Evan descended through the ocean like a missile, his body cutting through the vast blue expanse while the magic sustaining his breathing wrapped around him in silence.
Even with the resistance of the water slowing him compared to what he could achieve in open air, he still moved at trendous speed, passing through large schools of fish that scattered around him in shimring waves.
The massive undersides of the islands of the Zeraxes Archipelago passed above him as he continued downward, the landmasses casting wide shadows across the surrounding water.
He continued descending without slowing, passing directly by Solen's Underwater Dungeon, though he didn't spare it anything more than a brief glance before continuing deeper.
The water gradually dimd around him as sunlight from the distant surface faded away, and after a few more monts, a thin layer of golden light appeared around his body, illuminating the surrounding water while he maintained his rapid descent.
Massive silhouettes moved through the deep water ahead as enormous blue whales drifted through the darkness like slow-moving mountains, their imnse bodies gliding peacefully through the abyss while Evan adjusted his path and slipped past them without disturbing their course.
The water grew darker as he descended further, until the ocean floor finally revealed sothing unexpected beneath the endless black.
A massive city stretched across the ocean floor, lying more than half a dozen kilotres below the surface, its vast tal and stone structures spreading across the depths.
Long ago, the sirens of Aidos, from whom Zara was descended, had lived here and ruled these waters, but now the entire city was abandoned and silent, its once grand streets reduced to ghostly mories beneath the ocean.
Evan shot downward through the outer districts of the ruined city, passing broken towers and collapsed bridges as his golden light illuminated drifting debris and scattered stone monunts.
At the centre of the city was a massive circular region with structures that stood apart from the rest. The enormous chamber located there was surrounded by thick barrier walls that held back the surrounding water, creating a colossal air pocket beneath the ocean.
This space had been built for visitors from the continents above, a neutral eting ground where those who could not breathe underwater could walk and talk with the aquatic races.
Evan shot toward the central structure before angling downward into a massive opening, the vast do sliding past him as he descended deeper through the interior corridors of the subrged complex. His path then curved upward through a narrow channel that ended in a violent burst of water as he broke through the surface.
Water cascaded outward as Evan erged into open air within a massive cavern chamber.
He erged from what could only be described as a lake, though 'lake' felt like a poor description considering the imnse scale of the body of water stretching across the cavern.
Docks ran along the shoreline in long rows designed to receive ships and large submarines, interspersed with broken walkways and empty moorings, all bathed in the dim glow from the cavern ceiling above.
The ceiling shimred with a faint blue light, produced by layers of mineral-rich stone and naturally luminous crystals embedded in the rock, casting a soft glow over the entire harbour.
Evan stepped out of the water onto the docks, the barrier preventing his clothes from getting wet vanishing as he began walking toward the large entrance corridor leading deeper into the structure, ignoring the gazes watching from dark openings in the surrounding buildings that overlooked the harbour.
The corridor stretched ahead in silence before opening into a vast reception hall that remained in relatively better condition than the rest of the ruined city.
The enormous chamber resembled a stadium in scale, its ceiling lined with glowing stones that illuminated the hall, while stained glass windows decorated the towering walls on every side, their coloured panels still intact despite the ages that had passed.
Evan walked across the hall floor and looked toward the centre, where, curled on the ground, lay a massive serpentine presence.
Their body coiled upward in towering loops that barely fit within the height of the hall, which stretched several hundred tres toward the glowing ceiling.
Thick black scales covered a long, cylindrical body roughly 5 or 6 tres in diater, each scale reflecting the faint blue light cast by the stones above. The massive coils rested across the floor in layered spirals before rising into the air, their imnse bulk filling the central chamber.
As Evan approached, they began to move, their long body shifting across the stone floor while their head slowly turned toward him.
Long horns extended outward from either side of the draconic head, sweeping back in arcs while their rigid surfaces caught the dim light of the hall, and beneath them, a pair of slit-pupiled heterochromatic eyes observed him.
The mont those eyes t Evan's, he slipped his left hand into his trouser pocket while raising his right hand in a casual wave.
"Hello there."
