Metaworld Chronicles

Tianjin.

The Baseplate.

To the Liberator of Kachin, the similarity between the Jade Pillar at Nagaland and Elvia's jadeite phallus was self-evident. As one well-versed in Draconic protrusions, Gwen innately sensed the strands of mana flowing into its base from every angle, a synaesthesia akin to the vortex of an emptying bathtub.

Nonetheless, what truly caught her eye was the mass of scripts covering the shell of the Kirin Egg. These scripts, far older than Spellcraft, she had already seen half a decade ago, in another continent, another epoch of her reborn life.

As a learned Magister, she recognised the scripts as having foundations in Elven Arcanistry, the same used in her Ilias Leaf's living tissue. However, the Glyphs on this particular protrusion were written in a strange Chinese pictogram, defying her attempts at decrypting its true meaning.

The baseplate groaned.

The "Egg" was afraid because it understood her and her companion's intentions, indicating rudimentary consciousness and therefore accountability. Given another time, under more academic circumstances, she would have liked to know more, study its origins and purpose, and perhaps find a better solution than the one she was about to perform.

"Evee," She allowed the fair Cleric to affirm her conjecture. "So, this thing is responsible for Uncle Jun?"

"It is." Elvia nodded, erasing all doubt from her mind. "If it gathers enough vitality and mana, the Essence within shall re-birth an ancient being—A Kirin."

"Where have I heard that before…" Gwen murmured as her mana gathered. On the horizon, the Dark Sun continued to manifest. Whatever happens now, she needed to sever the threads before throwing herself into the tangled mess on the city's coast.

"Ruxin says it's the Drought Goddess, a spectre of our Kin's past," Golos compounded Elvia's accusations. "He says it is karmically tied to your Clan, and the only way to cure its curse is to cut that tie—permanently."

"Ruxin, eh?" The sudden candour from her Planar Ally did not escape Gwen's notice, a concern subverted by her present urgency.

As if sensing her growing hostility, a gut-churning swell of Ashen mana began to build in the recess of the Jade Lode's shadow, transforming the jadeite into translucent lamb's fat. The Necromancy was familiar—for it was a facsimile of Jun's Drain Life.

Besides her, Golos opened his mouth for a breath attack.

The invocations for a maximised Chain Lightning had barely passed Gwen's lips before another spell, one with a complexity far beyond what she was accustomed to, manifested as three concentric carmine coils upon the Jade Lode's circumference.

"Astral Binding—!" came the declarative announcement just as her tier six Evocation crackled in the air.

"—BARBANGINY!" Her spell manifested almost a full second later, momentarily bringing a flash of retina-searing light into their local vicinity before the thunderous, sky-splitting roar of Almudj's admonishment joined Golos' bad breath. Her hex was filled with prejudice, for as far as she was concerned, this "Kirin Egg" was responsible for her Uncle, for taking her away from the battlefield, and for what happened to Percy. Therefore, within Gwen's reciprocating Evocation was the full weight of her pent-up frustrations, intermingled with the guilt of allowing Sobel to depart with her brother.

CRACK—!

The earth jumped, less violently than when the Elemental Prince of Fire had made his entrance but imposing enough to send shudders through the watchers' bodies.

Gwen shielded Elvia from the debris.

The protrusion, already cracked by the Knight Companion's hammer blows of Faith, became obliterated by the Essence-fuelled lightning, shattered so singularly that only a charred stump remained.

"It's not dead yet," Slylth Morden's advice echoed beside her. "The true Lode lies deeper, buried within the ley lines."

"Caliban!" Gwen wasted no time, for the Dark Sun was already beginning its terrible work, sending incalculable, ethereal tendrils toward the coastal city below. Between itself and the unabated assault of Zodiam to the north. there would be little chance of the Tower holding out for long.

Her Void serpent manifested in the form she desired, tearing a gash in time-space as tall as a three-storey building as it slipped through the rent of reality. As an obsidian Afaa al-Halak, it landed with its tri-petal maws wide open, using the weight of its body to push it downward onto the charred stump.

The ground convulsed, unleashing an insane scream of horror as the stones shifted and the pavements cracked, rending the baseplate of the departed Tower.

Like diving into liquid, Caliban descended, making its maddening "Shaa—Shaa—"as its gargantuan body sunk into the rich loam of the coastal city.

"Impressive." The red-haired Dragon-kin gave her an affirming nod. "A magnificent Familiar."

This time, Gwen nodded back. She had many questions for the man with "Morden" in his name once the fight ended. Questions like why was he here?

What had happened to Elvia?

Who had drawn Sobel to this place?

And where would the witch have taken her brother…

"SHAA—SHAA—!" Her Caliban happily informed her that it had discovered the source of the enriched Essence, an unsurprisingly egg-shaped womb of jade nestled deep within what appeared to be an underground network of Mandalas. Gwen noted without surprise that its nest was also heavily inundated with necrotic Ash, so thick and potent that even Ariel would turn senseless and become fodder.

Of course, Caliban cared neither for the traps, the Negative Energy, nor the usual rewards and treasures that might have populated such a chamber of secrets.

"Consume!" She gave the remorseless command. "Leave nothing. We've got ordeals elsewhere."

Her Void worm obliged, surging earthward with a twist of its sinuous torso. The final moment of whatever lay below took not even a minute as magical conduits failed, ancient scripts flared, and the connections between the Mandalas and the ley-line beneath ceased to be.

