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Late Evening - Late Fall : Nkremo | Bahamut

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- Hera Monachikós ~

A field of fire, and blood. The sprawled, mangled bodies of those whom I considered comrades, and the view of humans skinning scales off the face of a lifeless child.

It looked like a battlefield.. a land of war.. yet I was in the heart of Bahamut.

It felt as if I had traveled back in time to view 'The Hero's Graveyard', a section of Bahamut that was completely decimated by the Acardi not long before I was captured.

However, this vision was of a very different time period...

Slowly looking up, I found myself standing before a wall of grey scales, each the size of islands, connecting the horizons as if splitting the continent in two.

It was the body of an armored reptile, one so large, it could destroy entire continents by simply moving over them. -The Leviathan...-

Even as a dragon that could contend for the title of 'the strongest', I felt indescribably powerless looking up its side, seeing the edge of the atmosphere only part the way up its body, even whilst most of it was hidden underground.

But the moment I blinked, the scenery changed, the battlefield turned into an endless field of glass and ash, and dozens of colossal holes bored through the serpent's body appeared.

It was a sight unlike anything that my imagination could create on its own, a scene of destruction unlike anything I believed possible.

Yet while I looked upon the sight with baited breath, my gaze drifted toward my feet and my heart sank.

At my feet laid a nearly unrecognizable dragon, covered in wounds so grave that there was no chance it was alive.

However, I recognized who it was in a heartbeat.

"I was dead, huh..." Vasilias, slowly straightening his posture while effortlessly hovering over the water, immediately fell into thought, as if a vision depicting his own death meant nothing.

"Are you seriously not worried about that?" -Even if you just consider it an omen...- I felt my chest tighten as the scene replayed in my mind.

But Vasilias seemed completely unbothered by it. "Not particularly... Specific details of visions typically aren't fulfilled."

"W..What..." I truly didn't even know how to react. "You fighting the Leviathan and dying is a specific detail?!" Anger quickly found its way into my voice.

But he remained completely calm. "I am likely fated to clash with Jormungandr again at some point, I won't deny that, however the result of that clash is most certainly a detail.

" Turning his inquisitive gaze back down to the water below us, he spoke with a sudden firmness.

"I'm more worried about how this divinity got here in the first place.

.." As if remembering something, his expression darkened.

"But.. how do you know your death is a detail bound to change?" I spoke somewhat anxiously.

"Because visions like that only show you a single leaf on the tree of fate.

A single moment in a timeline that takes place after a series of specific events, with specific results.

" Looking down at the water, he spoke bluntly.

"Somehow, this bundle of divinity just happened to be tied to a single leaf, so when you flew over it, and it grazed you, it showed you your future at that set period in time, in that set timeline.

.. If I'm not wrong, it would explain why the cult seemed to appear out of nowhere and spread like wildfire.

.. All they had to do to recruit new followers was bring them out to this little patch of water, and show them their own vision. .."

-So, the reason they're hailing the Leviathan is to beg for mercy...- Had they seen the same sight as me, such a reaction would make sense. "But if it shows everyone that flies over it a vision, why didn't you see one?" My tone slowly softened.

"I have no idea." He immediately shrugged. "The memories of the times I researched oracles and visions are still blurry... It could be that I was dead in the timeline the vision showed, but as far as I know, that just means it should've shown me a vision of my death..."

-Yet there was nothing...- Looking down at the black speck in the water, my thoughts raced. "Do you have any idea how a vision could be tied to an a soulless piece of divinity either?" Although it was a little hard to see from our altitude, it most certainly didn't house a soul.

"Not a clue..." Vasilias was stumped too.

Glancing over at him, I found his eyes completely focused on the chunk of divinity. "Do you think it could be something like a trap laid by the Aesir? Something to sew more discourse in Bahamut?"

"It's possible, but.. they already have rats here for that. There's no point in spreading the praise of another so-called god... Plus if it was them, they would have done this in a higher traffic area like in the channel around Emporio."

But I actually disagreed. "What if they were just changing the direction of their focus.

What if they recognized making dragons turn toward human gods was too troublesome and rebranded to have them hail the Leviathan?

They already have a following that will listen to them, so if they just redirected their focus, they would begin more naturally growing the cult.

.. They would avoid higher-traffic areas because they know you exist, too.

They wouldn't want you catching wind of it. .."

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His expression instantly turned troubled. "But what if it isn't the Aesir..."

"And it was planted here by the Leviathan? What would be the point in that?"

Pausing, his expression only continued to darken. "It might not have been planted here, but just happened to float up from the bottom... Again, it depends on what exactly this clump of divinity is from.. but it's possible it was a byproduct of Jormungandr looking at his own future..."

-Which isn't a good sign...- It implied he was planning for something.

"But I can't get my mind off the second scene you saw... If it was Jormungandr trying to cherry-pick a future, why would he still be so gravely injured..."

I paused for a moment to let him think. "Maybe.. it was the only future he managed to kill you..."

