To Fly the Soaring Tides

Despite being woefully small in comparison to the monolithic Undina, the Silver Witch rose into the sky with a towering presence. The clouds thundered bright silver as countless bubbles of curse twisted around her like a storm of impending calamity.

Undina expected a fight when she decided to help out for the day, but a witch who could wield curses was the last thing she expected. It was easy to discern at this point that she meant to steal away Cira's curse and use it herself. The look on her face made clear exactly how ill her intentions were.

Nimara the Silver Witch lorded over the island and everyone on it, her cold Gaze boring into Hale first.

"W-wait—what did I do?" He cowered under her bloodlust.

"Nothing in particular. But you've seen too much." She waved the back of her hand, and a hoarse cough came from Hale. Blood began to trickle out of his mouth and a silver blade grew from his gut. Wrapping his hand around it, his eyes turned wide. He let out a few more raspy breaths then slumped to the ground. "A pity."

"I am your opponent, witch."

A beam of cerulean light pierced the clouds and stopped against Nimara's bare hand, fanning out behind her in every direction.

"You will wait your turn." She said to Undina and the silver haze blanketing the island solidified into an even plane, separating the supposed goddess in two at the waist. "We both know that isn't your main body. Besides, I am much more interested in that spirit with the amber eyes. Wherever did she run off to?"

Undina's arm turned fluid and shot out like a spear, but diverged as they hit another plane. Split right down the middle like she caught a sword between the knuckles. "You should not take me lightly, human."

The water kept flowing like a raging river, and Undina let the rest of herself turn liquid. Hundreds of streams turned to thousands as they were split, but Undina gradually surrounded the witch and the golden monument altogether. Nimara was at the bottom of a sea glowing bright with mana, bearing the weight of the ocean.

The witch floated in a bubble of silver mist, slowly getting smaller. The shimmering bubbles of dark smoke got closer still, almost blotting her out.

"You know, people always say Undines are impossible to kill, but they're not. Just like any spirit, really." Despite the unfavorable situation she found herself in, the witch wore a carefree grin, "I only need enough of you and each of your various instances… then I'll be the main body, won't I? You will be no more." She laughed, making no move to attack. "Don't worry, spirit. You may consider yourself recycled for a greater purpose."

When she held out her palm, enough silver sand to fill a desert poured out, dispersing itself into the water. It resisted at first, but Undina just couldn't hold her back.

The cerulean sea started to blanch with a silver glow, like something insidious was released into the water.

"What do you think you're doing—Kyahhh!!" A painful shriek pierced the sky. Her torturous cries shook the island, "You will die."

With a loud splat, the Silver Witch simply exploded. Fleshy being she was, Undina still had to get really close, owing to the ridiculous amount of power this witch held. She thought that would be that for a moment, but the silver continued to spread through her body.

Instead of falling, the bloody mist that Nimara had become began to congeal in the air, taking on a silver hue.

"I admit, that hurt." In seconds, the Silver Witch was floating in the center of her cursed storm again. "But they all struggle at first." Finally calling on a metallic staff, she held it up as mana gathered, "I will reward your efforts with a quick death, pitiful spirit."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

A shockwave of silver passed through the sea and island beneath. For an instant, surprise broke up Nimara's cold expression. She channeled more mana into her staff, feeling inexplicable resistance. And that's when she saw some of the silver sand she pushed into the undine's body was turning a dark gray, almost black.

"No…" A brief gasp left her lips when she noticed some of her saffron bubbles floating around in the effulgent waters. It seemed they only kept the curse in, and not the water out.

This is bad. Shouldn't Kazali's experiment harm the spirit? What's more, it appears she's using it to resist my will the moment her water touches it. Impossible. I need to get out from under this sea before it swallows all my samples.

A barrier of bright saffron flames formed around Nimara like a sun. This one, however, kept the water out as she burst into the sea toward the light of the sky.

"Not so fast." Undina boomed, "I told you, this place will be your grave."

The sky beyond the burning barrier of tranquility was quickly blotted out by a dark cloud. Then little flecks of dark sand started to seep through the barrier, one by one. All Nimara could do was contain them in more bubbles, but this was a losing battle if she didn't do something. Her barrier had already slowed to a stop under the cursed desert. She was being entombed in her own silver, tainted with the power she deigned to steal.

"Enough!" She shouted, slamming the point of her staff down. Silver ripples flowed out, coated with a shroud of tranquil flames, "Burn away into nothing."

An explosion of burning saffron phased through the sea and Nimara was suddenly alone in the sky.

She let out a long and weary sigh, "Finally, I can leave. What a hassle—" Her words were cut short as a jagged spear of cerulean crystal emerged from her chest. As an undine split off for the primary purpose of protecting this island, Zuzarel waited for her moment and struck true—straight through the heart.

Nimara's head hung limp. She had pulled it off! Then an ominous laugh echoed through the sky.

"Did you really think that would work? I thought you were watching." The witch's head rose and she turned it around to look straight into the undine's eyes. "You see, I'm not too upset about destroying your friend because I knew you were still here." The blue crystal was overtaken with silver and snapped off as Nimara turned to face the spirit, "Now would you be a dear and show me where the little one went?"

"I would sooner die then let you have your way here." Zuzarel stood firm, but her doubts were plain in her voice.

"Don't worry," She smiled and held up her palm, "You won't be dying, per se. It's all about perspective."

Zuzarel tried to conjure more crystal but none of them pierced the witch. Soon enough they started dissolving as a silver mist only got thicker. She could feel it pushing against her, suffocating in a sense. It felt heavy, then it started to burn. She started burning mana trying to resist, but it was futile.

She tried to scream, but nothing could pierce the mist. Soon her mind started to get foggy and Zuzarel thought this was really the end. She didn't have an ocean to overwhelm the witch like Undine did, and all her power didn't seem to matter at all. She was helpless.

A tremor ran through the island. Then another, and it continued to shake. Suddenly a cerulean light appeared above, and the mist prison started to fade away. Zuzarel caught a rare glimpse of alarm on the witch's face as she turned to the sky.

The clouds dispersed, burning away into the aether as the sky began to shimmer the purest blue into depths of the horizon. Any trace of the Silver Witch's influence was gone as far as the eye could see and waves of pressure fell on the island. As if she was being shoved toward the bottom of the sea, she fell from the air, crushing into the stone below. Her knees started to buckle as her storm of cursed bubbles all dropped.

They rolled away in every direction as the silver witch's staff burned with mana. She tried forming another tranquil barrier, but the flames wisped away before they could solidify, broken up by a cerulean mist that rose from the earth.

"A mere human. Don't think that stolen power will help you here." A booming voice echoed through the sky. Nimara's knees buckled, and her staff pressed into the ground. Mana closed in from all directions and she looked toward the shore where glistening blue serpents rose over the edge like mountains, towering over the island. Turning around, they lined the shore in every direction like a hydra had come to swallow the island up. They left her no escape.

"Impossible… how man undines do they have here?" She instinctually channeled all her mana to escaping, and her first step was met with a beam of cerulean light from the heavens. Nimara stumbled forward over her now-missing leg, trying to take flight. There was too much pressure for her to get lift, and she ended up skidding across the ground.

"Why leave so soon?" Another ray came down and the witch barely rolled out of the way. She was now spewing silver out of her body in a violent plume. She didn't have time to heal her leg, but just conjuring a domain under this pressure wouldn't get her far either. "I have met many like you who prey on spirits. You all struggle at first."