Stultifera Navis Story Summary - Arknights

There used to be lighthouses along the Iberian coast. Once numbering in the dozens, nearly all of them collapsed after the catastrophe called the Hush — now, only one remains.

Beneath that last lighthouse lies a small village called Granfaro. The Inquisition forgot this village, and Ægir people are still hunted here for the simple crime of being 'islanders.'

Are you on this side of the wall, or beyond the forest? A strange exchange between Kal'tsit and an old man at a worn well.

Jordi, an Ægir youth raised in Granfaro, has spent his days as a chapel caretaker without ever knowing why his parents vanished beneath that lighthouse.

Kal'tsit of Rhodes Island has watched over this village for a long time, believing that the last chance to reconcile Iberia with Ægir across the sea is hidden in this quiet town.

1. A Suspicious Visitor Who Won't Leave the Chapel

Granfaro's one and only main street. The day a rock band walked into town.

Tiago, the village elder who raised Jordi like a father, always warns him to be wary of the sea. Then a self-proclaimed handsome Iberian, Elysium, shows up at the chapel and simply refuses to leave.

Claiming to belong to Rhodes Island, he says he's waiting for someone but won't reveal who. Jordi finds him strange, and even a little enviable.

Elysium keeps bragging that he's the most handsome man in Iberia. Every time Jordi looks at him, a laugh slips out before he can stop it.

Then one day, a dead Sea Terror turns up in the village square — a sign that this long-quiet coast is stirring again.

Old fisherman Pedri had actually been talking about 'sea monsters' for years. Everyone used to write it off as drunken rambling, but this time, no one laughs.

2. Alive Until Sunset and the Abyssal Hunters

As it turns out, followers of the Deep Sea Church were already living hidden in the village, moving quietly to avoid the Inquisition's eyes, waiting for the day they could reclaim the lighthouse.

Kal'tsit arrives, and one by one the rock band Alive Until Sunset — Alti, Aya, Frost, Dan — and the Ægir scouting unit Abyssal Hunters — Skadi, Gladiia, Specter — gather in Granfaro.

Elysium turns out to have been Rhodes Island's eyes and ears, watching this village on Kal'tsit's behalf. Once the group assembles, he hands out communicators of his own Originium Arts make to the Hunters.

Kal'tsit gets back a key she'd once entrusted to the band long ago — an item left behind by an Ægir engineer named Breogán, though no one can guess what it's for.

Meanwhile, it comes out that Grand Inquisitor Dario and his disciple Irene have also slipped into the village, and in an instant Granfaro becomes a battleground for every faction imaginable.

3. What the Village Elder Was Hiding

The first sea a four- or five-year-old Jordi ever saw was pitch black.

When rumors spread that an Inquisitor has appeared, Tiago tries to send Jordi away. In doing so, he finally tells the truth — Jordi's parents disappeared trying to revive this lighthouse, and Granfaro once nearly became a fortress for rebuilding Iberia.

But Jordi refuses to leave. Standing before the black sea he's seeing for the first time in his life, he says he wants to see his parents' place with his own hands.

Old blueprints and photographs his parents left behind still sit piled up in Jordi's house. Not fully understanding their meaning, he had always thought of them as nothing more than old belongings.

Granfaro, it turns out, was a dream half a century ago — laborers who wanted to build a coastal defense line against the Catastrophe. Jordi's grandparents and parents, two generations, left for the lighthouse chasing that dream and never came back.

In truth, ever since the Inquisition took his lover Marin, Tiago had known about the Deep Sea Church followers and turned a blind eye. That silence is now driving the whole village to the edge of a cliff.

4. The Inquisition's Lantern Burns the Village

Grand Inquisitor Carmen lands and begins mercilessly cutting down the Deep Sea Church followers. Kal'tsit joins hands with Carmen, asking for a path opened to the lighthouse in exchange for the Hunters' strength in cleaning up the village.

Terrified of being branded heretics, some villagers start informing on each other. Even those who were neither Inquisition nor cultist get shaken loose in the panic.

Because he might be a descendant of Breogán, Jordi is spared execution and instead put on the Inquisition's expedition. Meanwhile, the unconscious Tiago, attacked by cultists, is slowly turning into a monster.

By the time Carmen arrives, it's already too late. The dying Tiago asks only for the truth about Marin, the Ægir woman the Inquisition killed, and dies before he even hears the full answer.

Only then does Carmen tell the truth. Sixty years ago, half of the Ægir people captured in Granfaro really were cultists — and their leader was 'Marin' herself. Jordi has no words left.

5. The Boy Who Became the Lighthouse Keeper

The Eye of Iberia, revealed through the sea mist. For most of them, it's the first time seeing it in sixty years.

Dario, Irene, and Jordi land at the lighthouse, now a Sea Terror den. With nothing but an old blueprint his parents left behind, Jordi starts bringing the control room back to life.

Jordi keeps telling himself he's just an ordinary caretaker, but his hands never stop. Piece by piece, he revives the lighthouse's heart.

Dario guards the door alone, without a single subordinate, buying the two of them time. By the moment the lantern lights again, he has already spent his very last strength.

You must die so humanity may live. This isn't our law or our scripture — it's the 'survival of the fittest' you people speak of.
— Grand Inquisitor Dario

By the time Carmen arrived, Dario had already breathed his last, but the lantern was still burning.

Thanks to the signal Jordi revived, the location of the Iberian flagship Stultifera Navis, missing for sixty years, is finally revealed. Carmen quietly tells herself that the lantern her disciple's mentor protected was not lit in vain.

