"Finally awake?" a voice murmured beside her.
She turned her head, and amethyst met onyx as her eyes locked onto Kaede’s.
Kaede smiled gently. "Hey."
For a moment, Towa was certain she had seen an angel.
A rush of warmth spread across her face, and she quickly pulled away, her cheeks tinged with red. "L-Lady Kaede… Please, I apologize for showing you such a shameful sight."
Kaede let out an exaggerated groan. "Oh. My. Gosh. Lighten up, Towa. I don’t mind. Holy, after everything that’s happened, you’d think we’d be friends by now."
Towa froze, her breath hitg. "...Friends?" she whispered, though Kaede heard her clearly.
Luckily, both rulers were alone in the feren.
"Of course!" Kaede grinned. "We’re friends now, like it or not. Besides, we rulers should stick together."
She ughed, the sound light and carefree, and for the first time in a long while, Towa felt something unfamiliar bloom in her chest. A strange feeling she couldn't uand.
Kaede sprang to her feet with ease, nding lightly. "Alright! We still have one more thing to take care of."
Towa bli her suddehusiasm. "...And what’s that?"
Kaede smirked, raising a finger. "The ke, dummy. I promised to help fix your water problem, didn’t I?"
Towa hesitated for a moment before nodding. "...Right." She still seemed a little out of it, her mind clearly elsewhere.
Kaede stepped closer, her expression softening. "Are you alright? You seem unsteady. We don’t have to ght now if you need more time. You rest a little longer."
Towa quickly shook her head. "No, I’m... I’m fine. I want to see this through." She straightened her posture, her amethyst eyes brimming with renewed determination.
Kaede smiled at her resolve. But then, with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
"Whoa!" Toed as she was suddenly lifted into the air.
Kaede effortlessly held her in a bridal carry, her grip firm yet gentle.
‘This reminds me of all those times I carried Sally using Mae God during our long-distance journeys in the game.’ Kaede mused, her lips curling into a fond smile.
With that thought, she activated a teleportation spell, and in an instant, they vanished.
They appeared on the shore of one of Raja’s great kes. It stretched out endlessly before them, its vast expanse shimmering uhe sunlight, giving the illusion that it went on forever.
Towa shifted in Kaede’s arms, her cheeks tinged with embarrassment. "Lady Kaede… This is inappropriate. Please put me down. I don’t think we should be doing something like... like..."
Her voice faltered as her gaze nded on the ke’s surface.
Kaede, sensing the shift in her demeanently set her down. Towa barely noticed, her legs moving on their own as she stepped forward, drawn to the water.
The ke ristis crystal-clear surface sparkled uhe sun’s rays, refleg the sky in a dazzling dispy. It was beautiful, untouched, pure.
Towa’s breath hitched. "This… this is... How? The toxins... You were able to ralise it," she whispered, reag a hand toward the water as if afraid it would disappear.
Kaede frowned. "Yeah, about that." She stepped forward, arms crossed. "The poisons in the ke weren’t ing from the toxins in the mines. I was able to purify the entire ke using my Type: Hydra APU (Aquatic Purification Unit) drones. However, the moment I did, the toxins started ref, even after I temporarily sealed off the mines."
Footsteps approag from behind drew their attention. Turning, they saw their panions making their way toward them.
Hiiro's eyes widehe moment he spotted the queen awake. Without hesitation, he sprinted forward, while Mobuji and the shorter minister followed at a steadier pace.
Ari walked just behind the ministers, fnked by Delta, Kaori, Hachi, and Shifu.
"Queen Towa!" Hiiro called out, his voice filled with relief as he reached her. Grasping her shoulders gently, he studied her with . "You're awake! How are you feeling?"
As Towa answered Hiiro’s frantic questions, Kaede turned her attention to her panions. "So, I take it there weren’t any?"
They all nodded, and Ari was the oo speak. "The other seven kes had no such struct, only this one."
Towa blinked in fusion at the statement, before turning to Kaede. "Lady Kaede, what structs?"
Kaede exhaled. "Like I said, we mao purify the toxins, yet they kept returning. That’s because the toxins weren’t natural, meaning they couldn’t have inated from the mines. Eventually, we found the real source."
Kaede took a step forward, her boots sinking slightly into the wet earth before she strode into the water.
As she moved deeper, Hiiro tinued, addressing Towa. "Apparently, there's a magical circle embedded at the ter of this ke. Whenever you sed the water, the circle simply replehe toxins, pumping them right ba. The other kes don’t have one, but sihey’re all ected, the ination spread throughout the nation."
