109 A Price Paid In Tears (1/2)

Across the land, people silently gazed up at the empty void and waited for the end to come. There was little else that they could do. People hugged their families and comforted each other as they waited for the inevitable.

Even the contender and conquerors that had survived could no longer see the Light of Hope anymore. They had struggled valiantly against the Infestation but it had made little difference. The disabled, broken warships and their crewmen were in no condition to fight either.

Where were the Four Sovereigns? Why had they not come to defend the realm? In this time of crisis, where they had gone? Not once had they shown themselves to defend the realm during its hour of need.

The four pillars that once united the world together had disappeared.

Sephira longingly gazed at the void and shed tears of pure joy. She could not have been happier. Her plan had worked to perfection.

The Heaven Barrier is almost gone! All that remains is that weak, outer shell and I can break through that myself!! Finally! Sweet, sweet freedom!

Even in her adult form, she would not have been able to destroy the Heavenly Barrier even with all her newfound power. That was why she had required the assistance of the Divine Furnace. Had she not used its almighty power, it would have been impossible for her to escape.

She would have been imprisoned for eternity inside of the sealed dimension even if she had wiped the continent clean of all life. Doomed to forever exist in an empty cage without a means of ever escaping…

There was nothing to hold her back anymore. Sephira called out to the inhabitants of Mulia and said, ”The time has come, my children! Let us rid ourselves of the shackles that bind us to this accursed existence! To the Great Beyond, we go together as one!”

Sephira closed her wings as she gathered an unimaginable amount of Anima in preparation.

A warm, golden hue began to shine off of them, illuminating the darkened world. It was almost like the people of the world were seeing the final sunset of their world.

She would destroy the continent with a single, merciful strike and release them from their suffering instantaneously. That was the least she could do for them.

The winged angel took a deep breath and opened her wings in a display of joyous celebration, bathing the land in her majestic radiance.

”I, Sephira of the East, hereby release you of your suffering!”

Overwhelming light flooded out of the angel's wings and then...

A lonesome voice spoke for all to hear and said, ”No.”

Sephira's cleansing flood of light was blown out of existence. It was as if someone had put out a flickering candle. An attack that would have destroyed the entire continent had been snuffed out with a single word.

Impossible! How?! They never finished it in time! It should have malfunctioned as soon as the initial power surge coursed through it!

She hurriedly scanned the continent with her Anima in a desperate attempt to stop him but could not find it. Never in her life would she have thought that this could have been possible.

Had she been played? No, Sephira was certain that they had not completed it. After all, she had never divulged everything she knew to Mulians during her imprisonment in Xibalba. She had even fed them half-truths along with lies to hamper the development of the Divine Furnace...

Sephira gathered Anima again and said, ”Stop or I will proselytize her soul! I offer a bargain! Spare me and I will give you her soul along with all the others I have taken! What say you, boy?!”

The lonesome voice let out a small sigh and said, ”Be still.”

She suddenly froze in place, unable to move. Not even Anima had been spared — it, too, had been forced into stasis along with her — turning the winged angel into a beautiful statue of glowing, static light...

It was then that it happened.

At first, it had been nothing more than a twinkling dot of light in the shattered, pitch-black canvas that had once been the sky.

But it kept growing as it descended. For every second that passed, it grew larger and larger until it had become the sky itself.

It had shrouded the entirety of what could be considered the sky, but even that was not enough to see all of it. Not even remotely close.

What had descended was... a single, luminescent arm of indescribable size.

From with the depths of the Void and beyond, it had come down upon Mulia.

Two fingers descended upon the continent, which was like a single grain of sand to it in comparison, and then — defying understanding — picked up the frozen angel in a mind-numbing display of finesse and delicacy.  The arm took its prey and swiftly pulled out its frozen prey into the void with a single, fluid movement.

”Be sealed.”

The sky reformed under command by the formless voice and the void quickly disappeared as the world continued to repair itself. A wave of Anima resounded across the continent when the sky finished repairing and bathed the lands with a blessing of protection and healing from the unknown entity.

Silence reigned supreme as people stared at the shining, clear-blue sky in disbelief.