Chapter 250 – (Un)Natural Disasters

Chapter 250

(Un)Natural Disasters

Date : Day 17 of Firstthaw 1024 Aethellgard Concord Year.

Arianna watched the dust cloud grow.

It rose higher with every passing moment, a towering brown wall swallowing the northeastern sky. Beneath it, the roar of fifteen thousand goblins rolled across the grassland like distant thunder.

She gripped Quadraflux Weaver in her right hand and raised it toward the sky. Inside the crystal orb, the four colors shifted in their slow, familiar dance. Red. Brown. Green. Blue.

Earth Fissure…

It has been a few months since I last cast it. My final practical examination at the academy…

She drew a slow breath.

But that was a testing field. Targets made of stone and straw. Not a real army.

Her grip on the staff tightened, then relaxed.

Calm down... I know the Runic Array. I know the spell image. Every rune, every connection. I could build it with my eyes closed.

A faint smile touched her lips.

Headmistress Thavenessia herself praised the design… I have no reason to doubt it now.

With her left hand, she lightly adjusted the brim of her wide hat. The river wind tugged at her crimson hair.

It is my most Aethell-hungry spell. Heavier even than Lava Surge. And the most destructive spell I possess…

Her light blue eyes sharpened.

Back at the academy, I could only cast it once a day. A single casting, and my reserve was completely empty. I would spend the rest of the day barely able to walk properly.

She glanced over her shoulder at the people on the deck behind her.

Hyoren, standing beneath the white banner. Her leader.

Elise, atop the cabin roof with her bow drawn. Her first mentor.

Oria, small and pale at the railing beside her, clutching her wand. Her second mentor.

And Jackey, planted at the northern railing with both axes ready, his tail swaying behind him. Her lover.

But I am not the girl from the academy anymore.

Her fingers drifted to her chest. They brushed against Noctynara's Lament, nestled at the center of her purple matinee necklace. The slightly oval, pitch-black orb sat within its purple metal frame, dark as a tiny piece of the void. Carved at its heart was Noctynara's symbol: an open book, and above it, three moons orbiting a single open eye.

I have leveled up. I have grown stronger. And with this artifact acting as a second Aethell core, my regeneration is more than half again as fast… I can cast Earth Fissure twice in a single day. As long as I have about an hour to recover between them.

She lowered her hand.

Leader asked me not to use its full replenishment today. And he is right. Once used, the Lament falls silent for an entire month. Even its regeneration would stop. Using it now would leave me weaker for tomorrow's battle.

This first phase is only meant to thin their numbers. My true trump card belongs to tomorrow.

She turned back toward the north.

The dust cloud had crested the hills. Beneath it, the land itself seemed to move. A sea of green spilled over the ridge line and poured down the slopes toward the river. Rusted blades glinted. Crude banners swayed. The snarling roar became deafening.

Then her leader's voice cut through it all.

"Arianna! Oria! Begin!”

Arianna didn't need to be told twice.

She raised Quadraflux Weaver higher. Then she closed her eyes.

Branch Magic demanded absolute concentration.

The world began to fade. The guttural snarls of the horde dimmed. The rush of the river beneath the hull softened, then vanished. The wind against her face. The creak of the deck. The weight of her hat. One by one, every sensation slipped away, until only one thing remained.

The magic.

She turned her awareness inward, toward the Aethell Core resting deep within her. It was full. Calm. Waiting.

Slowly, she guided the inert Aethell outward. Gradually, it shifted and thickened, transforming into Earth Aethell. Heavy. Dense. Solid as bedrock.

Only after the conversion was complete did she begin constructing the spell image in her mind.

The plain north of the river. The ground beneath fifteen thousand marching goblins. And far below it, the deep layers of rock and earth, waiting to be commanded.

A transparent brown magic circle appeared before the tip of her staff. This circle—a Runic Array—was completely blank. Patient. Waiting for its runes.

Arianna slowly raised her left hand. Her fingertip traced through empty air.

Earth.

The circle flashed. The first rune locked into place at its center. The foundation of the spell. The element itself.

Her fingers moved again, faster now.

Terraforma. Terraforma. Terraforma. Terraforma.

