As high as you currently are, the beast is still several times higher and should easily be a perfect target.

You concentrate and as you do you begin to feel little charges and sparks around you and the air begins to have a faint smell of electricity. As dark as the sky is with the beast blocking the sun with its size, the sky gets even darker when storm cloud gather.

You directly unleash a blast of lightning right at one of the creature's heads. It must be enough to addle what passes for brains in the creature, because the serpentine head begins to flail back and forth making an incredibly loud bellow and knocking into the other head and taking it off its concentrated effort to destroy your fleet. Then a rumbling comes from the sky and you're nearly blinded by the light show that occurs next.

With the storm clouds, the creature takes several lightning strikes to both of its heads. If the creature wasn't in pain or addled before, it certainly is now. Its roaring of pain is so great that it's practically deafening. You don't let up though, you continue to summon the lightning and that's when you learn that you only have so much control over nature. The lightning strikes begin going all over the place. Some hit your ships, so hit the water and some continue to hit the beast.

You struggle to direct the lightning, but your energy ebbs quickly as you fail to do so and you take a direct bolt yourself. It's a quick and odd feeling. You feel a great deal of pain, followed by a warm sensation and then you briefly realize you've fallen from the crow's nest, which was completely destroyed by the blast.

You then feel extreme agony when you not only crash onto the deck of the ship, but also through it. You land on some barrels though all you know is when you land you heard a snap and a numbness wash over your body.

And that's when you know; you're paralyzed from the neck down.

You hear the sounds of battle continue all around you, some of the crew that were manning the cannons on the lower deck call for help when they see you, but there's nothing anyone can do to help you. Everything's blurry, you've probably got a concussion, and death has never been so close to you since you fought the Emperor.

You're going to fall asleep and your body will sink under the water when the ship is inevitably destroyed. There the fish will eat you or possibly the creatures you're fighting will eat you. Its possible Crowley might step up and take command of the Empire, but after him? You don't see it lasting very long. Your own legacy will eventually be forgotten and that will be the story of you.

That is if you had any intention on dying today.

"Get away from me and get back to fighting, you're not done yet!" You weakly command the crewmembers that are standing around gawking at you.

You remember the lessons the Emperor taught you about healing yourself. At this point you're in dire need of A LOT of healing and you imagine you'll easily be shortening your life span quite a bit in the process, but then you aren't supposed to be alive right now anyway.

You focus again. You will your body to mend itself together. In your weakened state you're drifting in and out of consciousness already, but somehow you manage to push through it and feel the magic doing its work.

You start to feel your body again. You're wracked with pain, but you can feel again. You try to get up, but you're still just too weak and drained. You see a fishman coming down the ship's stairway and alert your crew with a shout. The last thing you see is the thing coming at you before you pass out.

"Lover? Have you finally come to join me?" you hear a voice ask.
"Huh? Who is that?"
"It's me, of course."

You open your eyes and see Semra hovering over you. She looks exactly like you remember well except she happens to be completely naked right now. (Though you remember that too)

"Shit, I'm dead after all." You say. "And given that you're here I must be in some sort of hell."
"Ah, I missed that dry sense of humor. I also missed this." Semra remarks and you feel a hand on your crotch.

Normally you'd probably push her away, but given everything you just went through you figure that if this is your personal hell, you could certainly do worse. Just as you're about to give in completely, Semra's head is cleaved in with a single sword blow. Blood splatters all over you and her body slumps lifelessly onto your own.

"Is this what you fucking want? I thought you were stronger than that! The man I married never gave up!" another familiar voice says.

After pushing Semra's dead body off of you, you look up and see Alison in all her warrior maiden glory. You never thought you'd ever see her again though you wish she were in a happier mood.

"Alison I…"
"Nope, don't even try to make an excuse! I caught you and you're not getting off that easy. I'm doing this for your own good!"

You see Alison's sword coming straight at your head, but you don't attempt to dodge, instead you sit up to meet the sword half way…

And you wake up with a splitting headache and your body still hurting all over.

