"I won't let you succeed easily!"
I never expected it was actually Cyra! I saw her stumbling as she flew up from the ground, gritting her teeth and raging at Fernando. It seemed Cysper's disappearance had hit her hard. The one who normally avoided combat at all costs didn't hide this time, but took the initiative to attack.
Learning from last time, Cyra didn't choose to use Source Magic again. She released a large amount of light element magic balls all at once, with the dense barrage of light spheres flying towards the target together.
But the opponent was Fernando! Unfortunately, this kind of attack was still too weak. Even though her strength had advanced after the jump, that was still low-level magic. Even if he was previously heavily injured, it wasn't something of this level that could easily harm him.
"Now!"
When I stuck my head out of the Slime King's body, Adrian had already nocked nine arrows onto his bowstring and reminded me.
Since there was no beast tamer deliberately controlling it, the Slime King naturally had no reason to keep "hunting" me, and would just remain motionless. Understanding Adrian's meaning, I quickly followed behind him and released my last remaining Paradise Lost Shockwave towards Fernando's position.
"Ahh--"
It was first Cyra's scream. Her combat experience was too lacking - she barely defended at all before being instantly taken out by Fernando, spiraling back down again. I didn't know her condition.
But she had successfully drawn the enemy's attention, creating an extremely favorable opportunity to seize.
Just as Fernando unleashed his "Light Dragon" move, the nine explosive-runed arrows had already flown there along with the group of light element magic balls, bombarding him together. He probably never expected a synchronized ambush from behind so quickly and couldn't dodge in time. The arrows and magic immediately triggered a series of violent explosions in the sky.
Finally was the coup de grace beam - the sturdy white light pierced almost the entire sky from top to bottom, lasting several seconds before disappearing. No matter how formidable Fernando was, he surely must have died under such a concentrated assault, right?
But thinking back, I always felt there was something off about that Paradise Lost Shockwave, as if it didn't actually hit the target solidly. But I didn't see the enemy dodging anywhere within my line of sight.
As the explosion's smoke gradually dissipated, the final scene made us extremely shocked.
There was nothing! The spot where Fernando was originally had become completely empty, as if he had instantly vaporized. But even if he was blown to pieces, there should have been some signs of him falling to the ground, right? Moreover, we didn't think our previous attack could have such an incredible effect.
"We let him get away!"
Adrian quickly realized this. But as he put away his bow and arrow, a sudden violent shaking came from under our feet, making it hard to even stand steadily.
"Could it be..."
An extremely bad idea suddenly arose in my mind. The barrage of explosions just now was too dense. It was impossible to tell if Fernando had seized the chance to detonate the Exploding Bug during it. Theoretically, he shouldn't be able to control two beasts at once, but he was the founder of Beast Tamer magic after all!
While I was still agonizing over it, Adrian reacted quickly. He swiftly ran to the throne and opened the city's various monitoring screens, anxiously operating them.
"What are you doing?"
I couldn't help asking doubtfully. If it really was that worst-case scenario, could controlling things from the throne avert the crisis?
"I've already opened all the evacuation exits and lifeboats to evacuate the city's civilians quickly!"
Without even looking back at me, Adrian said as he clicked on the holograms.
"What about us?"
I continued asking, but he didn't immediately answer. His fingers paused in midair for a while before finally making a decision.
"I need to go to the central power room to actually check the situation first!"
"No way?!"
Going to such a dangerous place at a time like this? Of course I wouldn't feel at ease! But I knew it was probably impossible to make him change his mind immediately, so I could only make this rushed choice. "...Then I'll go with you!"
Looking deeply at me, Adrian didn't say anything more. He stepped forward, grabbed my hand, and swiftly headed for the stairwell.
Just under the throne hall's floor was an inconspicuous small room - that was where Cyra and Mike had come from earlier. According to the clues, it should be a transport chamber. As the king, Adrian was naturally very familiar with this facility's function. As soon as he closed the door, he deftly flipped open a panel next to it.
A circular panoramic map of Lantine Oasis instantly popped up. On the map, Adrian lightly tapped the underground area directly below Chromos Tower. Then he pulled me through as the door reopened.
When we went out, the scenery was completely different. Now it was an elongated underground passage, with the walls flickering an eerie dim glow. We flew rapidly down the passage for a few minutes before a huge gate finally appeared - the central power room's entrance.
"I'm opening it!"
I didn't know if he was talking to me or psyching himself up. Adrian stared at the gate hesitantly for a moment before finally grabbing the handle and pulling it open with force. But the situation inside truly gave us a fright.
Huge flames instantly shot out in that moment, startling me to quickly tackle him down. Fortunately it was just ordinary fire, so even if we were burned it wouldn't be too serious. But the blaring alarms that suddenly rang out around us made it impossible to stay calm.
