Chapter 48 - The Fall of Aestus Part III

"Think you could handle this?" Mai asked.

"Yeah, it should be easy enough." Kaden replied while holding one of his hands up towards the water.

"Kade!"

Hearing his name prompted Kaden to look up to where he would find Aaron, who was holding an unconscious kid in his arms.

"What's going on? Is the village under attack?" Aaron questioned as he landed next to Kaden and Mai.

"There's, ugh... no time to explain." Mai replied while her arms began to shake. "Kaden's getting us to the outside."

"Oh wait, give me just a few seconds."

Very cautiously, Aaron rested the unconscious kid onto the ground.

"I saw that explosion earlier while I was looking for you. When I went over to investigate, I found this kid and another completely knocked out. He isn't far at all, I'll be right back."

"Aaron, wait -" Kaden tried to say before Aaron flew off.

"Miss Mai, look!" Kumori exclaimed.

Just over the trees, Mai and the others were able to see the first bubbles ascending into the mass of water.

"Not good, ngh... we need to go." Mai stated.

"Mister!"

Kaden turned around once again to the voice of someone who was calling out to him. This time, it was Nakayla and the others.

"Mano!" Sayu shouted while pointing at the unconscious boy on the ground.

That was when realization hit, and Kaden noticed that the kid was one of the three Jayson was looking for. Avery ran over to him and gave him a quick inspection. He had no visible injuries.

"He's alive. What happened to him?" Avery asked.

"No clue." Kaden replied. "My friend found him and brought him here."

"Was there anyone else?" Nakayla questioned.

"Well, he just went ba-"

"Coming through!" Aaron announced as he landed in with Tanner on his back, also unconscious.

"Tanner!" Sayu exclaimed.

"These two most likely need immediate medical assistance." Aaron concluded.

"What about Camie?" Nakayla questioned.

"AGH!" Mai groaned loudly as she dropped to one knee.

Water began to leak out of the giant mass as more and more people made their way out of Aestus.

"I can't hold this anymore!" Kumori cried.

"Kaden, please!" Mai shouted.

"We need to get out of here!" Aaron exclaimed.

"E-Everyone gather around!" Kaden ordered while raising his hands again. "I need to get this right first time. There's nine of us, so this bubble needs to be big. C'mon Kaden, c'mon."

Kaden closed his eyes and concentrated on all of the water surrounding this group. The water above them. The water beneath them. The water falling around them.

"Calm your heart." Kaden remembered as he focused. "Calm your heart."

.....

A plethora of emotions were pulling Elder Aira in all sorts of different directions, but she somehow managed to stay level-headed as she flew over on Ondo to get a grasp of the situation.

ROOOOAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!

Maleah looked over her shoulder and was nearly struck by a rapidly moving ball of fire barreling directly towards her. She made Ondo barrel roll to the side to avoid being hit just barely.

"Ondo, dive!" Maleah commanded.

Immediately, Ondo dipped and flew straight towards the ground. While diving, Maleah stretched out one of her hands into the air and waved it as they flew through the sleet and snow. The fireball then divided into four different columns of fire, which shot down and targeted Maleah and Ondo. However, despite Ondo's size, he made dodging those columns of fire look like a mere training session with how easily he avoided each one. Through all of the evasion, Maleah kept an eye on the dragon as it recklessly flew through its own flames. She knows, however, that the people of Ignus possess a technique that prevents them from getting burned.

"Just a little more now." Maleah thought to herself.

It was then that she caught a glimpse of the dragon's back and noticed that Kajar wasn't there.

"Where'd he go!?"

Maleah's eyes scanned the area, but she didn't notice Kajar until it was too late. The commander was using flame propulsion to fly himself over to Maleah, and with those fire columns still flying around, he went completely unnoticed. At full speed, Kajar collided straight into Maleah and grabbed her off of Ondo. The impact was more than enough to completely knock the wind out of Maleah, and before she could have braced herself, Kajar dropped her into a tree before she inevitably crashed to the grassy surface.

"Mmm... Ow." Maleah groaned while holding onto her side.

As she slowly pushed herself up onto all fours, she kept on wincing and reaching at the side of her abdomen.

"I have broken ribs." Maleah said to herself.

Kajar casually landed on the ground about ten feet away from her.