"Caliban!" Gwen knew better than to allow the swallowed Ash-strewn, dynasty-era Kirin Egg a chance at reversing its fortunes. "Return!"

Soundlessly, her Void Worm slipped back into its pocket dimension, costing her a hefty chunk of her depleted mana pool. She staggered sideways. This time, it was Elvia who held her upright.

With the Kirin matter foreseeably resolved, the group regarded the giant hole made by Caliban.

"Is it…" Elvia's trembling voice was full of disbelief and doubt. "Is it over?"

"I don't see why it isn't." Gwen touched a hand to her diaphragm, ensuring nothing would spill out. Her Familiar appeared perfectly snug within her Astral Soul, nursing its cargo of precious Kirin Jade.

“…Umm…” Slylth raised a hand like a good student. "I don't think this is over."

Gwen made a tired gesture toward the Dark Sun. "Any ideas?"

"No, I am not talking about that…" Slylth directed her gaze back toward the hole with an illumination invocation. "That Kirin was the custodian of this particular node, the guardian for this part of the Axis Mundi."

Gwen slowly wetted her drying lips. "So this is THE node? Evee, did you know this?"

Her Elvia nodded.

"I see." Gwen regarded her partner in a new light. She had done her due diligence regarding the Astral Theory of the Axis Mundi and understood very well what it meant for an occupant to vacate a ley node. "Is this why Sobel was here? Does this have to do with Percy? We all saw the Shielding Stations fail."

Before the girl could answer, Golo stepped protectively between them and what looked to be an incoming streak of light.

"ELVIA—! OH THANK THE NAZARENE—!" the voice of Mathias blasted across the blighted baseplate before he landed heavily, stumbling as he ran forward. "You're alive! What happened to Sir Kass and Reginald?"

Kass? Reginald? Gwen did recall that she had seen them both during the wedding. Looking around the battlefield, however, she had found no trace of them, not even their Faith-fuelled mana.

Elvia's response was to let loose a choking sob.

Fuck… Gwen did not need corpses to guess that Sobel had done away with them before doing something to her brother. If both Knight Protectors were alive, there was no way Sobel could have the time to enjoy the fruits of Mind Magic.

Mathias walked a few steps forwards; then his whole frame seemed to droop.

“I am sorry, Mathias…” Gwen spoke for Evee's sake. "Sobel was here. She took Percy as well."

"Percy Song!" The Knight Protector's eyes lit up with uncharacteristic rage. The hostility therein was so vivid that Gwen felt goosebumps on her arms. "That little—"

"MATHIAS!" Elvia shouted past her ear. "Not now… We'll explain everything to Gwen soon enough."

The Knight Protector took a long, deep breath. Their eyes met briefly. Unhappily, Gwen could see that man's grief was genuine.

Before she could question Elvia, the ground shook once more. The street lights near the area of their cataclysmic combat flared on and off like Christmas decorations, growing brighter with every pulse. A surge of violent mana, newly returned to the conduits buried underneath the base plate, then coursed through the arterial highways surrounding the Tower's base.

Gwen, Elvia, Slylth, Mathias and a grinning Golos readied their bodies for the worst.

The streetscape erupted, blowing transformers and power boxes throughout the military district, rippling outward from the epicentre as a ring of expanding blue fire.

Nearer to the horizon, a Shielding Station erupted, transforming into a nova of electricity as the Core contained unleashed its caged energies. The damage was catastrophic, though only for the Undead swarming between the deserted neighbourhoods.

By the time the rolling expansion of electricity ceased, Gwen and her companions were already far in the air, wary of the blue-green jet of raw mana spewing from the orifice made by Caliban.

"I guess that's shielding… not restored for the foreseeable future." Gwen wondered what could have been done with the Kirin Egg if they had time. "Does anyone know why there's pure electricity pouring out from the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning down there? Isn't ley nodes meant to contain unfiltered, mixed mana?"

"Hee hee hee..." Golo snicked beside her ear as the roar from the mana hole grew louder than thunder. "I told you, Calamity, He who Heeds planned for everything!"

"Who? The Yinglong?" Gwen felt her world unravel a little more, a seemingly impossible prospect, considering Sobel just took her little brother for a stroll into the Quasi-Elemental Plane of the Void. "Evee, was this your objective as a Vessel?"

In the next moment, the hole made by Caliban let loose a stream of Elemental Lightning so pure that even Gwen had to shield her face with a semi-sphere barrier. Like the focusing blast from the engine of a supersonic jet, the stream grew in heat and intensity until the Prime Material itself began to wobble and tear.

From within the tunnel, a ripple of Dragon Fear poured forth, followed by the emergence of a titanic body akin to the Tower itself. The Yinglong, long named by its worshippers as he who heeded the Jade Emperor, tore through the Prime Material in all its glory, rising upward like a blue-green eruption, brushing past the shields of the staggered Mages.

For a split-second, Gwen drew face to eye with an enormous, slitted iris so imposing that she felt her innards shriek. Caught in a meniscus of time, she stared into that great cobalt eye, trying to discern its intent—finding only an alien and unreadable intelligence.

As an expanding pine of lightning, the Yinglong rose into the heavens, making for the Dark Sun. It would not swallow the extra-dimensional summon like her Almudj—but Gwen possessed no doubt a hungry Planar Ally from the Void was no match for a long-slumbering Dragon of the Prime Material.

