Chapter 262: Water, Fire, and the Things That Should Never Have Been Called
Chapter 262: Water, Fire, and the Things That Should Never Have Been Called
The water arrived with the creature.
It did not spill or pour in a natural way.
It expanded.
Like reality itself had been pushed outward to make room for something far too large to belong inside a simple office.
In seconds, the entire office was filled from floor to ceiling.
The walls disappeared behind it.
The desks vanished beneath it.
Even the air felt replaced.
And inside that impossible body of water, something moved.
It had a shape, but it refused to settle into anything understandable.
The upper half was a deep, volcanic red, like molten stone cooled just enough to remain alive.
The lower half shifted into a heavy, dark blue, like the deepest parts of the ocean where light simply gave up trying.
It dragged itself forward with a motion that felt both liquid and weighted.
Its eyes were small.
Too small for its head.
They squinted constantly, as if the brightness of the room itself offended it.
Its mouth was lined with four jagged teeth that scraped against the floor whenever it moved, producing a harsh grinding sound that made Velira instinctively press her bunny closer.
And then there were the tails.
Three of them.
Long, heavy, and constantly in motion, each one reacting independently as if they were not entirely in agreement with each other.
They struck the room without warning.
Azerion had barely opened his mouth when one of the tails slammed into the cabinet.
Wood exploded outward in splinters.
The cabinet folded inward like it had never been meant to exist.
Papers were immediately soaked, dissolving into wet fragments that scattered into the water like broken memory.
Another tail hit the window, making the glass erupt outward, shards suspended briefly before being swallowed into the water like it had decided they belonged to it.
The third tail struck Thalira.
She didn’t even have time to speak or even defend herself.
The impact sent her flying across the room, her body cutting through the water with unnatural force before she slammed into the wall hard enough that the structure itself shuddered.
Velira’s voice came out small.
"What is that?"
Retheris swallowed.
He didn’t take his eyes off the creature.
"I don’t know."
"You summoned it," Velira said.
"Yes," he admitted immediately.
"By mistake," he added quickly. "I was supposed to summon a small amount of water to help stop the fire."
Velira blinked once.
"That doesn’t make it better."
One of the tails moved again.
This time faster.
It struck the ceiling beams, sending vibrations through the entire structure. The sound of cracking wood filled the submerged space as if the office itself was beginning to lose confidence in remaining intact.
Retheris stepped forward with determination.
"I’ll—"
He never finished.
The creature opened its mouth.
The sound came first.
A deep, vibrating hum that built rapidly into something unbearable.
Then the water inside the room responded.
It surged outward in a single violent wave, not like a splash but like pressure itself deciding it no longer respected walls.
The force hit them all at once.
The ringing in their ears came immediately.
A high, piercing sound that drowned everything else.
Velira grabbed her bunny tighter.
Retheris tried to hold his stance.
It didn’t matter.
The wave struck with enough force to tear them from the ground.
The office broke apart behind them as they were thrown backward—walls cracking, doors splitting, the structure itself collapsing under the combined weight of water and impact.
They were flung into open air.
The world tilted.
Then dropped.
---
Thalira hit the ground hard enough that the breath left her lungs in a sharp, painful burst.
She coughed once.
Then again.
Her hand pressed into the floor as she forced herself upright, water dripping from her hair and sleeves.
"I’ll summon something," she said hoarsely. "To deal with it."
Retheris turned toward her immediately.
"What?"
Thalira wiped water from her face. "I’ll summon a rock to hit it on the head so it can go into a coma or something."
Thalira lifted her hand. She rarely used this attribute because... well, she didn’t really have a reason. It was as hard to control as water.
But how hard could it be, right? She had summoned rocks before, some even bigger than her. It should be simple.
It should have been simple.
That was not what appeared. The rock she had wanted to summon didn’t appear. Instead, the ground beneath them shifted as if something underneath had woken up and decided it was time to rise.
A shape emerged. It looked like a rock, but there was something about it that filled them with dread.
It was smaller than expected at first.
Then it unfolded its presence into the space around it.
Its body was jagged, layered like overlapping stone plates that moved against each other with quiet grinding precision.
Its eyes were hollow.
It tilted slightly.
And then everything changed.
The surrounding rocks lifted first.
Then loose debris.
Then the children themselves.
A pull began. It was subtle at first, and then undeniable.
A force that dragged inward toward the creature as if gravity had suddenly chosen a new center.
A grinding sound echoed through the air.
Not from its mouth—there was no clear mouth—but from everywhere at once, like stone being crushed against stone inside an endless cavity.
Velira’s feet slid.
Retheris grabbed her arm instinctively.
Aziren stumbled back.
Azerion reached for him immediately.
"Thalira, what did you summon?"
Thalira stared at it, her eyes wide.
"I have no idea!"
"This is in no way helping!" Velira said.
"Then you try," Thalira said.
"And exactly how?" Velira asked.
"I don’t know... seduce it or something," Thalira replied.
Before Velira could say anything more, Aziren raised his hand.
Fire gathered instantly.
A bolt of flame shot forward. But it didn’t hit the creature as intended—the first one instead absorbed it.
And a heartbeat later, it sent the fire back, even more intense, striking Aziren with force.
His body jolted as the impact hit him.
His eyes widened immediately, water forming at the edges as the returned energy pressed harder than expected, and he tried to absorb it, his small hands stretched out.
Azerion tried to grab him, but the pull from the other creature wouldn’t let him.
The air itself seemed to tighten.
Azerion roared as his eyes narrowed into slots, the blue jewel on his head glinting, but before he could do anything, everything stopped.