Anassa ran her fingers over something cool and smooth. If it was wet, it would be slippering. She slowly peeled her eyes open. The sky was a wonderful blue up above and… Anassa stood up in shock. Was she still in Arika? All around was deep blue water, murky and almost black as if it was dirtied with soil or ash. Had she landed in an ocean?
Anassa realised the island she was on wasn’t an island whatsoever. She turned around, two enormous red eyes were looking directly at her. The ground below her was not ground at all either, it was the huge scales of a reptile. Anassa blinked at the beast and didn’t grab at sorcery. There was no need to, she had humiliated the monster the last time they faced off against each other.
She merely stared into those eyes, they were intelligent. That was the part she was totally unable to comprehend. Why would an intelligent creature save her?
Ciria readjusted the collar of her coat as she jumped out of the helicopter carrying her. By all rational observation, she should not. Frankly, it wasn’t just rationality, every bone in her body told her not to come. To leave the UNN and Newford to its fate. She wasn’t Kassandora, who had all the great books written about her and who all the Divines treated with so much awe and adoration that she existed as a Goddess among Gods. She was not Anassa, who apparently was so powerful she had entire libraries dedicated to the tragedies laying at her feet. She was not Olephia, who even Allasaria had once said was undefeatable. Nor was she Fortia or Maisara, who had no powers yet could inspire cities to move as one. Allasaria, Ciria was not either, the Goddess of Light cast a shadow so large Ciria felt as if she could drown in it.
And she was not Elassa, who had caused this crisis in the first place.
She was merely Ciria, Goddess of Civilization. Supposedly the highest title of this era, supposedly the greatest to exist amongst them. Her husband was Halkus, of Industry, another great God. Supposedly the second greatest of this era. After all, what had changed more in the past thousand years than the advent of industry and the stabilization of civilization? For the first time in history, nations weren’t being wiped out at the local ruler’s whims. Halkus fixed his sleeves and gave Ciria a smile as he jumped from the huge helicopter too. The two Divines landed with a crash onto the concrete of the Newford’s many piers. “I’ll clear the ships, you raise a floodwall.” Halkus said and Ciria smiled as she gave one last glance at her husband.
Etala, Goddess of Democracy and Patron of the UNN, had called him here. Newford had eight million people. It was a jewel of the UNN, with skyscrapers that reached the clouds, each one seeming to race the others in a bid to be the tallest. The other coastal cities were in just as bad a situation, but the only saving grace was that even the second biggest only stood at four. And they were considerably smaller. Halkus, in his dark blue coat which matched Ciria’s, raised his stands as he took over the ships that were left abandoned in Newford’s port.
Ciria got to work.
Wave hits Alkai, Southern UNN.
UNN Death Toll: 1,800,000
Ciria closed her eyes, there were times when she had responded to natural disasters before. Usually, it was her or Kavaa. And Kavaa was there to heal, not to protect in the same way that Ciria could. The various magicians who happened to be in the city started to help too. That was another reason Ciria had come to Newford, magician density here was the lowest out of any other city on the east coast. The others had defenders which could potentially raise something akin to barriers.
A concrete wall, fashioned out of the tarmac and pavement. The land simply shifted as Ciria used her powers to pull them up. It was the same thing as shaping sand, simply using the material in the ground and guiding it serve a different purpose. Ciria saw several of the mages in the distance lift off into the air as they went to deal with the crowds. Cars were stalled behind Ciria, two trucks crashed into each other. No one had been hurt, but the vehicles had been made immobile. Ciria turned as she watched the magicians used winds to lift one of the trucks into the air and open up the road for more people to flee. She almost smiled, then she stopped. The concrete wall reached the height of the second floor window. Ciria almost got hopeful, and then she let the little voice in her mind to move faster guide her.
Who was Ciria joking? An entire continent been shifted.
Ciria started to pull the wall higher.
Wave hits Endmond, Southern UNN.