So that's how it is… Gwen felt both troubled and relieved by her freshly sprouted suspicions.

How much of this had to do with saving Jun and Ayxin?

And was Tianjin the cost of such an outcome?

And most importantly, what about Percy? How did Sobel figure in this scenario? What of Spectre? Now that the Yinglong has intervened, would she drain Percy to spite the Dragon's riposte? Or was the Yinglong a factor that no one had foreseen, free from their verbal agreement?

In the seconds it took Gwen to run her thoughts through the wringer, the Yinglong had reached the Dark Sun.

In a singular move, its body pierced the blackened haze, disintegrating every strand of darkness that made up the core of its central mass.

The outcome was expected—after all, Positive Lightning was the bane of Void, capable of nulling its existence in the Prime Material.

The indifferent Dark Sun then reformed, appearing almost like an enormous maw as it tried to close in on the Yinglong's slender body.

The Dragon twirled like a New Year's dance display. As it passed, its wings sliced the Dark Sun apart, isolating its particles in the likeness of magnetic ink repelled by an unseen force.

Again and again, the two forces entwined, with the Dark Sun diminishing with every passing assault, seemingly unable to banish the Dragon in its midst.

A technicolour piece of history in the making, Gwen pondered the spectacle, wordless at the sudden development of events beyond her wildest imagination. When Almudj had battled Sobel the first time around, she had been almost insensible from the infusion of its Essence. This time, as a third party, she was truly beginning to appreciate the beauty and terror involved in the collision of two primal forces, each a representative of their Elemental Planes, seeking to browbeat the other into existential extinction.

DING! A crimson Message spell blossomed beside her ear.

"Gwen!" Richard's calm but imploring voice bled through the Divination Glyphs. "Are you… still good?"

Her cousin's Aussie accent was enough to stir her from the spectacle to the east and return her to the stark reality of her failures. "I am good, and so is Evee… Sir Reginald and Kass are dead. And Sobel took Percy."

"I know." Richard's placidity made her strangely unhappy. "We watched it live over here in the Tower. We're watching you now."

Gwen had to stop herself from voicing her anger. In truth, there was nothing the Tower could do, and the people controlling it were not in a position to perform what was needed, even if they possessed the capacity.

"I see." Gwen sighed, understanding there would be longer and more emphatic sighs in the future. "Have we been exorcised from the city? Are we no longer welcome?"

"Ha!" Richard's tone did not seem at all worried. "On the contrary, Petra readied the Mandala in your absence."

"They still want the Shoggoth performed?"

"Gwen, if you fly a bit higher, you'll be able to see that the city's north is still burning, and there is no Yinglong there to quell… anything."

Signalling the others, she surged upward until the city's still-standing skyscrapers were no longer blocking the view of the southern slopes of Tangshan. Once, a green vista encroached into the saddle of a mountain. In its place, a smouldering sea of magma and ash was swallowing the city in greedy gulps. From her vantage of twenty kilometres, she could spy the burning mote of ember in the form of Zodiam and his bear dancing through the blackened sea of destruction, igniting the dawning city like summer-dried eucalyptus.

A Dark Sun to the east and a wildfire to the north. The Bohai District, the food bowl of China's northern cities, was shattered beyond repair. The security of Beijing, so assured in its post-Shenyang arrogance, would be similarly broken, together with the nation's hope and spirit for the future.

Yet, the worse to come was the aftermath.

After Tianjin, what would become of the Eurasian continent's northern reaches?

If China shrank its ambitions behind the Great Wall, which nation would keep the Black Zones of Siberia and Greater Russia in check? What if Pyongyang unleashes its hordes once more? Who will stop them?

"But wait, there's more!" Richard chirpily communicated the ongoing crisis. "Beyond the Undead Shoal, there's ANOTHER Shoal, a living one circling the city's shipping lanes. Therefore, I've negotiated with Tower Master Wong on your behalf, and… he understands the necessity of your choices, and there are no hard feelings. As you can imagine, the Communist Party is uncomfortable allowing matters to be entirely solved by divine intervention."

"I see. So the Mandala is ready?"

"To the utmost degree possible, without your input," Richard replied. "Have I been presumptuous, Magister? Shall I inform the Tower Master of our immediate departure for Shalkar?"

Gwen sighed long and hard.

Before she could think about how to relocate her brother, Zodiam had to be dealt with. The Tower was her best bet in tracking Sobel, meaning she should make amends for her earlier outburst.

"Tell Tower Master Wong I am on my way," she said at last, turning once more to look at her Evee, the prize for her undisguised weighing of two lives she had imagined to be equally important. The angel hovering in a halo of her own making did not return her smile but regarded her with the haunted air of a feather-stressed cockatoo. "Dick, send the platform northward under guard. I'll meet you at the Second Orbital ring road, where we'll deploy the Shoggoth."

"That's a relief to hear." Richard breathed out. "We'll see you soon, Magister. I am sorry about what happened to Percy and the others. I am sure Sobel won't grill him over the coals for merely banishing Zodiam."

Gwen could not feel any sincerity in her cousin's hopeful conjecture. Still, it was good to have a voice of affirmation. As her Master's pupil, a very confident part of her understood that Sobel knew Percy's worth as a bargaining chip, which should not be discarded or abused without significant concessions. After all, strategically at least, Spectre's goal was arguably accomplished with the city half-destroyed and salted with Negative Energy.