Towa's breath hitched, her amethyst eyes widening in horror. "A magic circle?"
Uo hear Towa's question, Kaede didn’t respond. She tinued wading forward, the water pping at her waist, then rising to her shoulders as she finally stopped.
Once Kaede reached the ter of the ke, she spread her arms, and in that moment, the people of Raja witnessed a miracle.
<
The vast ke, so immehat it seemed to stretto eternity, began to shift. Water trembled, rippling outward before rising, defying gravity itself. Then, like a divine force had intervehe ke split in two.
With Kaede as the focal point, the water surged upward, t over the entire Kingdom of Raja. Two colossal walls of water loomed high above, their surfaces shimmering uhe sunlight, refleg the city and sky in distorted waves. The sheer scale of the phenomenohe people breathless.
At the heart of it all stood Kaede, arms outstretched, effortlessly holding baough water to drown aire kingdom. Then, as she turhere wasn’t even a hint of strain on her face.
(Maple out here, parting the Red Lake. LOL )
In the years to e, the people of Raja would speak of this day, of the moment they looked up and saw the sky framed by a massive wall of water, suspended as if the world itself had stopped. Some would ret the breathtakiy of the spectacle, the way the sunlight refracted through the casg liquid like a sea of sapphires. Others would speak of the profound terror that gripped their souls, a chilling reminder of their own mortality in the presence of such overwhelming power.
As Kaede gestured for them to follow, Queen Towa and the others cautiously made their way toward the y kebed, their steps eg in the silence as the swirling walls of water loomed above them.
Towa marveled at the sight before her. As she walked across the exposed kebed, she couldn’t help but picture the tless fish and aquatic creatures that once called the ke home. She imagihem now, swimming withi walls of water, suspended in the air like a living tapestry. It would have been a breathtaking sight, truly something out of a dream.
Then she saw it.
At the very ter of the ke, glowing with an eerie purple light, was a magic circle. It hovered ominously, spinning atop a circur ptform, pulsating like a malignant wouering in the heart of her kingdom.
"So this is what has been poisoning my people feions?" Towa’s voice trembled with barely tained fury, her hands g into fists as rage built within her.
Kaede nodded. "I have a pn," she said, stepping forward. "But I wanted yreement before I went through with it."
Towa turo her. "What exactly are you pnning to do?"
Kaede smirked. "I’m going to summon a demon."
Gasps filled the air, and the Queen’s ministers erupted into protest.
"That's madness!"
"After all the suffering they've caused?"
"The dark arts ot be trusted!"
Towa took a shaky breath, gng between Kaede and the ministers. "Lady Kaede... Are you certain this is wise? T-To summon a demon... I don’t know if I ..."
Kaede ughed lightly. "This circle was made by a demon. Obviously not Chikowan, as he is too weak for something of this scale. So it's probably his master, his Lady. Or maybe it's the 'he' he also mentioned. Either way information is needed. And what faster way than asking from the source? If you're scared, don’t worry, Towa. I’ll protect you."
Doki Doki.
Towa’s heart skipped a beat, something deep within her shaking at those words.
"She’ll alrotect me…"
Acc to Artificia, summoning a demon required a physical body, a vessel for the entity to inate into the physical realm. Normally, this was achieved through human sacrifice. The strohe sacrificed body, the more power the demon could bring with them. Alternatively, a vast number of weaker sacrifices could be used to summon a powerful demon.
Kaede, fortunately, had no iion of sacrifig humans.
"Alright, let’s see if our experiment works," she thought, internally brag herself.
"Is it ready, Artificia?"
"Good."
A burst of blue smoke erupted at Kaede’s feet, swirling into the air. When it finally cleared, a humanoid figure stood before the gathered crowd.
It ure white, its smooth, mannequin-like form featureless yet strangely lifelike. Glowing lines of radiant energy traced intricate patterns across its body, pulsating softly.
This was a mae, a vessel made entirely of spirit metal.
A unique creation, spirit metal was first discovered when Artificia took trol of ah golem, birthing Eve. It was a material that could only be formed when ores infused with spiritrons were used as a catalyst, allowing Artificia’s processors to shape them into something beyond ordinary metal.
Spirit metal possessed a property unlike anything else, it granted spiritual lifeforms a perma physical body. Just like Eve had done.
And now, Kaede inteo use it to summon a demon, without a single drop of blood being spilled.
SaberGlory