Chapter 312: Black Flood (Part 1)

The city was still recovering. Hunters received treatment along the streets. Engineers repaired damaged relay towers. Crimson scorch marks still marked the roads.

Kai walked through it all, watching a hunter sit against a wall while a healer worked his arm, another group already patching a barrier. He looked at the sky.

Completely clear.

For a moment, everything felt almost normal.

"You should rest," Tiamat said.

He looked at the damage around him. "We don’t know when the next one starts."

"You survived the first."

"Exactly." He looked around. "Which means five more are waiting."

Tiamat went quiet.

Then:

[Calamity Two Detected.]

He stopped. "...Already?"

[Calamity Two: Black Flood.]

His expression hardened.

No clouds. No thunder. No wind. Nothing looked wrong at all.

Then, drip. A black drop landed on the street. Kai looked down. Another landed beside him.

Drip.

A hunter glanced up. "Is it raining?"

Kai noticed the drops weren’t reflecting sunlight at all. Pure black, almost like liquid ink.

"Do not touch it," Tiamat said sharply.

He looked at his hand. A drop already sat there. "...A little late."

The black liquid began creeping across his skin. He flooded the area with mana, burning it away, staring at his palm.

"What was that?"

"The beginning."

The drops multiplied fast, hundreds, then thousands, and the sky seemed to open outright, black rain pouring down. Hunters threw up barriers. The roads filled, water rising to ankles, then knees, then higher.

Mira looked down. "This isn’t normal."

"No," Gabriel said grimly, looking toward the horizon. "It isn’t."

A hunter shouted, "LOOK!"

Beyond the city, a massive wall of black water rose, far taller than any of Mythal’s outer defenses.

"...That’s a flood?" Raze said, staring.

"That’s an ocean," Elden said.

The wall began moving straight toward the city.

"Outer barriers!" Lily called.

"Activate!" Kai ordered.

Golden barriers rose in layers, and the water crashed into them.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

The city shook, hunters thrown backward, the barrier bending under the strain.

It held.

Raze grinned. "Not bad."

"Don’t celebrate yet," Mira said, watching the water creep along the barrier’s surface.

Then Lily noticed something. "...That’s bad."

"What?" Elden asked.

"The water is eating the barrier."

A section collapsed, black water spilling through, touching a street sign.

The sign disappeared. Not broken. Not melted.

Gone.

A piece of stone fell into it and vanished the same way.

"...Where did it go?" a hunter whispered.

"Erased," Gabriel said quietly. She looked at the advancing water. "Anything completely consumed by it can be erased."

A hunter stepped back immediately. "Then nobody touches that water."

"You heard her! Stay away from it!" Mira shouted.

Lily realized fast that barriers alone couldn’t win this. "We can’t stop it."

"Then what?" Elden asked.

"Redirect it." The terrain systems activated, streets shifting, stone rising, roads splitting open into channels.

Elden watched, impressed. "We’re turning the city into a funnel."

"If we can’t stop the water," Lily said, "we decide where it goes."

The first wave passed through the outer defenses, and the channels caught it immediately, black water rushing down the prepared routes, hunters moving into position, mobile relays firing up.

For a moment it worked.

"It’s following the channels," Mira said.

"Good," Lily said.

Kai watched from above. "Keep it moving."

Then the water stopped.

"...Why did it stop?" Kai asked.

It moved again, but off the channels this time, turning directly toward him.

"It has found the City Leader," Tiamat confirmed.

"So this one targets me too."

"Yes."

The Flood climbed unnaturally over the terrain, ignoring the channels meant to contain it.

Kai sighed. "Of course."

"Kai," Sera said.

He smiled. "I’ll lead it away."

He ran, and the Flood followed, deliberately guiding it toward a prepared channel, letting the wave crash into it instead of him.

BOOOOOOM!

The channel absorbed the wave. He glanced back. "That worked."

"For now."

"You really don’t celebrate anything."

"You have survived less than two minutes."