Therein, the value of Percy would be directly related to herself, her Siblings-in-craft, and the advent of Almudj's intervention in their family drama.

"Evee, Matty, Gogo," she announced to the survivors, including the red-haired Dragon-kin hovering beside Golos. "We're headed to Tangshan to introduce Zodiam to the Shoggoth. Master Morden, if you wish to come, do as you please. If not, please return to your home."

"I'll come." The young Dragon drifted closer. "I have an… academic interest in these things."

Gwen did not contest the Dragon's curiosity. "How will you fare against the Tower's Shielding Array? Golos is attuned to me, but one may assume your noble self has no authority to be here."

"I am well prepared." Slylth's eyes twinkled. "The Shielding will be restrictive but not a deterrent."

Across the arc of the long horizon, a tempest-dripping fire roared, rending the Dark Sun with ten thousand lightning bolts. These then struck the inlets of Bohai Bay, forming the innumerable branches of an electric mangrove, animating the waters with cobalt arches of hysterical lightning.

From the uptick in intensity, Gwen guessed that the Yinglong's storm would soon fade like a monsoonal shower. Together with its intrusion, the Dark Sun would also fade into oblivion, returning the Prime Material to its fragile, paper-screen self.

What was left, thereby, was mere, mortal matters for earthly beings to resolve themselves.

Lei-bup, Arch Priest of the Old Murmurings in the Depthless Dark, heard the resonance of the universe in his churning guts.

His appendage, a gift from the great Shoggoth's last visitation, writhed and squirmed, wracking his body with such pleasing agony that he could not remain seated upon the throne.

The reason was simple—their Goddess was nigh.

He had heard the Pale Priestess calling for them. Over the docklands, within the Human city, she had designated their foes as the hated fiends of fire, the Elemental enemies of the Merman's ancestors.

"Praise be to the Pale Priestess!" Lei-bup's command rippled through the Great Shoal.

"Praise!" ten thousand faithful answered.

Even within the belly of the young Leviathan, he felt acutely the answering of the Shoggoth to its Master. As the Many-Eyed avatar tore the veil between dream and reality, every faithful felt the fluctuation of their conviction grow to new heights.

"Praise be to the Shoggoth!" Lei-bup informed the assembly. "Lamb of the Old One who is GATE and KEY! The PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE!"

"Praise!" a hundred thousand voices echoed from within the Leviathan. Outside, a million and more voices echoed his call to arms.

"Praise be to the Elder ones, who art Mother and Father!" Lei-bup tore open his robes, revealing the tentacles embedded in his guts.

As one, the rotund, cancerous bulges upon their slime-slicked surface began to sweat. Lei-bup's dormant flesh grew suddenly into unnatural life, first bulging, then forming into an enormous tendril, upon the surface of which were bulges in the likeness of eyes.

"WE HEED! PALE PRIESTESS—!" Lei-bup announced to the Mermen Tide. "WE COME TO AIDE THEE! UAAH! UAAH!"

His fellow priests, each with their own harnessed growths, exposed their extra-bodily tendrils to the court, drawing unfathomable envy from those Mermen whose bodies were still whole and untouched by their unwavering Faith.

This time, however, many more would gain the blessing. More would enter the inner circle. All the faithful needed was to find a fragment of the Old One, then endure the baptism of fishy flesh that was the ultimate test.

"WEEE— WEEE— WEEE—" A million howling beings of the deep swirled around the cooing Leviathan, their collected volume turning the sea into a living orchestra a dozen kilometres across.

“Weee—Weeee—“

“Gweee—Gweeee— Gweeee—“

“GWEEE—GWEEEN— GWEEENGH— GWEEENGH—“

Lei-bup felt his spine grow suddenly soft as his vitality flew skyward.

Twin Sea Witches, their unparalleled appearances as beautiful as he was faithful, caught him by each arm to prevent the Arch Priest from becoming a spectacle.

Upon his distended tendrils, newly sprouted eyeballs opened to survey the masses before them—

Beautiful, amber-green eyes that only the Pale Priestess could possess.

"SHE SEES US! HER EYES ARE UPON THE FAITHFUL—!" Lei-bup howled as a flailing lionfish speared through the gut, spraying the Sea Witches with molasses of grey spittle.

The Shoal had come for the SPAM wrapped in her likeness.

Now, they would meet their Priestess in the flesh.

Tianjing.

The Tower.

Richard Huang stood next to the Tower Master, ascertaining his future.

In a few years, he would be standing in a similar position beside his cousin, the Tower Master of Shalkar.

Of course, Gwen's Tower would not be a relic. It would be a state-of-the-art creation crafted by Dwarves, ensorceled by Elves, and inhabited by Dragons, possibly two purebloods, joined by a fleet of lesser Draconids.

Like the Griffin Knights, their Mage Flights would ride upon these majestic mounts and wear unrivalled equipment from wands to armour that repelled low-level Spellcraft.

His Tower—when Gwen's away on business—would be a superstructural one, possibly tied to Sufina, drawing from the Axis Mundi's boundless energies to fuel its mana engines.

In an invasion, Regent Song would give a command from her lofty heights, and hundreds of Dwarven-engineered Spellsword batteries would emerge from the Tower's base like hornets from a stirred nest. For their future foes, a barrage of spellfire a kilometre across would lay down a river of lightning and destruction so total that entire landscapes would terraform in the wake of their passing.

