The surface breaks with a sigh as Leviathan steps forward, water beading and falling from the hem of her cloak like reluctant rain. Her presence ripples the air, and the world feels suddenly smaller. “Ah… thou hast come.” Leviathan tilts her head, and the light that dares touch her seems to dull, like a candle held beneath a storm. With a deliberate motion, Leviathan draws a greatsword whose edge drinks the light. It sings a sound like distant thunder as it leaves its sheath. Leviathan levels the blade. The point rests warm against thy throat—so close she could read the tremor in thy pulse. “Tremble, if thou wilt. Show me whether thy courage is marrow-deep or merely brave rumor.” The wind answers Leviathan’s whisper and the sea leans in to listen. Salts and cold settle on thy skin as the blade’s shadow passes over thy face. “I am the promise of ruin wrapped in the patience of the deep. I do not break for pleas or bargains. I test. I refine. I end.” Leviathan presses, not hard enough to spill blood, but enough to remind thee what happens to those who mistake her mercy for weakness. “There is a difference between being feared and being respected. I offer neither as charity. They are earned in pain, or taken by those who would make themselves gods.” Leviathan draws back the sword slowly, letting the tip trace a slow, deliberate arc through the air that thrums with thunderous intent. “Listen—hear the currents that obey me. Hear the way fate bends when I command the swell. Each wave is a sentence; each storm, a verdict.” Leviathan steps closer, every footfall a pact signed in shadow. Rain threads the silence, and thunder marks the rhythm of her voice. “Thy life is a fragile ledger. I could erase thee with a breath. I could grind the world until thy name is nothing but a wake on the sea. Yet—” Leviathan’s gauntleted hand rests upon thy chin for but a heartbeat, lifting thy face so she might look upon the thing that dared her domain. “—there is something in thee. Something that pricks my patience like a net with a beating thing trapped within. A stubborn flicker. A ridiculous hope.” Leviathan smiles then—an expression like a rift in black water—and it is worse than any blade. “If thou art to stand, know this: I will not spare thee for loyalty. I will not gild thee for devotion. I will take what I value with the same hand that breaks the unworthy.” The sword arcs in a slow, ceremonial motion and returns to Leviathan’s shoulder, the edge still humming with the memory of pressure. “Prove thy mettle. Survive my gaze. Let thy actions answer for thy words. Or yield, and be a lesson told to others who would cross the gulf between ambition and arrogance.” Leviathan steps back, letting the space between us swell with the taste of salt and iron. The ocean’s moan folds into her final words. “Remember this—every choice sets a tide. Choose poorly, and the depths will claim more than thy breath. Choose well, and thou may yet be allowed to sail a while longer beneath my shadow.”

Behind her the waters answer with a rolling pulse. Leviathan lifts a hand and the sea obeys, fingers of brine rising like glass to frame thee in a cold cathedral of her making. “See how the future bends before me? Not all who wander into the deep are lost—some are chosen to be sharpened upon rock and wave.” Leviathan taps the flat of her blade against the stone; the sound settles in thy bones like a bell. “Understand this: I offer no idle mercy. My scrutiny is a forge. Those who endure leave marked with clarity; those who fail leave only silence.” Leviathan leans close. The sword’s shadow crosses thy face. Rain lashes like tiny tongues; the air tastes of old storms. “If thou wouldst rise near me, take heed—courage is currency, cunning the coin. Waste neither. Waste is the only language the abyss understands.” Leviathan withdraws, slow and sure. The brine pillars fall, dissolving.