"Hah, told you he was going to wake up. He's not called an Eternal for no reason you know. You owe me two gold pieces Sprog!" Len exclaims.
"Sprog owes you what?"
"Erm, nevermind. Welcome back to the living Emperor. Everyone wasn't sure if you were going to make it or not, but I had a feeling you might."
"Bah, should've died. Was a glorious battle. Be great honor to die in such a battle." Sprog remarks.
"Oh really? Then why didn't you make more of an effort to die then?" Len asks.
"Sprog still need to produce more children first, now more than ever since three sons died on other ships. Must ensure legacy!" Sprog says and walks away.

You look around and find yourself still on the lower deck of your personal ship. You guess that nobody wanted to move you for fear of doing more damage to you body. It's a mess on the lower deck and there's still a hole from where you crashed through, but obviously the ship survived the battle. As you sit up, you nearly lay back down due to the pain. A volley of expletives soon follows.

"Easy there! While I know you just survived something no man should have, I'm pretty sure taking a direct hit from a lightning bolt and crashing through the deck of a ship from a great height still has to be painful. In fact its odd, but you even look a little older because of the experience."

"You have no idea…" you remark.
"Insisting on fighting that beast had to be the single most insane things I've ever seen, but while I was personally afraid I can't help but admire it. Despite him believing you were going to die, I know Sprog certainly admired it." Len says.
"He probably hoped I was going to die. Still glad to see he's honorable enough that he didn't try to take advantage and kill me while I was unconscious though. Glad to see you didn't either."
"I was a smuggler, not a murderer. Besides I don't think anything I could do would actually kill you anyway after seeing what you just survived."
"So did we win? I can only assume us still being afloat means we won…unless we've retreated…"

Len gives an apprehensive look before answering.

"Well…yes and no. Technically we won, though I'm not sure if we actually killed that sea monster. After you crashed through the deck of the ship, the fishmen continued to scale the ship, but the sea monster continued to be hit by lightning. It eventually sank back beneath the waters, but like I said, I dunno if we killed it or it just swam away. Soon after that happened the fishmen stopped attacking too."
"But?"
"But, other than this ship and a couple of others straggling along side us your fleet is gone, along with all of your people aboard them. We had patch up several holes they managed to put in this ship and we're only sailing at half speed due to all the broken masts, but we'll make it back to Nalin okay barring any other attacks of course."

You curse again, but this time it's more at yourself rather than the pain you're in. You wasted a lot of troops and resources on this endeavor for no real prize. You didn't even acquire any new territory. You think back to Trog's words again about getting old and knowing your limitations, well you certainly learned that lesson today hard.

"Well I suppose it isn't all bad, you did teach those fish creatures that you're not to be trifled with. It was like a battle between gods when you unleashed lightning on that beast's heads. They might think twice about popping up on your shores now." Len says in an attempt to cheer you up.
"We can only hope I suppose." You answer.

The first thing you do when you get back home is try to rest. You do so for as much as you're able for weeks and while you do eventually recover, you're never quite the same again. You've visibly gotten older due to the healing magic and it only did so much, you're still experiencing dull aches and pains on a daily basis. Worse than you did before you went on the mission. You'll never be like you were. Those days are long gone.

On the bright side, there have been no more sightings of fish people on the coasts, so perhaps your venture was fruitful after all, unless they're biding their time and trying to regroup which is exactly what you'd do, so naturally you've ordered the building of a new fleet along with proper naval training for potential sailors.

Of course if the fishy people are no longer a threat that still means Trog's vision of a relentless enemy still looms. Which means it's either the Xi Hive or an as of yet unknown enemy.

More things to look forward to as you approach your twilight years.

You jennifer's visit (A friendly face for once)

"I told you I don't want any visitors and I'm not dealing with anything today, I'm resting!" you tell David as you wince from the aches all over your body.
"I know, but under the circumstances, I thought you might make an exception for this person. It's Jennifer Mol, my Emperor."
"Really? Well what does she want?" you ask.
"I think she heard what happened and just wants to see you."

Despite your pain, you suppose you can spare the time for Jennifer.

"Alright send her in."

You take a seat and mumble about the sharp pain in your back when Jennifer enters your room. She notices your discomfort immediately and walks briskly towards you.