The second through fifth runes settled around the first. Four terrain alteration runes, declaring the spell's nature as Terraforma Branch Magic. Stacked four times over, so the spell would reach wider. Deeper. With far greater force behind it.

Her hand never paused.

Point. Width. Length. Depth. Forward.

The sixth through tenth runes. The targeting runes. They determined where the spell would begin, how wide and how long it would stretch, how deep it would bite into the earth, and the direction its devastation would travel.

The circle began to expand, its lines growing more intricate with every rune.

Press. Press. Press. Press.

The eleventh through fourteenth runes. Far beneath the plain, the deep layers of rock would be forced together. Grinding against one another. Building pressure with nowhere to go.

Quake. Quake. Tremor. Tremor.

The fifteenth through eighteenth runes. Under that mounting pressure, the ground itself would begin to shake and tremble.

The Runic Array grew more complex still. Lines branched and interlocked. Smaller circles formed within the larger one, each connected to the next.

At the same time, the four colors inside the orb of Quadraflux Weaver began swirling violently. Normally, they shifted gently between red, brown, green and blue. Now, the brown swelled. It grew larger. Brighter. Pushing the other colors aside, until it swallowed every one of them.

The staff had attuned itself completely to Earth Magic, serving as the conduit for the Ritual Magic she was constructing.

Arianna continued drawing.

Split. Rupture.

The nineteenth and twentieth runes. The triggers. When the pressure peaked, the earth would split apart. Then it would rupture.

Erupt. Shockwave. Surge. Upward.

The twenty-first through twenty-fourth runes settled into perfect alignment. All the pressure locked beneath the plain would be released in a single instant, bursting upward and tearing outward in a devastating shockwave.

Control.

The twenty-fifth rune. A single rune binding everything that came before it. It would hold the shockwave in shape. Hold the force exactly where she wanted it. Without it, the spell would tear itself apart before it ever reached the enemy.

The spell image within Arianna's mind was complete. Every stage. Every consequence. Now, she only needed to finish the ritual.

Beads of sweat formed along her brow. Her left hand remained perfectly steady.

Stone. Stone. Stone. Solid. Sharp.

The final five runes. The earth's punishment. Along the edges of the chasm, jagged spikes of solid stone would erupt, piercing anything that survived the initial shockwave.

The last rune locked into place.

Thirty runes in total.

The completed Runic Array flashed with brilliant brown light. The orb atop Quadraflux Weaver blazed pure, unbroken brown.

An instant later, across the river—an identical Runic Array spread across the plain. It unfolded on the open ground directly in front of the charging goblin horde, layer upon layer of glowing circles, vast enough to swallow the entire front of the army.

The ritual was complete.

***

Oria watched as Arianna filled the empty circle, one rune at a time.

The young mage's left hand moved through the air without the slightest hesitation. Each stroke of her fingertip left a rune glowing within the vast brown Runic Array before her staff. Five. Ten. Fifteen. The circle grew more intricate with every passing breath, lines branching and interlocking like the roots of an ancient tree.

And still, Arianna did not slow down.

As expected of a genius…

Oria's grip tightened around the Azure Wand.

She deploys thirty runes for her Branch Magic as though it were nothing… What a freakish processing capacity…

Her pointed ears twitched.

And to think I got so big-headed back then. When my peers at Sylvana's Repository called me a genius just because I could deploy twenty-four…

A faint, self-mocking smile touched her lips. Then it faded.

She turned her sapphire eyes toward the north.

The dust cloud had swallowed half the sky. Beneath it, the green tide had poured over the hills and was flooding down toward the riverbank. The roar of fifteen thousand goblins rolled across the water, so loud now that she could feel it in her chest.

Fifty years…

Her fingers tightened on the wand until her knuckles turned pale.

Fifty years since I last used offensive magic. And back then… it was against an enemy just like this one… Shadowden Collective…

Her mind drifted.

Back across the years. Back across the continent. Back to a face she had tried very hard not to remember.

Fyrvael…

Silver hair, shorter than hers, always falling into his eyes. A laugh that came too easily. Hands that were always warm, even in the middle of winter.

They had both come from the Korian Enclave. Two young elves who had grown tired of quiet libraries and endless study, who had wanted to see what lay beyond the forests of home. So they had left together, as wandering adventurers.