"Elder, I kindly ask that you don't interfere." Kajar stated. "Like I said, I didn't come here to fight, but violence only insights more violence."

"So what would you call your actions here! Ah!" Maleah shouted in pain.

"Your people brought this on yourselves. I gave you a chance to make things right, and you refused to take that chance."

DOOOOOSHHH!!!

Both Maleah and Kajar's attention were taken by the sound of a loud rumble echoing out of the hole that was once Lake Aestus. That heavy, ominous sound would be all of the water, finally crashing down and engulfing the entire village of Aestus. Maleah was trembling and couldn't bear to imagine what had happened to everyone she had left down there. With her legs shaking too much to even stand on, she crawled just a bit closer to the hole while Kajar watched on with a malicious grin on his face. However, that grin quickly faded as a very subtle light illuminated the right side of his face and brought his attention once again to the hole. Maleah couldn't believe her eyes and was left speechless by the incredible sight before them. One by one, bubbles of different sizes began to emerge from the hole and gently float over to land. Soon, the air was littered with hundreds to thousands of bubbles, all containing the people of Aestus who managed to evacuate the village safely.

"Forgive me for worrying, everyone." Maleah said softly as she felt a great rush of relief flow into her.

"Persistent, just like the roaches you are." Kajar stated.

.....

Cling! Cling! Shing!

Kenzo and Nix exchanged heavy blows with their respective weapons as the fighting ensued on the mountain top. Both of the remaining dragons circled the area, periodically breathing fire down onto the battlefield. Damien and Markus took on the assignment of defending all of the other guards from the dragons by tracking them and forming ice barriers every time they attacked. This left both of them vulnerable to attacks from the Ignus foot soldiers, which is why Kenzo and the others prioritized protecting those two.

"The fact that you fight to defend a land you know hardly nothing about is laughable." Nix exclaimed.

"Don't talk like you know more about my own home than I do?" Kenzo replied.

"Then you know that your people are liars and thieves, right!?"

Before Nix could have even finished his statement properly, Kenzo was back on the offensive, with a direct piercing attack with his ice blade. Nix easily sidestepped it, and the two traded swift attacks once more. A white paper box went tumbling by them, which was then quickly swallowed by a ball of water. That water then froze just before the box released a flash of light and exploded. The ice nullified the blast to an extent that protected everyone nearby. Behind all of the fighting with his back against the wall, Travis was smiling as he threw out two paper planes made of the same flash paper that the box was made of. Ty quickly reacted by capturing both of the planes in bubbles once again and freezing them before they detonated. He then jumped forward and spun to create as much momentum as possible while throwing one of his ice boomerangs. It curved around the entire battlefield at an incredible speed before targeting Travis, who rolled out of the way at the last second. The projectile carried so much momentum that half of it pierced into the mountain.

"Heh, nice throw." Travis said as he glanced back at the ice boomerang

Ty ran his fingers through a puddle of water, which he then formed into another boomerang. He surveyed the battle before sliding behind a different Ignus soldier and using the boomerang to cuff their ankle and pull them to the floor. The Aestus guard fighting him took that opening and quickly stabbed the soldier in his chest before he could recover.

"AAAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!" The soldier screamed as Ty quickly turned and threw his boomerang once again.

With impressive accuracy, the boomerang swerved and maneuvered its way through the battlefield. Dipping underneath streams of fire and grazing the backs of his fellow guards before eventually landing into the shoulder of a soldier that was rushing towards Damien. The blow knocked him backward but didn't drop the soldier, so Damien pulled the boomerang out of his shoulder while slipping behind him and began to use the boomerang to strangle him. This left one of the dragons unattended to, and almost everyone became aware of that fact as it flew over their heads. However, one of the guards that wasn't paying attention was snatched by the stone like talons of the dragon and flung through the air as he screamed uncontrollably. The dragon then eviscerated the guard with its scorching hot flame breath before he even had a chance to defend himself.

"Dammit!" Kenzo exclaimed as he parried another strike from Nix.

"You ought to pay attention before you end up like him." Nix stated mockingly.