Such certainties were why he felt sympathetic and sorry for Tower Master Wong, a god in his domain but a man whose mind was too narrow to capture the arrival of a truly magnificent future.

A future that was now unfolding upon the lumen-caster.

Toward the North of the Tower, now lost to war for the next decade, the survivors of Tianjin bore witness to the maddening vision of two Elemental Titans at war.

Serving as an envoy of Humanity was Shoggy, a being bearing no resemblance to anything that may be conjured by human imagination, a living slice of the depraved darkness that exists only in the nightmares of the insane.

Below, a monstrous Flame Giant, fat upon the burning destruction it had wrought upon the city, called meteors and volcanic eruptions as easily as a fishmonger hawking a bountiful catch.

Tendrils, some thick as the cables that once held the destroyed bay bridge, fell from the heavens, studded with judgemental eyes and hungry lamprey maws that sought out the burning effigies below.

Javelins of fire, together with supernatural spells large and small, answered the threat, forming tightly-packed phalanxes that concentrated their collective heat to repel the invading Void.

What a painting, Richard regarded the projections. You could sell that.

"Mao…" the Tower Master beside Richard was in disbelief. "To think they could fight the Shoggoth. To think anything could repel the Shoggoth…"

Just as the man's lament passed, a mass of tendrils broke past a hazy net of fire to strike at the Salamanders below. The square phalanx was cut in twain in a single strike, sending the serpentine humanoids scattering in every direction.

Then, from almost a hundred meters away, Zodiam swung his enormous crescent blade of fire, sending an arching moon of pure heat to sever the tendril, encountering no more resistance than glowing iron through a stick of butter.

"The Shoggoth does not know of fear or retreat…" The Tower Master continued. "But there is not enough feed to sustain its aggression. Sooner or later, your Regent will not have enough vitality to maintain her creature."

Richard wasn't about to inform the man that Gwen never supplied the Shoggoth with anything other than a spark of creation—but he did share the man's diminishing confidence.

That Zodiam, after fighting Jun and Golos, the Tower itself, half the city's militia, and more than half the Mage Flights available in Tianjin, could still repel the Shoggoth was not within any of their expectations.

"Tower Master!" Magister Hu interrupted their lip-biting with a bark from the Divination Station. "Sir! The living Shoal has made its move. We have... nothing to slow them."

Wong's jaw clenched.

Richard counted the veins popping on the man's face before he finally relaxed his stance.

"Then I am sorry, comrades," he spoke to the command room. "Your Tower Master has been lax in his duty."

"Secretary…" Magister Hu's voice grew choked. "You did your best."

"The city is wholly lost," Wong said to the crew, his eyes meeting Richard's for the briefest moments. "Hu. Ready the Tower for evacuation. Collect as many of our Flights as you can, including important members of the Party. Once Tianjin Tower is safe, I will contact Central and face the tribunal's judgement."

Richard felt his loftiness turn to sympathy.

Wong's the right sort—even if he wasn't the man needed to save his beloved city. After all, he was the fool who had given Percy access to the Tower's secure levels and God knows what else. If he knew his Communists, there would be nothing left of the man on a physical and metaphysical level once the CCDI was done with him.

On the enormous, multi-storey displays, the sombre members of the Tower watched the Mermen Tide rush headlong into the dissipating lightning of the bay. A few minutes ago, the tempest had swallowed the Dark Sun—after which the storm had let loose a final, tempestuous discharge before it dissipated.

The assumption was that the Yinglong had done all it was willing to do to defend its domain. Any other conjecture was a moot point, for no one could contact or negotiate with the land God nor dared to question its motives. There were its children, of course, but no one had the gall to call Ayxin at this critical juncture or ask Golos to give his father a whine.

While the Tower's command centre pondered the best way out, Richard's eyes followed the sweeping Mermen Tide.

As foretold by doctrine, first came the siege-breakers, most notably the Leviathan. Thanks to growths of chitin aged by the immense pressure of the Elemental Plane of Water, these creatures were impervious except to strategic-class magic used by Humanity's greatest Mages.

With no sign of significant impediments, the Leviathan crushed the bay's infrastructure, tearing through the bridges and the shattered Shielding Stations to arrive at the deep-sea dockland, wedging itself onto half of the dock's once prosperous expanse.

Slowly, its maw opened a smidgen, a mere height of three storeys with a width that spanned a hundred parking lots.

From within the darkness of its hive-like gullet, coral-wreathed crustacean Mermen emerged, each as heavily set as Golems but possessing an impossible agility. In schools, they scampered across the ruins with their cargos of fish or prawn-headed infantry.

"… They're attacking the Undead?" Tower Master Wong was the only one with the authority to remark upon the improbable visions floating between the projector and the audience.

Richard inspected the images as well.

For some unexplainable reason, the Mermen calvary would pause to skewer a surviving Undead fish or crush those still moving under claw and pincer. The Sea Witches, famed for their mastery over Elemental Water, were gathering up moaning corpses by the hundreds to be swallowed into floating vortexes.

With unparalleled efficiency, the Mermen Tide advanced as a blue-green shoal riding the high tide onto a shallow beach.

"They're not coming inland? They're headed north?" The Tower Master's commentary reflected the question floating above the audience's minds.

Richard's eyes wandered from screen to screen until he saw a robust, multi-storey crustacean walk into the scene, evidently the leader of the encroaching horde of clambering chitin.