They had traveled the world. Fought monsters across a dozen territories. Delved into dungeons whose names she could still recite. A party of two, climbing the ranks one quest at a time. They had reached Silver.

And they had been reaching for Gold.

We were really stupid, weren't we… Thinking nothing could ever stop us…

Then the Ogre King's army had come.

The town they were staying in at the time had no walls worth mentioning. The two of them had stood on its edge with everyone else who could fight. She had poured everything she had into her Water Magic. Fyrvael had held the line beside her.

They had defended that town.

But when the battle ended, Fyrvael was lying in the mud, his blood mixing with the rain.

She had carried him to the church herself. Begged the priests to heal him. Begged them with her voice breaking.

But the nobles of that town had been wounded too. And the church had decided whose lives came first.

By the time a priest finally came to look at him, there was nothing left to heal.

Oria's hand had begun to tremble. She pressed it against the wand, forcing it still.

After that, she had turned her back on Luminara's church. She had laid down her offensive magic and sealed it away, deep inside herself, where she would never have to touch it again. She had become an alchemist instead. Brewing potions was something she could do without seeing his face every time she raised her wand.

And there was another reason.

She wanted to heal people. All people, without discrimination. She couldn't use healing magic. But she could brew medicine. Potions that worked the same for a noble and a beggar alike. Potions that never asked who was more important.

And if she was being honest with herself— it had also been her way of getting back at the church.

Look! I can heal people without relying on your precious healing magic! I'll save the poor ones you turn away, because I won't discriminate!

Oria chuckled inwardly at the memory of her younger self. So angry. So certain.

Though that hatred was misplaced… Not everyone in the church is a bad person. The rot exists there, like it does everywhere. But most of them still heal people every single day…

Her smile faded.

Realizing that came too late, though. Fyrvael won't come back.

She let out a quiet breath.

I've already made my peace with the church. But making peace with healers isn't the same as forgetting his last moments…

Her gaze lowered to the Azure Wand in her hand. The small blue gem atop it glowed softly beneath the twin suns.

And casting offensive magic… Especially Branch Magic like this… It still takes me back to that battle.

For fifty years, every time she so much as considered casting an offensive spell, her hands shook.

Like they were shaking now.

Her eyes drifted across the deck, toward the cabin roof. Elise knelt there with her bow drawn, perfectly still, her emerald eyes locked on the enemy.

We really are alike, aren't we, cow tits…

Elise had lost Kael. Her fiancé. To the Arachne Queen.

Oria had lost Fyrvael. Her lover. To the Ogre King.

Two elves who had left the forest, loved someone, and buried them in foreign soil.

She clutched the front of her robe. Her sapphire eyes moved on, finally coming to rest on the black-haired man standing beneath the white banner. Hyoren stood with Dawn Breaker in one hand and the white standard in the other, his dark eyes fixed on the approaching horde.

But you found Hyoren… While I…

Her lips pressed together.

Maybe I should start moving on too. Find someone new… But that's far easier said than done…

She shook her head lightly. Her silver hair swayed.

Focus. That's enough. You came here to fight, not to wallow.

A small, wry chuckle escaped her, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

I just hope I haven't forgotten how…

She drew a deep breath and turned toward the river.

The water rushed past the hull, gray-green and endless, churning white where it broke around The Sailer. An almost limitless body of water. Exactly what she needed.

Oria raised the Azure Wand. Its small blue gem glittered beneath the twin suns of Kresneger.

Then she closed her eyes.

She reached inward, toward the Aethell Core resting within her. Slowly, carefully, she guided the inert Aethell outward. It shifted as it moved, loosening and softening, until it became Water Aethell. Flowing. Formless. Free.

Only once the conversion was complete did she begin constructing the spell image.

The river. Its water, rising at her command. Gathering. Taking shape. Becoming something more than water. A construct. A semi-sentient vessel that would build and cast spells in her place. She would only need to feed it Aethell and give it commands. It would carry the burden of calculation itself, leaving her mind free to cast other spells if she needed to.

The image settled, clear and whole.

A transparent blue magic circle appeared before the tip of the Azure Wand. It was smaller than Arianna's, but still vast, its pale blue light reflecting off the rushing water below.

Oria's fingertip traced through the empty air.

Water.

The first rune settled at the circle's center. The element itself.

