The World within me shook as the ground beneath my feet vibrated. An immense amount of incredibly pure ether entered my range of perception, and I looked upward to the balcony, where the floor behind it flooded with the energy.
There was so much ether, so intense, that even the irritable, handsome man flying around, praising the cadets’ achievements before handing them their graduation certificates, was distracted. He slowed and turned around, his eyes shuddering momentarily. That was all I needed to see to know something was going on. Yet, before anyone could say anything, the pure ether dispersed, and my World grew silent once more.
Do not worry, child. That was just my sister.
Volix said this while redoubling his effort to absorb the rest of the sacred flame.
Your sister?
Did an Emperor beast just appear in the Grand Camp? That would be… bad.
Can you sense something else? What happened up there? I inquired, impatience licking at my nerves.
That was probably just a warning.
A warning?
The Ruler of Fire is in the tower. My sister struck him. Warned him and demonstrated that violence against the Spirits’ Voices is met with even more violence. My sister does not know mercy, but she follows the rules imposed on her to a fault.
The Ruler of Fire was here? As troublesome as that was, the news of an Emperor beast attacking Raffael Torch was a blessing in my ears. Did that mean he was dead?
In more ways than one, the news of Volix’s sister attacking Raffael Torch was relieving. Maybe I should feel bad about it, but his death would remove the weight on my shoulders. Was I evil for thinking like that? I… didn’t know.
He is still alive. A warning was all he received for his actions–a punishment. My sister would only have killed him if he had caught and bound me. She would have made an example of his foolishness, shown all of the Bastions what happens to those breaking the Pact,
Volix explained calmly before adding more softly,
My failure would have become an example for the other Voices as well.
Color drained from my face as I heard that.
Doesn’t that mean she’s going to rip me a new one for binding you? Well… for you binding yourself to me…
I shuddered at the thought, imagining the worst.
She is sensitive to the racial powers of your kind. Cynthia must have sensed the Worlds of all those present, so she knows about you and all those bound to you and the other cadets. That also includes the firmness of our bond. As long as she saw our bond, she knows that I bound myself to you voluntarily. Otherwise she would not have left the Grand Camp. She would have ripped your World apart to retrieve me. That did not happen, so you can rest assured.
I swallowed hard, digesting what the Elemental Phoenix said. My mind was in shambles, throwing one nightmarish vision after another at me. It was bad, and it only stopped when the flying Blessed halted the graduation ceremony to return to the balcony. Shouts tore through the dark thoughts filling my head, pulling my attention back to the Blessed as he returned with a ghastly pale face.
The ceremony continued, but the atmosphere was in shambles. The cadets’ achievements were cut short, the ceremony’s tone no longer the same. And it only grew worse as a commotion rang through the rows of cadets.
“What the fuck! The Ninth Bastion exploded!” someone shouted suddenly, sending shivers down my spine.
I was not alone. Several cadets gasped, and it did not take long before the first accessed the Grand Camp’s network. It was not comparable to the Nexus of the Bastions, but certain forums and news websites were connected.
My hair stood on end as I turned to Daniel standing beside me. He had already opened one of the forums, eyes narrowed as an emergency article appeared.
“Ruler Saphira was killed?!” a young voice cried out in disbelief.
Killed in the events of a terrifying explosion.
“A colossal tiger appeared in the sky right before the explosion. Several sources report the sighting of a–…” Daniel muttered to himself, his eyes skimming the short article. My eyes followed his before I focused on my own watch to open the forum and the threads flooding the system.
The Behemoth was caught?
Volix laughed, sounding far too happy.
Volca will be pleased to hear that the Frozen Spirit failed where we prevailed.
I just listened, eyes narrowed to two thin lines.
That was your sister’s doing? I hissed quietly, switching to mental communication when a cadet glanced my way.
No, that couldn’t have been your sister. Saphira was thousands of kilometers from the Grand Camp, fighting the Fithar Alliance’s forces. She–
That is the extent of her powers. My sister is an anomaly even among us sacred beasts,
Volix snickered, still far too happy for my liking.
From what I understood, the tigress was Volix’s sister. And she… well, she punished Saphira for capturing the Behemoth of the Frozen Spirit, killing her.
As happy as the Elemental Phoenix was, the death of yet another Ruler promised to stir trouble. Sure, the explosion killed thousands of the Fithar Alliance’s elite, but if Saphira had actually managed to bind the Behemoth of the Frozen Spirit, she should have been strong enough to deal with most of mankind’s problems. She could have changed the tides of the war.
Yet the more I thought about it, the more questions surfaced.
How did she bind the Behemoth? I sincerely doubted Ruler Saphira asked the Emperor beast nicely. If her actions resulted in similar destruction as the incident with the Caldera and Volix… I shuddered.
Just how many Rulers had to die to bind a single Emperor beast? And… for what? Just for everyone to die anyway?
Had the Council really been that blind, thinking everything would work out as they wished? Did they not think the Spirits or their Voices would retaliate?
The Council was filled with old Blessed, some of whom lived for hundreds of years, surviving mankind’s worst disasters. Yet they didn’t know. Or… they did know, and they took the risk anyway. If that was the case, there had to be a reason. It couldn’t be that the Rulers’ greed pushed them to do something as stupid as that.
Was the corruption of power at play, or was this something even worse?
Sighing deeply, all the joy of wearing nice and expensive clothes for the first time evaporated. The happiness of graduating and returning home to family and friends was no more.
Instead, only questions lingered.
How were the Bastions supposed to survive like this? Were we supposed to survive this disaster in the first place?
***
The mood in the central hub was subdued, to say the least. The graduation ceremony ended smoothly, but nobody was in the right mood to celebrate after hearing news of Ruler Saphira’s death. She was one of the well-known Rulers. Ruler Saphira never governed a Bastion, but she made it a mission to travel through the Bastions–more often than not covered in blood, if the news outlets were to be believed.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
And now, she was dead, killed by an overwhelming force that left behind massive chasms spanning several kilometers and dropping hundreds of meters deep.