Chapter 529: A brewing catastrophe.

‎Aris, Rullein, and Serena felt an energy from outside the palace, especially when they heard the rumbling of thunder. Rullein was the one who noticed it when she looked out the window when everyone was still trying to explain what had happened at the Efiva Mountain to Queen Anastasia.

‎Rullein told Aris about the storm and what it brought along. Aris got up from her seat and walked toward the window to see what Rullein saw. Everyone was wondering what was happening and why Aris looked a bit unsettled by the storm.

“Tell everyone to get inside, now,” Aris turned around to look at everyone at the table.

“What do you mean, Lady Aris? What’s going on?” Agnesia asked with her brows furrowed and her head tilted slightly.

“The Mother. The same thing that corrupted the True Dragon is moving inside the storm. When the rain pours, whoever makes contact with the water will be corrupted by it,” Aris explained.

Agnesia who heard that immediately jolted from her seat and ran toward the window to look at the storm. She saw the storm was coming, and what made her panic was the fact that the storm was also going toward the Zorzi Kingdom. She didn’t say a word and immediately flew out of the window to warn her Queen, Francesca, about the storm.

Queen Anastasia hurriedly summoned the knights and told them to ring the bells while at the same time warning the people to stay indoors. The meeting ended abruptly and everyone was left to warn their own people. Doloran left to protect his beasts because he knew what the corruption that the Womb of the Mother could do to a True Dragon. Marina and the three sorcerers flew away to warn neighboring towns and villages.

Aris and Rullein saw Rasmus and Videl outside the palace, staring at the brewing storm. They both jumped out of the palace and landed behind Rasmus, wondering if he had noticed what was coming toward them.

“Rullein, can you help me inform Javi and the Blackhands? Warn them about the storm,” Rasmus asked as he turned around to look at Rullein.

Rullein nodded and turned into a puff of black smoke before it dispersed and disappeared into thin air. At the same time, Serena walked out of the palace along with Erlina, Carrion, and Daryus as the bells rang to warn the people. Serena had explained about what was happening and about the Womb of the Mother.

“What’s going to happen to us now?” Erlina asked as she looked up at the storm.

“To us? Nothing will happen to you because I can prevent any of you from getting corrupted by that,” Rasmus answered.

“We need to prevent the storm from brewing. Can you do something about it?” Daryus looked at Rasmus, knowing that Rasmus was capable of preventing the catastrophe from hitting West Neva.

“The decision isn’t mine to make,” Rasmus answered as he shook his head.

“Lady Aris?” Daryus turned to look at Aris, hoping that she would do something about it.

Aris was silent, her gaze fixated on the storm as she thought about what she could do at this moment. She knew she could prevent the storm from brewing, and so she flew toward the incoming storm. When she flew above the storm, she used her energy to purify it. However, she didn’t expect the storm would resist her purifying energy that it forced her to use more of her energy to completely purify it.

Suddenly the storms from different areas began to move rapidly and began to rain. Aris was baffled that the storms seemed unnatural, and so she decided to go back to inform the others of what had happened.

“So the weather is being manipulated by someone?” Rasmus asked with his brows raised.

“Yes, and I don’t know how or who did it because I can’t trace where it came from. The corrupt substances are basically taking over the weather. It’s like they’re capable of manipulating whatever they touch,” Aris explained as she watched the rain pour in the far distance. “Stopping the weather completely might be impossible, at least in this scale,” she added and watched the storm approaching.

“So we can only prevent the rain from pouring into the city then,” Serena hummed and noticed that the capital city became eerily quiet since everyone had gone inside their houses.

“Can you protect the city from it?” Aris turned to look at Serena.

“That won’t be a problem at all,” Serena smiled as she clasped her hands together.

A divine energy surged from the top of her head and went up high into the sky before it spread like a fountain, creating an umbrella shape that slowly protected the capital city from the incoming storm. It only took Serena a minute to cover the city with divine energy and she didn’t need to maintain the barrier.

“What would happen if a human got exposed to that thing?” Daryus asked with a worried expression. “That thing doesn’t come from above, it also appeared from the soil like earthworms,” he pointed out.

“They would lose their senses as madness consumed their mind just like how the demonic beast behaved,” Rasmus answered as he looked down on the ground, sensing the corrupted energy deep underneath. “Whatever is happening on this continent, this is too much to be called a coincidence, not even recently planned…” He muttered as he narrowed his eyes.

When the rain began to pour, the droplets were purified thanks to Serena’s divine barrier. However, when they looked up at the barrier, they could see the accumulated corrupted energy on the barrier. The energy began to devour each other until they could see lumps of slimy substances like a miniature of the Womb of the Mother. Serena had to release divine energy to burn those substances before they could devour each other and grow bigger.

“We need to find the source of this because I don’t think any humans can stop this. It will only take a single night to turn this continent into a corrupted one,” Serena looked at Rasmus with a serious expression.

“The only way rain can exist is by the big volume of water being evaporated first. If they can go up there, we need to find any big lakes and the whole sea that might be the source of where those things come from,” Rasmus answered with his arms crossed. “To do that, we need people from the marines for that, and thankfully, one of the marine commanders is ours,” he added.

“Then, what about now? How are we going to deal with this?” Daryus asked, knowing that millions of lives might be in danger because of this. “This thing can turn the whole continent upside-down in a single night if the rain keeps pouring,” he pointed out, his voice filled with concern and fear as he stared at the rain.

“We don’t. We can only do this much and see how long the rain going to pour,” Rasmus answered as he shook his head.

At the same time, Rullein in her black smoke form moved through the dark clouds, devouring the corrupted energy to fill her needs. She flew as fast as she could, tracking Javi and the Blackhands’ scent. However, when she was flying past a village in the woods, she heard a woman’s scream. She decided to check what was going on, observing the village from above.

Rullein watched a woman holding a knife and begin to stab a man that looked like her husband while the daughter watched from the side. The woman didn’t stop stabbing the man until her hands were covered in blood. Not long after, a man covered in rainwater came out of his house while holding a boy’s head while his wife was screaming in fear and in disbelief.

More and more screams could be heard when so suddenly all of them began to kill each other. Rullein watched everything from above, trying to see how long it would take for a human to get corrupted by the corrupted energy. After a few minutes of bloodbath, everyone collapsed on the ground, dying from the bleeding.

Rullein didn’t move away and kept watching until suddenly all of the dead bodies began to twitch. She watched the corpses standing up like undead, watching them move aimlessly as the rainwater slowly healed their wounds. It was unsettling to watch that everything happened in just a few minutes. She then looked at the distance, realizing that the whole continent was being poured out by corrupted energy.

“I can’t stay here for too long before Javi and the others become like them,” Rullein muttered before she puffed into smoke and disappeared into thin air.

Rullein saw many villages and towns getting affected by the corrupted energy. She didn’t know how many casualties, but she knew it was a lot, and there was no sign of the storm from stopping either. When she found Javi’s scent, she couldn’t help but float in the sky when she saw something more unsettling.

“(You should look at this…)” Rullein telepathically spoke with Rasmus.

“(What did you see?)” Rasmus asked.

“(A whole army of the dead…)” Rullein chuckled as she looked at the army of the dead knights, thousands of them marching toward a city.

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