Liquid Control.

The second rune. The Branch Magic that let her command water as though it were her own hand.

Construct. Construct. Construct. Vessel. Vessel.

The third through seventh runes locked into place. A layered foundation, so the construct she created would be strong enough to hold its form.

Her fingertip moved faster now. The trembling in her hand had stopped.

Bound. Command.

The eighth and ninth runes. They bound the construct to her and gave her the right to command it freely.

Proxy. Delegate. Casting. Array. Calculation.

The tenth through fourteenth runes. These were the heart of the spell. The construct would become her processing power, carrying the weight of each spell instead of her own mind. Given a simple command, it would act on its own.

The circle grew more intricate. Thin lines of blue light linked rune to rune.

Focus. Buffer. Isolate. Flow. Tether.

The fifteenth through nineteenth runes. They would let the construct hold its shape and keep its connection to her, no matter how violently it moved.

Liquid. Liquid. Liquid.

The twentieth through twenty-second runes. The construct's power over liquid itself. It would be strongest near a large body of water. But even without one, the air was full of droplets it could draw upon.

Beads of sweat formed along her brow. Her breathing had grown shallow. She kept drawing.

Release. Surge.

The final two runes. The construct would release the water it gathered in the form of spells, attacking on its own without her needing to cast a thing.

Twenty-four runes.

Her limit. Exactly as it had been fifty years ago.

The last rune locked into place. The Azure Wand flashed. The Runic Array before it blazed with brilliant blue light.

And in the river beside The Sailer—a smaller duplicate of the Runic Array spread across the surface of the water, its pale blue lines rippling with the current.

Oria opened her eyes.

Her hands were steady.

The preparation was complete.

***

Hyoren glanced over his shoulder.

Both casters had finished.

At the bow, Arianna stood with Quadraflux Weaver raised high. The orb atop her staff blazed pure brown, and the vast Runic Array before it glowed with thirty runes, each one locked perfectly into place. Beside her, Oria held the Azure Wand steady. Its smaller blue array pulsed in the air, and a twin of it rippled on the surface of the river beside the hull.

Oria started much later than Arianna… But she finished at almost the same moment…

His eyes lingered on the small elf.

She can't deploy as many runes as Arianna… But her casting speed is on a different level… She really is a genius too…

He turned back toward the north.

The horde was close now. Close enough that he no longer needed to squint through the dust. The front ranks had reached the open grassland below the hills, a solid wall of green bodies stretching from the riverbank far into the distance. They marched without pause, snarling, rusted blades raised, trampling the spring grass into mud.

And directly in their path, the enormous brown Runic Array lay glowing across the plain.

Hyoren's eyes narrowed.

The front ranks should be able to see it by now... The glow... The Aethell gathering there is thick enough to feel from here…

Yet not a single goblin slowed.

They marched straight toward it. Over it. Onto it.

So that's the weakness of the Leadership Aura…

Under the Chieftain's command, the goblins no longer thought for themselves. Only the order existed in their minds. Charge. Advance. Reach Akela. No matter how illogical, no matter what lay ahead, they would carry out that order to the last.

If these were ordinary goblins without a Chieftain, many of them would already have scattered... Monsters are sensitive to Aethell… Something this dense would have sent them running in every direction…

And the Chieftain itself was somewhere far in the back, buried deep inside its army. The goblins at the front would never think to warn it. They only knew how to move forward.

The one goblin capable of recognizing the danger can't even see it…

Hyoren tightened his grip on Étendard Sacré du Lys. The white banner snapped above him in the river wind.

Then he slowly raised Dawn Breaker high above his head.

At the bow, both casters saw the white blade lift. Neither of them needed to be told what it meant.

Hyoren drew a breath. Then he swung the sword down.

"Arianna! Oria! Now!"

He didn't look back. He didn't need to. He knew both of them would follow his order.

Arianna was the first.

Her light blue eyes snapped open. She thrust Quadraflux Weaver toward the northern plain.

"Earth Fissure!"

The Runic Array before her staff flashed. Across the river, the vast array spread across the plain flashed at the same instant, so bright that for a heartbeat, the dust cloud itself glowed brown.

Then the light vanished.

For a moment, nothing happened.

