Atlana stood to the side, her elegant form drifting in the ocean air. She felt hollow. She felt less than herself. And she felt the weight of betrayal- her own body filled with foreign spores that pulsed against her will. She could not fight.
Rose floated beside her, the wind pulling gently through her verdant green hair, her beauty serene even amid the carnage. Her eyes, however, were sharp.
"You cry," Rose said softly, "but tell sothing."
Atlana turned to her slowly.
"If Achilles hadn’t grown strong enough, if we were still on that tiny floating Colony City called Neon... what do you think would have happened when the Ancient Ones ca and we were in their way?"
Atlana’s lips trembled. She couldn’t answer.
"You think the Atlantians would have smiled upon us? Held our hands? Offered us tea and alliances? No. Countless humans would have died. The rest of us would’ve been shackled in chains."
Her voice did not rise in anger. It remained steady, painfully calm.
"This isn’t justice. This isn’t revenge. This is what war looks like. And in war, no one truly wins."
Atlana looked back at the battlefield, the remaining Sea Tribe Kings still hovering in the distance, the High Tiderune glaring furiously atop his behemoth.
Then Achilles spoke again.
His voice cracked like judgnt.
"Three seconds," he said. "Kneel, and you will be spared. Remain standing, and half of you will die."
Even the air trembled.
There was no laughter this ti. No doubt. His words were a weight unto themselves, and for the second ti, it was clear he did not bluff.
And so, like grass bowing before a storm, tridents lowered. Knees touched the watery platforms. Heads bowed.
More than... eighty percent of the surviving Atlantians knelt.
Cries of protest echoed from their leaders. Rage surged.
The Sea Tribe Kings scread, the High Tiderune roaring loudest of all.
"SHA!"
It was agony in his voice. Pure agony.
"You disgrace your blood! Do not let the light of a false star shake your hearts! Stand! Fight for your ancestors! For your Heart of the Sea!"
He bellowed from atop the massive behemoth, its scales gleaming like starlit sapphire.
"We are the tide! We rise! We consu! Stand and DROWN THEM!"
...!
A monologue ant to rouse spirit!
But...
But no one stood.
Not one.
Because when you had a guy that had a literal miniature sun spinning above him, monologues proved to be utter shit!
The kneeling Atlantians remained frozen, eyes locked on the spinning sun above Achilles’ head, its light unbearably radiant.
The High Tiderune scread, a sound that tore the skies.
Rage. Anger. And a tinge...of fear.
And then he charged.
No Sea Tribe King followed. No warrior joined him. He flew forward alone, atop the monstrous kraken like behemoth that roared with the pain of its master.
He ca crashing toward Achilles like a teor born of water and wrath.
Achilles didn’t flinch.
His gaze was still.
Then he whispered sothing beneath his breath.
"Freeze."
The invisible force of sovereignty pulsed as thr authority of his Imperial Crown of Adrastia was utilized.
And in the next breath, the High Tiderune stopped.
Ti around him seed to break. His behemoth halted mid-roar, its fins paused in motion. His body was paralyzed mid-lunge, arms outstretched, mouth wide in fury, now held fast by chains of command no Astral Core Ascension entities could defy.
Achilles moved.
One instant he floated beside Rose and Atlana, the next, he stood before the Tiderune.
His hand extended.
His palm pressed against the plated blue scales of the High Tiderune’s chest.
And then...
BOOM!
Millions of spores flowed.
They slithered into the gaps of the armor. They surged through flesh and bone. They wrapped around the power veins and ridians of the Atlantian monarch.
Achilles’ voice was cold.
"Killing you would be a waste."
His golden eyes narrowed, the Crown of Adrastia spinning gently behind him.
"You will beco a tool."
The power of the Adrastia Emperor King extended, and so too did the reach of his will.
And as the last defiant roar of the High Tiderune died in his throat, all that remained was silence... and submission.
...!
Silence.
The silence lingered, thick and unbearable.
Achilles floated calmly, his eyes unreadable as they remained on the kneeling High Tiderune and the enormous Sea Behemoth beneath him. Both were still, their powerful bodies now infested with millions of his spores. Their glowing scales twitched subtly, muscles flexing in protest against control they no longer possessed. A Neuronova Stage Ancient One, revered and feared, now reduced to a puppet.
And Achilles... did not even blink.
In the distance, the remaining Atlantians watched in stupefied disbelief. Their tridents hung slack in their hands. Only a few Sea Tribe Kings remained standing, their gills fluttering in silence, tails twitching in subdued defiance.
But when they saw the High Tiderune- their peak, their pride- lowered to his knees, they could no longer maintain their posture. One by one, tridents slipped from fingers. Their expressions turned hollow, haunted. No words. No resistance.
"..."
The Sea Tribe Kings finally bowed their heads.
In a mont spanning only minutes, one of the Nine Supre Forces had fallen.
Spores, like invisible threads of fate, floated gently through the salty air. They sought the remaining Atlantians who hadn’t yet been claid, drifting into their scales, fins, lungs, minds. Achilles made no grand gesture, no flourish. He rely opened his palm. Nature, or perhaps sothing far crueler, did the rest.
Rose said nothing.
Her green eyes stared ahead, past the devastation, past the ruined waves and the heat shimr left behind by the Imperial Sun. She stood behind Achilles, her face a portrait of beauty tempered by cold understanding. This was necessary. That was the only thing she could cling to.
Princess Atlana’s tail curled inward as she floated silently, a distant current tugging at her golden-blue hair. Her eyes, brimming with tears, closed in quiet acceptance. The roar of the sea no longer reached her ears. Only silence.
Everyone was silent.
Achilles did not feel proud. There was no elation in his chest. No triumph blazing behind his eyes. He looked over the field of submission and death, and all he did was raise his hand.
From the crushed bodies of thousands of Atlantians, from the puddles of lted flesh and divine blood, shimring crimson-gold globules floated into the air. They hovered montarily like spirits, then rushed into him.
Assimilation.
The powers of water, of ocean, of tide and current- of a Primordial Source, swelled within him.
Here, on this day, sothing irreversible had occurred.
The Atlantians, once a prideful force of the sea, had been subdued. Their rulers bent the knee. Their warriors silenced. Their tides stolen.
And the one who claid them was not anything too grand.
He was a human.
An Emperor King!
THE Emperor King!
Achilles turned his gaze downward toward the radiant waters of the Thalassphere Arx. The continent shimred beneath them, a blue jewel on the horizon. No longer unclaid.
His.
And not far off, across the great divide of water and light, lay the Phoenix Continent. Already, his Draconic Hybrids had descended upon it. The leading Phoenixes had not returned. The battlefield was quiet.
Without leadership, there would be no resistance.
No war. Only a quiet conquest.
A change had co. A ripple across the whole Plane of Existence. Today marked the mont when the order of the Nine Supre Forces was broken.
And sowhere deep in the future, the Ancient Ones would look back and rember it.
The day the status quo died!
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