Upon the Fabricator-sized lobster was a temple made of coral fused into the crown. As it passed, the Tower's Diviner was curious enough to send his consciousness within, unveiling the spectacle of a fishy conspiracy centred around a table with a sand map.

For a brief second, the Diviner caught the silhouette of a Mermen priest, fat and corpulent and dressed in shimmering sea silks, held aloft by familiar-looking tendrils dotted with blinking eyes.

Before Richard could ask the man to focus his vision, a Sea Witch extended an elegant hand near the point of view. Like crushing a bug, she pinched the air.

Abruptly, the voyeuristic Clairvoyance ceased—

No doubt, somewhere in the Divination Tower, a Diviner was screaming in agony, blood pouring from every orifice on his face as he howled for healing.

But Richard had seen what he needed to see.

On the necks of those priests surrounding the table… every member carried a relic of Faith upon their bullish necks.

A relic in the form of a can.

A can with an image that paid handsome dividends to his cousin for her likeness.

"Jesus Christ!" Richard blasphemed aloud, though he doubted the Communists cared. "… I told you the SPAM sponsorship would damage your brand…"

Tianjin.

The Summoning Platform was a detached section of the Tower usually used for establishing forward operating posts for Mage Flights.

Now, it was guarded by what remained of the Tower's best Battle Mages, two Knights from the Ordo, a red-headed Elementalist of considerable abilities, and the Yinglong's youngest.

Situated a safe distance from the battle between their conjured Shoggoth and the Elemental Prince's Brass Legion, those not currently occupied with managing the Mandala took the chance to converse by the platform's edge.

"The Master's presence grows faint," Elvia Lindholm, Vessel to the Yinglong, remarked upon the aftermath of her roughshod encounter with destiny. "Have we finally outlived our uses, Golos? What else has the great patriarch envisioned for us?"

The Thunder Dragon studied the warring creatures below, his jaws clenching and unclenching with every clash. "Who can know his mind? After tonight, Father will be slumbering for a long while. With Ayxin safe and the child growing well, no more sentimentalities tether him to our world."

"Would the Master leave for the Unformed Land?" Elvia felt the emptiness inside her like a missing organ.

"Ruxin says he has been leaving for centuries now… if that makes sense." The Thunder Dragon leaned closer to the edge. "Though that may be beyond the understanding of the mortal races."

"If you don't mind me asking," Slylth Morden tactlessly interjected beside them. "What would happen to Lord Yinglong's domain if he's no longer interested in its welfare? Will the eldest—Lord Ruxin—return to inherit?"

Golos grunted. "Ruxin has his land now. As was Father's intent, I suspect Ayxin will be the new custodian."

"Ayxin?" Elvia thought of the fact, then nodded. "Yes, I do suppose that's a necessity. The child of impossibilities will need its grandfather's resources for a long while before it can anchor in our reality."

"And with the Humans cowed, Ryxi can finally awaken his mother," Golos concurred. "He contributed significantly to the cause. I am sure Father will humour him."

Elvia recalled the Dragon's earlier explanation. "Was this through Lulan?"

The Dragon nodded. "The young Daoshi has done well, whatever she's doing."

"This is all so vague," Slylth questioned the brutish face as if trying to decipher a Mandala. "Are you and your siblings unaware of Lord Yinglong's designs?"

"I doubt any of us knew what the others had planned." the Thunder Dragon raised both clawed hands. "But we did our dues, and so did this Vessel here. Now, we are all rewarded."

Acutely, Elvia felt a terrifying tremor run through her body until her fingers trembled in tune with the titanic clash below.

"We all…" she found the validation of her suspicions hard to swallow. Besides her, she noticed Mathias gritting his teeth. "We were all rewarded?"

"Are you not?" Golos studied her with interest.

Elvia wracked her brain for the clues—but she couldn't turn away from the carnage of millions below, Sir Reginald and Kass's deaths, and the billions that would now suffer.

"Not following?" The Thunder Dragon appeared keen to express its newfound intellect, a significant upgrade from his past as a Wyvern. "Fine, let me enlighten your small human head. If you recall, the Calamity came to Huangshan with her Uncle, correct? Of their own free will."

Elvia nodded slightly. "Gwen needed Essence…"

"Essence they stole from the Yinglong. From my Father! Two mortals! Stealing from a God of the land itself! Why would anyone gamble that the Yinglong is blissfully asleep and unaware? Who could have told the wisened Ash Bringer of such a fact?"

Elvia's eyes grew wide. "The Master?"

"I don't know," the Dragon snickered. "But imagine my surprise when we were commanded to bring a pair of thieves to Father. Of course, things got complicated, and Gwen and Jun ended up besting both myself and Ayxin, and that's how the Calamity and my luyos became entwined."

"Karmic threads…" Elvia mouthed the Draconic word. In the mortal tongue, the word held immeasurably less meaning.

"After that, Ruxin was brought into the fold," Golos recounted a few recollections he did not fully understand. "The Calamity and I met again in Nagaland and fought to establish Ruxin's new home, which further affirmed our luyos—a necessary condition for that gadget Ruxin gave to the Calamity and to keep Ruxin off Father's throne."

"The Omni-Orb?" Elvia recalled the device Gwen trusted with her life as a guidance system.

"She has an Omni-orb?" Slylth whistled. "Master Morden was the first to create one. Did you know that?"