The horde kept marching. Its front ranks poured across the place where the array had been, snarling and shoving, oblivious.

Hyoren focused his Magic Eyes on them. Diagnostic Sight overlaid the charging mass with flickering information.

Most were ordinary Goblins. Level 3. Countless Goblin Fighters among them, Level 5. Scattered through the ranks were heavier, broader Goblin Warriors, ranging from Level 8 to Level 15.

And roughly every hundred goblins, there was one that stood apart. A Goblin Shaman with a crooked staff. A Goblin Archer with a bow across its back. A Goblin Lord in mismatched plate, barking orders at the creatures around it.

Commanders… One for every hundred or so…

Then—something happened.

CRAAAACK!

A deafening crack split the air, louder than any thunder Hyoren had ever heard. The sound slammed across the river and struck him in the chest.

Across the plain, a jagged line of destruction tore open the earth. It ripped through the grassland in a single violent instant, a scar a hundred meters long carved straight through the heart of the goblin vanguard.

The ground didn't break. It simply tore apart.

CRAAAACK!

The tear kept spreading. It forked. Branched. Raced outward in every direction, splitting the plain like glass struck by a hammer.

Then the pressure beneath it was released.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Shockwave after shockwave erupted from the fissure. Columns of earth, rock and goblins were hurled skyward. The ground heaved upward, buckled, and then collapsed in on itself. Where the plain had been, a chasm opened, plunging twenty meters deep in places. Entire ranks of goblins vanished into it, still snarling, still marching, swallowed by the earth before they understood that the ground was gone.

DON! DON! DON!

From the edges of that terrible wound, a forest of jagged stone erupted. Spikes of solid rock, some taller than six meters, burst from the ground one after another along both sides of the chasm. Every goblin that had survived the shockwave was impaled. Goblins clinging to the edges. Goblins scrambling away from the collapse. Goblins thrown into the air by the blast, falling back down onto waiting stone.

The roar of the horde broke apart into shrieks.

Bodies littered the torn earth. Hundreds of them. Then a thousand. Goblin corpses hung from the stone spikes like grim banners, dark blood running down the rock. More lay crushed beneath fallen earth or sprawled along the edges of the chasm. Far below, the depths of the fissure had become a mass grave.

Hyoren stared.

It wasn't a spell. It was a geological event. A piece of the world itself, torn open and turned into a weapon.

No wonder Arianna said this spell wasn't suited for a dungeon… Its area is far too vast. In a corridor, it would have buried all of us…

On the cabin roof, Elise had frozen with her arrow still drawn. Her emerald eyes were wide. At the northern railing, Jackey's jaw hung open, both axes forgotten at his sides, his tail completely still.

Freedom Party watched in awe as Arianna's spell swallowed the goblin army. Pierced it. Shattered it.

And across the river, where the vanguard of fifteen thousand goblins had marched only moments before—there was now only a smoking scar in the earth, bristling with stone.

***

Hyoren watched as the fissure kept swallowing goblins.

Across the river, the destruction was still settling. Dust rolled across the plain in thick brown clouds. Stone spikes jutted from both edges of the chasm, and goblin corpses hung from them like grim banners. Below, the depths of the fissure had become a mass grave.

Hyoren's dark eyes swept across the devastation, counting.

About a thousand… A thousand and a hundred at most…

His brows furrowed slightly.

Their march isn't as tightly packed as we expected. Arianna did a great job… But it's still below our best estimate.

He let out a slow breath.

Still, a thousand goblins in a single cast is already more than good… With her second Earth Fissure, two thousand will be gone from the fifteen thousand today…

His gaze drifted toward the small elf at the bow.

And that's not counting Oria's spell yet…

Then he noticed the change.

Beyond the smoking scar, the horde had begun to split.

Roughly two-thirds of the army kept marching west, flowing around the chasm and the stone spikes like a river around a boulder. They didn't slow. They didn't even turn their heads. They pressed on toward Akela as though nothing had happened.

But the remaining third had stopped.

Thousands of goblins turned toward the river. Toward The Sailer. Their snarls rose into furious, high-pitched shrieks. Rusted blades pointed at the boat. And then they surged toward the northern bank in a seething green tide.

Hyoren's eyes narrowed.

So the Chieftain has finally realized it's being attacked…

He didn't hesitate.