"Alert! Critical power core failure, city collapse imminent! All personnel evacuate immediately!"
"Damn it! It's all over!"
This was the first time I had seen Adrian cry so sorrowfully. Seeing him kneeling on the ground, wailing in anguish, I opened my mouth but didn't know what to say to console him. I suddenly felt so stupid, unable to even comfort someone properly...
But now wasn't the time for sorrow! The only thing I could do was pull him up from the ground, then hurry back the way we came to the surface. This city would probably collapse soon. If we didn't evacuate quickly, we would be done for.
But luck just loved playing tricks - when we finally made it back to that small transport room, no matter what we did, we couldn't bring up the previous citywide map display. The entire transport chamber lost power, with no lights at all.
"Looks like we can't use it anymore. Let's take the stairs instead!"
Taking a deep breath, Adrian's mood finally seemed to recover a bit. Without another word, he pulled me out of the transport chamber to find the emergency stairs.
The evacuation stairwell to the surface was easy to find, but the climb up was unusually long. After all, the central power room was dozens of meters underground. If our physical abilities weren't far beyond normal, we probably would have collapsed from exhaustion halfway up.
"We're almost there!"
Victory was in sight. Looking up at the point of blue sky peeking through, there was no doubt it was outside! But when we finally emerged, the scene was completely unexpected.
The towering skyscrapers were all gone! Only a few leaning, collapsed structures remained. The city's foundations seemed to have crumbled significantly in the time we were underground. Looking around, the view was much more open, with the distant horizon clearly visible. But in this situation, it was impossible to feel refreshed no matter what.
Just a few hundred meters in front of us was a collapsed area, showing passing white clouds through the gap. I suddenly remembered the white aircraft docked at the top of Chromos Tower - perhaps we could use that?
But reality slapped me hard again. Looking up, I realized that at some point, even the entire Chromos Tower itself had vanished without a trace...
"Alright, it's really over!"
I couldn't help being dumbfounded. What could we do now? The nearest designated evacuation point was still some distance away, but in the city's current state, Adrian and I didn't dare move positions recklessly. To put it bluntly, the ground we were standing on probably wouldn't hold much longer either, and could collapse at any time. Unfortunately, we didn't see any ships coming to rescue us.
As lively as the Empire and Republic had been fighting in the sky before, seeing the Sky City about to collapse, they definitely wouldn't dare continue circling nearby out of fear of getting caught up in it. So the two of us were now in an isolated, unsupported situation.
"Feliciana, you should escape alone first. Don't worry about me anymore!"
Looking around, Adrian could only make up his mind to tell me:
"I see your wings seem to have recovered somewhat, they should be usable, right?"
What he said was true. After persevering with slow healing over this period of time, that half-wing had almost completely regrown. But the problem was the newly regrown wing was very fragile, the feathers not yet fully formed. It would be extremely difficult for me to fly alone, let alone carrying another person.
"This...it doesn't have to be that way, does it?"
I didn't expect him to give up so quickly. I felt there might still be a way to salvage the situation? Of course I couldn't easily agree.
I wanted to try convincing him to think of more solutions, but Adrian didn't pay me any heed. As if leaving his final words, he went on by himself:
"Actually, the reason I separated from you that day was partly due to the Parristol Resistance's strong invitation, but the main reason was to save this city. Before that, my consistent stance was that since there was no guarantee of success, there was no need for meaningless sacrifice, so I rarely interacted with the Resistance. It was only later when my father's old subordinate came that I learned the Resistance he left behind was desperately resorting to colluding with monsters! Plus getting precise information from the monsters about regaining the Divine Punishment power and even recreating the legendary Sky City Lantine Oasis of my family, I decided to join them to try rescuing Parristol from the monsters! Of course, more importantly, through this I could obtain the king's status I wanted..."
"Don't be like this..."
Seeing his demeanor, I couldn't help feeling worried. After all, if not for me, Adrian might actually have succeeded in restoring the kingdom. But Adrian just rambled on endlessly, his expression still filled with deep, regretful self-blame, not stopping there.
"In this world, usually only close royals have the status to marry high-ranking angels, but I failed completely! Not only did I not achieve my father's ultimate dream, I couldn't even tightly hold onto you. I'm such a waste..."
"Then stop the nonsense!"
Hearing this, I shouted to cut off Adrian's words, then plucked up my courage and pounced, sealing his mouth with my lips.
"Mmph..."
Probably never expecting me to suddenly do this, Adrian's eyes went wide staring at me. In that instant our eyes met, and at the same time, I felt the ground disappear from under our feet...
Finally, the spot we had been standing on collapsed too. We embraced each other tightly as we fell together towards the real ground below.