The lion’s mane was a dark banner, soaked with brine and sweat, when the shadow of the sky-reptile fell across him. His broadsword flashed once, twice, and with a roar of effort he hewed the tip from the pterodactyl’s beak. Black ichor fountained, but the wound only enraged the monster. Its talons closed around his torso, crushing his ribs like kindling, and with a wet crack his arm was snapped in three places. Splinters of white bone jutted through skin and fur as he screamed, his blade tumbling from his grasp into the abyss below.
The creature hauled him aloft, wings beating like storm-sails. Half-mad from agony, the barbarian reached up with his good hand, plunging his claws into the wet orb of its eye. With a feral snarl he crushed it to pulp. The pterodactyl shrieked, spasmed, and dipped too low—skimming the steel-dark surface of the sea. In its thrashing, his ruined arm tore loose, flesh and sinew parting with a sickening rip. He fell into the waves howling, the salt water boiling red around him.
But the ocean had its own hungers. From beneath, jaws vast as a canyon clamped down. A mosasaur, titan of the deeps, took both man and beast in its maw. The pterodactyl vanished in a single gulp, while the lion was raked across razored teeth, his legs severed clean at the knees. He burst back to the surface, a wreck of a warrior, bellowing through froth and blood as his own armor dragged him down. A buckle caught on the leviathan’s scale; he was tethered to his devourer, drowning by inches.
Then the sea itself split apart. Tentacles thicker than oak masts coiled upward, latching onto the mosasaur with obscene strength. The deep gave voice to its oldest horror—the kraken had come. Its beak, monstrous and unholy, yawned open wider than a fortress gate. The sea boiled as titan fought titan, and amid the clash of gods the lion was nothing more than garnish.
He managed one last scream, bubbles streaking from his lips, before the tendrils wrapped him in their cold embrace. Armor, flesh, and broken bones alike were rolled into the titanic jaws. A lion, a lizard, and a sky-thing all vanished together into the black maw of the abyss—an offering swallowed whole by the blind hunger of the deep.