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Chapter 431: 431
Aska felt an immediate sense of relief when the song ceased, but his expression quickly darkened as his gaze locked onto the dragon. Before he could act, a voice—one only he could hear—whispered in his mind:
"There’s no need to tangle with the dragon. This battle is already lost."
Without hesitation, Aska heeded the warning. He didn’t bother issuing an order to his remaining zealots. Instead, he activated his newly acquired power, accessing the other world as his figure flickered and vanished from sight.
Ceruleanor, having decimated Aska’s forces, did not immediately depart. He understood the delicate balance of intervention—his role was to aid, not to decide the conflict outright. Though the battlefield had been mostly cleared, a few scattered zealots still remained, and more were beginning to pour out from the other world. Their numbers had dwindled significantly, but the battle was far from over.
With a final, thunderous sweep of his tail, Cerluleanor sent a cascade of rocks and debris crashing into the remaining zealots, further disrupting their ranks and ensuring they posed no immediate threat.
With a powerful thrust of his wings, the blue dragon ascended, leaving behind a scene of devastation and a lingering sense of awe. The water churned in his wake, the currents carrying the scent of ozone and the dust of disintegrated zealots.
The last remnants of Aska’s zealots were scattered, some buried beneath the fallen rubble, others struggling to regroup. Yet their will to fight had been shattered. Without their leader, without their momentum, they were nothing more than remnants of a broken assault. Some attempted to flee, slipping into the rift that still pulsed faintly in the water, a gateway to the other world from which they had come. Others, too injured or disoriented to escape, were swiftly dispatched by the recovering merfolk warriors.
One mermaid, Flowua daughter turned her gaze upward, watching the last traces of lightning fade into the depths.
Then, a shift.
The currents stirred unnaturally, twisting in patterns that did not belong to the natural ebb and flow of the ocean. A deep, resonant hum pulsed through the water, not unlike the vibrations of the mermaids’ song, but far more ancient. Flowua’s eyes widened.
Something was answering the call.
At first, it was only a shadow, an indistinct mass moving within the abyssal darkness. Then another. And another.
The song had been silenced, but its purpose had been fulfilled.
The great ones were stirring.
Flowua’s blood ran cold as she turned to her warriors. "Fall back." Her voice, urgent and commanding, cut through the lingering stillness. "Now."
The Murlocs, less attuned to the shifts in the ocean’s balance, hesitated, their guttural voices rising in confusion. But the mermaids understood. They had heard the stories, the whispered warnings passed down through generations. The song was meant to summon the ancient creatures of the deep—but calling them was one thing. Controlling them was another.
A deep, guttural rumble echoed through the waters, resonating in their very bones. The darkness below began to writhe, titanic forms shifting just beyond the veil of sight. The battlefield had been mostly cleansed of zealots, but something far more dangerous had been awakened.
The princess wasted no time as she turned sharply, her voice cutting through the water as she repeated again. "Retreat! Now!"
The mermaids and Murlocs hesitated only for a moment before obeying, their forms darting away from the battlefield, leaving behind the remnants of the zealots who were still struggling to recover. The current swirled unnaturally around them, a warning that something immense was rising from the depths.
Then, the first form emerged.
A monstrous limb, thick as an ancient pillar of stone, broke through the darkness, its surface covered in twisting barnacles and bioluminescent scars. It coiled through the water with eerie precision, wrapping around an unfortunate zealot before dragging him into the abyss. No scream. No struggle. Only the rush of water filling the space he once occupied.
The remaining zealots, those still trying to regroup, barely had time to react before the sea itself turned against them.
A colossal maw, lined with rows of jagged teeth, snapped shut around a cluster of warriors, its glowing eyes watching with cold detachment as it devoured them whole. Another creature, its form shifting and indistinct, moved like a shadow through the battlefield, pulling zealots into unseen depths with tendrils of pure darkness.
Panic set in.
The zealots who could still move attempted to flee, swimming desperately toward the fading rift that led back to the other world. Some made it, their figures vanishing in a blink. Others weren’t as lucky.
A massive tail, thick and powerful, slammed into the battlefield, sending a shockwave through the water. The force sent zealots spiraling in all directions, disoriented and helpless. Those that remained were picked off one by one, their final moments lost in the churning abyss.
From a safe distance, Flowua and her warriors watched, their retreat swift but not without glancing back at the chaos they had unleashed. The sea god’s gift had been a desperate measure, and now they bore witness to its price.
The ocean would claim its due and there would be nothing left of the invaders.
As the last echoes of the battle faded into the deep, Flowua exhaled, tension leaving her body in a slow, measured wave. The zealots were gone. The war, at least this battle, was over.
But as she looked into the abyss, where the summoned creatures still lingered, a cold realization settled over her.
Would they return to their slumber?
A huge eye meanwhile was staring at the princess and the merfolk who held their breath, suddenly the eye looked at the distance where Flowua was heading before closing its eyes and just like that it was gone.
And so, the battle reached its inevitable conclusion. The zealots had been eradicated, save for the exceptional few left behind to contend with the elite warriors of each godling race. With nothing else standing in their way, the path to the demigods’ ascension lay open.
Ikem didn’t know how long he had been walking. Time had blurred into a distant, irrelevant notion, swallowed by the vast expanse of the land he now traversed. This was the farthest he had ever ventured from his own territory, deeper into the unknown reaches of the continent. Despite his dominion over these lands, there were still places untouched—even by him.
Now, he stood among them.
As a demigod with a profound affinity for the wood element, he could feel the overwhelming vitality pulsing through this place. The trees were ancient, some older than him, their presence steeped in an ageless wisdom that whispered through the air. Every leaf, every root, thrummed with energy, their essence resonating with his own.
Influenced by both Brix and Aqua, he was mindful of the life surrounding him. Though his current form was massive, his every movement was deliberate, careful not to crush the sacred trees beneath his feet. It was almost comical—the sight of a towering giant, burdened by the weight of a heavy rune pillar, moving with exaggerated caution to minimize the damage caused by his sheer size.
Then, without warning, it happened.
Ikem fell into a trance.
It was a sensation he had come to know well—one that always preceded a great shift, a step forward in his existence. The wood element stirred restlessly, its presence more alive than ever, the voices of the forest swelling into a chorus that only he could hear.
This was how he had come to master his domain.
It was in moments like these that he had first forged his bond with Bara, the symbiotic entity that had amplified his strength and abilities. And now, as the whispers of the ancient trees wove around him, he knew—another change was coming.
One that would shape the course of his journey forever.
As he continued his journey, the question posed to him by the wood elements echoed in his mind—a question that had followed him since he reached his peak at the 5th stage:
"What kind of god do you imagine yourself to be?"
Ikem had spent a decade pondering this, seeking an answer that truly defined him. As the son of the God of Nature, he understood that no singular aspect of nature could set him apart—his father’s domain was vast and all-encompassing. If he were to claim any divinity, it would drown within the boundless expanse of what nature already embodied.
Thus, he turned inward. He searched for what made him distinct, what separated him from the divine legacy he was born into.
And then, there was Bara.
His merging with Bara had opened his eyes to an unseen world—a world hidden in the fabric of life itself. It was a world not merely of towering trees and sprawling roots, but of the unseen forces that wove existence together. These were the things he and Bara reveled in exploring—the intricate, often unnoticed relationships that sustained life.
