Chapter Fifty

Elysia turned back toward Arcadia and flew at a casual pace while keeping her senses spread wide.

It appeared they broke the siege. Both sides of the conflict stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do with their leaders either killed or incapacitated.

Well, at least in the case of the water and lightning elementals, they didn’t have much choice. Under the effects of the twin’s auras, they couldn’t move even if they wanted to. Fortunately, that issue solved itself, as Elysia flew away, joined by Sereia.

The fire and earth elementals had a different situation a deal with. Ione’s aura didn’t lock them down, but they couldn’t exactly leave either. The weirdest standoff occurred with Ione batting around the two high elementals while thousands of fire and earth elementals surrounded her, afraid to interfere and risk a similar fate to their leaders.

While Ione had her fun, Elysia approached Urus, who lifted her massive head to look at the twins with a weird glint in her eyes. “Thank you for your assistance. With the trimming of elementals, the world may once more find balance.”

Suspicion flashed as Elysia stared at the turtle. Did she orchestrate the battle?

As if reading her mind, Urus continued. “I won’t lie. I hoped you would lure out the high elementals. The last time a divine elemental popped up several millennia ago, they mobilized everything they had to capture her. Unfortunately, unlike this time, the elemental gifted the vaults before ascending. Well, not gift, more like force them to guard them in return for perfect environments for their kind.”

The twin’s minds flashed back to the statues with a striking resemblance to them.

Urus’s presence fluttered in amusement at their shocked realization, not even having to use her magic to touch their minds. Not that she could any longer without them noticing. “Yes, I met your mother before her ascension. What a remarkable talent. A dual element elemental with a hint of divinity she nurtured to ascension. I’ll leave the rest of the story for your mother to tell. I can feel she established a bond with you two. It’s about time.”

Suddenly, both turtles jerked their heads toward the city beyond the harbor, just as the twins felt a massive surge of energy. “Despite my warnings, it appears he couldn’t resist. Truly a shame. He had phenomenal potential, maybe even enough to reach the pinnacle if he were to apply his talents to the fullest.”

The twins flew high in the sky way as divine energy radiating out of warped space where the tallest tower stood.

Moments later, the tower vanished altogether, sucked into a crack in space as the divine energy ratcheted up in intensity. Anyone within a kilometer of the epicenter convulsed on the ground, unable to handle the energy.

That was when a new source of divine energy sparked to life. Elysia and Sereia spun to the new source to find Urus floating into the sky, giving off divinity on par with their mother, if not greater.

A deep, almost humanlike sigh escaped the massive turtle as she stared at the warped space.

“I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but if I let him continue, it could be inconvenient for this world. This is what happens when someone reaches for true divinity without the heritage or earning it through a blessing.”

As suddenly as it came, the divine energy vanished. Well, not vanished, but more contained. To the twins, it looked like there was an invisible wall blocking the energy from escaping while a void replaced what remained within.

It almost looked like their temporary ascension, but something within them recoiled at what they saw. Even without Urus telling them, they knew no ascension occurred. Only destruction.

The very fabric of reality shattered within the barrier, allowing divine energy to enter the mortal world.

With a solemn aura, Urus’s divinity retracted as she lowered herself down to the water. “It is a mercy. His mind shattered the moment he tried to brute force his way to divinity.”

Urus gave the space elemental a moment of silence. “This place can no longer support life. Maybe one day the world will heal, but the mark of his sin will forever scar the realm.”

The massive turtle turned her attention to the smaller turtle before speaking once more telepathically. For some reason, she included the twins in her conversation, maybe as witnesses to what was to come. “Crous, do you have what it takes to perform our duty as Colossus?”

A heavy atmosphere took hold as the smaller turtle bowed his head to Urus before speaking out loud in a booming, deep voice. “Yes, Grand Elder Colossus Urus. I will do my best to shepherd my charges.”

Several seconds passed in silence as Urus’s aura cranked up once more, easily eclipsing what she used to contain the warped space. The world trembled, but unlike when they ascended, it didn’t break apart.

Instead, the world almost felt happy as a beam of energy left Urus and entered Crous.

His aura skyrocketed as his body grew at an absurd rate. Within seconds, he eclipsed Urus in size. However, while his aura had explosive growth, it felt unstable, sometimes spiking higher than the twins, only to crash back to about half the strength.

Her gaze turned toward what remained of the city as Urus spoke again. “I will guard your charges as you adjust and build a proper environment on your shell. Do not take too long. You know the dangers now that you took up the duty.”

Crous bowed his head once more before taking flight, something he could not do before his growth spurt. His eyes landed on the remaining humans hiding in their homes. Most of which staring off into space, stunned as their connection to the city snapped only for another to appear. A calculating glint appeared as he scanned his new charges for several seconds before he flew off, likely to prepare.

Elysia turned toward the harbor to find it buzzing with activity. Unlike the city above, which took bombardment from elementals, the turtles kept the harbor safe.

The city above didn’t look much different from the ruins nearby, not helped by the fact that most of the residents remained frozen, still dealing with the sudden severing of their connection to the city.

Before she could investigate further, a lightheaded feeling hit her, telling her she was reaching the limit of maintaining her lightning form.

