Evanthe started to calculate the flow of ti with her eyes closed. Midnight had already passed, and she could feel the seal suppressing Seren's innate powers were loosening.
She opened her eyes and looked at Drayce. "It's ti. As planned, I will suppress the hellfire , and you need to take care of her innate earth magic."
The two of them positioned themselves on opposite ends of the outer magic circle--Evanthe on the north, with Drayce standing on the south. The abstract symbol under Evanthe's feet turned deep blue, like the color of the ocean, while the symbol under Drayce darkened until it beca as black as the abyss.
Evanthe's gentle voice floated into his ears.
"Match the growing strength of the Earth little by little, just enough to suppress it, and maintain it for as long as you could. Do not unnecessarily overexert yourself at the beginning, King of garis."
"Understood, Lady Evanthe."
Seren could hear their conversation but she paid them no heed. She simply focused on calming the heat inside her body with the help of water magic.
anwhile, both Evanthe and Drayce raised their hands in the direction of the circle's center where Seren was seated. Blue and black energies, representing water and darkness, began to envelop the veiled woman's body.
Ti passed by slowly once more...
With the additional help of Evanthe's magic, Seren started to have more control over the intensifying heat.
On the other hand, Drayce felt he didn't need to call for Erebus yet. The current situation could be controlled by his own power of darkness-- the rate of the seal unraveling was steady and manageable for the current him. .
"Her ti of birth has arrived. Be prepared," he heard his mother say as he felt the depth of the two powers within Seren double. Drayce's expression turned more solemn as he carefully matched the strengthened earth magic.
Just as Evanthe said those words, another wave of intense pain spread across Seren's body. Her body was covered in perspiration once more, and even the ice on the ground underneath her began to crack.
Her body felt like it was literally burning.
She opened her eyes in alarm.
"Lady Evanthe! It...it doesn't feel good again. M-My body...I feel like I'm being burned alive..." Seren said, her voice sounding weak and she looked so fragile, as if she was struggling to keep her consciousness.
"Hold on, Queen Seren. The pain is only montary. It will pass soon," Evanthe replied as she started to pour more magic into the circle.
'This is the limit of my current power, yet it looks like it's still not strong enough. Still, this is within my and Sierra's expectations. Seren will suffer, but her life won't be in danger. It seems like hellfire cannot truly be controlled by anyone other than its true master.'
"King Drayce, how is the situation in your end?" Evanthe asked.
"Her earth magic is under my control," he replied, doing his best to not make any mistake. He noticed his mother was starting to look exhausted. "What about the hellfire?"
"I can still match it," she replied and thought, 'for now.'
Both Sierra and Evanthe had tried to make plans to cover any eventualities, but still, no one could predict the outco of Seren's coming of age. They could only hope nothing would go wrong.
Half an hour later, instead of the two powers subsiding in strength, they grew by leaps and bounds, causing the magic circle to have another crack.
Seren suddenly fell limp on the ground. She was unconscious.
"Seren!" Drayce called out in panic. He was about to step out from his position when Evanthe glared at him.
"Don't let it affect yourself. Don't stop using your magic," he heard his mother order strictly. "The sudden growth of both elents rely exhausted her body, but her life is not in danger. The mont you stop, your wife will suffer an injury."
"But--"
"Continue and focus, Drayce Ivanov!"
Drayce reluctantly agreed, but his worried gaze did not leave his unconscious wife. He could only swallow his worry, not expecting what was going to happen next would shake all three of them.
With Seren fainted, Evanthe expected that the intensity of the fire- and earth-attribute powers inside her would begin to weaken. After all, her ti of birth had long passed, and her innate earth power had already successfully matured.
She was wrong.
Under their bewildered gazes, the unconscious young woman started to emit a stronger power. The power of fire inside her continued to grow and grow, even surpassing her earth magic--
Whoosh!