"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Not really, but there's nothing you can do. Don't worry about it. Good to see you."
"I had to come to see if you were as wounded as I had heard. I also heard that you had a great battle with a sea monster?"
"Well, I did have a battle with a sea monster and I also managed to paralyze myself in the process, fortunately magic has its advantages." You say.
"Paralyze?!"
"Yes, but as I said magic has its benefits. Look, its all been taken care of. I'll just have to put up with a few more aches and pains now, but I'm alive and still functional and that's the important thing."
"I suppose so. I'm guessing you succeeded against those fish people then?"
"Well there haven't been any more sightings, so I certainly hope that's the case. I regret to inform you that Delerg no longer exists in any form though, its nothing but water now. I remember you once expressed a desire to explore the islands at one time." You say.
"Oh yes, I did. I sort of gave up on that idea though when I realized it wasn't possible. Sometimes you just realize those sorts of things you know?"

Jennifer says that like she's talking about something more than just Delerg. Like your former relationship.

"Heh, but then of course in your case I suppose everything is possible for you." Jennifer adds.
"Not getting severely injured seems to still elude me as well as getting old…bah I don't want to dwell on this shit anymore. Tell me about what you've been up to."

"Oh! Well nothing important, I mean certainly nothing as exciting as protecting the Empire from external threats." Jennifer remarks.
"Doesn't matter. It's important to me, I'm genuinely interested." You say.

This comment garners a smile from Jennifer who begins to tell you what has been going on in her life. The big thing she mentions is the book she's working on. She hasn't thought of a title for it yet, but it's going to be all about the old Empire or at least from what she's pieced together from what she's found and from what you've told her.

While she's explaining the process, you notice a male name keeps popping up when she discusses having another person helping her put it together. You can't help but wonder…

"So your partner, is this the one?" you ask.
"One?"
"Your new boyfriend of course. I might not be an expert on these matters, but I do notice a bit of extra excitement when you speak his name and how much he's supported and helped in putting together the book."

Jennifer doesn't know how to react; you reassure her that she's done nothing wrong.

"Jennifer, what we had ended amicably and years ago, I certainly didn't expect you to continue your life alone. I'm certainly not uncomfortable or going to be angry about it."
"Okay." Jennifer says as if a weight has lifted off of her.
"So anyone I know? Tell me about him." you ask.

Jennifer says, that he isn't anyone you would know. He's a historian that started working at the museum about a year ago, but that they got along almost immediately. She says that they are already talking about getting married and maybe starting a family. You are a little surprised by that news, but not displeased. You're glad she found someone that's probably a little more "stable."

Still, when she explains all this, you can sense almost an apologetic tone at times. Like she feels in some way that she's betrayed you even though logic dictates otherwise and you've even said as much.

"Well that sounds very good, I'm glad life is working out for you and you're doing well. And if you need more information for your book you're free to ask me at anytime…well assuming I'm not fighting any more sea monsters or whatever else the world decides to throw at me."
"Ha ha, If I need more information I will certainly ask you. Well…I guess I better leave you to your rest. I know you've got an Empire to run and you need all your strength for that."

Jennifer starts to leave, but turns around.

"I just want to say I will always be a loyal citizen to you and the Empire. I have always believed in you and appreciate how you ascended this nation to greatness. Maybe people tell you these things all the time, but I want to reinforce the fact that I respect and appreciate the sacrifices you make to protect us all."

You certainly weren't expecting all that.

"Well I thank you very much Jennifer. I never doubted your loyalty for a second, you didn't need to tell me." You reply.

Jennifer smiles again, but her eyes look slightly watery like she's going to cry.

"I…know. I just wanted to say it to you." She remarks and then nods silently and walks out of your room, leaving you alone.

You get out of the chair you were sitting in slowly and make your way to the bed ignoring all the pains the whole time. When you finally get horizontal you actually feel a little relief.

"Ah…better." You say as the pain in your back lessens. "She'll get over those lingering feelings eventually. Everything fades in time."

You say that, knowing that isn't necessarily true when you begin thinking about Alison as you drift off to sleep.