The cancers of the universe part 1

"There it is. The world of Isra," Suomi said, gazing upon the new land. The world was vastly different from Aesis, with rust-colored continents and golden seas and oceans. High mountains rose up in the distance, a striking contrast to the flat terrain of Aesis.

As they were admiring the view, a harpoon suddenly struck the Golden Hind. They looked up to see a gravity ship, made of black iron and wood, with sails on its sides, charging towards them. The ship was fully closed, with a ceiling on top as protection, making it look almost more like a u-boat than a sailing ship. The ship had a spiked ram on its front and the sail bore the same symbol they had found on the wreckage, drawn in blood. The mark of Strifa.

The Araknes corsairs had ambushed them, launching a surprise attack from the perfect vantage point. Yosef quickly maneuvered the Golden Hind to flee, but the Araknes gave chase.

Pema rushed to remove the harpoon that was tied with a chain to enable boarding, but it was so cold that his hands felt like they were burning. The harpoons had been enchanted with divinity, making them harder to remove. Pema covered his hands with his carbon armor so he could pull it out.

The Araknes ship relentlessly chased the Golden Hind, its black iron hull glinting in the sunlight as it navigated through the floating rocks. The crew of the Golden Hind frantically worked to avoid the harpoons being launched at them, the sound of metal striking rock filling the air.

As the Golden Hind made a sudden turn to evade the harpoons, Gwon, who was standing at the front of the ship, was thrown off balance and lost his footing, tumbling into the void of space.

Amala moved to the end of the Golden Hind and began shooting arrows at the ship. Many of these arrows grew larger, to the size of a log. The Iron Widow, however, was able to avoid each arrow and moved with fantastic agility.

"How can it move like that?!" Joan exclaimed.

"It's an Iron Widow. It has a soul placed inside so it can make decisions on its own," Yosef yelled.

A larger harpoon cannon was brought forth by the Araknes and burning harpoons came flying right at them, forcing Yosef to make sudden changes to the course. As the Golden Hind made a sudden turn to evade the harpoons, Gwon, who was standing at the front of the ship, was thrown off balance and lost his footing, tumbling into the void of space.

"GWON!" Liana yelled.

As no one saw where the child-like grey skin had fallen, they saw Gwon jumping in space, creating spots of gravity. He was able to move in space, running around it as he had done before.

"Gwon, get on the ship back!" Amala ordered.

Gwon, instead, started to rush at the Iron Widow, like a beast rushing at its prey. The Araknes shot harpoons, trying to stop Gwon, but he kept leaping through space. One jump at a time, Gwon got closer to the corsairs' ship until he grabbed onto the hull. Even an Iron Widow couldn't evade Gwon.

He boarded the ship and clawed his way, breaking the ceiling of the ship to get inside the iron widow. The crew of the enemy vessel, startled by Gwon's sudden appearance, scrambled to defend themselves.

The Araknes were spider-like with pale or completely dark skin. They had four eyes and lanky bodies with hardly any muscle. Their teeth were sharp, with some having large front teeth. Their eyes were all black as the space and their hair was all either black or gray.

Gwon fought fiercely, his powerful jaws and sharp claws a blur as he took on the Araknes with knives and spears. He in his Seng form mauled and clawed many of the corsairs to death, and their green blood spilled all over the deck. Gwon was strong enough to best many of them easily, but then the captain of the ship decided to help his men. He muttered something in Araknes language that Gwon didn't understand.

The captain took out a whip, made from a spine with an iron tip at the end. He rushed at Gwon with it to fight but jumped high in the air. The Araknes captain slashed his whip onto the back leg of Gwon, bringing him back down, and slamming him on the deck of the Iron Widow.

The spinal whip slithered around Gwon and tightened. The Araknes captain took out a small knife, made from a sharpened human rib bone. Gwon tried to struggle out of the bondage. The more he struggled though, the tighter the spinal whip got. As the captain was getting closer and ready to push the bone knife into Gwon's throat, a sudden divine sphere enveloped the captain.

It exploded, killing the captain. The Araknes and Gwon looked up and saw Rufus, flying above the ship with his divine wings. He had created multiple divine spheres and sent them at the ship, but hadn't yet made them explode.

"Let's go Gwon," Rufus said and ordered Gwon to quickly jump off the ship. As Gwon did, Rufus made the divine spheres explode. The entire Araknes ship was almost completely evaporated, along with its crew.

"Rufus!" Gwon yelled and rushed at Rufus. Instead of embracing him, Rufus grabbed Gwon by his mane and reprimanded him.

"What you did was extremely reckless," he said.

"I just wanted to be useful," Gwon tried to explain as his Seng form's eyes glittered like he was a kitten.

"Enough," Rufus said sternly. "You could have put us all in danger. We need to be more careful from now on."

Gwon nodded, understanding the gravity of his actions. They all needed to be more vigilant in this new, dangerous world.

~~

Not long after, two similar types of gravity vessels approached the destroyed ship. One of them got closer, while the other kept watch.

The two ships belonged to the Araknes and seemed to be part of the same group of pirates that had attacked the Golden Hind earlier. They spoke in the language of Araknes, a foul language that few thought had any value in learning.

Two Araknes got closer to inspect the wreckage, one of them with a strong divine aura.

"Captain Gishk. The ship has been completely destroyed as if parts of it were evaporated into thin air or turned to dust," one of the Araknes corsairs explained in their own tongue. "Do you think it was a Sassanid patrol vessel?"

"No. They don't venture this far from their world, and besides, a Sassanid vessel or captain could never have done this. It must have been something else," the other, stronger Araknes said.

"We should change locations. We are one ship fewer and it wouldn't be long before the Djinns would sense something was off in the number of trade vessels flying to their world," the weaker-looking Araknes mumbled.

The strong-looking Araknes, named Gishk, grabbed the other one by the throat. He carried him to the edge of the ship and pushed him towards the nearby sun. The Araknes kept floating and with no friction to stop him, he would eventually float into the sun and die.

The other Araknes looked scared as Gishk just shrugged his shoulders after he had just killed one of his own men.

"I will get an audience with Strifa. And if I want to get it, I do not need men like that on my vessel. Do I have any more men like that on board?" Gishk, the terror of the Isra rocks, proclaimed and intimidated his men.