Reincarnated Lord: I can upgrade everything!

Winter’s breath was heavy over the Kryos Sea. Icebergs dotted the waters like jagged sentinels, forming natural barricades that made sailing perilous. Most merchant vessels had long since dropped anchor, choosing to wait for better tides. Only fools—or the fearless—dared to press forward.

Yet through the drifting white maze, two colossal ships carved their path unhindered.

They were the Estate Ships, each a floating fortress several kilometers long. The icebergs that stopped lesser ships shattered beneath their iron-banded hulls like brittle glass. Glaciers cracked, waves rolled back in surrender, and still, the twin giants moved with grim purpose.

There were a hundred smaller vessels, sleek and tightly constructed—Servant Ships, forged from blackened hardwood and enchanted metal rivets.

They had no sails. Instead, a wooden rotor carved in the shape of a bear’s head jutted from their sterns. When the bear would spin, it would churned the sea behind it, driving the ship forward like a swimmer kicking furiously through the waves. These were the ships that would carry the soldiers ashore.

Each Servant Ship hung by thick iron-linked ropes, gently swaying against the sides of the Estate Ships like loyal wolves clinging to a great beast.

It was barely dawn.

A heavy fog blanketed the sea, swallowing light and muffling sound. Yet beneath the stillness came the steady thud of boots—soft, rhythmic, and unbroken.

Asher heard it clearly.

Ten Stormdrakes, armored in their imposing steel, marched in pairs along the upper deck. Though disciplined in step, their eyes couldn’t help but drift to the figure ahead.

There, alone in the morning mist, stood Asher—his white hair falling loosely over his brow, chest bare, skin slick with sweat that steamed in the cold.

He was still training.

For two months straight, the Stormdrakes had seen him in the same place, swinging his sword without pause. The rhythm never changed—vertical slashes, horizontal, then slanted. Over and over again. Day after day, night after night.

He had taken only a single week of rest since the voyage began.

They found it impossible to look away.

He was their lord—unbound by rank, unconstrained by command. He answered to no one. There was no law, no superior, no mandate that demanded this ceaseless training. And yet, he continued.

What was he trying to cut?

The slashes were the same, but each soldier knew—something changed each time. A slight shift in weight. A deeper echo in the wind. A flicker of force that pressed against the air.

They couldn’t explain it, but they could feel it.

Then, without warning, the stillness broke.

A long, deep horn blew from above their ship, its sound echoing across the sea like the cry of some ancient beast. The soldiers stiffened—but before they could speak, a second horn answered.

It came from the fog ahead.

A signal.

From a foe?

Asher’s sword stopped mid-swing. Slowly, he lowered it, his eyes narrowing as he turned to face the fog. His breath came out slow, misting before him. A faint light shimmered along the steel of his blade.

Asher’s eyes sharpened.

In that instant, his gaze cut through the fog like a blade through silk, settling on five ships emerging from the gray veil. Their sails were black, emblazoned with a bleached-white skull—the flag of Everard, the pirate kingdom.

A chorus of movement erupted aboard the enemy fleet. Soldiers scrambled, bows drawn, the glint of fire licking at the tips of their arrows as they prepared to rain down flame.

“A kingdom made of pirates…” Asher muttered, voice cool and composed. “It sounded illogical—yet here it is.”

Behind him, the deck echoed under a rising presence. Aegon marched forward, flanked by dozens of Stormdrakes in silverplate. His golden armor blazed like a second dawn through the morning mist, each step marked by measured strength.

He halted two meters from Asher and bowed low. “My Lord—!”

Thunk.

An arrow whistled from the fog, but Asher’s hand snapped out and caught it mid-flight. The flaming head hissed and sputtered in his grip, its embers dying in the cold air.

He didn’t even glance at it.

“Sink them.”

Aegon bowed deeper and turned on his heel, his white cloak fluttering behind him like a drawn blade. “Prepare the Dragon Head Ballistas!”

The Stormdrakes moved with precision, shields locking overhead as the first wave of flaming arrows descended from the sky. A wall of fire broke against their bulwark, harmless and wasted.

Atop the Estate Ship, heavy wheels groaned as over a dozen Dragon Head Ballistas were pulled into place. Each ballista was a siege weapon in itself—massive wooden frames housing bolts nearly two meters long, their tips etched with runes that shimmered with faint, deadly heat.

The heads of the bolts were sculpted into snarling dragon maws, primed to release torrents of flame upon impact.

“Load!” Aegon roared.

On the enemy ship, Cedric stood tall behind his archers, the wind tossing his crimson coat about like the wings of a hawk. A deep scar carved a brutal path from his brow to his jaw, a testament to countless battles survived. His bare chest bore a forest of old wounds—each one a story, each one a badge of pride.

Yet in that moment, unease slithered into his heart.

“Why haven’t the flames taken?” he growled. “What exactly are we facing?”

Before anyone could answer, the ship to their right shuddered violently.

Crack—WHOOM!

Four bolts—thicker than any Cedric had ever seen—punched clean through the vessel’s hull, shattering timbers like kindling. A heartbeat later, the runes on the bolt heads erupted in blinding fury.

BOOM!

Flames consumed the deck as the ship exploded into a bloom of smoke and splinters, men flung screaming into the icy sea. The shockwave rocked the other vessels, and panic spread like wildfire through the Everard ranks.

Cedric’s eyes widened.

“What in the world is—”

More bolts screamed through the fog, ripping through hulls that had once been the pride of Everard’s fleet. Ships that had weathered countless storms and pirate skirmishes now burst apart like brittle shells. Flaming debris spun through the air. Screams echoed over the water. The sea itself seemed to recoil.

In the span of heartbeats, the proud squadron was reduced to driftwood and ash.

Only one ship remained.

Cedric’s.

His breath caught in his throat as he watched the final vessel beside him erupt into a shower of splinters, a roaring inferno swallowing mast and man alike. Heat licked at his face. The blast trembled beneath his feet. Around him, the crew staggered, pale and shaking, frozen between fight and flight.

Cedric’s pupils quaked.

Then the fog parted.

No—it was torn apart by the shadow that came forth.

A behemoth emerged. Towering. Imposing. It moved through the ice and wreckage like a leviathan made not of flesh, but of wood and iron, a floating fortress that seemed to carry the weight of a kingdom upon its deck.

His head tilted upward, then upward again—until his neck strained and his eyes locked onto the topmost level.

And he saw them.

Dozens of Dragon Head Ballistas, aligned in grim silence, their blazing maws aimed directly at his ship. Each one loaded with bolts too thick for a single man to carry, their runes glowing with a heat that defied the cold sea air.

A single breath escaped his lips.

“…Monsters.”

Not pirates. Not lords.

This was something else entirely.

And in that moment, as the wind blew and silence fell, Cedric felt what few captains of Everard had ever tasted.

Dread.

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