"How did you think the Calamity could find you without delay? How did she show up every time, on time?" The Blue Dragon ignored the young Red. "Besides, the Omni-orb isn't the first gift from us. From Father's garden, the Calamity had received a herbal supplement…"

"Sen-sen!" Elvia had yet to retrieve her dancing herb. From her empathic link, however, she knew it was asleep in the same room as Jun, aiding the man's recovery.

"Which the Calamity gifted to you as a Familiar…" Golos gloated.

"… and I took as the conduit to the Master…"

"Which allowed you to be his Vessel and be Ayxin's maid at the wedding… which allowed you to heal Jun when needed."

"Wow..." Slylth's gaze grew worshipful as Golos explained the finer points.

Beside the human-shaped lizards, Elvia felt the stars spin, and the universe align.

Gwen had ventured into Huangshan before the IIUC!

No one had even imagined their seemingly innocuous adventures had any significant entwinement with the Yinglong, much less the knots within knots of a transforming cat's cradle.

"How does Lulan fit into this?" Elvia asked, still in disbelief at Golos' gloat.

"Well, clearly, you don't know what Lulu's been up to." Golo's smugness continued. "After Gwen saved her, she swore to be useful. But how could a damaged mortal like her be useful to a Calamity? Well... it just so happens that Ryxi was tasked with taking her in as a pupil. I was there when he taught her, you should know. She has become very useful after Ryxi's tutorship, especially since the Naga Spirit sustaining her Sword Forms was handpicked by Ruxin. Who knows how brother managed the patience to strip that Naga Core undamaged from its living body, but he did it for a mortal."

"The Nazarene above…" Elvia felt goosebumps all over. "This is unbelievable."

"From what I heard, Lulan was responsible for a Kirin fragment."

"A Kirin Amulet?" For some reason, Elvia recalled the agonised face of Mei Yang. "What do you mean?"

"You should ask her yourself." The Dragon shrugged. "I wasn't there for her mission. I was readying myself for the Calamity's summoning at Ruxin's."

"Where's Lulan now?"

"Somewhere, probably suffering from what's to come." Golos' spirit appeared to dampen. "It's not going to be easy."

Elvia felt an unpleasant tingling in her limbs.

The Dragon regarded her strangely.

"Vessel, our roles are performed. I did my part and saved the Calamity's life at least three times at great expense to myself—and I was rewarded with the pure blood of a Thunder Dragon. Ayxin attained the spouse she desired, and as his favourite, Father gifted her a child coalesced from Essence and causality. Ryxi, in a few months, will awaken his mother in an epoch with no Daoshi to subdue her. Ruxin has his new home and fortunes and is now unchallenged in that part of the world. The Calamity herself has not lost her Uncle and gone insane, nor has she swallowed half of the humans here in Tianjin. Her brother, presumably, is alive—but he did not awaken the Kirin nor cause Jun's death. Lulan has attained the ancient arts, gained new life, and repaid her debt in part. You're still breathing, against everything Father originally foretold, and you now have an opportunity to make amends with the Calamity… Is not our Father the most benevolent being on Terra?"

"This is insane…" Elvia could not stop herself from her unstable mutterings. Were she not trained expensively by the Ordo, she felt her mind would have shattered. "This is… this is how Dragons work?"

"Yes, that's about right." Slylth was taking notes. "This is very interesting, Brother Golos. Much more intricate than my Mother's stories."

"Hahaha—bow before my Father's wisdom!" Golos' horse laugh was an iron grater pressed against the soft swells of Elvia's bruised soul. "So, Vessel. Will you go your own way now? Or would your luyos remain entwined with the Calamity?"

"You said… I should make amends?" Elvia's lips felt parched. After all this talk of foresight and prophesy, her mind firmly rested on the Draconic word for "thread".

"Don't look at me like a beaten pet. Sympathy makes me hungry." The Dragon shooed her away. "Someone's got to tell Gwen that brother of hers is a real and not metaphorical Calamity in the making. One of us has to explain to her that Father was the one who put her terrible life in order and she should be eternally grateful and live only in service to the Yinglong… but it sure as hell ain't going to be me…"

Before Elvia could protest, the Thunder Dragon stopped talking, as did the muttering Red.

Elvia followed Golos' gaze as his voice trailed off, landing at the city's eastern coast.

“… er… I don't think Father's responsible for THAT…" Golos looked at Slylth. "Any ideas?"

"Nothing to do with me." Slylth shook his head. "Mother's beard, there is a lot of them."

"You?" Golo asked the Knightly pair.

The Knight Protector looked at Elvia.

Elvia concentrated what little Essence she had left into her eyes, drawing her vision into sharp focus.

Below, the battle had taken yet another turn.

Mermen—living ones—were pouring en-mass into the basin north of the city, skating across the charred landscape via a roving tsunami conjured by the infamous Sea Witches.

As the landslide flooded into the shattered urban landscape, they set upon the Brass Legion with tooth and claw, mandible and coral, smashing into the sizzling phalanxes as a dark blue sea, swallowing the living motes of magma in an ultraviolent confluence of steam and burning.

Like folded origami placed in seawater, the Brass Legion's shocked troops collapsed, unable to deal with the sudden swell of Elemental Water, not to mention the Golem-sized King Crab Mermen swatting aside their serpentine bodies like swinging scythes harvesting red kelp.

"Wow..." Slylth Morden clapped happily. "I am so glad I left home."