"...Fair."

The Flood climbed out of the channel entirely a moment later.

"It’s leaving the route," Lily said, watching.

"It’s adapting," Elden said.

"That’s one reason these Calamities are so dangerous," Gabriel said.

"Because they’re intelligent?" Mira asked.

"Not exactly." Gabriel watched the water spread. "They don’t need to be intelligent. They simply respond."

A hunter slipped in a flooded street, boot touching the black water, dark liquid immediately spreading across it.

"My boot!"

His teammate grabbed him. "Get out!"

WHOOSH!

Emergency teleportation activated, and the hunter reappeared safely elsewhere, looking down at his own boot, half of it simply gone.

"...It erased it."

Mira approached. "You’re alive."

"...Yeah."

"That’s what matters."

Kai found himself pinned between two advancing sections of the Flood.

"Your Authority," Tiamat said.

He raised a hand, Water Authority responding, a portion of the black water rising in response, pulling away from the rest.

His eyes widened. "I can control it."

"Part of it."

He pushed harder, and the ordinary water bent toward him, but a strange residue remained, unresponsive.

"...Something is resisting."

"The water is only the vessel."

He looked at the black residue left behind. "And the erasure?"

"That is the Calamity."

He separated another small piece, testing it further. His Authority pulled the water clean away, leaving the black residue hanging in place, inert.

"So the Authority controls the water."

"Yes."

"But not the erasure."

"Correct."

His eyes narrowed. "Then we don’t need to defeat the erasure." He looked toward the city. "We just need to separate the two."

Tiamat went quiet, then: "That may work."

"That’s the first useful thing you’ve said."

"I have said many useful things."

"Not today."

Lily activated the next layer immediately. "Open the underground channels."

"All of them?" Elden asked.

"All of them."

The underground network flared to life, containment channels opening beneath the streets, the Flood pulled downward, black water pouring into contained reservoirs while the surface began clearing.

"It’s working," Mira said.

"This is similar to what some old civilizations attempted," Gabriel added.

"Attempted?" Lily asked.

Gabriel hesitated. "...Not all of them succeeded."

"Then we’ll do better."

Some districts were lost anyway, roads erased, a few buildings partially consumed, but the central areas held.

[City Infrastructure Integrity: 93%.]

"That’s good," Elden said.

"Better than the simulation," Lily said.

Kai smiled hearing it. "Keep going."

[Black Flood Duration: 5:21.]

"Halfway," he said.

"Yes."

He looked around at the hunters still fighting, the network still holding. "We’re doing better than the simulation."

"That does not mean the second half will be easier."

"You really hate letting me feel good about anything."

"It keeps you alive."

He laughed. "Fair."

Then the Flood stopped moving entirely. Every hunter noticed it at once, the city going eerily quiet, no waves, no crashing.

"...What is it doing?" Kai asked.

No answer.

The black water began rising, not outward, upward, lifting from the streets, from the containment zones, from the outer districts, hundreds of tons rising into the sky at once.

"That’s impossible," Lily said.

"What?" Elden asked.

"It’s gathering."

Gabriel stepped outside and looked up, her expression shifting fast. "It’s concentrating."

The water kept rising, gathering into a gigantic mass overhead, an entire ocean lifted above the city.

A hunter whispered, "...What is that?"

Raze gripped Ruinbreaker. "I don’t think we’re supposed to let that fall."

"Kai—" Mira started.

He already knew. The massive black ocean began shifting, moving toward his position.

"It is preparing to strike the anchor," Tiamat said quietly.

"Me."

"Yes."

The entire mass hung above him, the city beneath it looking impossibly small. The water began rotating, the erasure property spreading through the whole formation.

Kai gripped the Fractured Blade tighter.

[Black Flood Duration: 6:47.]

"...Three minutes left."

"And the worst is beginning."

He smiled faintly. "Then let’s finish it."

The enormous mass began its descent.

BOOOOOOOOOOM—

The entire sky disappeared beneath black water.