novelzi Chapter 364 – My Salvation for a Word
Chapter 364 – My Salvation for a Word
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“Are you actually incapable of talking?” Elassa asked. She knew it was a prickly question, but it simply needed to be voiced. “Actually actually? This isn’t something you just do.” The Goddess of Magic soured over the ocean as they followed a squad of drones. Neither Elassa nor Olephia could navigate during day-time on this open ocean. It was obvious that south was towards the sun, revealed the other three cardinal directions, but that was were Elassa’s geographic skill ended. Below them was an endless plain of dark blue waves, above them was an endless plain of light blue smoothness. So they had taken to follow the V shape in the air, when the drones started circling, that meant they were above yet another city in the depths and the Divines got to work.
Elassa, Goddess of Magic, fully armed and equipped for battle. In a blue battledress that all but overflowed with enchantments and signs of power, and then with platinum rings and silver necklaces and jewellery of all sorts, all fixed with glowing blue and clear catalysts. The Goddess of Magic hummed slowly through the air as she carefully carried Olephia. It wasn’t even that the woman was adopted as a daughter by Arascus. It was that Olephia had come in nothing but her purple dress.
Elassa had asked the question several times before. Olephia would always skirt around the answer, replying that she spoke when she needed to speak. The answers were always direct, but they always felt as if they had something hidden within them. And now, it looked to Elassa as if the she had pushed her luck just a moment too far.
“No. I speak when I need to.” Olephia said dryly. In the distance, an atomic explosion went off. Then another. And another. Seven in total for the seven words said. All around them, the blue sky suddenly turned into an scarred, burning orange. Clouds of steam and water started to rise into the air and then boiling rain started to fall back down. Elassa lifted up her hand, hardened the air around them into an invisible barrier and then felt the wind and heat impact upon it from all directions simultaneously. One of the drones fell out of the air and the others started to fly higher to escape the radiation left behind by Olephia’s words.
Elassa looked around at the seven mushrooms clouds around her. She saw Olephia once again eyeing her angrily. The woman brought out her notebook and pen from pockets hidden within her dress and she started to write:
Elassa stared at the paper, then back at Olephia. Single syllabers? As in words? The woman actually operated through sheer speech? And that was it? There was no control over it save for the amount of syllables the woman said? “You actually can’t stop it?”
Olephia made a silent sigh and purposefully over-exaggerated her eye roll. She wrote without even looking at the piece of paper in her hands. And her hand-writing was still pretty and legible.
Oh. So that was it. Elassa saw the problem: Olephia was just prickly about the fact Elassa was trying to figure out the woman’s power without explaining the mechanics behind her own. “Well magic is just the will drawn onto reality. Most assume it really conscious thought it really is the opposite, the more subconsciously confident you are of yourself then…” Elassa trailed off when she saw Olephia write something.
Olephia had written.
“Oh…” Elassa said, her eyes once again went to the explosions in the distance, the clouds were devilishly clean, although they would be since there was no ground to call up into dust. Instead, it was great pillars of steaming water that had reached their peak and were now coming.
Olephia gave Elassa another piece of paper. The fact the letters were slightly less curvy and wavy revealed that the Goddess was angry. Elassa didn’t know what she did frankly. But Olephia kept on writing. The Goddess of Chaos practically stuffed the piece of paper into Elassa’s hand.
“I wasn’t…” Elassa said. “I’m not scouting you out, if that’s what you mean.” Olephia’s anger dissipated and the Goddess merely rolled her eyes in disappointment.
’ Elassa read the piece of paper twice to make sure she could understand the words.
“We didn’t talk before the Great War.” Elassa said. How could her questions have anything to do with Olephia joining Arascus? “We didn’t talk much during it either.” Olephia actually put her finger to Elassa’s lips to shut the woman up. Elassa thought who else she would allow to do that to her. Not even Allasaria would, all things considered. Yet before Elassa could even think of reacting, her eyes went to the steaming pools of ocean. Olephia, with a single word, had caused the ocean to boil. If someone with that amount of power wished to silence her, then Elassa would stay silent.
’ Olephia wrote, she looked up and pointed at the drones.
“Follow them?” Elassa asked and wished she said nothing. Olephia’s look actually questioned her sanity and intelligence. “Right, I’ll follow them.” The Goddess of Chaos quickly waved a piece of paper in front of Elassa’s eyes.
’
“Of course.” Elassa replied. Olephia kept on writing at the two women followed the four drones now across the ocean to the next spot. They were going at one city a day, now it was day six so city six was going soon. It most likely had some name, it probably had history and culture and everything else that every city had. Yet to Elassa and Olephia, it was merely another spot in the ocean. Another job to do.