"Oria! Now!"

He spun toward the stern.

"Holley! Prepare to retreat! The moment they start to overwhelm us, we move!"

Holley's hands were already on the controls. His grin was gone, replaced by sharp focus.

"Aye, Mister Hyoren! Say the word!"

Hyoren turned to the northern railing.

"Jackey! Guard duty! Nothing gets on this boat!"

Jackey slammed both axes together with a ringing clang. His tail spiraled behind him.

"Got it, Big Bro! Nothing gets past me!"

Hyoren looked up at the cabin roof.

"Elise! Start shooting their commanders!"

Elise's bowstring was already drawn to her cheek. Her emerald eyes didn't leave the northern bank.

"On it."

At the bow, Oria raised the Azure Wand.

Her small hand was perfectly steady. Her sapphire eyes, fixed on the rippling Runic Array upon the river, burned with something Hyoren had never seen in them before.

"Summon Water Spirit - Elsylua!"

The blue Runic Array before her wand flashed. On the surface of the river, its twin answered with a burst of pale blue light.

The water around the array rippled.

Then it began to rise.

A column of river water gushed upward from the center of the array. It climbed higher and higher, glittering beneath the dual suns, and then it stopped. It hung suspended in the air above the river, shapeless and swirling.

Slowly, the water began to take form.

A head. Shoulders. Arms. The column narrowed and sculpted itself into a humanoid figure, water flowing endlessly through its body like a living current. Long hair streamed down its back, rippling as though caught in an invisible tide. Pointed ears emerged on either side of its head.

An elf.

She was tall and graceful, with a full, elegant figure. Every curve of her body was shaped from flowing water, translucent and gleaming in the morning light. Sunlight passed through her and scattered into a thousand shimmering points.

She was beautiful. And she looked nothing like the small, slender elf who had summoned her.

The water spirit turned her head. She looked slowly around, as if taking in the river, the boat and the sky. Then she drifted toward the bow. Toward Oria.

She didn't speak.

Oria had once explained. A spirit summoned through Liquid Control Magic was not truly sentient. It was a construct. A vessel of water and runes.

But as Hyoren watched, he wasn't so sure.

Through his Magic Eyes, he could see the tether. A thread of brilliant blue Aethell connected the small elf to the towering spirit, pulsing gently, like a heartbeat shared between two bodies.

Elsylua extended one flowing hand toward her caster.

Oria hesitated for only a moment. Then she reached out and laid her small palm against it.

For a brief moment, their hands touched.

The river wind seemed to go still. Oria closed her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was so soft that Hyoren barely heard it.

"It's been a while, hasn't it… Fifty years already."

Her fingers curled gently against the water.

"But I'm here again."

The spirit didn't answer. Yet the light within the tether brightened, warm and steady, as if to say that she had never left. That she would always be here.

Then Elsylua slowly withdrew her hand. She turned away from Oria and faced the north.

The goblin horde had almost reached the northern bank. The front ranks were already splashing into the shallows, snarling, weapons raised, ready to throw themselves into the river.

Hyoren watched the spirit with warm eyes.

That was the difference… Arianna's Branch Magic is devastation itself. But Oria's isn't about devastation. It's about connection…

But before he could finish that thought—he noticed something.

Oria opened her eyes. Through his Magic Eyes, Hyoren saw the tether between caster and spirit suddenly blaze. A massive surge of Aethell rushed along it, pouring from Oria into Elsylua in a torrent.

Oria thrust the Azure Wand toward the northern bank.

"Elsylua! Flash Flood!"

The spirit raised one hand.

And the river stilled.

The rough, churning current around The Sailer went eerily calm. Then the water began to move. Not downstream. Toward the spirit.

Hyoren glanced over the railing. The water level was dropping. The riverbank inched higher before his eyes, wet stones and mud emerging from beneath the surface. The water was being drawn away. Pulled. Gathered.

In front of Elsylua, it began to rise.

A wall of water climbed from the river. Five meters. Ten. Higher. It towered over The Sailer, over the northern bank, over the front ranks of the horde. It stretched along the river, gray-green and roaring, its crest curling and foaming in the wind. Sunlight shone through it and cast a wavering shadow across the shrieking goblins below.

