His gait slowed until he stopped His certainty vanished just as quickly as it had arrived Wind blew large grains of dirt that bit at his ankles as it flowed past Lowanna was not in this direction He sucked on his teeth annoyed with himself and frustrated And oh oh so tired Enmya pivoted slowly and began stumbling across the rolling hills
IÆve Enmya jumped with enough force to sunder the hill behind him He crashed into the space next to the garden careful not to ruin the places Lowanna had cultivated His heart pounded as he stumbled the last few steps and stood in front of him You I thought that maybe I couldnÆt
I know It was hard on you I didnÆt leave any word I sent you away knowing what would happen that day I thought I would be saving you from what was to come I thought I knew everything That fate would flow downhill until my death and that my choice that day would spare you most of the suffering Spare our people Lowanna reached out and brushed a finger across his cheekbones She shook her head But I was wrong I canÆt read the future I can only convince myself I could So So IÆm sorry IÆll be honest with you from now on
Her familiar presence the pulse of her Nether now somehow even more overwhelming than it had been previously relaxed some deep tension in EnmyaÆs body He smiled at her forgiving her just glad she had returned to him His emotions remained chaos but he tried to focus forward Well your presence changes things This war with Aether there is no longer even a chance of our loss We can crush them all for the crimes they committed for the slaughter of our history The Aether people
ThereÆs something else Enmya Lowanna interrupted I will not fight You know I cannot risk it But besides that there is a more important issue than revenge
What can be more important than the loss of our past Enmya gasped Just as he tried to create a new channel for his negative emotions she shattered it
Lowanna pressed her lips together Our peopleÆs future Enmya This everything we see around us is a powerful projection Done by a being who has reached the Aether Pinnacle and captured a moment We are the echo of that moment hurtling toward our curtain call But beyond that moment well I am not familiar with the details but our people are butchered in the wars to come I want to help Nether King Hungry Eye revive
What ThatÆs impossible We will not be butchered Enmya gestured around Do you see the host we have assembled Although the old factions will need to be taught a lesson the forces we have gathered cannot be rivaled We march under a single banner full of righteous vengeance The Aetherlands will collapse into a memory
They will not Enmya could see Lowanna squeeze her hands into fists I know this I have been shown this Nether King Hungry Eye explained the essence of this place and after some investigations
Nether King Hungry Eye EnmyaÆs eyes widened Suddenly he understood He looked Lowanna up and down nearly disbelieving Now that he knew what to look for he could feel the strange dark haired manÆs essence all over this place His eyes narrowed He is the one who took you
No Enmya
I cannot believe He clenched his jaw unable to comprehend the whirlpool of aggravation and certainty he felt His head pounded I didnÆt see it before That this whole time Nether King Hungry Eye has been intent on perverting the structure of the Netherlands And you have allowed him to I had assumed did you even care when Wyndaos burned When the children were slaughtered and left to rot amongst the silver sands
Enmya listen to me Lowanna reached out against but Enmya took a reeling step back still trying to process Her eyes crinkled at the edges as she slowly lowered her hands Our Nether the figurehead of the Arbiter all of it was designed to trap us We cannot continue like this All our power our creative spirit is locked
That has always been your problem Lowanna Enmya gritted his teeth You have seen naught but the shackles in the bonds between us But the grace and restraint the discipline and temperance you wield why can you not understand the only prison in which you sit is your own mind
Lowanna stilled She raised her head and looked at Enmya with hollow eyes And what you have never understood oh great Sovereign of the Breathless Vigil is that it takes more than enduring hunger to live
She spun on her heel graceful and lovely even as his stomach dropped out of him He watched her for several seconds before he cleared his throat So you run Only hours before the greatest battle of the age
The legacy I leave behind will not be a bloody tally during battle When Lowanna spoke her voice thrummed with so much vast Nether Enmya flinched and took a step back She glided away vicious and intent If nothing else I will find the words to say one true thing about the Nether people although it might damn us all for me to succeed
Chapter 2275
Fatia Cerulean sat in his tent feeling the ire of Deganawidah settle on him prickling against his skin like a heavy blanket of steel wool even from across the plains through Homewell sitting between them It set his teeth on edge making him want to rip into flesh to sate his anxious energy but Fatia couldnÆt help but respect Deganawidah this was a foe that would not be distracted from his quarry
He would hunt until his foe was dead or he was
The lack of a similar antagonism toward Nether King Hungry Eye made Fatia slightly wary but there were so many strong presences in the area that it became difficult to parse apart their motivations Collusion seemed unlikely but it didnÆt mean it was impossible Even Nether King Hungry EyeÆs location had become blurry recently but the Raptor Construct didnÆt worry about that
Nether King Hungry Eye had a good nose he wouldnÆt miss the bloodbath rushing toward them all It was just a matter of what cut of meat the dark haired man was eyeing up
However it was neither of those twinges that truly had his hackles up No the problem was the tingling sense of his Grand Fate as of late The speed with which he had been gaining Levels noticeably decreased over the last few days Just slightly but with the threat of Deganawidah looming over him Fatia Cerulean wanted ever Level he could earn
He was jealous of the experience being absorbed by his Grand Fate
In retrospect the culprit was obvious While the mundane Fates gathered the natural narrative shape you released into the Nexus while Leveling up your Class Grand Fates fed on the ambient energy already present in the world And already Fatia could feel just a slight decrease in the total amount of feed to go around
He closed his eyes adding one more goal to the dayÆs activities Now he felt satisfied he had carefully controlled access to Grand Fates If he wanted to eliminate the competition the list was relatively small
Randidly sat with his legs crossed staring up at the sky
At this point the forces above became less a comprehensible series of forces and more a knot of fate tightening and tightening as all the different events they precipitated began to arrive They teetered on the edge of a precipice about to tumble down into the darkness The conflux of forces was a thousand times larger than the largest waterfall on the planet a hundred rivers swirling and frothing together
Just a single misstep and all the carefully laid plans would disintegrate Looking at the looming forces Randidly had quite a bit of sympathy for Neveah No wonder she felt so anxious she was ready to pull her hair out
Randidly checked the position of the sky again The sun sat directly overhead obscuring the pulsing energy of Pine that hovered over them all Small trickles of sweat ran down his back as the sun baked the area around Homewell today there was not a cloud in the sky masking its sapphire expanse A chaotic cataclysm of Nether might rumble and march but not a single stormcloud
Randidly looked left and right at the armies crouching in various positions around the countryside He could practically feel the soldiers pepping themselves up strapping on their armor sharpening their weapons and images Hatred raged between the two forces as Fatia CeruleanÆs host glared daggers at the soldiers brought by Enmya and Deganawidah Meanwhile the Turtlelines continued their cautious preparations from within their Lifeseal preparing tricks of their own for the battle