Chapter 2928: Sky Calamity
Chapter 2928: Sky Calamity
Date: Unspecified
Time: Unspecified
Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City
Everyone among the Supreme Beings, or anyone unfortunate enough to have crossed paths with him, knew just how fickle and unpredictable the Gas Supreme, Aero, was.
His temperament was notoriously unstable. He could be amused one moment, enraged the next, and triggered by something as trivial as an offhand comment. Worse still, nobody could reliably predict what would set him off. A joke, an insult, a misunderstanding, or sometimes seemingly nothing at all could cause him to turn into a sky calamity.
That was what made him so terrifying. The most frightening part wasn’t the calamity itself. It was the fact that it cost Aero absolutely nothing. The violent detonation didn’t injure him, weaken him, or consume any significant amount of his power. To Aero, sky calamities were as natural as breathing. They were simply another expression of his existence, a conversion of energy that occurred instinctively.
In a sense, he wasn’t even attacking. He was merely being himself. Unfortunately, what was natural for Aero was a catastrophe for everyone around him.
Entire battlefields could be reduced to ruins because of a passing mood swing. Cities could disappear simply because he lost his temper. Even powerful Supreme Beings preferred to avoid provoking him, not because they feared losing a fight, but because dealing with the aftermath was rarely worth the trouble.
For those caught nearby, Aero’s emotions weren’t a personality flaw. They were a natural disaster.
"Aero, control your emotions!" Aqualas shouted the moment she realized what was happening.
Unfortunately, she was too late. Aero had already lost control. In the next instant, Aero and every trace of gas within a thousand-yard radius detonated simultaneously.
Thermal and thunder energy erupted in every direction, turning the surrounding world into a sea of blinding white and crackling blue. The force was so immense that space itself trembled beneath the pressure. Shockwaves rolled outward one after another, each stronger than the last, shredding everything in their path.
Then space quaked. A tear nearly a thousand yards long ripped open across the sky like a wound carved into reality itself. And it didn’t stop there.
The endless explosions continued feeding the rupture, forcing it wider and wider. Violent winds howled from every direction as the void beyond exerted its pull, dragging in atmospheric gases only for them to feed the explosion and further expand the devastation.
It became a self-sustaining catastrophe: Explosion, Suction, More gases, More explosions. The cycle repeated endlessly.
For anyone caught within the blast zone, there was barely time to think, let alone react. They could either endure an endless chain of increasingly violent explosions or be dragged into the ever-expanding void and stranded in the darkness beyond reality. There was simply no way out of it, the incredible suction pressure and unstoppable violent explosion made sure of it.
As the apocalyptic chain reaction unfolded around her, Aqualas couldn’t help but curse aloud, "Damn you, Petra!"
There was genuine frustration in Aqualas’s voice. She knew exactly what had happened. Petra had purposefully provoked Aero into detonating himself before the conversation had even properly begun. She knew what she was doing yet she didn’t stop her because she didn’t think Petra would be crazy enough to do it while standing right beside the rest of them as she would be caught in the explosion too.
Aqualas couldn’t understand where Petra’s confidence came from. No matter how familiar she was with Aero’s habits, willingly triggering one of his explosions was still madness. Then her gaze shifted to the Southern Hope. The answer immediately became obvious.
Amidst the endless explosions and the terrifying suction force of the expanding void, he stood completely unmoved. He was like an anchor hammered into reality itself. Neither the violent blasts nor the spatial turbulence could force him back even a single step. More importantly, he had become a wall shielding Petra from the catastrophe she had personally created.
No wonder she had been so fearless. After understanding Petra’s confidence, Aqualas turned toward her own side. Her gaze landed on Veerott. The demi-human stood firm against the apocalypse unfolding around them with ease. Muscles bulging and veins protruding across his body, he weathered the endless explosions and suction force from the void while simultaneously shielding both her and Seraphina. He made no attempt to leave the explosion zone.
Not because he couldn’t, but because he wouldn’t. The moment they moved beyond the area affected by Aero’s outburst, they would be stepping directly back into the Southern Hope’s One Thousand Curse Fields.
Compared to that nightmare, standing in the center of Aero’s violent tantrum seemed like the safer option. So Veerott simply endured. Like everyone familiar with Aero, he knew this wasn’t a battle. It was a waiting game. Sooner or later, Aero would finish venting his emotions, calm down, and return to normal.
Not to mention, this explosion was one of the milder ones, not large enough to be considered a sky calamity because Aero managed to control himself, much like humans holding back a fart. He didn’t want to disappoint Aqualas, who had contacted him after such a long time.
Aqualas, Petra, and Aero were once the trio of gods who ruled over the oceans, lands, and skies. But then everything changed. The creatures who should have been serving them began calling themselves Card Apprentices and exploited Aero’s emotional shortcomings to drive a wedge between the trio.
In truth, Aero was more angry at Aqualas and Petra than at the Card Apprentices. They had been friends for several millennia. How could they not see what the Card Apprentices were doing? Instead, they played right into their hands and allowed the trio to break apart, investing more and more time into building their own factions. It was almost as if they had been waiting for an excuse to split up.
But all of that was in the past now. Aqualas and Petra were alone again. Their factions were gone, having lost the war against the Card Apprentices thanks to the ungrateful Bloodette. Actually, Aero was grateful to Bloodette. It was because of her that Aqualas contacted him again, and because of her that the trio had gathered once more.
Even though each of them had their own reasons for coming, Aero saw hope. For the first time in a very long while, he could imagine the trio being reunited.