On the northern bank, the charging goblins finally slowed. For the first time, Hyoren saw them hesitate.

It was far too late.

Elsylua swung her hand forward.

The wall of water moved.

VROOOOSH!

It crashed down onto the northern bank like a river breaking through a dam.

RUMBLE! SPLOOSH! RUMBLE! SPLOOSH!

The flood surged forward in a single unstoppable wave. It slammed into the goblins wading through the shallows and simply erased them. One moment they were there, snarling, blades raised. The next, they were gone, swallowed whole and dragged under.

SPLOOSH!

The leading goblins never had a chance. The water struck them, lifted them off their feet, and swept them away like leaves in a storm.

SPLOOSH! SPLOOSH!

More followed. Then more. Dozens. Hundreds. The flood tore through the ranks, ripping goblins off the ground and hurling them inland.

SPLOOSH! THUD!

Goblins swept along by the current crashed into the goblins behind them with the full force of the flood. Those were knocked down in turn and swept into the next rank, and the next, and the next.

Like bowling pins…

Bodies, broken spears, shields and rusted blades churned inside the wave. Every goblin in its path was struck again and again. By the water. By stones torn from the riverbank. By the bodies and weapons of their own kin.

Hyoren's eyes narrowed.

Just like a real flood or tsunami… The true danger isn't only the force of the water... 

It's everything the water carries with it… Debris… Stones… Broken timber…

He watched a goblin vanish beneath a tumbling mass of debris and bodies.

I remember reading it back on Earth…

Most of the deaths in floods and tsunamis aren't caused by the water itself… They're caused by the debris rushing along inside it…

His grip tightened on Dawn Breaker's hilt.

And Elsylua's flood is filled with the goblins' own weapons and corpses... The more of them it kills, the deadlier it becomes…

The flood didn't stop.

As Elsylua drew more water from the river, the current from upstream rushed in to replace it. The river poured itself endlessly into the spell, and the spell poured endlessly onto the plain.

VROOOOSH!

A second surge rolled across the northern bank. Then a third. The water spread outward across the grassland, flooding the low ground and turning the plain into a churning brown lake.

Across the battlefield, the flood reached the scar Arianna had torn into the earth.

The water poured over the edges of the chasm in roaring brown waterfalls. It crashed down between the stone spikes and into the depths below, carrying goblins, weapons and debris with it. The fissure swallowed the flood just as it had swallowed the vanguard.

The spikes didn't crumble. The chasm didn't close. The earth Arianna had commanded stayed exactly as she had shaped it, torn open and bristling with stone.

That scar is going to stay there… for years. Maybe forever…

The plain had been struck by its first catastrophe, and it would carry that wound permanently.

And now, it was receiving its second—the flood.

On the deck, Freedom Party could only watch.

On the cabin roof, Elise had lowered her bow. Her emerald eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted. She had known Oria for about a decade. She knew the pipsqueak was a genius with Water Magic. But never once had she imagined this.

At the bow, Arianna stood perfectly still, her hand frozen on the brim of her hat. Her light blue eyes followed the rampaging water. Oria had never once shown her anything like this.

At the railing, Jackey's mouth hung open. Water spray rained across his face, and he didn't even blink.

Hyoren watched the flood roar across the plain. Slowly, the corner of his mouth lifted.

Oria wiped out almost a thousand goblins with that… eight to nine hundred at least…

He shook his head in quiet disbelief.

She did say her spirit was strongest near a large body of water. But I never imagined it would be on this scale…

His eyes settled on the small elf at the bow. Her shoulders were rising and falling with each breath. Her grip on the Azure Wand hadn't loosened for a moment.

Akela had a mage this capable hidden inside its walls all along… And she refused to fight, because of her trauma…

He remembered her small voice in the war room. I was too afraid to fight. I stayed in my shop.

But today, she forced herself to overcome it… So she wouldn't have to live through that pain again… Because if she kept doing nothing, she would lose this city… The city she loves. The people she loves…

His gaze moved slowly. To Arianna, standing at the bow with her staff still raised. To Oria, small and steady beside her, with Elsylua towering over the river. Then back to the plain. First torn open by the earth. Now drowned beneath a raging flood.

An earthquake… and then a flood…

He let out a breath.

Those spells aren't magic. They're natural disasters.