As a Rhodes Island Operator, Skadi is famous for writing nothing but 'Complete' on her mission reports. But one night, a song no one else can hear drifts down the ship's corridor.

The moment she catches the scent, Skadi is already running. Specter's bed is empty, and only a necklace lies fallen on the floor. Instead, waiting at the end of the corridor is an old superior she thought was dead.

Without a word of explanation, Gladiia vanishes with Specter, leaving behind only a single place name — Salvientos. Skadi clings to that one name and heads across the sea to Iberia.

1. That's a pretty unmoving reunion after all this time

A Rhodes Island Operator holds up Skadi's mission report, looking ready to cry — from start to finish, it's nothing but the word 'Complete.' Skadi can't be bothered to even care, until her expression suddenly goes rigid.

"I hear singing." A song no one else can hear, apparently. Skadi races down the stairs and throws open the door to Specter's sickroom. The bed is empty — only Specter's necklace lies on the floor.

Chasing the shadow to the end of the corridor, she comes face to face with someone she thought had been dead for years — the 2nd Battalion's captain, Gladiia.

Life is precious. I'm truly glad to see you alive too.

— Gladiia

Gladiia doesn't explain why she's taking Specter. Instead, she leaves behind a single place name and melts into the moonlight outside the window. "Salvientos."

"That's a pretty unmoving reunion." Muttering that to herself, Skadi bolts from the ship with nothing but that one name in hand.

2. The woman already a legend among bounty hunters

Bounty hunters who recognize Skadi in the wasteland come at her for revenge. "If it's true you split fifty mountains with one sword, I'll punch a hole clean through Londinium!" The three bluster and charge in even when Skadi gives them a chance to walk away, and go down for it.

That's how she arrives at the hideout of information broker Jose. Jose is a man who once lost his son Juan because of one of Skadi's missions, and yet he hands over a map to Salvientos without protest.

Don't die there. If you're going to die anyway, shouldn't it be beside someone who knows you?

— Jose

Jose also tosses in a harp and an unfamiliar dress. "From here on, you're a wandering singer." With her real weapon hidden inside a black saxophone case, Skadi slips into the Iberian city.

Meanwhile in Salvientos itself, an unidentified voice is trading words with a bishop in the low dark. "We had a deal." "There was no consent. No deal." The foreshadowing is already growing thick.

3. Thought they were statues — turns out they're all alive

The people of Salvientos stand with their eyes open, utterly motionless. The only thing separating them from statues is that they breathe. Chasing a child who stole a necklace and ran, Skadi meets the one girl she can actually talk to — Anita.

Most of this city's people have no names. Brick got her name because she counts bricks in the street all day; Tin Sheet got his because there's a tin fence in front of his house. Even Anita is a chosen name, borrowed from one of Grandma Petra's old stories.

Anita takes Skadi to see Grandma Petra, said to be the oldest and most knowledgeable person in the city. The old woman drifts constantly between lucidity and madness.

Seawater! Seawater is alive! It surged up all of a sudden, and everyone died!

— Grandma Petra

Whenever her old lover Manuel comes up, the old woman's breath grows short. Anita hurries to change the subject, but Skadi has already caught onto something.

4. A city where someone vanishes every hundred tides

Following Anita around, Skadi learns this city's rule. Every time the tide comes in a hundred times, the adults gather and each draws a seashell from a jar — whoever draws the red shell goes to the sea that night.

The next morning, the beach is heaped with food. The residents call this 'the sea's choice' and are grateful for it, no less.

Witnessing this, young judge Irene rushes in. "This is plainly murder!" But the residents only turn the question back on her.

Let me ask you one thing. That thing you're so intent on protecting — has it ever once included us?

— Grandma Petra

That night, Irene sees through Skadi's disguise and draws her sword. When even that fails to work, the Grand Judge, who had been watching from behind, finally steps in.

The duel ends without a victor, but Skadi's true identity leaks through the whole city. Ægir.

5. Not the time to flee — the time to become bait

That night, a swarm of Seaborn drawn by the scent of Skadi's blood crawls up into the village. The window of Anita's house shatters, and even the judge hiding alongside them runs out of ammunition.

Listen carefully. This has nothing to do with any of you. Because... those things came for me.

— Skadi

Skadi goes out alone to draw the monsters away. The next day, seeing the starving residents scavenging corpse scraps, Judge Irene begins to realize this city can't be resolved with the justice she once knew.

6. The killer who teaches you how to brew seaweed wine

Nursing her wounds, Skadi teaches Anita how to brew seaweed wine and how to work seashells. It's said to be the first time the taciturn woman has ever spoken so much at once.

I... I don't think you've ever said this many words to me all at once before!

— Anita

Anita recovers Skadi's lost harp for her, and even asks her to sing for Grandma Petra. In the end, Skadi does.

For the first time, the eyes of this city's longest-frozen people react to the song. But the moment it ends, the tide rises for the hundredth time again, and the people drift toward the beach as if entranced.