She glanced at the scaled city on Urus’s shell, tempted to touch down, but, as if sensing her desire, a wave of force pushed her back as the turtle eyed her. “You aren’t touching my shell until you get control over that aura of yours. There’s a reason I keep my divinity hidden. My residents wouldn’t last long bombarded by my full aura. Also, you have a vessel of your own that needs your attention.”

Not wanting to land in the water, Elysia floated to a nearby pier, making sure she wasn’t nearby anyone. Though even with the nearest person being a hundred meters away, they flinched and made distance.

Urus had a point. Not everyone could handle the essence she radiated. That meant she needed to shut off her lightning form and calibrate her body.

The problem was, how did she turn off her lightning form? She glanced at her sister only to find Sereia casually swimming through the harbor in her mermaid form, her elemental form already off.

With gritted teeth, she dove inward. If her sister could figure it out, so could she. Blinding bright essence filled her entire network, sparking an idea. She latched onto as much essence as she could and pulled it back toward her core.

Without effort, it followed her wishes. Even the essence she didn’t grab control followed the rest, as if she started a chain reaction.

A core pulsed later, her senses shrunk as her body felt heavy. Dozens upon dozens of notifications hit her, all of which were errors as the system tried to connect a bunch of times, only to fail.

Well, now she knew she didn’t permanently disconnect from the system. It was nice to know she had a system off button, but something told her it wouldn’t be a good idea to block out the system too many times.

What if the errors piled up, forcing her to remain in her lightning form forever? At that point, she would ascend as what would be the point in remaining among the mortals if she couldn’t do mortal things like eat or the dreaded socializing.

Before she moved, she returned her attention inward and tried to calibrate herself. While her control allowed her to block any escaping essence, it took dozens of core pulses before her body calibrated.

Even when she released her control, some essence leaked out. It wasn’t to the point she would kill people, but she should probably avoid other elemental if she didn’t want them to prostrate themselves.

A splash to her right drew her gaze to find Sereia staring at her, radiating smugness through their bond. Without a word, Sereia spun and walked down the pier with a bounce in her step.

Unable to resist, Elysia jogged past her twin, stopping for a moment to whisper in her ear. “We both know I figured out my elemental form before you did.”

As she used her bond to find Umbra, she felt Sereia pause behind her, eliciting a smug smile of her own.

It didn’t take her long to reach Umbra. When she did, she froze. The dented and scratched hull was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a pristine, deep black surface.

Upon circling around to the back, she found the holes where the props melted away had four new black propellers, which were bigger than she remembered the original ones were. Though now that she got a taste for speed with her lightning form, she doubted Umbra could match it.

Even with her weakened senses, it only took her a moment to find a familiar Sea elf who wandered the deck, probably a post construction inspection.

At least she thought they completed Umbra. It sure looked completed to her unless they needed to finish the interior. How did they finish it during a siege? The system or magic really did wonders.

Elysia bent her legs and sprang upward, easily clearing the railing and landing on the deck.

A smile sprouted as she took in the redone deck. It was pretty before, but the rich dark red wood really popped, surrounded by black railings and walls of the cabin.

Smugness radiated from a certain mermaid who landed behind her, but Elysia ignored her twin as she continued her tour.

A deep brown U-shaped couch took up most of the living room area, but since the overall layout didn’t change much Elysia walked past.

Like the living room, the kitchen remained mostly the same as it survived all the torture Umbra went through. Not that she saw herself using the kitchen very much.

The real change was the control room. Thick glass windows gave a panoramic view of the front and sides, with a steering wheel centered overlooking the bow. A large screen currently displaying a wide-angle view of the rear effectively gave whoever captained Umbra a 360° view.

Embedded in the console to the left of the steering wheel was a crystal probably meant for her to feed lightning into.

Since she had plenty of time to investigate further later, Elysia trotted out of the control room and down the stairs to find both the sea elf and Sereia wandering below deck.

Almost instantly, Elysia noticed something odd. Below deck was far too large for the size of the boat.

A home theater with a couch at least as large as the one upstairs plus several recliners facing a massive TV mounted on the wall took up most of the space to the immediate left of the stairs.

To the right of the stairs was a bar and a hot tub easily big enough to fit Elysia, Sereia, and Ione at once, even if Sereia went mermaid.

Beyond the hot tub was a relaxation area with beanbag chairs and bookshelves filled with thousands of books.

Her suspicion grew as she saw parallels to the place the space elemental tempted them with. Did he help make this? Why would he? Wasn’t he planning on betraying them?

Doubts crept in, but she pushed them away as there was nothing she could do about it now. The space elemental made his choice and so did she.

To drive home her guess, there were three doors, each one labeled with a stylized name.

What she assumed was her room was the leftmost door while the center one was for Ione and the right head Sereia’s name on it.

A glance back at her twin, who stared at the changes with wonder, proved this wasn’t what she designed.

Almost dreading what she would see, Elysia opened the center door to find a forest not unlike the one Ione frolicked in not so long ago.

Elysia closed the door, then stood staring off into space.

He really followed through, yet he betrayed her, too.

Was there more to what he did? Maybe she escalated thing when she killed his wife. It was possible this was an apology for his theft. He probably didn’t expect us to kill his wife, so he sent her to delay them while he performed the theft.

There was no way to know now. Or maybe there was. A certain nosey turtle may know.