"It is time..."
"...!" Cici didn't reply to her husband's sudden exclamation echoing in her mind. Instead, her eyes lit up in a golden light, making her shop, with all of her books, disappear from the city in a flash. By the time she reappeared, right on the top of the dragon's head, warning bells were chiming throughout the floating island.
Because Lucian was away, there was nobody who knew what was happening, but then, one by one, people were being teleported off the island, reappearing on the ground, filling up a vast and empty field.
"How long?" Cici asked, sitting on Albert while Hajna's original, golden disk was next to her.
"Ten minutes... at most. With the addition of the lost city, there are more people to send away." The old dragon replied, stretching his wings and legs like a strange cat, "It is time... Oh, how long I have been waiting for this! It seems Erias managed to do it, ahaha! It is now or never! Get ready; the moment the island is gone, it will be such a firework that no living or dead has ever seen before!"
It wasn't just them who were noticing the change. On the eastern front, where Lucian was in multiple days long battle, he suddenly heard a chime in his ear, a simple notice swimming through his mind, thanking him for being the Headmaster and relieving him from his duty. At any other time, he would be confused, stressed even... but now? It all made sense. The Undead were frantic because something was happening on their end... and it seemed the final piece had fallen into place just right now. From what Somia disclosed or avoided stating to him when pressured, it wasn't hard to make Lucian realize the Institute was more than a place to raise young talents.
...
....
......
"How's the old fucker?! Can you still hold out?!" Erias asked hurriedly, and by now, the place they were in was shaking as if an earthquake had struck. It was not only their layer that was rumbling but every other in existence.
"Just... focus!" Somia replied with two pained grunts as Lumamon was in the process of lifting and uprooting the tree that was his own creation. It did not simply house all the layers of the Soulbound Sect, but it was what connected them to No-Space. He was ready to break it open by force, and Somia couldn't contain him much longer.
"It is enough; the formation has powered up! The transfer is happening, even if that fucker tries to stand in its way! Run and don't look back!"
The moment he said that three people appeared from nowhere: Che, Kyaranin, and Laupa. They had no real chance to see and understand what was happening as Erias attacked them without holding back. A sea of dark, almost black flames surrounded the three while beams of golden light shot out from within, attacking them randomly, aiming without rhyme or reason, making it hard for them to calculate their trajectory, dodge, and counterattack.
"Hm?!"
Getting caught off-guard, Laupa failed to notice in time that something cold touched his leg when getting out of the way of Erias's attack. Looking down, he saw that his right leg was encased in ice, slowly creeping up, and it was hurting his soul, wanting to freeze and destroy it. The momentarily pause it caused made it so he could not dodge Erias, who noticed the apparent chance and took to it without thinking.
With the speed of light, he appeared before Laupa, punching through his soul with a fist coated in pure light. It shone with such intensity that Laupa failed to see what was happening to his soul, not that he could have done anything about it. Erias was going out with his whole being, abandoning all reason, all defenses, purely focusing on one thing... cut an opening and escape. The light blinding the Supreme Elder soon turned into eternal darkness as Erias tore him into two and burned his soul into nothing, finishing him off, leaving the still reeling Kyaranin and Che behind with one clear shout.
"Run!"
Lia, who was the spark in Laupa's fall, was already speeding towards the opening from where they appeared, flying through it without hesitation, followed by his ancestor.
"This way!" With a wisp of energy, Erias clasped Lia's hand, bringing her along, feeling that Che and Kyaranin were chasing after them.
"Somia?" Lia called out, but there was no answer coming back, and there was no time to worry.
"You won't escape!" Roared Che, his voice echoing far and wide with such a rage boiling within the words that it filled everyone's senses with the smell of blood after hearing it.
"Neither will you... the only difference..." Erias murmured to himself, looking back over his shoulders, "Is that we have our bodies to shield our souls... Get ready, little one... here it comes!"
With a strong pull, he hugged Lia close to his chest, and even though she couldn't see it... she could feel it...
