Lady Estrade and Zavul Ozeamriths agreeing to at least meet to discuss a potential alliance brought a subtle shadow of disappointment on the other two.
Given how headstrong both these powers were, they had thought there was a good chance that either both absolutely refused to bow down to the other.
But they also understood, given such a prize in sight, petty issues like personal grievances were unlikely to be the deciding factor. If either the Golden Holy Order or Ozeamriths wanted to gain anything meaningful from the ever expanding Zilou Empire, they needed to cooperate.
The circumstances simply forced the pair to work together.
Of course that did not mean the other two just gave up after a single try- especially the far more scheming Fairy Agatha.
She was hardly that type and cunningly mused to herself, 'We should try to have the Order join us. The humans can be a junior partner. Or even if we can't do that, we should at least we can make a good enough offer so that they won't fully cooperate with that stinky fish! Hehehe!'
Her lips curled up ever so slightly at the thought.
But such backhanded diplomatic efforts were to be the subject of another time.
For now, the beastkin felt they had done all they could.
Thus transforming into a small, white fat cat, Fairy Agatha jumped onto the back of Elder Cinthalo's wrym and saying their usual farewells, quickly retreated, each eager to discuss this never before seen development with their respective superiors.
They had to prepare for an upcoming war the likes of which this part of Algea had never seen.
And as the great powers geared up to slaughter each other and dye the grounds with the blood of countless innocents, completely unbeknowst to them, this entire thing only happened due to two small, innocuous misinterpretations of what had occured here-
Lord Feyngan had mistakenly counted the 'death' of Adonis as the death of a Rank 6 or even Rank 7 mage. The unique spell he relied on to deduce this conclusion really could do only one thing- detect the presence of 'stripped souls' within a certain period of time, i.e- souls that had exited the body but were yet to enter the river Styx.
It however, could not give any more information- such as the quality of the soul. Thus the earth shaking mage got fooled by a mere mortal child.
And two, Lady Agatha incorrectly mistaking the mana released by the exploded crystal to be from a mage thus strengthening Lord Feyhgan.
The voluptuous matron had never seen such level of purity in magic crystals and did not even think it was possible. So, given that living mana was always magnitudes times more 'clean' and pristine than the ones stored in stone ores, it was an understandable mix up.
Now, if the powers had known this was simply mana released from a power source and not an inheritance with rare and complete spell modules, perhaps they would not have lost their collective minds as such.
But the mistake had been made; everyone's greed had been utterly stirred and they soon became blinded.
Adonis's mere arrival was like a massive boulder smashing into a cool pool, creating a ripple of massive waves that promised to change the whole landscape into something completely unrecognizable.
…..
As for what happened to the main culprit who caused such a stir amongst a part of the plain of Algea?
Well for now, the boy-tentacle hybrid continued to make its way through the deep underground channels it dug, making astonishing grounds as it tried to get as far away as it could from prying eyes.
And it continued to go like this for almost two weeks, needing not even a morsel of food, a drop of water, a wink of sleep or even a second's rest for the entire journey.
It just continued to dig with its expert, alien claws, going through nearly 10,000 km of tunnel in the process- i.e.- almost the distance from Paris to Shanghai.
Until finally it arrived at an extremely nondescript area at the very edge of these wastelands, where this amalgamation of humans and aliens suddenly stopped advancing and instead went upwards a bit, about two hundred meters in the direction, where it found a mysterious cavern opening.
The cave was long, narrow, and very dark, with only a very dim, mysterious blue and red warm glow coming from the very end.
Now this sight by itself was nothing spectacular, there were many underground fauna that also produced such similar colors, and many animals also made such burrows.
Yet, 'Adonis' spoke with great excitement as 'he' arrived, letting out a low, guttural, wolfish cheer, "Hahaha, it is here, it is here. The Great Mother blesses me."
It was a repeat of the same words from before but the euphoria contained in them was something completely different. Before it cheered because its life had been 'saved', now 'it' cheered because 'it' was going to fulfill its life's mission- the reason it was created and existed.
The two magnitudes were completely different.
Thus without a second to waste, the spider legs scuttled into the tiny opening, rapidly beelining for whatever there was at the end. And as it approached its destination, the cavern's oddities started to became all the more pronounced.
The darkness began to get repelled by an eerie red glow and much more alarmingly, the walls changed more and more from hard rock and soil to something much more soft and squishy- almost the same consistency as flesh.
In fact, it was actually flesh- with that distinct pungent, musky smell, continuously writhing and pulsating all along the cavern walls, floor and roof… very similar to the tentacle itself.
Even the ambient red light seemed to come out of it, making the whole place appear very alien.
"Beep! Intruder detected! Scanning!"
The hue of the red light however was suddenly pierced by a curtain of moving blue screen, as a metallic feminine voice echoed out from the back, instantly locking into the advancing 'Adonis'.
It swiftly went over the boy a couple of times from all directions, and then suddenly its tone changed to something much more urgent.
"Alien form- 'Protanyd' detected. Searching database…Matching engagement standards! Protocols matched! Species threat classified as 'Appolyon'- purge all detected samples with extreme prejudice. Activing weapons…."
The machine made these series of short announcements in rapid succession, as two large metallic cannons suddenly descended out of nowhere from the ceiling, locking onto Adonis and starting to glow with a menacing blue, static glow, its brilliance increasing by magnitudes each passing second.
The thing was powering up.
And do not underestimate the lethality of these cannons just because they appeared to be relatively small- about the size of various hand held anti tank systems used by the modern militaries.
(Author Note- I wanted to use a US or Russian system as an example, but skipped it fearing copyright infringement. Who knows which great company owns those rights?)
The plasma blasts even from these seemingly 'small cannons' could tear the hull of even some lightly armored destroyers.
So Adonis would not even need to be hit with these masses of superheated gas.
Just the blasts getting close enough would be enough to break and vaporise his body into pure water and carbon dioxide- letting him become an example of perfect combustion.
And even the alien tentacle with its unimaginable healing factor could not 'ressurect' a mass of smoke and steam.
"Hahahaha…." However despite facing such immense dangers, the alien being did not slow down one bit, only letting out a haughty, wolfish laugh.
"Not this time! Previously I was detected because my fusion was incomplete. I can now see where the problem was…"
"When I had chosen that stupid beast as a vessel, I had chosen it for its great mana reserves, thinking I could dominate the whole plane with it. Yet that had also made manipulating the vast power much harder…. my disguish was incomplete."
"I should have really taken over an infant. They are far more malleable and without properly developed organs, I can easily hide my signatures from those damnable sensors. Tsk, what a waste. How could I have missed such an obvious clue?"
There was a trace of regret in the demonic voice as the red tentacles then suddenly brought out the broken bits of that golden artifact it had picked up before, swiftly covering itself in it.