The hall was silent for a second before the mouth of the enormous dragon parted slightly, revealing rows of massive teeth as a deep baritone voice rumbled through the chamber.
"Hello."
The imnse body shifted across the floor as they raised their head higher, looking down at Evan while continuing to speak.
"Evan Eris. Leader of the Seven Heroes."
"Oh? You know ?" Evan asked, mildly surprised.
"Of course. Just because my body is isolated here does not an I am unaware of what goes on on the surface. Remaining here in silence for years would bore to insanity."
Evan chuckled lightly at the response before nodding.
"I suppose so. Still, your presence here is well appreciated. After all, you're fixing so of the sses caused by a certain group of bastards interfering with the World Formation without fully understanding it."
While he spoke, Evan looked down slightly, his Mystic Eyes glowing faintly as he traced the streams of energy moving through the planetary crust beneath them. The flows extended outward from this chamber, spreading through the seabed before continuing into the deeper trenches of the ocean floor, roughly 20 to 30 km below the surrounding waters.
After a mont, the glow faded from his eyes, and he bowed lightly.
"We may know ourselves, but introductions are only polite. Nice to et you, Ouroboros of Darkness and Water, Nemain Iremith. I am Evan, the Second of Aidos' Seven Heroes."
"The pleasure is mine," Nemain responded calmly.
Right after he spoke, darkness spread across the imnse body of the dragon, the large coils vanishing behind a swirling curtain of shadows that moved like drifting wind. The darkness collapsed inward as Nemain's towering size rapidly reduced, and after a few seconds, the shadows dispersed, revealing a barefoot man standing where the dragon had been.
He wore light blue robes, his long hair as dark as night resting on his shoulders, and maintained his heterochromatic eyes, one iris glowing with the blue of the ocean while the other reflected the darkness of night, with pupils mirroring the colour of the opposite iris.
"I believe this form would be much better for any interactions," he said.
"It would. Craning my neck high was getting pretty tiring."
Evan spoke casually as he slipped his other hand into his pocket, and Nemain nodded lightly before turning and walking toward the exit on the opposite side of the hall.
"Co, let us sit in a much better place to talk."
Evan followed behind him, glancing at the stained-glass windows lining the walls of the chamber as they exited the reception hall and moved up a set of wide stairs.
The passage opened into what appeared to be a banquet hall with a long table positioned at the centre of the room. Two chairs had been prepared in the area on either side of the head of the table.
Seeing them, Evan raised an eyebrow, but before he could ask, Nemain spoke up.
"I was expecting you."
"You were?"
"Indeed," he replied. "I admit I was confused when 'Aidos' told not to take action against the Artificial Divine ssenger that was about to break out of its silo, but when I sensed your presence arrive a few days ago, I understood that 'she' intended to let you handle it."
If Evan had not been present, even before Zaos appeared, Nemain would have destroyed the Artificial Divine ssenger himself.
In fact, it would never have escaped its underwater containnt silo in the first place, since he would have killed it while it was still within the silo.
Nemain possessed Pseudo Authorities over Water and Darkness, which would have allowed him to break through the divinity barrier protecting the skywhale.
Considering that the skywhale's durability was relatively low for its level, sacrificed in exchange for greater maximum attack power, the amount of power Nemain needed to kill it would not have been great enough for those on the ocean surface to notice anything.
That thought passed through Evan's mind as he silently appraised Nemain, and sothing on the man's status board imdiately caught his attention.
|Na- Nemain Iremith
Race- Elder-Breed Ouroboros Dragon.
Gender- Male
Age- 2998
Level- 897*
Existence Level– Sovereign* (Superior*)
Titles- Ouroboros of Darkness and Water, Defence chanism of 'Aidos', Oathkeeper, Bearer of the Restriction Geass.|
'Those asterisks... It's because of their Oath, huh? This is the first ti I'm eting one of the Oathkeepers from after the war.'
The Oathkeepers were a select group of individuals, Transcendents of Aidos from 1000 years ago, who had fought against the Gozonian invasion, each having taken binding oaths and restrictions that limited the full extent of their power.
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