A strange domineering fluctuation ca from Seren's body. It made both Drayce's and Evanthe's hearts palpitate, as if a mighty existence beyond their imagination was about to awaken.
Drayce looked at his mother. "What is happening?"
"I am not sure. It should not be like this," Evanthe said with a worried tone. "Let's continue--"
Crash! Crash!
Her words were cut, and the next thing they knew, both Evanthe and Drayce felt imnse pain as their bodies were slamd against the enchanted walls of the cave. They were thrown away by the strong shock wave caused by the outburst of powers coming from Seren.
The impact was so strong that for a mont, Drayce grew dizzy.
By the ti he steadied himself, he witnessed Seren's unconscious body floating above the broken magic circle.
At this mont, his wife didn't look like herself. No, she didn't even look human.
She looked like an immortal from the legends, floating in the middle of the ice cave while surrounded by raging fire. The largest flas behind her had taken the shape of a bird with majestic wings, but its form was indistinct, sowhat distorted, and he could not tell what kind of bird it represented.
For a mont, he was srized, but he quickly got hold of his wits.
"Lady Evanthe, what--"
However, he saw the older won being in a daze. He reacted intuitively.
Drayce flew up from the ground to return standing atop the broken magic circle. The light being emitted by the circle flickered, as if it was about to stop functioning.
This sudden eruption of hellfire had destroyed not only the magic circle but also the multiple layers of barrier set around the ice cave. A handful of them were still working, but because most of the barriers were ant to protect the ice cave from external forces, they were relatively weaker when the 'attack' ca from inside.
Seren's energy was leaking out of the cracks.
"Seren!"
He knew it was the ti for him to use his strongest power. He closed his eyes montarily, and when the next opened them, they were the color of pitch black, and the whites of his eyes had a sh of dark veins on them.
Erebus had taken over their body.
Magic of purer darkness escaped his fingertips, and he used his powers to nd the barriers, closing the cracks and strengthening the energy within the runes. At the sa ti, he unleashed his strength to separately control the two powers within Seren.
On the other side of the cave, Evanthe was in a daze not due to shock... but grief.
When the shockwave of Seren's eruption hit her, a different scenery appeared in front of her eyes.
A familiar place, a familiar person, a situation happening on the other side of the continent.
"Morph...this can't be..."
Tears rolled down from her eyes. A dear friend of hers was stabbed in the heart by a divine weapon and he was dying.
The ominous vision of death she had been seeing the past few nights ca true. Soone was going to die, and that was Divine Eagle Morpheus.
She was unable to pull herself away from the vision of his death, until she heard a voice calling out to her...
"...ther!"
"...Mother!"
"Mother!"
It pulled Evanthe out of her grief, and she realized that she had been stupid to ignore the current situation. She did not even notice that her son had called her 'mother', or that Erebus had replaced Drayce at this mont.
She got hold of herself and flew up as well.
While she struggled to regain her composure, she used her powers once again to take over the suppression of the power of fire inside Seren.
However, parts of what she saw in Agartha continued to tornt Evanthe.
Other than Morpheus dying, she had seen sothing else as well.
An enraged young lady covered in flas, a ferocious phoenix spreading fire from behind her, a soul-stirring divine power and a situation similar to the current Seren.
'Who is that girl? Is she related to what's happening to Seren? If I am not wrong, she might be the one to cause this sudden eruption of powers.'
Realization hit her.
'That girl...is she the reincarnation of the deity we have been looking for?!'
In her current state, Evanthe found it difficult to ta this raging fire magic as she was close to her limit. Though she was a powerful witch, she was still a being of the mortal world--the divine power of a deity was not sothing she could directly suppress with her strength on her own.
'If she's enraged, and she triggered this change in Seren...'
There was nothing Evanthe could do, helpless to change anything. She could only shed tears and hope for a miracle to happen on the other side of the continent, in the kingdom of Agartha.
'Unless the reincarnated deity calms down, Seren's situation won't stop as well. I hope Draven deals with her before it's too late!'
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