing within her song, but came to realize that the human world was no different from the lonely deep sea.
Everyone was just another lost fish, blindly swimming toward the light.

"Hysilens, follow me. I will grant you everything you seek."
The voice, loud and clear despite the small frame it came from, left a deep impression. But doubt lingered in her heart:
"And when... will her light go out?"

But this flame burned like sunlight piercing the deep sea, brighter and steadier with every passing moment.
She watched the blue blaze fight battle after battle, always emerging victorious. She saw waves rise like wildfire, saw the Gladius roar through wind and sea, swallowing every storm of carnage like a whale shark.
She heard the thundering heartbeat, the pounding drums of war, the footsteps like falling rain, the sorrow swelling like a tide. The pure, song-like voice of the heart flowed through the blood of the Chrysos Heir, stirring the long-sealed strings in her mind.

The feast Imperator had promised was drawing near. Young weaver whispered to the children at their side, wondering aloud if the cold, distant Gladius would grace them with her presence.
Amidst the crowd's exclamations, the weaver rose on her tiptoes, holding her breath to capture the moment in full.
Her gown, gilded and flowing, brushed the tiles like sunlight glinting on waves.
And under candlelight and silver lanterns, people saw again the shimmer of the sea.

"She answered my wish and sang to us of the sea bays the world had long forgotten."
When the monarch finished speaking, the orchestra lit up. Light and shadows danced before her eyes, rippling like waves.
Music rose with the bubbles in their cups, and in the swell of the crowd, she found her voice was no longer echoing in vain.

The duel between Labienus and Seneca struck like crisp drumbeats. Verginia's hidden meanings pulsed through her verses.
Tribios laughed, and the music gained a playful countermelody. Aglaea leapt into motion, her dance steps weaving the perfect harmony...

"After this battle is won, Dux Gladiorum, is there anything you desire?"
Even the composed monarch seemed slightly tipsy.
She took a sip of honey brew, whispering to the monarch, her laughter dancing in the corner of the banquet.
How bright it was here. How lovely it sounded.
The world spun on, with the clink of glasses, the soft rattle of ice.
The long-silent siren sang again, her voice spilling like the honey brew...

"♫ The candlelight burns so bright at this feast.
A brand-new sea.
It sways between the clinking of our cups... ♫"

She had once believed the Flame-Chase was the eternal celebration she had always searched for.
But as the journey wore on and more was lost, even that shining light shattered like seafoam.

She had been the Imperator's sharpest blade, her sword always flowing with blood.
But when the Imperator's molten gold blood dripped onto her fingertips, she suddenly felt herself sinking again back into that lonely, silent sea.
"Heh, why... did I snuff out the very flame I swam toward with my own hand..."
For a thousand painful years, she had fled from those dazzling bubbles of memory, but now those long-burst fragments clung to her like swaying seaweed, impossible to shake loose.

"Click."
A chess piece lands on the board. Despite her perfect composure, the sovereign's crown of flames reveals what she won't, dancing between serenity and fierce intensity.
"I never learned how to play."
"Then I'll teach you."
She picks up a piece with unpracticed fingers. Just another battleground, she thinks to herself.

"Click."
Suddenly, vibrant blue flames warm the air around her like hot springs. She moves chess pieces without much thought and asks:
"If they're bound to disappear from the board, why bother moving forward at all?"

"Click."
The sovereign takes a sip of honey brew, stretches her arms with satisfaction, and sighs with pleasure:
"Isn't the journey forward fulfilling enough on its own?"
...

After a millennium of waiting, she forged new paths for the Flame-Chase, though she knew they wouldn't be the final destination.
"What a fish truly needs is simply a sea to call home..."
As a fragment of her memories unfolds, she walks toward clear ocean waters.

♫ Pop ♫, ♫ Fizz ♫, ♫ Splash ♫... Bubbles of every color mirror bygone years, forming and bursting, bursting and forming.
"The ocean's dearest, do you have a wish?"
"Hysilens, where are you headed?"
"Dux Gladiorum, what do you seek?"
...
Homeland, revelry, the Flame-Chase... each once brilliant in her life, yet all quickly fizzing out like transient foam... Only a sigh lingers across the sky.
From the beginning till the end, this was all she had, in both the mortal realm and ocean depths, nothing but the fleeting traces of bubbles.

"But still... how beautiful they are..."

"♫...♫"
"♫...♫"
"♫...♫"

The dawn of Amphoreus approaches.
Before the final bubble bursts, she smiles, as if she has already sung everything her heart had to express beyond words.