...
....
......
"Trying to run? Ahahaha, I will torture-"
But Lumamon could not say more. Finally, he wrestled the control back from that pesky little whore he was dealing with and stepped through space to appear in the nucleus of his created dimension. It happened just in time to see and perceive the inevitable. All around his world, more than a hundred other, smaller formations were glowing like lights on a Christmas tree, things that were not his. Nor did he ever notice them being laid down. It was like a light show, guiding something... something terrible... straight towards him.
"Wha..."
He just couldn't comprehend it. He knew Erias sneaked in, but he wasn't even entertaining the idea that one weak soul could do anything to him or to his creation. What was all this about?
"Tele-" The moment he finally comprehended one of the formations, it was already too late.
The last thing Lumamon saw before everything went bright and dark at the same time was a vast mass of land with multiple satellites orbiting it, filled with empty buildings, mountains, and forests that appeared from nowhere, right in his own creation. Unlike this part of the world, they were material beings... Tangible. Real, through and through.
There were no screams, no shouts, or loud noise of something exploding, not that any soul could hear or pick up on, but it happened almost instantly. The balance of the energies was overturned so quickly and so violently that it tore everything apart. Six of the twelve layers, close to the nucleus of the Institute's arrival, evaporated, and all the souls present in them disintegrated in a flash, sending a shockwave in all directions and initiating a chain reaction.
In under a second, Lumamon's creation was gone and destroyed, and what Erias saw while looking back was how the incoming wave hit Che and Kyaranin, turning their essence into bright specks of dust before it hit him the same.
Unlike the supreme elders, his body was remade and managed to shield his soul enough that he wasn't instantly killed but thrown backward. It wasn't a nice feeling. It was like being rammed by a dragon at full speed, almost knocking him unconscious. Fighting with all his might, he was shielding Lia and kept looking, not wanting to miss the work of his life. It was the most glorious thing he had ever seen and the true victory he had fought for thousands of years... it was the destruction that the Undead deserved, and it was he who delivered it to them... even if he died now, he wanted to witness it in its full glory.
...
....
......
On the active, various battlefields, something strange has happened right at the exact moment. All the Undead warriors, especially the weaker bodies, controlled by the unified consciousness of multiple people, stopped moving. It was like they were short-circuited, lost their directions, and some even fell down, motionless. The only ones who remained somewhat unaffected were the Supreme Elders. Still, even their attacks lost their edge as they switched to backing off, feeling dread rising from within their souls. Something happened, something horrible, and they were the first to feel its effects. Their souls were, even if they didn't know, connected to their Sect Master and his created refuge. Whatever happened to it affected all of them.
"What... is that?" Razael asked, gasping for air, his golden hair sticking to his body, the same as his brothers, as the three Amarins stood side by side, watching the seven colors of the rainbow flashing in the distance. Their enemy, a Supreme Elder, was in retreat, same as the rest, while the dragons stopped from pursuing, noticing the strangeness of their actions.
"Attack! KILL THEM NOW! AHAHAHAHA!"
It was Arcus's voice that boomed over the battlefield, first to rush forward, roaring and breathing black fire, catching one of the jolted, confused Supreme Elders with it. He rammed its burning carcass with his humongous dragon body amidst his joyous laughter, like an insane god of destruction. When it finally exploded, the soul stuck inside wanted to flee... but there was nowhere to go. His connection to their sanctuary was lost... No-Space was closed off to him; no matter what he tried, he no longer could access it, and what remained for him was a wailing death scream as Arcus's fire consumed him for good.
Whatever happened, the delight and maniac laughter of the ancient dragon was enough to show the defenders that this was something not to be afraid of. It was something to be welcomed. The light show in the distance didn't stop, and soon, it was visible from all over the realm, no matter where one stood.
"No Space has become... unstable..." Lucian murmured, feeling his connection was not just cut off, but his person was being rejected from accessing it. It was even more vital now than when the Undead launched their surprise attack. He felt as if the other side was a rampaging ocean on an apocalyptic level. Whatever happened had to be catastrophic to have this result.