Elassa followed the drones, every now and then, her eyes passed over to Olephia. And each time, she was impressed by how much text the woman had written. And then eventually, Olephia tapped Elassa’s arm and passed her the paper:
Elassa paused and then looked at Olephia. This Goddess in the purple wasn’t even looking at her, instead she was staring down at the water! She had this to say and then she had the gall to ignore Elassa? Excuse me!? ‘
Elassa didn’t know whether to graciously go down to her knees and start thanking Olephia or whether she should be ashamed of this scolding. One thing that she certainly wasn’t was angry, because it was the same as being angry at Allasaria. At the end of the day, what would that anger help? ‘
Elassa looked to Olephia again, those purple eyes turned to coldly meet Elassa’s blue. ‘
Elassa suddenly wished she could just fly away. To leave Olephia here, yet if the woman had not done anything to her yet, she didn’t want to do anything drastic.
“Oh.” Elassa said. She didn’t know how to reply exactly. Had she hurt Olephia? Annoyed her? Didn’t the woman realise how major she was exactly? Of course everyone would be interested in her. It was the same as Elassa talking about magic. “Sorry.”
Olephia shook her head and got to writing again. And half a minute later, Elassa got another reply. It was extremely short for how short it was. ‘
“Excuse me?”
“I’m apologizing for insulting you.”
Elassa stared at the paper and bit her tongue. It was Olephia at the end of the day. And then she got another piece of paper.
Elassa had to think for a moment, but it was more to pick her words out correctly rather than choose the reasoning. “Because I asked about your power.”
And this time, the reply came quickly. ’
Elassa read it and then looked back at Olephia. Was this woman actually being serious? “Talk about the elephant in the room.” Elassa said. “Am I supposed to ignore the fact you’re the Goddess of Chaos?”
“Let’s not pretend we’re equal here.” Elassa could not believe she was actually arguing against herself. The Goddess of Magic sighed and shook her head. “Apologies then. It’s not… Well, it was interesting to me.”
Olephia replied before passing another slip of paper.
Elassa thought of what Olephia would like to hear, before finally settling down on something that wasn’t a complete lie. “I know you like to paint, but I’m not really a painter or an artist. Your power is just interesting to me.”
Olephia said. The drones came to a stop above them and started circling around. Elassa saw them and got to work, she wanted today to be over with. They would return back to the container ship that served as a resting spot and Elassa could hide from Olephia until the rest of the day.
“When you speak, like just before, do you control the explosions?”
Elassa blinked in surprise. “So you can’t narrow it down?”
“But it won’t go off underneath me?”
“Well I have one last question.” Elassa said. She felt as if she was testing her luck and now, she needed to scream because of the howling winds. It was the same as always, winds picked up and began to howl as the waters below them grew darker and started to turn around a single point. A massive whirlpool, the size of an island slowly began to excavate itself.
“And what if there was an explosion here?” Elassa asked.
The reply sent a chill down her spine. ‘No. Elassa did not want to test it out. She shook her head and Olephia smiled smugly at the sheer concern across the face of the Goddess of Magic. Elassa said nothing, she kept on amplifying the whirlwind around her. This had been done five times already. It was practically ingrained memory.
Elassa would pull up the waters, Olephia would sentence a city with a word, and they would leave. Yet this time, Elassa slowed down as she looked at the water. There was something in them, a huge black snake that circled around. She looked to Olephia and the woman responded with a shrug.
Elassa stopped the whirlwind when she saw a figure emerge from the waters. She knew who it was immediately, the man had an unmistakable look about him that Elassa had hated since the very first moment her eyes had touched the monstrosity of a man. He was taller than Elassa and Olephia, with all his limbs being too long. His neck was the size of his head, his fingers longer than his palms, his arms hung too low down his thighs. With skin that was paled and hued blue like ocean-water and eyes that couldn’t decide whether they were green or red. Mur. Ruler of Uriamel and lord of this ocean.
Mur rose through the air on the back of a huge ocean snake. With multitudes of fins and gills, it looked like a series of fish that had been sewn together. Yet there was only one head and one pair of huge black eyes that blinked every few seconds now that they were out of the water. If it was just Elassa here, then the Goddess would have already started backing away. Mur was an excellent fighter, he could move quickly underwater, in air, he easily competed with the best of them.
Yet Elassa was not alone. Elassa was with Olephia. And whereas Olephia was annoyed and mad at her, there was a certain confidence by being besides Olephia. This was the dreaded Divine that all other Divines feared. This was the Goddess of Chaos. This was the woman who break a city with a whisper. Olephia had never even engaged in a battle, she simply brought the chaos of uncreation with her, wherever she went.
And Olephia was by her side. It was an almost incomprehensibly comforting feeling. Who could touch her now? Certainly not Mur. And certainly not with only that that massive sea-snake or whatever it was. The monster came to a stop from the water as Elassa’s winds gave up. Rain came down, but it did nothing to obscure Mur’s booming voice. “Stop! Stop! I wish to negotiate!”
“We are merely representatives of Arascus. What do you want to tell him?!” Elassa shouted down.
“I’ll sign it. All of it. I don’t care what or how. I’m signing it Elassa. Tell him that. The retreat order has been issued already. You’ve won. You’ve beaten me. It’s over!” Mur’s voice became slightly more pleading. “Uriamel has been defeated. It’s the end of the war!”