Slowly turning his eyes to me, he slowly cracked a smile as if I had just told him a joke. "I'll take pride in the fact you think that highly of me."

My expression instantly turned unamused. -I can't tell if he's joking...- A part of me wanted to hit him for even implying he'd die if they fought.

But.. he spoke before I could do anything. "Jormungandr could wipe out the entire Aesir on a whim, and I'm not certain I can even beat Freya at this point..."

"Hm... Then it sounds like I need to throw you back into the Tree of Prayer so you can get some divinity back." Hearing my somewhat threatening tone and seeing the look in my eyes, his demeanor instantly softened.

"I-I have a better idea actually!" Ducking his head down, he spoke with haste. "We might be able to figure out if it was him if we scan the ocean bottom..."

I stared at him, unamused for a moment before suddenly going to grab him with my aura. "That might be the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

But he didn't let me grab him. "Hey, I didn't mean we'd scan it ourselves! Why would I ever willingly do something that tedious?"

Pausing, I gave him a curious look.

I had no idea what he could have been thinking of, but after he reached out his paw and released a horrifying burst of energy, completely engulfing the web of divinity, and essentially removing a several-kilometer-wide section of the ocean, he quite happily motioned me along.

"Why don't I just show you? I'm sure you'll find it interesting! "

-And he thinks he'd lose to Freya...- Looking down at the colossal section of ocean he essentially removed from existence, I felt the need to sigh. "Haah.. alright."

Eventually deciding to just go with the flow, we flew back to Nkremo before taking the space rune to Siratha, and continuing up the coast. -Where are we headed?-

I honestly didn't know what to expect...

But the place he was taking me to wasn't even remotely on my mind.

There was no amount of thinking that could have gotten me to the answer.

*CRASH* As the sounds of massive waves slamming into the side of a mountain filled the air, I looked down into the water with a grimace. "You want to go where?"

"There is an Acardi Laboratory I rebuilt here. With its AI active, we can connect it to other labs scattered around the Death's Gape and maybe use them to scan the sea floor."

It honestly sounded like he was speaking a different language. "'Ay eye'?" -The hell is he talking about..?-

But he just smiled at my confusion. "I'll explain while we swim. It'll take us some time to get there."

Watching him dive into the water, and reluctantly following after him, I felt more confused than I ever had before. -Where the hell is he taking me...-

But instead of being unusually uncomfortable the whole time we swam, as he started more passionately explaining what to expect, and what certain things he spoke of were, I grew curious.

-An essentially sentient creature that isn't alive.. but instead thinks and exists purely as a sequence of electrical signals...- The more he explained, the more my confusion grew, but at the same time, the more interested I became.

"~Did the Acardi really have laboratories in the oceans that were that old?~"

He immediately nodded. "~It wouldn't surprise me if these laboratories existed before the war really started. The issue is, I don't really know. The only data logged here is related to biological life.~"

*Hmmmm* As a gentle hum slowly filled the water, distracting me from our conversation, we suddenly entered what looked like an absolutely colossal dungeon, and began following a series of long, glowing cables that lead up to a large, eerily familiar cube-shaped building.

Seeing it made my eyes go wide as it forced memories I wished I had forgotten into the forefront of my mind. -It looks just like the one I was trapped in...-

But that was only from the front.

As we swam up over it and looked down, the sight that met my eyes was unlike anything I could wrap my head around. An indescribable web of cables surrounding a glowing, humming core that even from a few hundred meters away, felt dangerous. "~What.. is that..?~"

"~Hm?~" Vasilias, not knowing what I was talking about, quickly glanced back at me. "~Are you talking about the reactor?~" Seeing me hesitantly nod as he glanced toward it, he continued with a smile. "~I built that to power this facility! Isn't it cool?~"

I honestly felt my eye twitch hearing him speak as I looked inside it with my aura.

"~You must be joking.. right?~" -If anything in that malfunctions, this whole place will cease existing.

..- Inside the so-called 'reactor' there was essentially a constant sequence of explosions so intense they could recreate volcanic eruptions, yet were contained in a little sphere and used to 'power' the facility.

-It's more complicated than anything I've ever seen too. ..-

Even including the Acardi equipment I looked at in the facility I was captured in. -Maybe.. I'm a bit lacking in my understanding of science still...-

I felt my confidence slowly drain the longer I looked at everything he made.

But as we swam down, oh-so-carefully navigating between the web of cables, and changed to our humanoid forms to walk inside, I nearly fainted.

The hallway, lined with pristine white tile, so polished I could see my reflection in it, was lit by countless white lights, while the air smelled like an indescribable amount of nothingness.

It was similar to the facility I was trapped in, but at the same time completely different. -What the...-

Nothing in it ran on runes or mana... -Everything is just connected by these metal wires...-

It made no sense, even after having learned most of the basics of science from Vasilias. -The facility I was trapped in had runes everywhere.. but this place.. is devoid of them...-

But he seemed completely unphased by it, gently setting his hand on my lower back while motioning me down the hall. "Don't clam up yet. You haven't even seen the cool stuff."

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