Under Killieth's masterstroke, the tear in the sky, the area turned into something that none of the Soulbound Sect people expected before. From the violent energies shooting down, coming from the heavens, so to speak, all souls present were incinerated. The chaotic energies ripped and tore them apart, destroying them for good, and all those whom they collected and nurtured were now killed in an instant... but it wasn't just them. Anything that remained still alive, be it imprisoned survivors who were being kept living to prolong their bodies' availability or simple animals and beasts, all of those were killed just the same.
When the colorful lights' intensity became unbearable, the literal second wave arrived through it. The explosion that happened so deep, so far away pushed the chaotic energies of the nucleus of Meriath and No-Space into reality, causing an otherworldly tempest to erupt on a world-ending scale.
The shockwave spread through Meriath in the blink of an eye, making every being shudder and tremble. The sun abruptly went out for a brief moment, plunging the world into complete darkness before it blinked back to life, flickering on and off multiple times until it stabilized. But its light didn't remain for long as deep, dark, violet clouds of energy shrouded it from everyone's eyes. What replaced their sky was no longer natural but a mirror image of how No-Space looked like, now taking shape in the material world.
It seemed like the shaking of the people was currently spreading onto inanimate objects, onto the land itself, making Meriath rumble and groan. Earthquakes were happening all over the continent, rivers started flooding, volcanos erupted, and the Realm Gate appeared for everyone to see. Its doors were flung open as if someone just kicked it in, flying off its hinges, and the wave of Cosmic energy flooded in, lighting the sky on fire and sending red lightning strikes everywhere.
"Maybe..." Albert spoke, arriving at the battlefield to join his brethren, with Cici sitting on his head, "It was not that good of an idea to add another chunk of floating rock to it..."
"Yeah..." His wife gulped, looking at the sky of violet and crimson, hearing its rumbles inside her soul, "Maybe it was not..."
"It is time..."
"...!" Cici didn't reply to her husband's sudden exclamation echoing in her mind. Instead, her eyes lit up in a golden light, making her shop, with all of her books, disappear from the city in a flash. By the time she reappeared, right on the top of the dragon's head, warning bells were chiming throughout the floating island.
Because Lucian was away, there was nobody who knew what was happening, but then, one by one, people were being teleported off the island, reappearing on the ground, filling up a vast and empty field.
"How long?" Cici asked, sitting on Albert while Hajna's original, golden disk was next to her.
"Ten minutes... at most. With the addition of the lost city, there are more people to send away." The old dragon replied, stretching his wings and legs like a strange cat, "It is time... Oh, how long I have been waiting for this! It seems Erias managed to do it, ahaha! It is now or never! Get ready; the moment the island is gone, it will be such a firework that no living or dead has ever seen before!"
It wasn't just them who were noticing the change. On the eastern front, where Lucian was in multiple days long battle, he suddenly heard a chime in his ear, a simple notice swimming through his mind, thanking him for being the Headmaster and relieving him from his duty. At any other time, he would be confused, stressed even... but now? It all made sense. The Undead were frantic because something was happening on their end... and it seemed the final piece had fallen into place just right now. From what Somia disclosed or avoided stating to him when pressured, it wasn't hard to make Lucian realize the Institute was more than a place to raise young talents.
...
....
......
"How's the old fucker?! Can you still hold out?!" Erias asked hurriedly, and by now, the place they were in was shaking as if an earthquake had struck. It was not only their layer that was rumbling but every other in existence.
"Just... focus!" Somia replied with two pained grunts as Lumamon was in the process of lifting and uprooting the tree that was his own creation. It did not simply house all the layers of the Soulbound Sect, but it was what connected them to No-Space. He was ready to break it open by force, and Somia couldn't contain him much longer.
"It is enough; the formation has powered up! The transfer is happening, even if that fucker tries to stand in its way! Run and don't look back!"
