Ice Daggers!
Dozens and dozens of ice daggers crystallized around Ewan when he pushed the spell to Step-1, buzzing and humming, shuttling with blurred afterimages, and the plunging temperature fogged their breaths. Some stabbed into the ground and nestled under the Warship, while the others dug a tunnel towards the sound of the waves.
Ewan growled and strained to lift the Warship with the daggers. Even with his evolution and the enhanced Ryvia with the spell, the weight of the metal-mammoth almost crushed his ‘Spirit’ and cracked the daggers. But he still soldiered on and lifted it an inch above the ground. The earth trembled, the Warship groaned, the loose dirt and the soil fell off, and his nose bled.
When the Stormfalcon left the ground, the friction plunged, and even with Kidd’s and Stefan’s meagre strength, they could barely push it.
“One, two, three, push!” Ewan yelled. The two followed his rhythm and matched their strength, and the Stormfalcon crawled ahead.
The daggers sliced the hard rocks, butchered the tree roots, powdered the soil, and carved out a tunnel big enough for the Warship without letting it collapse on their heads. They rested, then marched on, and they rested again. Ewan too let the Warship down a few times on the way and let his ‘Spirit’ recover before advancing, downing a few recovery potions in between.
Time slipped away, and the path down to the ocean took them minutes—they couldn’t carve a deep slant after all, so they staggered the tunnel into stairs. At the end, when only a thin crumbling wall lay between them and fresh air, they plopped to the ground with their chests heaving and a river of sweat drenching their hair and clothes.
“Boss…this will…sink, it’s too heavy,” Kidd said, panting.
“It won't. Warships are built to float on the water in case of an emergency,” Ewan said, leaning on the wall, wiping the sweat off his forehead.
“It’s all metal, how will it float?” Kidd asked.
“Read the books I left you; you’ll know.”
“What if there’s an emergency when its above land?” Kidd asked.
“Then you drag it like now,” Ewan said. “Stefan, build a temporary mast and a sail on the top deck when we drop it. You’ll be able to control the direction with it right?”
“I can try, but the joint might not be strong enough to carry the Warship’s weight,” Stefan said.
“If it fails, we’ll just row it.”
“Boss…its too big for that…,” Kidd said.
“We’ll make do somehow, let’s get moving,” Ewan said and lifted the Warship again. His Ryvia checked beyond the wall, the ocean wasn’t too far below. Even if they let go from here, it should fall onto the water without any damage.
His daggers macerated the wall in seconds, sunlight poured in, salty wind rushed at them, and the waves roared. With a deafening splash and exploding water, the Stormfalcon crashed into the ocean. And as Ewan expected and hoped, it creaked with the turbulent tides but showed no signs of sinking—he finally had his own ship on the ocean.
…..
The end of the hour approached and the three braced themselves on the top deck of the Stormfalcon, floating away from Drarith. Mayhem had already seized the city again, and the chaos today surrounded the Ensil Villa—the church and the Valbergs joined hands against the Governor. The erupting spells and the exploding bombardments even shook the waters near the Warship, and the ocean recoiled back with a cry.
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“One minute left,” Ewan said. “Stefan, you go inside, just in case.”
“Will it be that bad?” Kidd asked.
“I don’t know…”
Kidd clutched the hilt of the Obsidian Dagger at his waist and gulped, while Stefan backed off to the stairs, peeking out from the gap.
The countdown began with ten seconds remaining, and Ewan prepared for the worst, only hoping that Nana would remain safe. If the consequences spanned across Airadia, she could get hurt....
The anxiety ate away at him.
An ascending tremor marked the end of the hour, and Airadia quaked. Lightning cracked in the sky, its thunder rumbled away, and the dark clouds shaded the world. A sense of wrath blanketed them, all living beings trembled under its fury, and the world seethed—Airadia’s rage fell upon them, their mother was angry.
Morinfair tumbled under the trio, thrashing the Warship around, the wails of the oceanic creatures boiling the waters, and the waves rammed the top deck. The Stormfalcon groaned under the constant pounding but held on without flipping over.
“This can't be it…,” Ewan murmured, holding Kidd and Stefan with his Ryvia, and keeping them on their feet. The extent of the consequences worried him, for it didn’t match the degree of the warnings. Airadia might rampage and fume, but she was their home, and they were her children after all, her fury could only go so far…
A thick lightning bolt flashed in the cloud and came descended on Drarith, cleaving the mountain in half. The deafening crack silenced the world, and the earth collapsed under Airadia’s whip, the falling boulders giving birth to towering waves. And with that, the world’s rage came to an end.
Kidd and Stefan heaved a sigh of relief, but Ewan kept alert. “This couldn’t be it…,” he murmured again.
When the skies cleared up and the serenity of nature returned, Ewan’s instincts blared all the sirens, and a malicious intent smothered them. The sheer hostility it bore shook anyone it touched.
An orange glare sparked at Ewan, and his Varos shattered to bear the brunt, temperature skyrocketing around him. Kidd too suffered from the same and collapsed on his ass, the cloak of the Dark-Anima barely protecting him.
The city that had just ceased to exist suffered yet again as its exposed Kyrons burst out in flames at random, the glare igniting even the weak Ashevas and the Astylinds.
Ewan followed the thread of malice and squinted at the sun in the sky, its blazing radiance darkening everything else for him. The overlapping experience of an hour of their lives kindled the sun’s sentience….
The déjà vu fruit woke up the sun.
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Status: Healthy
Step-1 Severynth [Spirit-Nebula: Zeroth Surge]
Subtype: Step-0 Elementalist
Name: Ewan Ayres
Species: Human
Vitality: 7.0
Spirit: 25.3
Anima: [Fire – 25.3 | Ice – 25.3 | Blood – 25.3 | Mystic: 25.3]
Astylinds: 4 [Potential: 1]
Rolling Cat [Toast]: Step-1 Severynth [Spirit-Nebula: Zeroth Surge]
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Fire Monkey [Orange]: Step-1 [Level-10] [Grade-B]
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Imp [Frost]: Step-1 [Level-10] [Grade-B]
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Bloodthorn-Lotus [Iris]: Step-0 [Level-4] [Grade-D]
Equipment: Common Clothes; Yurn [Neck Gaiter]; Moonkeeper [Crystal-Ball]; Rainwarden [Staff]; Blackfeather [Overcoat].
Storage: Journal; Elementalist—The Path of Anima [Subtype-Book]; Spellbook; Bloodlust [Spell]; Transmute [Spell]; Unknown Book [Radon’s Legacy]; Anima-Crystals [Novas Coins]; Obsidian Dagger; Hub-Connector; Ingredients.
Novas: 28,245
Crelith: 1,298