UNN Death Toll: 4,250,000
Ciria’s concrete wall reached the fourth floor of the buildings behind her. Some of the people this high up had decided to test their luck by staying in the city rather than attempting an escape. Ciria did not know if she deserved that level of trust. A year ago, she would have been happy that the people were so confident in her ability. And now? She had failed in the Peace Conference back then, she had simply given up and decided that it was not worth it. That the old breed of Divines was simply unsalvageable.
Well, maybe the old breed of Divines was not her problem. Maybe they should simply go and kill themselves for the good of Arda. But if it was as simple and as easy as that, then would there have been a Great War in the first place?
Halkus jumped from the pier onto a yacht that was operating itself under his command. The great container ships and tankers that had been docked where being guided by Ciria’s husband out to the sea. It didn’t matter where, they simply shouldn’t be in the port for when the tidal wave came. Ciria held her breath as she pulled on steel to reinforce to her wall. Concrete was good, concrete was strong, but she doubted that concrete alone would stand against the whole might of a shifted ocean. Metal from the plumbing systems, from the street lamps, from the buildings themselves and from the cars that had been abandoned on the roads by the people, shot into the concrete and started intertwining through it like spider-webs. A few helicopters were flying in the sky, now purple from the setting Sun, as more planes were flying to the cities in the south.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Ciria saw the tide start to retreat. It was coming.
Wave hits Onkton, Central UNN.
UNN Death Toll: 12,800,000
To the sixth floor, Ciria’s concrete wall rose. Intertwined with steel for support, it was a challenge to put, gone to save people from avalanches before. She had reinforced cities in times of flooding too, and she had stopped a few tidal waves in the past. But nothing like this, never had a floodwall needed to be so thick, so tall, and on such a short notice of time. Behind her, the roads had died down. People were actually starting to return to their homes.
That was good, they should head to the upper floors, even if the wall fell, then Ciria could reinforce the structures so they would not collapse. Whatever breed of God Elassa was, Ciria was the exact opposite. The Goddess of Civilization smiled at the thought. That was one thing she could be proud of: she was not Elassa.
So Ciria kept on dragging the wall higher, as helicopters circled around her, recording the event. As other helicopters went out to scout the retreating waters. As people clambered onto rooftops and started laying sandbags out in front of their homes. As the Sun began to set over Newford, Ciria kept on pulling every inch of material not crucial for a building with people in out of the city and into her protective barrier.
Wave hits Mulley, Central UNN.
UNN Death Toll: 23,900,000
Ciria stared out into the ocean. Fish and other sea creatures were jumping on flat ground as Halkus returned on a helicopter. He dropped from it next to Ciria and looked around grimly. “Are the ships gone?” Ciria asked.
“I got most of them past the wave and onto the open ocean.” Halkus said. “I’ll hold the ones that the wave carries.”
“Is it big?” Ciria asked.
“It’s big.” Was all Halkus said. Ciria felt her knees shake and sweat stream down her face and dampen her shirt.
“Hold me Halkus.” Ciria said. “Keep me standing, I’ll keep on pulling it up.” Ciria closed her eyes and worked without seeing. There was nothing to see anyway, she was simply repeating the same motion. More material pulled into the foundation, the foundation would be shifted upwards, metal would be collected, the metal would reinforce her barrier, and then she would repeat the action. She was glad Halkus didn’t say anything, her mouth was too dry to answer right now. Instead, he merely stood behind her, wrapped his arms under hers, and kept Ciria standing. Ciria heard a crash. In the distance, like a thousand different thunder strikes all overlapping over one-another. The Goddess of Civilization opened her eyes.
Ciria saw the horizon move.
Wave hits Newford, Northern UNN.
Ciria caught her breath and almost gagged at the sight. That wasn’t a wave. That was a wall. A moving wall of blue so dark it may as well have been black. The cargo ships it had swallowed were little more than tiny little needles in it. Ciria felt her eyes tear up in fear. She pushed it away, Halkus’ touch stabilized her emotions, and she merely kept on raising the wall as that moving mountain, stretching endlessly from each end of the horizon, barrelled towards them.