The moment he said that three people appeared from nowhere: Che, Kyaranin, and Laupa. They had no real chance to see and understand what was happening as Erias attacked them without holding back. A sea of dark, almost black flames surrounded the three while beams of golden light shot out from within, attacking them randomly, aiming without rhyme or reason, making it hard for them to calculate their trajectory, dodge, and counterattack.
"Hm?!"
Getting caught off-guard, Laupa failed to notice in time that something cold touched his leg when getting out of the way of Erias's attack. Looking down, he saw that his right leg was encased in ice, slowly creeping up, and it was hurting his soul, wanting to freeze and destroy it. The momentarily pause it caused made it so he could not dodge Erias, who noticed the apparent chance and took to it without thinking.
With the speed of light, he appeared before Laupa, punching through his soul with a fist coated in pure light. It shone with such intensity that Laupa failed to see what was happening to his soul, not that he could have done anything about it. Erias was going out with his whole being, abandoning all reason, all defenses, purely focusing on one thing... cut an opening and escape. The light blinding the Supreme Elder soon turned into eternal darkness as Erias tore him into two and burned his soul into nothing, finishing him off, leaving the still reeling Kyaranin and Che behind with one clear shout.
"Run!"
Lia, who was the spark in Laupa's fall, was already speeding towards the opening from where they appeared, flying through it without hesitation, followed by his ancestor.
"This way!" With a wisp of energy, Erias clasped Lia's hand, bringing her along, feeling that Che and Kyaranin were chasing after them.
"Somia?" Lia called out, but there was no answer coming back, and there was no time to worry.
"You won't escape!" Roared Che, his voice echoing far and wide with such a rage boiling within the words that it filled everyone's senses with the smell of blood after hearing it.
"Neither will you... the only difference..." Erias murmured to himself, looking back over his shoulders, "Is that we have our bodies to shield our souls... Get ready, little one... here it comes!"
With a strong pull, he hugged Lia close to his chest, and even though she couldn't see it... she could feel it...
...
....
......
"Trying to run? Ahahaha, I will torture-"
But Lumamon could not say more. Finally, he wrestled the control back from that pesky little whore he was dealing with and stepped through space to appear in the nucleus of his created dimension. It happened just in time to see and perceive the inevitable. All around his world, more than a hundred other, smaller formations were glowing like lights on a Christmas tree, things that were not his. Nor did he ever notice them being laid down. It was like a light show, guiding something... something terrible... straight towards him.
"Wha..."
He just couldn't comprehend it. He knew Erias sneaked in, but he wasn't even entertaining the idea that one weak soul could do anything to him or to his creation. What was all this about?
"Tele-" The moment he finally comprehended one of the formations, it was already too late.
The last thing Lumamon saw before everything went bright and dark at the same time was a vast mass of land with multiple satellites orbiting it, filled with empty buildings, mountains, and forests that appeared from nowhere, right in his own creation. Unlike this part of the world, they were material beings... Tangible. Real, through and through.
There were no screams, no shouts, or loud noise of something exploding, not that any soul could hear or pick up on, but it happened almost instantly. The balance of the energies was overturned so quickly and so violently that it tore everything apart. Six of the twelve layers, close to the nucleus of the Institute's arrival, evaporated, and all the souls present in them disintegrated in a flash, sending a shockwave in all directions and initiating a chain reaction.
In under a second, Lumamon's creation was gone and destroyed, and what Erias saw while looking back was how the incoming wave hit Che and Kyaranin, turning their essence into bright specks of dust before it hit him the same.
Unlike the supreme elders, his body was remade and managed to shield his soul enough that he wasn't instantly killed but thrown backward. It wasn't a nice feeling. It was like being rammed by a dragon at full speed, almost knocking him unconscious. Fighting with all his might, he was shielding Lia and kept looking, not wanting to miss the work of his life. It was the most glorious thing he had ever seen and the true victory he had fought for thousands of years... it was the destruction that the Undead deserved, and it was he who delivered it to them... even if he died now, he wanted to witness it in its full glory.