6. The Ship That Never Sank in Sixty Years

Far off, a golden ship no one had ever searched for floats alone.

The Abyssal Hunters and Irene board the Stultifera Navis. The ship is strangely spotless, and piano music drifts through corridors that should hold no one.

The ship's owner is still alive — Captain Alfonso, who insists he's still human even as he turns Seaborn, and his lover Garcia, who can no longer speak properly.

When the bell rings, the hunt begins. Alfonso has guarded this ship this way for sixty years.

For sixty years, Alfonso has called this golden hall 'Iberia' every single day and stared into a mirror. His days were a repeating cycle: hunt, then return to the mirror.

He once dreamed, together with Garcia, watching children on the Iberian coast — a dream where he said 'these children are our future.' Now it visits him only rarely.

Garcia, who has already lost her voice, writes with Sea Terror blood to talk with Alfonso. Even that is a conversation running out of time.

But the moment Alfonso lays eyes on Skadi, there's something else on his mind. "They called you Isha-mla." No one explains what that name means.

If you really did come from the old Iberia, tell me who's the pontiff of the state church now. Carmen? ...Ha, a saint. Isn't he ashamed at all?
— Captain Alfonso

7. The Faces Met at the Bottom of the Ship

Deep in the ship's hold, Gladiia comes face to face with someone unexpected — Ulpianus, the Fourth Captain of the Abyssal Hunters long believed missing.

Ulpianus says that at the very depths of that den, he saw something he can only call a 'building.' The rest of the First and Fourth Battalion members who went with him all died on the spot; only he survived, hiding inside the body of something dead and enormous.

Since then, he's left the unit to search alone for a different answer. Now he lets slip an ominous guess about Skadi's true nature as well.

So it really was you. Gladiia levels her spear at her old comrade-in-arms.

"If something goes wrong, we have to kill Skadi." Ulpianus says it flatly. Gladiia doesn't want to believe it, but she can't find grounds to refute it either.

Meanwhile, also aboard the ship — the one behind selling Jordi out to the Inquisition, Amaia, who'd been posing as a translator — had already arrived first. She's known Specter for a long time.

8. When a Sleeping Name Comes Back

A last dance with Amaia. Specter, who kept telling her to focus on the steps, suddenly raises her weapon.

Specter buys time dancing with Amaia, step by step recovering old memories of wanting to be a sculptor — a broken white statue, and even the unfamiliar gesture of 'prayer' she once made before it.

Amaia reveals a cruel truth: the Seaborn blood in Specter's body has actually been holding back an Originium sickness that was slowly consuming her.

But sensing danger, Amaia flees, leaving Irene — whom she'd captured in Jordi's place — in the care of a Seaborn she's tamed.

Devour me. The Seaborn kneels at Amaia's feet.

Sacrifice isn't sacred. Devotion isn't a virtue. Life is never disorder — that's the last answer I tried to find in the sea.
— Amaia

Leaving only those words, Amaia vanishes along with the Seaborn who follows her.

9. Those Who Wouldn't Abandon Ship

The ship begins collapsing uncontrollably. Alfonso makes his final stand, staking his life against the very Seaborn he's hunted for sixty years.

In the chaos, Garcia — saying she'll die human at least in her final moment — embraces that Seaborn and sinks into the deep sea. "I will die fighting as an Iberian." Those words become her last.

Go, I'll stay here. This is my Iberia. I can't betray my own ship.
— Captain Alfonso

Alfonso sits on his throne and closes his eyes. Recalling his homeland's sunlight, the warmth of Garcia's hand, the laughter of old friends one last time, he takes his own life with a rusted blade.

10. A Sinking Ship, a Name With No Answer

The golden ship sinks after nearly a century of silence.

As it turns out, Jordi had shaken off Kal'tsit's warnings and taken an old boat out to sea alone. When the Sea Terrors swarmed in, he relied on nothing but the lighthouse's guardian Mon3tr, pushing forward on a course full of errors.

Thanks to the small boat Jordi brought, only Irene is barely rescued. Irene also learns that the Stultifera Navis has actually been circling for sixty years directly above an Ægir refugee city.

In truth, ever since the moment Alfonso first spoke that name, Skadi has been forcing herself to stay calm. She'd already guessed the answer herself, but couldn't bring herself to say it out loud.

The Seaborn chasing the ship to the very end asks Skadi one last thing as it dies — whether she isn't the very being they call 'Isha-mla.'

Skadi says no. But the hand rubbing the back of her neck won't stop trembling.

Uimani will be eternal.
— Seaborn

Afterward

Come on up! Irene grabs the hand Jordi holds out.

The Inquisition's tents go up in Granfaro. Irene steps down from her post as Inquisitor, while Jordi agonizes over whether to become 'the first Ægir to join the Inquisition.'

Only victims are said to deserve to be called 'great.' But if it's a person's will that can light this lantern, then I don't think we're so different after all.
— Irene

Elysium decides to stay with Rhodes Island, while the Abyssal Hunters set off again, without so much as a ship, to find a way back to Ægir. Ulpianus is still out there alone, chasing a different answer.

Kal'tsit tells Gladiia one last thing — that the sea has already become as important a problem as Originium itself, and there's no more time to waste.

From beneath the sinking ship, a single beam of light spilled out. Irene never manages to ask what it was.

The lighthouse burns bright again after all this time. But no one yet fully knows the answer that light points to — not Skadi, not Jordi, and not whatever it is beneath the sea that still keeps calling that name.