Fortuna Verto

76-Deniable Fates

For all the magnificent display Lyun had successfully accomplished, there were no immediate signs of it making any notable difference. Sure, the place had gotten warm enough to be really uncomfortable, but that was really the only apparent difference.

"Ah, I guess whatever plan Mheridz might have had, probability simply saw things another way. Chance still remains on my side, trying to have others make dramatic scenes for you simply would have no way to work at all as intended. Instead, you just wasted a large amount of your own ability, leaving you vulnerable for nothing. How very.. unfortunate of you." "Unlike you, I still feel like I can count on the girl, which is saying a lot considering she's supposed to be your daughter. If things hadn't worked out, she'll figure it out and fix it, I just need to buy her enough time." "Time?! You speak of more of my own advantages here, you really have nothing. Seriously, you're wasting so much effort, things would be much easier if you would just give up." "Ha, ever since all of this chaotic stuff came into my life, I've been constantly asked to give up, and every single time I've held strong against temptation, I've always been proven right. This is no time to give up, this is no time for sacrifices.. this is no timeline for sacrifices. If you feel so fondly for sacrifices and surrender, then go return yourself through the temporal hole you crawled out of and leave us alone." "My word, this timeline has tempered you, I've never witnessed such resolve from you before. Even so, your foolishness still renders you blind to reality, you still have no hope in defiance." Axln made a direct dash towards Lyun, who in turn made a desperate evasion to give herself a bit more opportunity to recover, sending herself to one of the molten platforms above after a quick teleport followed by gliding with her wings above. The platform though wasn't nearly stable enough, crumbling on touch, leaving Lyun to simply hover in the air with her wings. Lyun was really worried that maybe.. maybe trying to command such searing heat might have been another bad decision.

A sudden rumble of the room however declared its own disagreement with Lyun's assessment, she hadn't done anything wrong. Instruments in the room finally detected ambient heat above acceptable limits, resulting in a sudden siren screeching across the room in a loud shrill. Axln collapsed to the ground, her head taking the immense sound very poorly, both as a matter of natural habit, and a feeling of compounded order that denied her very composition, the sound thus becoming physically painful for her. However, such was not the end, only the beginning, as the emergency water cooling system finally came to life. Panels everywhere split open as a high pressure force of ice-water was propelled into the room at a massive speed in equally massive quantities. The force included a considerable rush of not just ice and water elementals, but also a rush of wind and darkness. The combination started to have an immediate impact on the saturation of fire elementals present, but only in an elemental reaction that brought even more principled force. However, things did not end here. The torrents were controlled by a limiter setup and managed by the citadel through its energy network.. a network that reacted suddenly to the immense pressure combination of negative chance.. and a surge of lightning. The walls above the room detonated with a further resurgent flood where the ladder was, the setup flooding even more water down into the depths below.. a watery presence that was immediately filled with a saturated density of lightning elementals at the grace of the high wind elementals presence. The very power of the citadel was in this room in liquid form, filling dramatically quickly, far more than it should have in normal operations. It really was a conflux of sheer elemental might.

The worst part was that Axln was still at ground level when the tides were set loose, crumpling in anguish at the sonic torment, and thus not being prepared for the onslaught that would follow. Before she knew what had even happened, Axln suddenly connected with the wall on the far opposite side of the endless expanse they were within. The impact wasn't what phased her though, it was the unending barrage of elementals that came with it which taught her a form of pain she had never known before. Even stopping time did not deny this pain, the overwhelming elemental presence didn't even need movement in order to tax her chaotic nature, her very form being taxed as she fought to flee the flood. However, above this expansive torrent, she had no place to hide. Unlike Lyun, she couldn't just stay suspended in the air. In fact, the air itself wasn't even so inviting, the water pressing upwards rapidly to compress the air elementals into a stronger ferocity as well. This was not something she could survive, not even with her chaotic might, things had gone far too wrong for something like that. However, more so, she knew that this was too much elemental might for others too. Lyun's lesser chaos would suffocate as well, but even her principled balance would be torn asunder as elements ascended beyond her compatible limits. This disaster had the capacity to kill them both. Axln resorted to scaling the wall itself, the closest thing the room had to stable grounds, as she sought a solution to this mess.