Chapter 1236 (1/2)

Sydney wove her hands together, drawing on the power of both her ice and lightning elementals in order to create the seal she desired. Calm and insistent, with the powerful charge of lightning behind it to enforce the bindings. Her Mana quickly flowed out of her like water sluicing into the void, but Sydney didn’t mind. After all, it would be… dangerous to proceed otherwise.

I should have come sooner… God, I really let almost a year go by before I came looking for you…?

After a few minutes of layering the two energies on top of each other, a shimmering blue crystal coffin appeared in front of Sydney. She wiped away some of the cold rain running across her forehead and released a steadying breath. Not that wiping away the moisture did much; the rain was a constant companion in this world.

The coffin itself functioned both as a way to suppress the occupant and also make it easier for her to move him. Although it required a small amount of Mana to maintain it, now that the structure was set up it didn’t take much attention. And considering the fact they were technically behind enemy lines...

Gently, Sydney reached out and touched the cool surface of the coffin. She looked through the translucent walls at the agonized expression on Drake’s face. For several seconds, she simply stared at the shredded lids of his eyes and the sharp prongs of the Fate that had claimed his sight.

I’m sorry I waited so long to come to save you, Sydney apologized internally. Her gaze became heavy. It seems like I can never reach out toward the people I want to talk to the most…

Why had she balked at the prospect of telling Ace about her illness…?

The surface of the nearby lake began to bubble and Sydney’s gaze turned sharp. In a split second, her left hand was wreathed in lightning while frost skittered up her skin from the fingertips of her right hand. Both arms glowed with light blue energies, similar but very unique. But the bubbles soon resolved themselves into the fearsome form of Neveah and Sydney relaxed.

In several huge strokes, Neveah swam into the showered and waded upward. She was currently in her natural state, a humanoid bone wyrm with a horrifying, toothy maw. Two large wings of bone stretched outward from her heavy bone pauldrons. Her hands resembled bouquets of short swords as she cut through the water.

Neveah dragged another body out of the depths of the lake and tossed it over onto the spongy muck along the shore to relative dryness. Of course, the constant drizzle of the Toad World was an incessant companion, soaking them both to the skin. A ripple ran through Neveah as she arrived back on land and her body shifted, transforming back into her human form.

She was slender with long black hair that was plastered attractively to frame her face due to the rain. Her features were clearly a mix between Randidly’s and another woman’s, but the effect was honestly pretty good. And after a year or two of practice, she wore the human features with a very real warmth.

Sydney coughed lightly and pointed to the unconscious body of Roy, who they had been rather surprised to find in the Toad Lord’s Dungeon next to Drake. “Want me to bind him too? He’s… a dangerous individual.”

Chuckling darkly, Neveah shook her head. Her wet hair swung sideways around her head as the rain continued to soak them. “No need.”

Sydney recalled the scene of Neveah simply relying on her horrifyingly powerful body to rip through the assembled Toad Lords in their assault to rescue Drake. The fight had happened underwater, so Sydney had the unpleasant experience of swimming through the drifting clouds of gore that Neveah left in her wake.

Even the Toad Lord that ruled this world by imprinting on the Aether had been heavily injured and forced to flee in front of Neveah. He had attempted to use strange sigils of Aether to trap Randidly’s Soulbound companion, but over the seven minutes that the fight lasted, it was clear that Neveah was intuiting the way the Toad Lord utilized his Aether at a frightening speed. She had inoculated herself to his attempts to bind her at a visible speed.

By the end of the fight, Neveah had forced open the Aether traps between them and ripped off one of the Toad Lord’s thick legs. Her sharp fingers had squeezed and a puffy cloud of blood had wafted out, obscuring Sydney’s view of how the Toad Lord has escaped. If Neveah said that she didn’t need any bindings on Roy to ensure that he wouldn’t misbehave, Sydney believed her.

Tsking quietly to herself, Sydney looked up at the overcast sky. Small raindrops landed and popped on her face as she considered the moody vista that reflected her feelings a little too perfectly. Do I really always need to rely on someone else to help me with my secrets…? Why can’t I just-

But Sydney stopped that thought. After all, she doubted she would have had such success against that main Toad Lord. Instead, seeing that Neveah had hoisted the now muddy Roy back over her shoulder, Sydney channeled her Mana through her elemental companions and caused the coffin to float a short distance off the ground. After exchanging a glance, both began to walk back along the same road they used to get here.

They certainly made for a strange procession in the damp world as they wound their way past the disturbingly silent swamps. None attempted to stop them.

After thirty minutes of loping along, Neveah twisted her head to look at Sydney. “Why does it matter that they are creating a television network? It’s just constant movies, right?”’

Sydney chewed on her cheek before answering. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Neveah basically knew nothing about the Earth before the change. “The channel itself doesn’t matter much. I bet the content will even be pretty decent. It’s more… the fact that there is a significant portion of Zone 1 that dedicated their time and effort to entertainment. Donnyton can be extreme sometimes, but I agree with them on this: we should be preparing for the Calamity, not trying to reclaim pre-System habits.”

Neveah’s head bobbed a little as she considered this. “But people had more fun before the System right? Fun is a good thing.”

“People procrastinated a lot more before the System arrived,” Sydney replied. “And you could afford to; the consequences for failure didn’t often include death in old Earth. I think those of us who are worried about Zone 1’s actions believe that some people might be lulled into forgetting the very real consequences of our current lives by the familiar presence of television.”

“You worry a lot,” Neveah used her Randidly-esque face to grin at Sydney. Sydney could only force a smile in response.

You remind me so much of Randidly. That same thoughtless smile…

But before the conversation could continue any further, both Neveah and Sydney dug their feet into the muddy road and skidded to a stop. The rain continued to fall, forming several small streams that drained toward a lake about a hundred meters to their right. But other than the unconscious body, the bone wyrm, and the woman dragging a crystal coffin, the surroundings seemed completely empty.