"Kuria!"
"Yes, Uncle Tez." Answered Kuria from her cozy bed.
"Where's your sister?" Tez asked as he walked through the door frame of the twins' bedroom.
"I don't know. Our classes were canceled, but she said there was something she wanted to check out."
"Ughh, I really hope she isn't with Lady Aira."
Tez promptly left the room, leaving Kuria to quietly become lost in her own thoughts. She gazed out of her window with a melancholic look on her face.
"I'm lousy." She stated softly.
.....
"Yhup, we're in the swamp now, so that circle is somewhere around here." Tanner stated.
"Is it just me, or is this fog getting thicker?" Mano questioned, waving his hands around. "I could barely see my own hands in front of me."
"..."
"Camie?"
"I'm over here."
Mano spotted Camie's shadow waving at him from behind a tree just a few feet away from him.
"What're you doing over... wait, where did Tanner go? Tanner!?"
Spinning in place and observing the area made Mano realize that Tanner was now missing.
"Camie, did you see where Tanner went?" Mano questioned with concern.
However, Mano then turned back to where he saw Camie's shadow, which was now gone.
"Camie? Tanner? This isn't funny, guys."
While an uneasy feeling was building inside of Mano, a larger shadow formed behind him, and with one quick strike to his neck, Mano was knocked unconscious.
"..."
"Mano, Tanner, I'm sorry, but I needed you two to be my cover." Camie stated to herself as she climbed over large tree roots.
It was then that a blue light illuminating from the fog caught Camie's attention. She quickly ran towards it and was relieved to find that the light was emitting from what she had been searching for. She reached into her shirt and pulled out the metal sphere that was in Jayson's bag before. Moving hastily, she grasped it with both hands and attempted to twist it but struggled initially.
Click
The two hemispheres of the device shifted in opposite directions, which led to the sphere opening slightly and releasing a red mist. Fire essence. Camie reached into her shirt again, but this time, she couldn't find what she was looking for.
"Huh, where are they?"
A slight glance over her shoulder made Camie notice the same shadow that knocked out Mano was standing directly behind her. If she hadn't noticed them, then she would've been knocked unconscious with the same move, but with quick reflexes, she dodged it by rolling out of the way.
"Looking for these?" The shadow said in a distorted voice.
They held out Camie's spark gloves.
"My gloves!"
"I thought we confiscated all of these. How did you get them?"
"None of your business, just give them back!"
"So you can destroy the village? Are you stupid!?"
The fog began to clear around the two, just enough so that the unknown figure would be revealed. Camie was stunned and became heavily nervous after seeing that the shadow was Elder Mildred.
"You're coming with me, girl. There's a mountain of questions waiting for you." Mildred stated.
Camie began to panic as Elder Mildred approached her, holding back the indescribable amount of anger she was feeling at the moment. With seemingly no way out of this bleak predicament, a light danced its way right across Camie's eyes. A last effort plan hatched in her mind, and she acted on it immediately. She threw the device at Elder Mildred, who caught it out of the air with ease.
"What is this?" She asked while inspecting it.
"It's a storage container." Camie confessed. "It stockpiles any type of essence that is placed inside of it and only releases it when you open it. I've been pouring all of my fire essence into it for the past four days."
The light that Camie saw was a will-o-wisp, similar to what she, Mano, and Tanner saw before. She extended her hand towards it and ignited it into a flame. Elder Mildred eyes widened as she froze from shock.
"Give us back... what is ours." Camie stated menacingly.
.....
Kaden and Via found themselves standing just outside the dense cloud of fog and inspecting the perimeter of it.
"What are you two doing here?"
They peered to their right and saw Mai and Kumori walking towards them.
"Looking for some of those kids that came from Ignus." Kaden answered. "You didn't happen to see any of 'em have you?"
"No, Kumori brought me here because she saw one of them around here."
"It was the same girl me and Kuria trapped in the prison a couple of days ago!" Kumori exclaimed.
"If that's the case, then you think she's in this fog?" Kaden questioned, looking at the cloud wall before.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!
A deafening explosion went off from within the fog that could've been heard all throughout Aestus. The ground trembled violently to the point where standing became a challenge. A bright wave of blue light was discharged from the explosion like a shockwave, which expanded through the entirety of the cave Aestus was in.