...
....
......
On the active, various battlefields, something strange has happened right at the exact moment. All the Undead warriors, especially the weaker bodies, controlled by the unified consciousness of multiple people, stopped moving. It was like they were short-circuited, lost their directions, and some even fell down, motionless. The only ones who remained somewhat unaffected were the Supreme Elders. Still, even their attacks lost their edge as they switched to backing off, feeling dread rising from within their souls. Something happened, something horrible, and they were the first to feel its effects. Their souls were, even if they didn't know, connected to their Sect Master and his created refuge. Whatever happened to it affected all of them.
"What... is that?" Razael asked, gasping for air, his golden hair sticking to his body, the same as his brothers, as the three Amarins stood side by side, watching the seven colors of the rainbow flashing in the distance. Their enemy, a Supreme Elder, was in retreat, same as the rest, while the dragons stopped from pursuing, noticing the strangeness of their actions.
"Attack! KILL THEM NOW! AHAHAHAHA!"
It was Arcus's voice that boomed over the battlefield, first to rush forward, roaring and breathing black fire, catching one of the jolted, confused Supreme Elders with it. He rammed its burning carcass with his humongous dragon body amidst his joyous laughter, like an insane god of destruction. When it finally exploded, the soul stuck inside wanted to flee... but there was nowhere to go. His connection to their sanctuary was lost... No-Space was closed off to him; no matter what he tried, he no longer could access it, and what remained for him was a wailing death scream as Arcus's fire consumed him for good.
Whatever happened, the delight and maniac laughter of the ancient dragon was enough to show the defenders that this was something not to be afraid of. It was something to be welcomed. The light show in the distance didn't stop, and soon, it was visible from all over the realm, no matter where one stood.
"No Space has become... unstable..." Lucian murmured, feeling his connection was not just cut off, but his person was being rejected from accessing it. It was even more vital now than when the Undead launched their surprise attack. He felt as if the other side was a rampaging ocean on an apocalyptic level. Whatever happened had to be catastrophic to have this result.
Under Killieth's masterstroke, the tear in the sky, the area turned into something that none of the Soulbound Sect people expected before. From the violent energies shooting down, coming from the heavens, so to speak, all souls present were incinerated. The chaotic energies ripped and tore them apart, destroying them for good, and all those whom they collected and nurtured were now killed in an instant... but it wasn't just them. Anything that remained still alive, be it imprisoned survivors who were being kept living to prolong their bodies' availability or simple animals and beasts, all of those were killed just the same.
When the colorful lights' intensity became unbearable, the literal second wave arrived through it. The explosion that happened so deep, so far away pushed the chaotic energies of the nucleus of Meriath and No-Space into reality, causing an otherworldly tempest to erupt on a world-ending scale.
The shockwave spread through Meriath in the blink of an eye, making every being shudder and tremble. The sun abruptly went out for a brief moment, plunging the world into complete darkness before it blinked back to life, flickering on and off multiple times until it stabilized. But its light didn't remain for long as deep, dark, violet clouds of energy shrouded it from everyone's eyes. What replaced their sky was no longer natural but a mirror image of how No-Space looked like, now taking shape in the material world.
It seemed like the shaking of the people was currently spreading onto inanimate objects, onto the land itself, making Meriath rumble and groan. Earthquakes were happening all over the continent, rivers started flooding, volcanos erupted, and the Realm Gate appeared for everyone to see. Its doors were flung open as if someone just kicked it in, flying off its hinges, and the wave of Cosmic energy flooded in, lighting the sky on fire and sending red lightning strikes everywhere.
"Maybe..." Albert spoke, arriving at the battlefield to join his brethren, with Cici sitting on his head, "It was not that good of an idea to add another chunk of floating rock to it..."
"Yeah..." His wife gulped, looking at the sky of violet and crimson, hearing its rumbles inside her soul, "Maybe it was not..."