Kenzo aggressively swung once more, but this time, his follow-through caused him to jam his sword into the ground. Nix grinned and readied a heavy over hand swing with his metal staff, but Kenzo quickly adjusted his grip on the handle and broke off half of the sword. He slashed upward and managed to graze Nix's upper body before he could have jumped backward. Nix then twirled his steel staff before swinging it underhand so that the bottom would scrape the ground and create sparks. He pushed his hand forward and created a flame wave that nearly caught Kenzo before he rolled out of the way. As soon as Kenzo lifted his head, he was greeted with yet another paper plane flying directly towards his face. With very little time to react, the plane reached within arm's length of Kenzo before he was able to barely erect a flimsy ice wall between himself and the plane. The explosion completely shattered that wall and blew Kenzo back several feet, but he quickly recovered onto one knee.

"It's a relief to see that the so-called 'land of peace' isn't above getting dirty when it matters." Nix remarked.

"Shut up already." Kenzo replied as he made a two finger hand sign.

Nix wasn't foolish enough to let his guard down so easily in a battle, so there was not any opening for Kenzo to capitalize on. However, the ace up Kenzo's sleeve had already been laid. Nix felt a chill come over his body, more specifically around the cut that Kenzo gave him when he had grazed him earlier in the fight.

"A person's blood is imbued with their own life essence, so while it is a liquid, it's impossible to control it with water essence." Kenzo thought to himself. "However, we can still freeze it."

Nix quickly noticed that the skin around the cut was turning pale, and that area was also going numb.

"You son of a bitch!" Nix exclaimed as he caught on to what was happening.

"You can call this frost poison." Kenzo stated while rising to his feet.

"Haa, now I really have to kill you."

Almost right away, Kenzo noticed that the frost had stopped spreading, and some of the ice was even beginning to thaw. Nix exhaled heavily, and when he did, steam was blown out of his mouth. Kenzo became aware of what was happening after just a few seconds.

"He's using fire essence to raise his own body temperature." Kenzo concluded. "Like concentrating a fever on that one spot of his body. So long as I keep the frost there, he'll have to focus on keeping his body hot. He'll lose."

RUMBLE!!!

Without warning, the ground beneath everyone around Aestus began to quake vigorously to the point where standing became a challenge.

"What's this now?" Kenzo questioned.

With every passing second, the quaking became more and more violent until the mountains themselves began to crack and crumble. The fight between the Ignus soldiers and the Aestus guards became a fight for stability. Some of the guards formed their weapons into ice sickles and lodged them into the stone. Some of the soldiers managed to evacuate the mountain with help from the two dragons. Several guards and soldiers were shaken off the mountain and plummeted to their death.

"What the hell is going on!?" Ty exclaimed.

.....

Down on the ground, the evacuees were all just coming out of their bubbles, and some immediately collapsed from exhaustion. The quaking created landslides and sinkholes that the villagers had to defend themselves against while also fighting to stay on their feet.

"What is this, Elder Claire?" Via questioned.

"... Worst case scenario, I suppose." Claire answered with sorrow hanging off of every word.

"You don't have to hold me up, I told you I'm fine!" Kaden exclaimed. "You should help someone who needs it more."

Mai tightened her grip onto Kaden as she too stumbled and had no idea what was happening around them.

"I'm trying to help myself right now." Mai said softly. "I'm scared."

BOOM!!!

A deafening sound of thunder originated not from the clouds above but instead from deep below the surface, inside the hole what was once Aestus. The hole began to emit a bright red color, which, after seeing, placed a sadistic smile on the face of Kajar. The mountains furthest away in the range began to split apart and, like a volcano, began to spew molten lava. That bright red light inside of the hole slowly started to fade, while the peak of the mountain where the lava was coming from began to glow instead. The light became brighter and brighter until it was almost harmful to view. Then...

KABOOOOOOOM!!!

The top of the mountain exploded, followed by a beacon of fire bursting into the sky. The heat was so intense that it evaporated all clouds that were in a ten mile radius of the beacon, and the light it radiated was nearly blinding to look at. The quaking finally ceased, but now everyone was fixated on the hellish sight that was now occupying the sky.

"HAHAHAHAHA! YES! FLY FREE!" Kajar exclaimed in a maniac manner. "I FREED YOU! YOU ARE NO LONGER A PRISONER OF THESE PEASANTS!"

SCAAAAAWWWWWWWWW!!!

High above Aestus, the source of this immense heat appeared almost as a second sun in the sky. The Phoenix had been freed.