Chương 14: Apocolypse of the Apex
"Now now, since the exploration squad has returned, so should we all. Let's get on the ship and go home."
The prince said with a calming smile. It resounded through the group and even the loudest of adventurers and mages heard the command and adhered to it.
"Oh, and I'll be expecting a thorough and detailed analysis of the entirety of your journey if that isn't asking too much."
The prince said as he faced the group who all nodded their heads with a "Yes, your highness." and moved with the larger group towards the beached boats.
"Don't forget to treat the little one you found kindly, get her some water and check up on her injuries."
The prince spoke as he looked at some of the mages in the group after seeing the bandages wrapped around little Junko's arms and legs.
Turning away from the group, the prince along with some of his knights got on a boat that was already ready to leave at a moment's notice and sailed to the docked ship.
The adventurers, mages and the other knights followed suit. The group of five that little Junko had met some time ago also split up after a quick wave and a "Talk to you later." to go and do their own tasks.
Marcello was the only one to slowly walk to a boat and sit down without doing anything. Junko, of course, followed him and did the same since she was still holding onto his hand.
After sitting down, a few mages quickly approached and analyzed Junko's condition. Other than finding a few scratches that they further healed with a General Skill they all seemed to know, they also cleaned her bandages with some conjured hot water.
One of the female mages, after washing away a little of the dirt that stuck to Junko's feet in the ocean water, pat Junko on the head before leaving.
Confused at the gesture that seemed rather common with these people who looked similar to her, Junko held the spot that was just pat with her free hand as she watched the mage move with her group to recheck if anyone needed any healing.
"Did you not like it?"
Junko heard from the side. Looking at the source of the sounds, she could only see Marcello in the boat.
Junko slightly tilted her head as she had no clue what the man said.
"Yeah. I guess ya really can't speak, ai?"
Marcello spoke, mostly to himself as he always took a more delicate approach when speaking to kids.
"How about we learn to speak? Since we have time."
He asked with a light smile, not expecting an answer.
Junko's honest reaction was to slowly blink once since she couldn't speak the language or understand the question or even understand the fact that questions need to be answered.
...
At this time, the prince had already reached the ship, no longer needing to wait on the shore to make sure everyone was fine. Even if something suddenly appeared, at this distance he could still provide support with his fairy companion.
Though that wasn't the main issue currently. He was worried about something else. Standing on the deck of the ship, he leaned on the railing, or gunwale, while studying the small girl sitting in a small wooden boat and knocking on its side while talking to the man sitting next to her.
"Who is she?"
He asked the fairy sitting on his shoulder who was also warily looking at the girl.
"I get that you don't know her name. If I wanted to know that I would have asked myself."
He said after the fairy transmitted her answer.
"Well, you seemed scared for some reason. So, let me rephrase my question. What is she?"
The prince corrected his question only for silence to completely envelop the area around him.
"..."
The prince was thinking, debating with himself as he contemplated the answer he had just received. Tapping away on the wooden railing with one of his fingers, he finally asked after two minutes of utter silence.
"...What is an 'Exterminator'?"
The prince received a loose translation for the title that his fairy companion had bestowed upon the little girl.
...
Back on the boats, Marcello and Junko had yet to leave the shore as they still waited for everyone to get on the actual boat.
Though still, a few mages and adventurers all with varying looks were sitting on the boat. They all seemed strangely happy as they listened to the little girl near them trying to learn a language.
"Yes. And what is this again?"
"This is a Boot?"
Junko framed it like a question.
"No. This is a Boat."
Marcello corrected her as he tapped on the wood.
"Boat."
"Good. And what is this made of?"
"Boat?"
"No. What is this made of?"
Junko tapped the wooden seat she was sitting on.
"This is a Wood?"
"Good job."
Junko easily learned the premises of "This" and "Is" but had yet to learn much else. She had yet to tackle the word "That" which was actually good since to her the meaning behind the words "This" and "That" were practically the same. Besides all that and the potential problems of the word "It" that she would run into in the future, everything was fine.
Marcello was slowly teaching the girl words in his own way while some adventurers and mages chipped in with questions for her every so often.
The more people that got on to the boat, the more people got introduced to Junko and the more people were slowly being healed with her happy and inquisitive actions as she slowly learned the language.
The boat also soon started moving and as it did, Junko could feel the water rushing past her fingers as she touched it.
It felt similar to the blood she had drank before but much lighter. Scooping out some of the water, she drank it only to be displeased by the flavour. Her blood still tasted better.
As an adventurer saw her doing this he couldn't help but laugh. Marcello was just as quick to pick up on Junko drinking salty ocean water and stopped her from drinking any more. The rest of the people on the boat got a good chuckle out of Junko's confused expression.
As she started to learn the words for ocean and ship after tasting the salt water still stuck to her finger and again being displeased by the flavour, the Great Dragon Continent was going into turmoil.
...
An Apocolypse Is Brewing.
Makyr of the Arcane was at the scene with some of the other Old Ones. Scorzyr of Fire, Centuyr of Time and Luminyr of Light stood near him.
Makyr, flipping through a book, spoke in a quiet voice as he looked on at the destroyed and unstable landscape in front of him.
"This is Primal."
Centuyr glanced at him while Scorzyr turned and looked straight at his face.
"This is from an Ancient way of Mana. Primal is the simplest term for it. Yes, it is Arcane in nature yet there is something else hidden in this ambient mana. I can not decipher it. Not in this century and not without studying it much closer."
