"Sorry, this is my last one. These gas containment orbs are one-time use - can't be reused after trapping something inside. To make a new one, I'd need to gather materials again."
As if reading my mind, Reed glanced at me with a reminder, then casually flipped her palm out expressionless before me.
"Your oversight let that one slip through, costing me dearly. Pay up - 10,000 silvers!"
"Woah, that's way too steep!" I was taken aback, practically extortion! 10,000 silvers for a containment orb was "cheap" in a sense, but still painfully pricey for me.
More disappointingly, it dashed my hopes! Without Reed's magic prison, who knew if she had another way to subdue that dragon. Proceeding without involving her would be difficult.
"There are such arrangements? Then I'll cover it for her, plus another 30,000 -"
However, Cyra saw it differently, as if discovering a new continent now that Reed's losses could be bought off. She moved to pay before I could retrieve the coins, even throwing in extra.
"Here's the money from that nuke deal earlier. All settled, so you can't keep dragging me around for your 'assistant services'!"
"Fair enough..."
Eyeing the shiny gold and orange heap, Reed nodded satisfied before turning back to me.
"What about yours?"
"Why didn't I think of this sooner! I heard Reed was dirt poor as a student, relying solely on scholarships. Seeing all this money, she's bound to go soft!"
Cyra covertly leaned over, revealing Reed's supposed weakness and urging me to buy my way out of trouble.
"Of course, here you go!"
This could be considered an investment in her research. After leaving Edenmere, many experimental materials required actual funds, unlike simply saying "ask Lady Elara" to meet most needs back then.
So the current scene seemed rather comical. Reed the two-winged angel was like a rent collector, individually demanding exorbitant sums from Cyra and me, puzzling the others.
"Are angels so wealthy these days? Has Edenmere's living standard risen that much?" Judith asked skeptically.
A century ago, 10,000 silvers was far more valuable than now. Yet Cyra and I readily produced such large denomination coins, startling her.
"Let's get back on topic - have we successfully prevented the seal from being unlocked?" Yulanda asked Judith wearily, shaking her head at our transactions.
"Heh, how would I know?" Judith glanced awkwardly at Reed, who was preoccupied counting coins, before pondering.
"Did you happen to disrupt any of their ritual arrays or anything?"
"Ritual arrays? Didn't see any, just some roasting meat..." I was stumped, pointing to the still-burning campfires by the lake.
From start to finish, we only saw monsters eating, chatting and relaxing. Their behavior seemed more fitting for a picnic outing than unlocking any seal.
"Impossible! For any major seal, there must be empowering arrays at the critical points. Otherwise, element-formed magic effects cannot be sustainably maintained. You must have missed something!" Reed cut in after collecting payment.
"But we scoured this whole area around the lake! Where could there be any arrays?" Brennan said, puzzled as he surveyed our surroundings, finally locking onto the tranquil lake surface.
"Could it be...underwater?"
Sun Lake wasn't very large in area, but quite deep. Viewing it from above, it seemed an impenetrably dark green expanse without any visible bottom. As Brennan suggested, the seal being hidden underwater was plausible. But that also meant expanding our search range beneath the surface - problematic.
My swimming ability was average at best. The thought of my wings and clothes getting soaked instantly made me quite uncomfortable.
"Since those monsters are all dead, we don't really need to go into the water, right? They probably never even found the seal - whether underwater or not, no one's disturbing it, so isn't that good enough?"
No one seemed eager to dive in. Yulanda stuck her head out to glimpse the surface before losing motivation.
"Exactly, pack it up! I fly in the skies - if you insist on going in, deal with it yourselves!"
Cyra shared my view, immediately raising both hands in agreement.
"Wait, it may not be that simple!"
But Judith disagreed, quickly striding to the lakeshore before we could retreat.
"I sense the earth elemental flows around here are highly abnormal, possibly related to the seal!"
She placed a palm on the ground and closed her eyes, as if sensing something. But the others found her action rather bewildering.
"Earth? Shouldn't it be water elementals?" Brennan asked doubtfully, echoing my perceptions.
Due to the lake, there were abundant free-flowing water elementals in the area - normal anywhere with bodies of water. But in terms of earth, having no corresponding affinity, I felt nothing unusual.
"Be careful everyone, the winds are picking up!"
Finally, Reed spoke up, though her warning didn't sound promising. Following her words, the lake surface did indeed start forming expanding ripples. But strangely, the trees around showed no sign of swaying - as if the wind wasn't blowing in from elsewhere.
"What's going on? Don't tell me there are wind elementals involved too!"
The whirlpool at the lake's center grew increasingly turbulent, even its rapid churning vortex slowly expanding outwards as the air currents intensified enough to buffet us on shore. Cyra finally grew anxious, frantically looking around.
Without a word, Reed pulled Judith back to our group, unfurling a scroll to release a pre-prepared "Light's Sanctuary" enveloping us all.
"Why go to such extremes? And waste supplies on that spell too!"
Though the situation was bizarre, I felt no direct threat to question Reed's wasteful overreaction. I was about to tell her I could simply cast the spell without using scrolls when a bright flash made me squint - a bolt of lightning suddenly streaked across the clear sky accompanied by deafening thunder, but without a single cloud in sight.
Before we could react, another anomaly happened - a dazzling pillar of white light erupted from the lake's swirling vortex, blinding us all.
"Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?!" I furiously blinked away the droplets splashing my face.
The white column kicked up massive amounts of lake water raining down in a dense mist, instantly drenching everyone as the "Light's Sanctuary" can not guard against physical attacks.
"I can't be certain, but this seems to be a 'sub-spatial seal'..." Judith had to shout over the chaos.
"But that's a legendary earth seal said to belong to the 'Divine Realm' beyond human capabilities!"
The so-called "Divine Realm" referred to the most supremely difficult "divine-tier" magics theorized by humans according to elemental principles, but unreachable by them even with arrays or group casting.
Just as high-tier angelic magics were "divine" to humans, all elemental categories had theoretical divine-tier spells accumulated over millennia that surpassed the human ceiling.
Unable to manifest them with their own strength, at least for now if not permanently, these magics were called divinely exclusive - the "Divine Realm".
Though divine light spells could be learned by angels transcending human limits, the other elemental divine tiers remained unrealized, lacking sufficiently powerful beings to actualize the theories. This "sub-spatial seal" likely belonged to the earth divine realm.
"Then what's sealed? What's being sealed?!" Brennan shouted, echoing my question.
If this light pillar was the seal itself, where was the entity being contained? Surely not just the beam of light?
"If I'm not mistaken, it's most likely over there!" Judith pointed her drenched hand forward.
I thought she'd indicate the vortex beneath the lake, but to my surprise, she was gesturing directly at the white light's epicenter hovering above the surface.
Indeed, as the blinding glare dissipated, we soon noticed a black spherical object floating unsupported in midair over the waters, utterly still and silent without any reflection or sound, yet profoundly eerie and inexplicable...