Chapter 97: Dealing with the Aftermath

The monster attack surely killed many angels, both high and low rank! Among the high school classmates who came here together, not many survived.

When Cyrae looked around, she only found a few familiar faces like Reed, Astrid, and Norma. They said they survived thanks to a magic spell Reed made up called "Five Light Ten Color"!

From what people say, it seems to be an amazing spell that uses light to bend and twist. The spell itself doesn't really hurt anyone, but it works super well.

No matter what kind of monster it hits, or how many there are, everyone loses their sight. They all roll around on the ground in pain and can't do anything!

After hearing everyone talk it up, Cyrae felt a bit regretful she didn't get to see it herself. Maybe someday when she has time, she could ask Reed to show it to her...

"Hey look, isn't that Cyrae? She's still alive!" Nicora shouted excitedly, waving her arm as they got closer. 

"That's great! Someone said they saw you fly towards Tivi Palace when the fighting started! That area was where Michelle and Elara were fighting. The whole palace got destroyed. How did you make it out okay?"

Feliciara was super happy to see her old friend. The two of them squeezed through the crowd to pull Cyrae aside and started asking her what happened.

"Well, I wasn't totally fine. I was just lucky Michelle didn't notice me at first, so I ran away fast..." Cyrae didn't want to tell them everything in this noisy place, so she made up an excuse. Then she quickly asked them:

"What about you two? Weren't you supposed to be in Tivi Palace too? How did you get out in the end?"

Cyrae thought Tivi Palace had started falling apart even before she got there, so she figured these two must have died. But now that they met again, she was shocked to see they were totally fine. It even looked like Nicora had more wings than before!

"Wait, one, two, three... six! How did you get six wings already? That's so fast!"

She wasn't seeing things - Nicora really did get stronger! Just before the monster attack, she only had four wings. Going from four to six wings usually takes angels hundreds of years, sometimes even over a thousand. It's not something a new angel can do in just a few months!

Of course, Cyrae was different because Elara gave her power, but that was special.

"Haha, this is where I'm awesome - I grow super fast, I'm a genius! If Feliciara hadn't dragged me to the library to find Reed, who knows what would've happened when Michelle showed up!"

Nicora laughed and started bragging about herself.

But the others were used to this and just looked at her like she was being silly. Nicora got embarrassed and cleared her throat, then told the truth.

"Okay, I just leveled up while fighting the monsters. I don't know why it happened, but it proves I'm pretty talented, right? Look, Feliciara is still at four wings. Just wait, if I have enough time, I'll definitely beat someone like Michelle one day. I can't stand how smug she looks now. I'll teach her a lesson someday!"

Clearly Nicora hated the invaders more than most other angels. Cyrae gave a bitter smile when she heard this. Compared to Nicora's anger, the weight on Cyrae's shoulders felt even heavier.

Cyrae had already decided what to do about Elara's dying wish. She thought taking back Edenmere would be too hard, so she wouldn't force herself to do it. She even kept her wings hidden so no one would know she inherited Elara's title.

But she got so many benefits, so she felt guilty about ignoring her duty. Still, bringing the angels back to glory wasn't something easy to do. In the end, it just made her feel more conflicted.

While the three of them were catching up, Michelle finished her speech to everyone.

To show she really meant to be "friendly", Michelle ordered all the monsters to leave Edenmere right away. She said she wouldn't directly control Edenmere's affairs, and gave all the power to the conservative group led by Yvonne.

Yvonne was already one of the three angel elders and a leader in the angel council. Most angels there could see she was working with Michelle, but it wasn't as shocking as having Michelle the invader take over directly. Plus, Yvonne didn't say she was taking Elara's title yet. So even though most angels weren't happy, they had to accept it for now because they were scared of Michelle.

"Maybe Michelle is lying to us. What if Elara isn't really dead? When she recovers, she'll definitely lead us to take back Edenmere!"

"Yeah! Even Michelle and Elder Yvonne only said 'Elara is probably dead'. I think they're exaggerating. Elara must still be alive. We need to save our strength and not fight hard now!"

"That's right, too many angels died in this war. And some of what Michelle said might not be all lies. We should wait and see what happens!"

"Did we really do something wrong by helping humans?"

...

Nicora and the others stood quietly for a while, watching angels walk or fly past. Then Cyrae suggested:

"How about we leave too? If we don't want that old witch to notice us..."

The "old witch" meant Yvonne! Among all the angel leaders, Yvonne hated the angels who came from another world the most. Plus, the conservative group she led was behind this monster attack. They even used it to take over Edenmere. So the three of them disliked her even more now.

"Do you know how the other classmates are doing? It can't be just us three who survived, right?" Feliciara nodded, then asked Cyrae.

"Well, not many. Besides the classmates who left Edenmere with the angel legions earlier, which I'm not sure about, Reed and the others are hiding in the library. We can go meet them now!"

Cyrae had already thought about where to go next. Everyone agreed right away.

Maybe Elara's judgment about Michelle before she died was right. After taking control of the angels, Michelle really didn't try to kill everyone. She kept her promise and took all the monsters out of Edenmere, giving full control to the conservative group.

The conservative group behaved okay for now. Besides sticking to their usual "closed door" policy, they didn't actively hunt down people who disagreed with them. For the next while, they focused on getting the angel legions still in the human world to surrender. They even made some policies to calm people down. In just a week, the tense feeling in Edenmere started to go away pretty fast.

Of course, there were still some angels who didn't give up and tried to fight back. But with Michelle backing things up, even big rebellions got stopped quickly. To show she was being nice, Michelle didn't punish the rebels. She kept letting them go free to show how forgiving she was.

Overall, a lot happened in Edenmere during this time, but the human world outside wasn't so peaceful either.

Even though Edenmere was mostly cut off from the outside world, people heard pieces of news from angel who came back.

It turns out things didn't always go smoothly for the monster army...

Before attacking Edenmere, they had taken over the whole Astralrealm kingdom. But when they attacked a small country called Parristol on the eastern border, they had their first big problem!

Usually the mighty monster army could easily take over a small country like this. But the weird thing is, the night before the monsters reached the city, there seems to have been a sudden change in power in the Parristol royal family.