7. The reunited captain, chumming around with a shady cult

Out on the beach, Skadi spots a bishop preaching 'brothers and sisters' to the residents — and Gladiia, standing calmly beside him. They look like they're in league.

First, be clear about what you want. A hunter who's lost her way can't even tell a trap apart.

— Gladiia

Gladiia vanishes without revealing anything in the end. But Skadi's heart, for the first time in a long while, begins beating to a rhythm that is neither fear nor excitement.

"I'm a hunter after all." With that, Skadi forgives herself and throws her body into the night sea, crawling with Seaborn.

8. The bishop who asked for a song turns out to be the one who sent the invitation

The next day, the bishop invites Skadi to the church. The man who'd only asked for a song, no payment offered, actually had another purpose all along. "Someone wants to meet you."

The stairs run all the way beneath the sea. Where Skadi arrives is the Abyssal Hunters' laboratory, whose whereabouts had been a mystery for years.

The bishop reveals that he in fact belongs to the Deep Sea Church, and that Specter was the final specimen from the laboratories Gladiia had been destroying all along.

9. A voice that calls her sister

At the bishop's call, an unidentified Sea-touched appears and stabs Gladiia. As if she'd expected it, Gladiia doesn't dodge.

The Sea-touched calls Skadi 'Isha-mla, my sister.' It says the Seaborn, and the Sea-touched too, are ultimately beings who share the same blood as the Abyssal Hunters.

You hunted us, and killed us... when we didn't yet know the world, we killed you too.

— Sea-touched

Skadi even hears that the thing she has spent all this time avenging — the thing she believed killed her family — may in fact have been fellow Ægir all along.

The reason she's told herself all this time shakes to its foundation. She even recalls the moment in that final battle, when she alone survived and cut down that great monster — how it had laid its tentacle upon her body without a single struggle. For a while, Skadi can't say anything at all.

It's Specter, breaking out of the tank and walking free, who breaks that silence. "Could you please stop embarrassing me any further?"

10. When the three gather, the prey has nowhere left to run

Even as it dies in the duel against Gladiia, the Sea-touched speaks to Skadi to the very last.

Isha-mla. Live on. Next time, another of our blood will come to find you... and ask.

— Sea-touched

Meanwhile, the bishop swells his own body, evolving into a massive tentacled monster.

Skadi, Gladiia, and Specter cut across the crumbling church together, driving the monster back.

This blade is for my family, my friends — the ones you killed. Whether at sea or on land, it makes no difference. Die, you fool.

— Skadi

The monster dies like that. But the curse the bishop spits out with his last breath is one no one will forget easily.

11. Meanwhile, the young judge finds her own answer for the first time

While the fight against the monster rages, Judge Irene is waging an entirely different battle before the Grand Judge. She wants the residents evacuated before the crumbling Salvientos is blown up.

A ruling to save monsters is a ruling to kill people! Do you have the nerve for that?

— Grand Judge

Irene answers. "I can bear it. If I'm wrong, I'll accept the punishment." With that single answer, the Grand Judge entrusts the ruling to her.

When the earthquake begins, Irene forcibly drags the residents out. She takes falling pieces of collapsing roof in their place, yet answers Grandma Petra's thanks with nothing but a curt reply.

Epilogue. A song as a promise to sing again

Outside the collapsing cavern, the swarm of Seaborn gathers again. What appears then, unexpectedly, is Rhodes Island's Kal'tsit.

Everyone runs into things they can't handle alone. But not being able to solve something doesn't mean it can't be overcome.

— Kal'tsit

Before the Grand Judge, Kal'tsit lets slip that the Deep Sea Church has already taken root throughout Iberia — and that Iberia, as it stands now, could actually rebuild from these ruins.

I can't believe that.

— Grand Judge

I'm not trying to make you believe it. I just want you to know.

— Kal'tsit

In the end, Kal'tsit offers to stand for Iberia's interrogation in place of all three hunters. That's how Skadi, Gladiia, and Specter earn their freedom to return to Rhodes Island.

Before leaving, Skadi hands Anita the harp. "Next time we meet outside, I'll sing for you." She and Judge Irene also part on something like reconciliation, if not quite.

You're a threat. But does that make you an enemy? Still, you protected this place... even if only for a while. You did better than I did.

— Judge Irene

As long as we're still chasing the same outcome, we'll cross paths again someday.

— Judge Irene

Meanwhile, left alone, Gladiia faces her own reflection in the mirror. Inside her body, too, something else is slowly growing.

She tells herself the responsibility of protecting Ægir now falls to her. She murmurs of a golden ship, a key, and a volcano yet to be released — a quiet preview for the next story.

This story, begun with a single song, ends leaving behind not an answer, but one heavier question. Still, Skadi has decided not to run from that question anymore. Whatever she is, she'll keep carrying her sword all the same.