Chapter 86: Communication Magic 

"That's right!" 

Just then, the patrolling angel suddenly seemed to hear something and said to us, "I just received special instructions from Lady Elara. She ordered you to report to her office at the Tivi Palace immediately."

"Special instructions? Where is she? How do you know?" 

I was a little confused. There was no one else around, yet the angel reacted as if she was wearing a wireless earpiece.

"It's like this - it's a type of advanced light magic called 'Spiritual Convergence'. It allows direct mental contact with the commander, to report in real-time. It's very helpful for battle deployments. But since it requires high magic power from the commander, it's rarely used in daily life." 

The patrolling angel smiled and pointed towards the Tivi Palace, telling us, "For this demon invasion, Lady Elara has cautiously opened her spiritual connection. As long as you learn this magic, you can sense Lady Elara's mental energy through specific fluctuations in light elements. Then you can directly contact her."

"It feels strange, like a group chat!" 

I glanced at Cyra, but she didn't understand what I meant. She just kept asking about herself.

"Did Lady Elara mention me?"

"Who are you?"

The angel looked at Cyra in my arms, and the bandaged half of her wings, seemingly hesitant. 

"I'm Cyra! Cyra!"

"Never heard of you."

Seeing the patrolling angel shake her head, Cyra immediately drooped her head in disappointment.

"How could this be? I'm the great hero who slew the enemy commander! Without my bombs, Michelle could never have been..."

"Bombs? You mean that earth-shaking massive explosion in the east?"

The angel frowned upon hearing this, seemingly unable to accept it. 

"That huge blast damaged many buildings in the city. Even the landing pad of the Palace collapsed. Luckily we're far enough here to avoid casualties. But a nearby community of light elves wasn't so fortunate. They suffered terrible losses, even their ancestral tree was destroyed! Now the entire tribe has been forced to move here."

"Many angels have gone east to investigate the explosion. They found it's become a dead zone, barren and lifeless. And in the center is a huge crater with lava still at the bottom, almost like the legendary Darklands."

"But this is Edenmere!" 

The patrolling angel sounded increasingly distraught, after all, Edenmere was the angels' home. To be baptized by a hydrogen bomb was upsetting. 

"Not to mention the forests attuned to light elements - it'll take thousands of years for them to recover. Damn! This must be the work of those demons, do you know anything about what happened?"

"No! We don't know anything. The bombs she mentioned have nothing to do with this."

Sensing trouble, I quickly pinched Cyra's back to warn her. I pointed to her broken wing and explained,

"We were also blown away by that explosion, only just managing to return. See, that's how she injured her wing."

"I see... Losing a wing is hard to heal in Edenmere. Quickly take her to rest."

These weren't complete lies. Hearing this, the angel showed a sympathetic expression and kept urging us to go. 

"Be more careful in the future! Don't show off recklessly again, do you see the damage your nuclear blast caused?"

After flying away, I immediately admonished Cyra,

"Don't randomly mention the hydrogen bomb again!"

Though Elara saw with her own eyes Cyra throwing the bomb, she didn't expose it, allowing the other angels to investigate. She likely realized revealing this would greatly harm Cyra.

"I thought Lady Elara summoned you to reward you." 

Cyra could only explain,

"Didn't you say last time she called you to her office to give you an extra angel figurine? I was quite envious, I want one too. Let me see it when we're back."

"It's just a stupid figurine, I still don't see anything special about it."

I shrugged indifferently and promised, 

"You can look at it as long as you want after this is over!"

Though the landing pad atop the Tivi Palace had collapsed, the main section below was largely undamaged, except for the Royal Hall...

Gazing at the Royal Hall missing its roof below, with many angels and light elves busily moving rubble, I did not descend. 

"Remember the ten-winged angel Janette who betrayed us? I don't know what happened to her afterwards."

"Janette? The commander of the 4th Legion? She betrayed us?"

Hearing me, Cyra reacted with shock, seemingly unbelieving. 

"No way. I can accept angels betraying us, but joining the demons? Just looking at them makes me uncomfortable!"

"How else could Edenmere be swapped to the Darklands? As you've heard about my experiences there, it must have required internal help to bring the Eye of Galadra for translocation."

Apparently, many conservative high-ranking angels betrayed us, though most remained at the arena instead of swapping over. 

As for the insider carrying the Eye, the most suspicious now are Janette and her followers, but their whereabouts are unknown.

But since we've won, they likely fled the city, were captured, or even killed on the spot.

"Feliciana!"

Just as I stood before the office door, I suddenly heard someone call me from behind. Before I could react, two dark shadows pounced over and tackled me into a hug.

"Nicola, stop ramming people with the ball!"

Cyra yelled loudly beside me.

"Nicola?"

I pushed the figure away and saw it was indeed her.

"You came back! But why are you here?"

"I heard from Lady Elara you were coming here, so I rushed ahead to wait." 

Nicola smiled and explained,

"After the city returned to Edenmere, I entered with the other angels from the arena. But I didn't see either of you, I was so anxious I nearly went mad! Shortly after, the nuclear explosion occurred outside the city. I realized it must be related to you two, but after searching the blast vicinity for a long time, there were no traces. It was only when Lady Elara returned from outside that I learned of your whereabouts." 

"Why make things so complicated?"

I frowned. Nicola was so stubborn, chasing to the nuclear site but ultimately fruitless. 

"If you just stayed in the city waiting for us, things would have been simpler!"

"I was worried! After hearing from other angels that you faced Michelle, I was scared to death. She's far too dangerous..."

After looking me up and down and seeing nothing wrong, Nicola glanced at the half wing behind Cyra and twitched her mouth.

"What happened to you? Cosplaying a crippled angel?"

"It's the price I paid to defeat Michelle!" 

Cyra seized the chance to show off since no outsiders were around to hear.

"What do you think? Even such a powerful foe was finished off by my hands! Doesn't that make me Edenmere's greatest hero?"

"I did hear Lady Elara mention you throwing some massive destructive weapon, but she only said your wing needed healing. I didn't think it got severed!"

"It can't be helped. The angels' healing magic doesn't work well on wings. I'll have to wait till we're outside."

For such troublesome matters, all I could do was explain. But then I suddenly recalled an important issue I had neglected.

"Where's Reed? Wasn't she with you at the arena? Why don't I see her?"

"That's right, where did Reed go?"

Cyra instantly reacted as well, but her thoughts went to worse possibilities. Her face paled in shock.

"Could she be..."

"Don't think randomly, Reed's perfectly fine now..."

Just as Nicola was about to explain, the office door suddenly opened by itself and Elara walked out.

"We can talk more inside. Don't keep chatting out here, I've waited long enough!"

"Oh..."

We nearly forgot the purpose of coming here. I quickly stepped into the office. Fortunately, the interior remained unchanged from our previous visit. 

"Have a seat!"

Elara indicated the sofas and even poured water for us herself.

"It can't be helped. Edenmere has suffered such losses this time, even many handmaid angels in the palace fell prey to the Nightmares, trapped in endless sleep. We're now severely short on manpower."

"What can be done? They can't remain asleep forever, right?"

I just recalled that was why Norma had come to find us initially.

"There are solutions, but they will be very troublesome. Each one needs individual mental guidance, and success isn't guaranteed..."

Elara rested her chin on her palm, seemingly vexed by the matter. Seeing Cyra's wing, she was even more surprised.

"Your wing still couldn't be saved?"