With the inhabitants of the island apparently crumbled into dust, the driving emotion for the fleeing passengers settled on fear. Even the animals were frantically running out to sea, trying to reach the retreating ships before their home disappeared into the depths. Once the air became completely filled with dust, however, the chaos dulled. Sound of new strikes against the land remained suspiciously absent, and even the noise of crashing waves fell to a dead silence without delay. The situation resembled something out of a story book: an island disappears into the abyss while be covered by insurmountable layers of dust. Unlike that fable, though, this island wasn't the only thing that disappeared in the eye of the storm.
"Captain! We have a problem!" A man on the bow of one of the ships shouted loudly once the island's noisy destruction paused. He had noticed the phenomenon that was becoming blatantly obvious at this point, and had felt the need to give it voice. "The ships aren't moving! We're stuck!"
Sure enough, reality had frozen within the immediate area once the explosions ceased. Large waves that had risen up from the tendril attacks simply stuck in midair like static edifices. Even the wind was stagnant to the point where Katerina and her flock became trapped in a dead sea.
"Everything is stopped," remarked the cat demoness from before, "but why are we immune?" Thus far, the Masked Stranger had been absent, but that changed the moment Kathrine opened her mouth. The shadow of a winged, fox humanoid appeared on the deck of Katerina's ship, and Kathrine called attention to the source by pointing upward."Above us!" Staggered screams echoed into the frozen landscape as the passengers looked up one by one. The Masked Stranger was already charging up some sort of attack in preparation to strike the ships, and she unleashed it as soon as Katerina looked up. All vessels in the immediate area were hit by invisible tendrils within moments of that action, and the sickening death knell of splintering wood roared out into the brine.
But one curiosity remained in the seemingly inevitable catastrophe. None of the women, men, or animals in the eastern sea were harmed during the sudden assault. In fact, before the attack hit, all living creatures in the area were temporarily locked out of their consciousness and transported to a shore near Adeluna. They would wake up in a few minutes, delirious but very much alive. And in the aftermath of this strange occurrence, only Natsumi's distant scream of regret would be left to fill the still, blue waters of the Nyella Ocean.
Meanwhile, in a distant sea…
"Keep paddling lads! He's right on us!"
"Get back here, laddies! Uncle Jack's got a surprise for ya!"
A group of pirates had been lucky enough to have escaped the island before its collapse, but Jack had recently ended their luck. By the time the destructive event caused by Natsumi's ascension took place, the dragon and his food were miles away. Jack, himself, was taking great joy in freezing the butts off of the last remaining scallywags who were already scared shitless from near annihilation. Somehow, they had thus far evaded certain death, and were rowing in a dingy hard enough to just barely outrun a dragon – something that should have been well beyond their capabilities. The survival of these three men would be a long chase across the oceans to come, if they even survived at all of course.