It crashed half way across the distance, launching a spray that may as well have been rain towards Newford. And thankfully, the waters did not rise even to half the height of that first wave again. Instead, they roared onwards, straight at the defences Ciria had put up.
Ciria raised her arms higher as the floodwall started to climb. The ocean crashed into it like a battering ram crashing into a castle gate. If Ciria was not reinforcing the stone underneath with magic, constantly re-arranging itself to re-fill cracks as the material groaned. For a moment, Ciria had one stupid thought that the waters would retreat immediately. That all she had to do was withstand the initial crash, and that then she would have saved Newford.
Ciria stared down in horror as the ocean started to rise. And it rose quickly too.
Ciria’s concrete climbed higher as it kept pace with the ocean. She had used all the power she could manage to hold onto, and she could only build one wall to protect Newford. Here, she had only managed to roll a boulder into the river. All it did was slightly stall the water as they raced around them.
In the grand scheme of things, when it came to the entire east coast of the UNN, Ciria’s wall was merely a single piece of tape across the hole in the sinking ship. She had saved how many millions? The people who had stayed behind when they got news that a Divine was coming to help had freed up the roads for those who decided to leave anyway. Her intervention meant that every plane in the country could be diverted to another city, more pressing.
One million? Two?
Let’s say even five million.
A drop in the bucket.
The worst part was, it was an unneeded loss. Ciria had met Kassandora and had met Elassa. She had told them both to stop. She had tried to convince. They had merely ridiculed her like a child. Yet the only point where Ciria had been wrong was in the scale; even she did not think any of them were capable of this. Ciria’s concrete walls climbed higher as Halkus raised his hands and forced the engines of the ships to turn on. Anchors dropped, and the huge vessels just about barely stopped from crashing into Ciria’s floodwall.
They had treated her and Halkus like children, and now her and Halkus were cleaning up their mess. Who was the real child now? Ciria bit her tongue in rage. She rarely got angry, and usually she tried to quell those flames of anger within herself. Not today. Today, those fires were righteous. She knew they were.
The lot of them should have been killed then and there. Instead, Waeh had died. Instead Epa had gone to war. Instead, two continents were burning with war, and half of the world was flood. The lot of them were terrible. Elassa, Kassandora, Maisara and Arascus. Allasaria too. The woman had always said that everything would work out. Ciria’s concrete walls grew half way to the size of skyscrapers as they started to thicken. The buildings behind her started to expand and reinforce the floodwall, else it would collapse from its own sheer scale. All of them. Allasaria and Zerus and Sceo. All of them! And what was Fortia?
Fortia? Goddess of Peace? What a joke. Fortia would be satisfied with a world under one tyrant simply because it meant that there was a lack of war. What a child. Kassandora? Why was she even respected? Because the woman had a total lack of morality? Because her convictions were ones of utter immorality? Was that it? And Elassa?
Ciria could not believe she had ever once respected the woman.
Once, she had even thought Elassa to be the most intelligent and knowledgeable of them all. The Archivist of Arda, even if the woman died now, she would leave a permanent mark on history simply through the sheer number of historical records she had made first-hand. And now? No. Elassa was not stupid, that, Ciria could not believe. She wished she could though. That would offer an easier explanation than the alternative.
Because if the person who cracked a continent was not stupid, then what were they?
Continent Cracking fatalities within the UNN on the first day: 36,800,000.
The number would rise to 55,500,000 over the course of the next week. Disease and starvation would lead to an estimated 5 million dead over the next three months. The UNN itself tracks deaths at 62,832,933.
The War College of Arcadia, within the next month, would release a statement officially sanctioned by Elassa, Goddess of Magic, listing deaths at only 43, this is the sorcerers who burned their lives out during Starfall.