Ch. 20-488 - Epilogue III: Naturally Elemental (1/2)

The Ukraine, One Year after Shroudbreak...

It wasn’t the first time the Ceremony had been done. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even the fiftieth. The group of Casters here had already done this Ceremony over a hundred times, so executing it again was done with the smooth ease of assurance, led by the Queen of Europa.

Landbound, Heavenbound, and Druids were present, in addition to Priestesses of Sylune and Flora. A considerable amount of magical power was being gathered here, far beyond the power of most single Casters to tap into or control, but the Ritual helped the halvyri Queen at the center of it do the task without much strain, the Sublime melody of her Voice harmonizing all the different energies and powers together, and blended them all together into a swirl of power strong enough to draw something up out of the Land.

It was a piece of the Mother Land, empowered with its own intellect and purpose. It swelled up from underneath them, rising like a small hill in the center of the Singing Casters, for a moment appearing like a gargantuan Earth Elemental, a being of stone and dirt and gravel here in this green-covered, but largely lifeless land.

Even the massive amounts of vivic inundation could not undo the fact that this land had been dead for eight decades. The remains of seeds and roots had flared to life with the vivus, and the grasses and weeds had grown, along with younger trees and shrubs... but there was no life beyond simple plants. Even the ants and spiders had perished, let alone the birds and small animals beneath them.

The entire foundation of the ecology had been destroyed, and needed to be rebuilt.

Green grass and a hundred species of flowers erupted out of the earthen skin of the Nature Elemental as it turned around, surveying the area around it. Bees buzzed between the flowers, a mouse wriggled out of the soil, and small birds came out of the new bushes, beating their wings.

Queen Morningwind pointed solemnly, and the Nature Elemental fixed its eyes on a wall.

The Shroudlord of Russia had set his undead to laboring for decades. His lands were encircled with thousands of these walls, generally about two hundred yards apart, designed to slow down any mass attackers.

Here, where a long line of atomic fury had blown a hole towards the heart of the Shroud, a yawning gap had been made in them, replete with more greenery than the lands between the walls had been able to harvest. But a few yards away, the crumbled remains of that wall still stood upon the Land, sullen and crumbling, but still evidence of what had been done here, a blot upon the land.

It extended out far, far into the distance. In truth, it extended for thousands of miles. It was put in place by countless undead hands, ringing the area commanded by the Shroud, cutting across works of man, plains, hills, streams, and rivers in the way, an endless wall that could be manned by hundreds of millions of undead to defy any incoming foe.

It was a defense for another time and age, and hadn’t been up to the task of containing the Shroudlord’s enemies on this world.

And now, it was going to come down.

The Nature Elemental didn’t so much stride towards it as flow along the surface of the ground, and behind it, life erupted. More birds chirped and flew around, squirrels flitted this way and that, a rabbit poked out its nose, and even a young deer stood up in surprise from a stand of young birch.

The Elemental came upon the concrete and cement of the wall, and rolled right into it.

There were grinding cracks and crunches as the living hill moved over the dull grey of the artificial stone, and the speed of the Nature Elemental slowed significantly.

One of the Landbound came racing in behind the Elemental, weaving his way through the rolling grass and shrubbery that was left behind as it moved, bounding to the top of it, and laying down there silently, gazing up at the sky.

The Wrath of the Land flowed out through him and the Scepter he held in his hand, and into the Nature Elemental below him.

There was a moment of pause at the additional injection of energy, constant and Pure, and the green grass beneath the man didn’t carry him off the Elemental as it did the other living creatures. The cracking and crunching of the Elemental at work became much more muted, and at the same time, more force began to apply beneath it.

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Queen Azaia Morningwind watched the Nature Elemental be about its assigned task. Normally such a creature would be used to cleanse the landscape, turning a land corrupted, despoiled, razed, barren, or occupied by artificial works back to its natural state.

This would all take place over a roaming circle about a mile in radius over the course of a day, generating new wildlife, plants, and the entire native ecology back for the place in question.

But such a thing was not actually what was needed here. Oh, re-establishing a foundation ecology was important, especially the small animals, and the native plants. But the vivic energy had a done a good job of the latter, and a mile in radius was far too small an area to worry about, given the millions of square miles wiped of life by the Shroud.

No, the true thing that was needed here was demolition, the scale of which mortal men just weren’t ready to undertake. The sheer volume of work to do was mind-numbing, and where to put it all?

And not all of it was cleansed of necroic energy, so it all had to be vivisized.

She flew into the air effortlessly, as did many of those who had participated in the Ceremony with her.