Chapter 2930: Aero’s Paranoia
Chapter 2930: Aero’s Paranoia
Date: Unspecified
Time: Unspecified
Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City
"Say no more, Aero."
Seraphina’s cold voice cut him off before he could continue his explanation.
Raising a hand, she manipulated the surrounding space with practiced ease. The massive rupture hanging across the sky trembled before rapidly stitching itself back together. Layers of fractured space folded inward and fused, gradually sealing the wound in reality until no trace of the tear remained.
Once the rupture was repaired, the endless explosions finally began to weaken. Without the void’s vacuum pulling in fresh air to fuel the chain reaction, Aero’s outburst slowly burned itself out. The thunderous detonations became less frequent, the raging winds weakened, and the battlefield gradually returned to something resembling normality.
Unfortunately for Seraphina and her companions, another problem remained. The moment the explosions subsided, a familiar wave of weakness washed over their bodies.
It was the One Thousand Curse Fields. They had never escaped it. The countless ruler-class curses were still quietly gnawing away at their strength, suppressing their abilities, and burdening their bodies with innumerable negative effects.
Seraphina glanced at her trembling hands before turning her gaze toward me and proposed, "Let’s call a truce and go our separate ways."
Her voice was calm, but there was a hint of urgency beneath it. Unlike Aqualas, she understood that every second spent inside the One Thousand Curse Fields was working against them. However, before I could even respond, Aqualas exploded.
"Truce?" she shouted in disbelief. "We’re winning! They should be the ones surrendering to us!"
The battlefield fell silent. Even Veerott looked at her strangely. Aqualas appeared completely oblivious to the fact that they were currently trapped inside my field, suffering from hundreds of curses while negotiating from a position of weakness. It wasn’t just Aqualas, even Seraphina seemed to think with two major Supreme beings on her side, she had the leverage to dictate compromise.
"Little girl, step aside," Aero said, immediately seizing the opportunity to get back at Seraphina for interrupting him earlier. "Let us gods handle this."
Seraphina didn’t even bother responding. Instead, she slowly turned her head and looked at Aqualas. That was all, no threats, no arguments, no explanations. Just a single look and Aqualas immediately shut her mouth.
The Ocean Supreme looked away awkwardly, clearly remembering that this entire situation had begun because she had ignored Seraphina’s advice, failed to follow her plan, and then summoned Aero, who nearly blew everyone into the void.
For perhaps the first time that day, guilt won against her pride. And so, much to everyone’s surprise, Aqualas remained silent.
The reason Seraphina was so determined to end the conflict without a victor or loser was simple. History had already taught her what happened whenever Aqualas, Aero, and Petra gathered in the same place.
For Supreme Beings, their clashes were little more than arguments, pranks, rivalries, and occasional fights. Yet every time they crossed paths, they left behind pages of history filled with disasters and calamities. To beings of their level, the consequences were insignificant. To ordinary Card Apprentices, they were catastrophes.
Trade routes collapsed. Entire industries disappeared overnight. Cities spent decades rebuilding damaged infrastructure. Sometimes the economic damage alone took generations to fully recover from. And that was when they weren’t actively trying to kill each other.
Seraphina had no knowledge of their ancient history or how they had once played gods to the first humans who arrived on the planet. Nevertheless, the historical records available to her were already more than enough.
One lesson appeared repeatedly throughout every account. Whenever these three Supreme Beings in particular crossed paths, disaster inevitably followed.
It wasn’t because they hated one another. Quite the opposite. They tolerated each other’s company surprisingly well. The problem was that they couldn’t agree on anything. Every discussion became an argument. Every argument became a competition. And every competition somehow evolved into a catastrophe large enough to be remembered for centuries.
As such, Seraphina had no desire to find out what would happen if all of them fully committed to a battle. Objectively speaking, she believed victory was possible. If she and Veerott joined forces with Aqualas and Aero, they possessed enough power to overcome the Southern Hope and Stone Supreme.
At least in theory. But at what cost? That was the question nobody else seemed interested in asking.
Even if they won, the battlefield would likely become a wasteland. Cities would be destroyed, economies shattered, and countless innocent people would suffer for a conflict they had no part in. From Seraphina’s perspective, it simply wasn’t worth it.
The people who had sided against the Southern Royal Family were still citizens of the Southern Region. They were resources, taxpayers, workers, merchants, craftsmen, and soldiers.
At worst, they deserved punishment: heavy taxes, confiscation of assets, political consequences, perhaps a few executions to remind others where the line was. But exterminating entire populations? Destroying the very people the Southern Royal Family ruled over?
That wasn’t governance. It was stupidity.
A shepherd could cull a few sheep to control the flock. Slaughtering the entire herd only guaranteed his own ruin. And Seraphina had no intention of allowing that to happen.
Aero noticed the guilt on Aqualas’s face and immediately became furious. His gaze shifted toward Seraphina and Veerott, and the atmosphere around him darkened once more. It was obvious he had been reminded of the past.
Back then, Aqualas and Petra had fallen for the tricks of Card Apprentices, allowing outsiders to drive a wedge between them and fracture their once inseparable group. Ever since then, the three Supreme Beings had drifted further and further apart. To Aero, the pattern seemed to be repeating itself.
In his mind, the problem wasn’t Aqualas or Petra or himself, but the humans. The moment that thought took root, Aero reached a terrifying conclusion. As long as human influences remained around them, the reunion he desperately longed for would never happen.
And so, without warning, he acted. In an instant, Seraphina, Veerott, and I felt something invade our bodies. The atmosphere itself had turned against us. Invisible streams of toxic gases flooded into our lungs, ears, eyes, and every other vulnerable opening. They bypassed conventional defenses with alarming ease, spreading through our bodies before most people would even realize they had been attacked.
Aqualas reacted immediately. The surrounding waters surged forward and swallowed Seraphina and Veerott, dragging them into a protective sphere of oceanic essence before the toxins could fully take hold.
At nearly the same moment, Petra launched herself at Aero. Unlike Aqualas, she couldn’t simply envelop me within her element to shield me from the toxic gases. Her only option was to stop Aero before he could finish whatever he was planning.
Unfortunately, she was too late. Before Petra’s attack could even reach him, Aero ignited the toxic gases flooding my body. Fire erupted inside me. Every breath became a furnace. Every vein felt like molten metal. Flames raced through my organs, muscles, and nerves as though my entire body had been transformed into fuel.
Then came the explosion. The ignited gases detonated simultaneously. A deafening blast erupted from within me, my body exploded, sending the charred pieces of me across the sky while Petra desperately cried my name, "Wyatt!"