"The hell was that!?" Kaden questioned while attempting to keep his balance.
"Um, what's happening up there?" Via asked, pointing up to the water above.
The typically calm surface of the water was covered with raging waves, some of which fell more than twenty feet before curving and crashing back into the lake. The explosion left behind a ringing noise in the air, which covered the complete silence of every single person within Aestus.
"..."
"... Oh my God." Elder Faye said as she too gazed upward at the scene above.
Elder Aira and everyone on the mountain top felt the ground shake from where they were. The sight they witnessed there after was devastating. Mateo stood alone on the opposite side of the mountain range, and he too watched as everything unfolded. As he did, he clinched both of his fists as tight as he possibly could. Moya and Noya were sat just outside of the cave that Kaden had awaken in when he first arrived in this world. They, too, did nothing but viewed the situation from afar.
"It's falling..." Faye commented in absolute shock.
The rune that was keeping Aestus Lake suspended had been destroyed. Which meant that all of that water was now falling down to the village.
"No time to be dumbfounded." Elder Claire said as she raised both of her hands. "Use your essence, everyone! We must stop the water!"
There were some who looked at Claire as if she was foolish. Some villagers fell over onto their backside as the feeling of helplessness came over them.
"Don't just stand there!" Shouted an out of breath Kuria as she too raised her hands and attempted to catch the water.
Although she wasn't anywhere near the people in the village, Mai's courage heavily outweighed her fear, and that propelled her to do the same as Kuria and Elder Claire. She raised both of her arms and released all of her water essence to the sky. Kumori didn't hesitate to follow behind her doing the same thing.
"Avery, go back to the others!" Jayson shouted as he too released all of his water essence into the air.
Avery was mesmerized by the sight before her to the point where she didn't hear a single word that Jayson said.
"Don't just stand there!" Kuria exclaimed to the terrified villagers. "Use your essence!"
At that exact moment, Elders Faye and Treya joined in on the efforts.
"Use your essence!" Claire shouted once more. "Use your essence and protect your home!"
One by one, hands started to rise into the air, all of them releasing different amounts of water essence into the sky. The essence itself began to appear as an upside down umbrella as the falling lake rapidly approached it. The top of Lake Aestus is nearly ten miles long and six miles wide, which gives the lake a capacity of nearly nine hundred gallons of water. The Leviathan's rune was strong enough to hold that water in place for fifty years at a time before it was torn apart from instability. The current population of Aestus is just above twenty-three thousand people. Would the combined efforts of almost every single person in the village be enough to match what the Leviathan had done on its own for centuries? Just barely.
Heavy breathing
"... It stopped." Mai stated as she panted heavily.
Though not perfect, the villagers of Aestus managed to support the weight of the entirety of Lake Aestus before it crashed down onto them. They were fortunate enough to stop the water roughly forty feet above the ground, which would be the equivalent of a three story building.
"Jayyy!" Yelled Sayu as she, Shaedon, and Nakayla ran over to him. "The sky is falling!"
"What's happening!?" Nakayla asked.
"You guys need to find a way out of here!" Jayson exclaimed as sweat began to drain down his face.
"What about you?" Avery questioned.
"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine! I need you all to stay together and try to find one of the Elders. Find the others if you could, but I need you all to stay together! Alright?"
"Understood." Shaedon calmly replied. "Let's go."
Shaedon immediately picked Sayu up onto his back and ran off with Nakayla following behind them. Avery hesitated to leave Jayson by himself, but she quickly made up her mind to follow behind the kids.
.....
Happening at the same time.
"I don't know how long we're gonna be able to hold this." Mai stated while grimacing. "Are you guys -"
For a moment, Mai glanced over her shoulder and noticed that Kaden was zoned out and shaking as he was staring up at the water. Before the villagers were able to stop the water, a particular emotion flooded into Kaden. An emotion he hadn't felt much of ever since he arrived in this world. Fear. Not just any fear, but the fear of death.
