Chapter 277: Cleansing I
Over a thousand miles away from the Everburn Aerie Continent drifted another.
A floating orb of water- a celestial sea suspended in the sky!
The Thalassphere Arx.
Ford entirely of enchanted ocean, it was a cerulean body surrounded by colossal wings of liquid sky that beat slowly to keep it aloft in the stratosphere.
It was nothing short of glorious.
Within its glimring tides swam the living armadas of The Atlantian Behemoth Tribe.
Titans of the sea, riding monsters of legends!
Leviathans that cracked the skies with their howls. Krakens whose tentacles wrapped around mountain-islands.
Atlantians bound and controlled them all!
These warriors were the lords of the deep and the sky, a convergence of two worlds.
Their leader, High Tiderune Kael’Voryn, stood atop them all.
HUUM!
A tear of white light rippled into the upper oceanic layers of the Thalassphere Arx.
And from it, Selamira erged.
Not above.
But within.
Inside the waters.
Surrounded by deep sapphire tides glowing with bioluminescent brilliance, she floated with absolute stillness, and then…
BOOM.
Her power exploded outward in mad, sweeping waves, causing the water around her to tremble with celestial heat.
Her voice followed.
It wasn’t a whisper.
It wasn’t a thought.
It was a decree that did not thunder into the minds of all beneath the waves, but towards a single being.
A single Ruler!
[Your Atlantian Behemoth Tribes have been compromised. Sa as Acheron Phoenixes. I will begin clearing out those affected right away.]
…!
The ntal ssage shattered through distances like a decree.
And within the heart of the Arx, in a city built of glowing abyssal coral and pressure-tempered crystal, a Ruler stirred.
Selamira’s body pulsed.
Terrifying light danced across her flesh.
Her blood burned with starlight.
Luminblood.
Her bones shimred like forged stars trapped in mortal form.
Celestbone.
And deeper still- her nervous system, her very synapses, shone with violent bands of compressed radiant threads of star light.
Neuronova.
This was no re entity.
This was a creature who had long surpassed the peak of Neuronova Stage Astral Core Ascension.
Perhaps…
Even beyond it!
And with her gaze locked on the aquatic horizon, she lifted a single hand.
Her eyes- those terrible, beautiful eyes- lit with spirals of white gold.
WUUUM!
Twin beams of white brilliance fired from her gaze like twin lances of judgnt.
They tore across the vast waters of the Thalassphere Arx, and in the far distance…
They reached an incandescent city shaped like a spiral crown.
The Sharkn Tribe of the Atlantian Behemoth Tribe.
Her cleansing had begun!
—
Deep within the Thalassphere Arx, beneath its oceanic crown, an underground mountain shimred in divine hues of golden blue.
It wasn’t just any mountain.
It was Mount Abyssalith, a sacred heartstone formation where the sea’s heartbeat could be heard by those attuned to it.
Here, tides knelt.
Here, the Sea Tribe Kings and Queens gathered in silent reverence.
Here… High Tiderune Kael’Voryn resided.
And there, among them, Princess Atlana stood.
She was clad in a flowing robe of deep azure, her long seafoam-green hair drifting like kelp in the water’s still grace, her eyes wide as she beheld the glowing mountain where their lineage had been bound by oath and sacrifice.
It was supposed to be a mont of peace.
A ritual of honor.
But then…
BOOM.
The world above them ruptured.
A massive eruption of power thundered from the mountain’s peak, sending shudders down to its deepest trenches.
From the summit of Mount Abyssalith, a colossal kraken erged, its tentacles like endless rivers of pressure-wrought flesh, lashing out in the water as if to command the tides themselves.
Atop it, a figure floated- an Atlantian clad in roaring starlight, his body wrapped in armor forged from abyssal coral, spears of thunder crackling from his shoulders.
His voice echoed not through the water, but through their very bones.
[So of our tribes have been compromised by the enemy already! Cleanse all those made impure!]
WAA!
The command was sovereign. Absolute.
And it was accompanied by action.
Rings of golden-blue brilliance erupted outward from him, sweeping through the sacred mountain, then farther across the entire subterranean palace.
They revealed the hidden.
The unseen.
Spores.
So many of them.
Tiny golden flecks swimming like lies through the water- within the bodies of their own.
“No…” gasped a Sea Queen.
“When did this happen? How could it have happened?!”
Dharma Kings staggered.
Luminblood Atlantians paled.
So clutched their chests. Others cried out in confusion. Many…fell silent, feeling the weight of an invisible chain wrap tighter around their throats.
And amid it all…
Atlana trembled.
Tears floated from her eyes like drifting pearls.
Not from the spores.
But from the voice she heard.
A voice laced with twisted royalty.
A voice that pulsed with dominion.
A voice she could never disobey.
|Assimilate.|
HUUM!
The sound didn’t echo in the water.
It echoed in the soul.
It wasn’t just for her.
All those infected by Draconian Pathogenicity heard it.
The directive of a King.
Of Achilles Adrastia Maxwell.
And as the echo fell into silence…
The entire Thalassphere Arx began to tremble.
The waters themselves… scread.
Tides recoiled. Waves collapsed inward.
And the very soul of the Thalassphere Arx groaned, like a dying celestial drawing its last breath.
The crystalline sea, sovereign and sacred, began to churn violently, its cerulean light dimming as thousands of gallons of Primordial Oceanic Essence were drawn inward.
Not into the sacred mountain.
Not into the ancient rites.
But into the bodies of the infected.
The Draconic Atlantian Hybrids, now fully awakened by Achilles’ decree, opened their mouths and began to drink the sea itself.
Their skin shimred with purple and gold, their scales humming with ancient Draconian symbols as their veins pulsed, veins now filled with both Atlantean might and pathogenic fla.
Miasma surged.
Spores ruptured!
The Thalassphere Arx was being devoured from the inside out.
“Kill them! Kill all infected!”
A bellow from a Celestbone Sea Queen tore through the depths.
Atlantians who were unaffected and radiant with celestial strength, surged forth with coral tridents, Abyssal Blades, and weapons bound by Tidal Oaths.
The sea turned into a battlefield.
Leviathans erupted out scread.
Serpent Whales thrashed.
Armored Plesiosaurs turned against their own Riders.
In this spiraling chaos, in the eye of the storm..
A single, heart-shattering mont unfolded.
A Celestbone Sea Tribe King, a titan draped in robes of spiraling water silk, turned amidst the madness.
He saw her.
The figure who stood still as the world collapsed.
His blood.
His kin.
“My daughter…”
His voice broke- quiet, trembling, ancient.
His trident fell from his hand.
“…no…”
And before him, Princess Atlana stood!
Still. Silent. Tears floating from her eyes, their shimr faintly reflecting the Draconian Pathogenicity now etched along her skin- alive, and not her own.
Her lips parted, trembling, but she could say nothing.
Her soul scread louder than any leviathan.
And she…could no longer cry out against the King who now held her will!
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