King Of Limbo

"Please tell me you have a plan on how to deal with that thing." Once Jagu joined Aron, they along with Lady Rose and Evanora gathered outside the settlement to discuss how to deal with the approaching serpent. "I always thought Komi weren't the type to rely on plans Jagu." Aron asked a bit perplexed that Jagu would even consider coming up with a plan.

"The lives of my people are on the line, I'll do whatever it takes." Jagu said resolutely and brought a smirk on Aron's face. "Evanora will work rezolut-etly too." Evanora added with an equal amount of confidence.

"Well determination is all well and good but we are lacking a strategy, it doesn't help that we know nothing of the creature so where do we even begin? Aron, this is your area of expertise." Lady Rose quickly reminded them of their current circumstances and the harsh reality they faced. Jagu could only glance at Aron who became silent in thought and hoped for an answer.

Aron's first step to coming up with a plan was making a theory about the creature, he had no time to develop solid proof so he had to work with estimates.

The first being that the creature was obviously a serpent mana beast, one definitely attributed to water from the features he could observe. These types of mana beasts with specialization to certain elements were much easier to study as their habits were quite similar.

Aron had never faced such a serpent but he had read about quite a few, all with varying tiers. And just like with the Pesian Jzir Vulture the serpent held many similar characteristics to a common beast that could be found in certain aquatic regions of Limbo but at the same time was vastly different.

"These beasts usually reside in deep sometimes murky waters so they have very poor sometimes even useless eyesight. They instead hunt by detecting either mana fluctuations or heat signatures. I'm almost certain this beast uses one of the two." It took Aron less than the minute to come to this conclusion that he was fairly certain.

"Evanora thinks that makes sense." Evanora nodded approvingly almost immediately while Lady Rose took a moment and also saw the sense in Aron's words. "True, the serpent only seemed to awaken when that elven woman let loose those mana fluctuations. The only problem is that attack also generated a good amount of heat so we'd need to test which it is to lure it." She suggested but Aron disagreed.

"No need, we'll use both to attract it. I'm still not sure why it's maneuvering so slowly or how it got this gigantic. Normally serpents like this will stay hidden under water and only attack when they are within striking distance. By moving so slowly it's basically giving its prey time to escape which is rather strange..." The serpent's slow movements were what left Aron confused and concerned about the approach.

For now however he could only hope it was something that served to benefit them. "It's fine we can work with this. Jagu, tell me where the most powerful tribes and clans of the Komi Islands reside." Aron let out a sigh and began to put the plan into motion, although Jagu was confused by this request.

"You-you're thinking of luring it towards them!" Jagu's eyes lit up as he finally understood where Aron was going with this. If they did succeed in dealing a major blow to the other major clans Jagu's would automatically become the strongest, hence the one in charge of Komi Islands themselves.

Lady Rose also smirked at this plan as it meant they wouldn't need to waste energy and risk exposing themselves fighting the gigantic creature at it's full strength. "Brilliant. We can use my scouter as the bait and draw it back under water, bringing it back up only when it's close to the target Island. It can generate both heavy mana and heat fluctuations so provided it takes the bait then this plan is perfect." Lady Rose added, making the plan look more straightforward and simple.

Jagu was simply stunned by how easily Aron and Lady Rose orchestrated a plan that would likely change the Komi Islands greatly. "Then what will be my role in all this?" Jagu asked after realizing there was no part that would need his direct intervention.

"You'll have two possible roles in this plan, the first is incase the serpent meets defeat before attacking all the targeted settlements, in that case you would need to deal with them personally, the other is if the serpent succeeds in defeating the settlements and we now need to deal with it ourselves." Aron explained to Jagu what the ideal scenario would be, this plan however didn't account for many factors which worried Jagu greatly but he himself couldn't think of anything better so he kept his concerns to himself.

"That about roughly covers it so let's not stand on ceremony and quickly begin just incase other factions daring enough to use the Opal Ocean route arrive." Lady Rose quickly reminded before raising her hand into the air and summoning her scouter. Aron nodded in agreement at her words before turning towards Evanora. "Signal the airship, you're better off controlling your scouter and observing the situation from a high position. Jagu and I will remain down here in case of anything."

Evanora listened to Aron and looked in the direction south of the settlement before raising her hand directly above her head. 'Evanora commands the skies to light up!' She thought and almost instantly a flaming ball of fire began to form within her hand.

It slowly began to expand and give off raging fluctuations, the greater the fluctuations the higher the tier of the spell. Once it reached around tier four level it even caused the serpent to focus it's gaze towards Evanora.

She quickly released this spell and watched it fly up into the sky at a great speed before causing a large explosion that covered around a three hundred meter radius.

*Hisss!*

This sudden burst of heat caused the serpent to enter a state of confusion and it let out a loud hiss to express this. Once again this caused the direction it faced to experience vicious winds, luckily however it's head was facing the sky as it was initially drawn to the spell so no islands suffered from this.

....

Not too far from the Komi Islands, Jin and Claudia who stood on the deck of the Sovereign observed the explosion and immediately knew it was time for them to act.

However they weren't the only ones drawn by that signal....

Sayiva who was currently on a small boat making her way towards the eerie black airship that belonged to former owner of the body also saw the signal and furrowed her brows.

'Dammit, why hasn't that stupid guardian destroyed them already?' She thought with an irritated expression on her face.

She had hidden the boat she was on using a sort of shrouding art that made it seem like there was nothing on the water at all. But to ensure maximum efficiency she made sure to remain dead silent and avoid giving off any mana fluctuations.

[ Perhaps it was instructed to attack only us should we escape ]

[ That's impossible, all the creatures those traitors made were ravenous and uncontrollable ]

[ True, it's probably just grown more defective over time. Whatever the case this benefits us, let's quickly leave during this confusion don't you agree Sayiva? Sayiva? ]

The echoey voices conversed over the matter within Sayiva's mind but she gave no answer. She continued to look in the direction of the gigantic serpent with irritation on her face.

Aside from her, the blast was also heard by some members of the crew aboard the La Belle. They were currently still too far out to see the explosion but the loud bang it produced travelled far.

"What was that?" Mirai was the first to be alerted as elves hearing was naturally better than humans, her hearing in particular was far more heightened than Sharla due to her lack of sight.

"It was faint but it definitely sounded like an explosion." Sharla who was currently standing beside Mirai quickly added before showing a look of worry. Her first thought was to imagine the eruptions at the Komi Islands and assume the same was occurring. "We better report this to Juliet." Sharla suggested while glancing at Mirai who seemed a bit lost in thought.

"Huh? Yes, you're right though I am sure she is already aware." Mirai nodded lightly and showed a minor look of concern on her face. She was quick to recover and return to her usual expression but not before Sharla picked up on it. "Is something wrong Milady?" She questioned worriedly but Mirai showed a gentle smile and shook her head.

"It's nothing, please go report to Juliet just in case. I'll be in my quarters, excuse me." She spoke politely before walking away from Sharla. 'That faint sound that followed after the bang... just what was it?'