"Why?" Kaden asked himself. "Why won't my legs move? Am I scared? What would I be scared of? Water? Of course not, I've been living under a lake. I can't feel my hands... or my face. Am I scared to die? I died once before... but that's a pain I don't ever want to feel again. My legs going numb, blood filling into my throat and lungs, my best friend corpse lying next to me."
Vivid images of that horrific scene flashed into Kaden's mind and further triggered the panic attack he was having. His mind turned foggy, and everything that Kaden was hearing around him became muffled.
"I don't wanna die again... I don't wanna lose everything again... Have I always been this big of a coward?"
SLAP!
"I need you, Kaden!" Mai exclaimed as she slapped both of her hands on his face.
A small amount of water began to fall around them as Mai paused from assisting with her essence.
"I know this situation is stressful, but I need you to help me help everyone."
"... Help you?" Kaden shakily questioned.
"Yes. Calm your heart." Mai said as she rested her hand gently onto his chest.
"I'm starting to feel dizzy." Kumori stated as she was visibly struggling to keep her hands up.
"Via, I need your help as well. The Elders have probably realized that we need to bubble everyone to the surface, but there would be no way for them to spread that message to everyone. That's where you come in, Via. People with larger essence reserves need to create large bubbles to fill as many people as they possibly can."
"I understand the assignment." Via replied as she lept into the air and flew off.
Mai raised her arms and began helping with holding the water up once again.
"Kaden, pay attention cause I'm about to teach you the bubble water breathing technique." Mai stated. "You're only going to have one chance to get it right."
.....
"I don't know how much longer I can hold this." Groaned one of the villagers.
"... Fatigue is starting to set in on those with a low essence reserve." Treya stated. "I don't suppose you have any way to bubble everyone out of here. Do you, Sister Claire."
"I do not possess those capabilities, no, but my intuition is telling me that we'll be just alright." Claire responded with her usual calm and optimistic smile.
"VILLAGERS OF AESTUS!" Via shouted as she flew across the surface of the water.
For just a few seconds, she turned her entire body so that she could view her own reflection in the water above. For a brief moment, Via didn't recognize the person in the reflection as she had never seen herself with such a determined look. She poked her reflection with a single finger, which created a ripple trail behind her. Then, she inhaled deeply before turning again to face all of the villagers.
"Listen up! These are instructions from the Elders!" Via shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Appropriating an elder's name is a crime." Treya said jokingly.
"Yes, but who knows if they would've listened to her if she didn't use our titles." Claire replied looking up to Via. "Smart girl."
.....
"Where is it?" Kajar questioned in frustration.
"What have you done?" Elder Aira questioned in shock of what she had just witnessed.
"I'm sorry it has to be this way Elder, but you all were forced to suffer for the sins of your ancestors. If there's anyone you should be upset with, it should be them."
"... Upset?"
A crackle of thunder echoed through the mountain range as the mixture of rain and snow began to descend even harder.
"You shouldn't be worrying about me. Aira stated calmly. "You just pissed off the pack."
SPLOOSH!
A surge of water exploded from the ground directly between Kajar and Elder Aira. Kajar was expecting retaliation, so he managed to leap backward in time to avoid it. His attention then went to the air above him, where he found an enraged Kenzo, ice blade in hand, and about to swing down onto him. Nix, however, came to Kajar's rescue, even though Kajar didn't appear worried whatsoever. Nix held his steel pole horizontally above his head and blocked the attack from Kenzo before using the pole to push him back. As Kenzo landed, Kajar caught just a glimpse of Maleah running and leaping from the mountain top. He hurried to the edge to see what exactly she was doing.
SCREEEEEEEEECH!!!
Seemingly from out of nowhere Ondo the quetzalcoatlus, swooped by Maleah and caught her on his back while she was falling.
"Heh, I knew these people were crazy." Kajar stated with a grin. "I'm going after her. Take care of things up here would ya?"
Kajar snapped his fingers and all three of the dragons moved closer to him, with one of them climbing down to the side of the mountain next to him. As he was about to mount the dragon, a gyrating torrent of water twisted its way towards him. Before it even came close a white piece of paper flew in front of it and exploded, disbursing the water.
"Not gonna be that easy." Clint stated.
Kajar took off after Elder Aira and left what was about to become a warzone.