He closed his book with an inaudible mutter before sighing and looking up at the landscape.
Everything was crushed. A crater larger than sensible and deep enough to notice a change in temperature when travelling down there.
Rocks, boulders, stones, different minerals and a few corpses floated around the area within, around and above the crater.
A deep purple hue of pure force permeated the area with dark purple crackles of lightning showing up every so often from floating metallic minerals, stones and some decomposing corpses.
In the centre of the crater, floating a few metres off the ground, there was a cracked platform of rock and crystal. The 'lake' was still here undamaged to a degree. Through some small few cracks at the bottom of the platform, lines of cosmic ooze dripped down in an endless flow yet never reached down far enough to even get near the ground or any floating matter.
Centuyr of Time made it certain that the water from the lake would never leave the area close to the crystal lake.
"So you can tell us nothing?"
Scorzyr asked while gnashing his teeth as he looked away from Makyr.
Makyr took a moment to answer.
"...I can say that whoever did this may have a greater understanding of the Arcane than I do."
Makyr removed his glasses as he rubbed his eyes.
"This is unprecedented..."
Makyr muttered.
"This may be the start of the Apocolypse."
Luminyr spoke up. His arms were crossed as he looked at the sky.
"We must find what did this. Let us command the Ancients to scour the continent and its surroundings. If the thing that did this is still here, we must find it and eliminate it."
Luminyr spoke with finality in his voice as he turned to leave, clutching his fists hard enough to make light itself bend around the area.
His anger for defiling this sacred holy ground had turned into fury and wrath.
Makyr, at the notion of 'Elimination', turned to look at the Luminyr who was walking off.
He wasn't glad that this was what his competitors for the throne had decided on.
He glanced at the large area of pure Arcane and Gravity magic. He would return soon as he had much to learn. Makyr as well turned to leave.
"Ugh. I can't handle those annoyingly prideful Ancients."
Scorzyr muttered as he shook his head.
Looking up at the pure destruction of the area, he was just about to turn and reluctantly leave as well but.
"Halt, Eldens."
Centuyr spoke. Makyr and Scorzyr turned to look at her while Luminyr who was some few metres away just stopped in his tracks.
The two of Arcane and Fire followed the gaze of the one of Time.
A mass of destruction, void like dark empty space itself. Fangs and claws glistening with starlight.
It rose from the void of the cosmic waters, a torn-up corpse. Missing the top half of its head and a single front paw, the drooping mass of void-like water and goop held the shape of an oversized tiger.
A spiked tendril of strange length that could have previously been its tongue wriggled around the air as it instinctually struck away a large rock that floated near the 'head' of the beast, turning the rock into nothing. Complete Erasure from a simple instinctual attack.
The being roared. Spikes protruded out of every inch of its body. Air around it was erased, space was cracking and bending, reality was close to shattering.
The beast, noticing the shocked and slightly fearful gazes of the ones below was about to jump and devour them but was held back by a wave of cosmic water.
Without being able to put up a fight, a strange octopus-like tentacle reached out of the water and pulled the tiger-like beast back in effortlessly.
The horrifying roaring of the beast that was not meant to be slowly ceased.
Centuyr of Time, the woman who had seen the beast from its rise to its fall had her eyes slightly widened. She saw what she didn't think the others could have. That beast had nearly broken outside of time itself.
Makyr could surprisingly see it too, through a different lens yet he understood what he saw to a certain degree. Especially the erasure of the floating rock. Along with the rock, the mana and magic supporting it also got partly erased. Not entirely, but mostly.
Luminyr and Scorzyr, who couldn't accurately sense the minute differences in the spacial fabric, time or surrounding arcane could only depend on their instincts. And their instincts were warning them.
If they had had to fight that, even with all Old Ones present, they would most likely lose one or two before taking it down.
"What..."
Scorzyr did not finish his sentence.
Before he could try and formulate another one, Decibyr of Sound suddenly appeared out of thin air.
"I heard that... What was it?"
She asked as she looked towards Makyr and Centuyr. From the expression she could see on Makyr's usually neutral face, she knew he couldn't answer well until he came up with some good theory about it all or something.
Centuyr on the other hand seemed worried as a drop of sweat could be seen on her forehead. This alone was troubling as Centuyr was one of the most likely candidates to take the throne.
"A Void Beast was momentarily born... We must gather all Eldens yet again. Gather here, I shall keep an eye on the Lake."
"A Void Beast?"
"Truly, that Is the best name for it..."
Makyr muttered after Decibyr's question before speaking to the gathered group.
"If the one who did This is similar to the one we just saw, could this not mean the extinction of most all species?"
These words of contemplation were sent to the entire group on purpose, to reinforce the fact that the ones born from the Cosmic Waters were threats not only to Dragon Kind but All Existing Kinds.
Scorzyr and Luminyr went off to gather all the Old Ones and inform all the Ancients they found on the way to search the entire continent for danger immediately. Luminyr who had been silent nearly the entire time spoke with Scorzyr during their flight as they discussed what they had just seen and what they needed to do. Neither completely understood what they saw, but they sensed the death permeating the beast.
Makyr went off to also gather the Old Ones that he knew the locations of while Decibyr and Centuyr stayed at the location.
Decibyr was inquiring about the source of the dreadful sound she heard while Centuyr was sacrificing a copper accessory imbued with time magic to seal the Lake as best as she could.
...
Back at the ship. Junko was learning from a mage that a Bowl was not a Boat.
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