Was the Elemental Alliance turning upon itself? Elvia wondered. There had been no betrayal in the Arctic nor the Antarctic, yet here, against mortal foes, their enemies would turn upon each other?

But her conjecture didn't make sense either, not in the context of what happened next.

From the rolling ink cloud housing Gwen's hovering Shoggoth, all-seeing tendrils descended, indiscriminately picking at the incoming Mermen. At first, Elvia thought the Mermen might be deterred, but after a few minutes of ceaseless slaughter, it was evident that the Mermen's goal wasn't the Brass Legion or Zodiam—but the Shoggoth.

"They're not… attacking the Shoggoth… are they?" Golos looked like he wanted to fly down for a closer look. "They look like carp pushing toward a Dragon Gate."

Of all of Gwen's companions, Elvia knew best the likeness of a scene where the mindless faithful meet their idol. She had seen the spectacle at the Isle of Dog's charity concerts, at the gatherings organised by the Ordo, and in the faces of those men and women she had saved on islands inundated by flood and fire.

Now, she was seeing it in the movement of these Mermen. Be it large or small, gargantuan or otherwise, numberless sea-born masses rode toward the Shoggoth, clambering over one another to reach the epicentre. Zodiam's troops were Elemental elites—but they were still an expeditionary force sent into an unwelcoming world. Comparatively, these fish-out-of-water were superior in their native existence upon the Prime Material and in the sheer scale of their numbers.

As a maddened, ravening crush of whirling destruction, the tidal wave of bodies bull-rushed the Fire Elementals, lapping at their sulphur-ridden hides, extinguishing the flaming earth beneath their feet.

Zodiam himself was helpless, for the Shoggoth's interest was still keenly focused upon the enormous beacon of vitality that was the Fire Giant's core. His Magma Ursine carried its rider faithfully, leaping to avoid the thicker tendrils, landing deliberately into collated pools of howling Mermen like a meteor.

Elvia forced herself to refocus. This time, she drew from her Relic what little Faith was left unexpended by her use of the Claymore of Light.

Her pupils turned golden.

And the blue-black Mermen Tide… transformed into a sea of swaying autumn wheat.

Fanatics! Her heart grew uncomfortably ill. Below was a Great Shoal of mind-wiped, thoughtless zealots!

A million and more Mermen, a numberless multitude of the Faithful, all clamouring for the acknowledgement of their many-eyed God.

"Do you hear that?" Golos cupped his ear to the wind. They were many kilometres away, but a Thunder Dragon could pick up even minute vibrations in the air. "They're calling for her."

"Calling for the Shoggoth?" Elvia realised she was wrong before she even completed the sentence. "You mean they're calling for Gwen? How do you know that?"

"Might I help?" Slylth interjected with a wave of his hand, moving something invisible through the air until it blossomed as a Divination Glyph. "The Glyph scripts used here are fairly rudimentary, so I caught a bit of it…"

The spell flower blossomed, releasing the sound taken by the Diviners for their Regent upstairs.

“Weee—Weeee—“

“Gweee—Gweeee— Gweeee—“

“GWEEE—GWEEEN— GWEEENGH— GWEEENGH—“

"Maybe they're making a GWEEEE—sound by coincidence." Elvia implored her companions, receiving mocking stares in return. "The Rat-kin, maybe, but why would fish worship Gwen?"

"GWEEE—GWEEEN— GWEEENGH— GWEEENGH—" The unholy chant continued until Slylth willed it away.

"Why else?" Golos dismissed her mortal insight. "For our kind, it is natural for the powerful to be worshipped by the powerless."

"I think this should be the end unless we're fighting the Shoal next." Slylth pointed a finger at the Mermen. By now, the motes of fire were only a small island of magma. "Zodiam is toast. He will soon return to his domain. He cannot sustain his full power without the Elemental overflow from the disrupted Axis Mundi."

Elvia regarded the young Dragon, amazed that the word "toast" could somehow be seamlessly worked into Draconic.

As if heeding the Red Dragon's prediction, the final flames winked out, punctuated by an enormous eruption of magma and sulphur that sent back the Shoal several hundred meters, sundering a thousand clambering assailants around the Elemental Prince.

Then... sodden darkness.

Only the Merman Shoal remained, gathering in a whirlpool beneath the Shoggoth, sending the aerial titan into a feeding frenzy.

Gwen's command to cease the Mandala was heard above and over the railings. The hovering platform shook and shivered as the HDM modules were cut, depriving the Shoggoth of the means required to sustain its trans-planar existence.

"Now it's done?" Mathias asked the wise-seeming Dragon-kin behind her, the question foremost to Elvia's thoughts. "The long night of Tianjin is over?"

On cue, as if the cosmos was answering Mathias' metaphor, the sickly rays of a new dawn pierced through the hazy city's silhouette, bringing dimension to the Shoggoth's maddening visage.

"There's your answer." Golo shrugged his massive shoulders. "It's done. And those left should be happy. They're survivors now, whereas they could have been either kindle for Zodiam's fire, feed for the Kirin's resurgence, or food for the blasphemous Mermen."

"And now, they're merely homeless and without a future," Elvia voiced sadly, understanding that survival was a hard and bitter fruit. "We must pray for the untold million that's dead and gone and aid the lingering millions with nowhere to go."

"Not nowhere." Golos patted her on the back, one violent enough to almost send her over the rail. "After all, if the Calamity hasn't consumed us all by the time we've confessed to everything we've done for her, there's always room in Shalkar."