Chapter 25 :: The True Enemy Reveals Himself
"Erebus!" Mithos exclaimed. He now looked at the same man in his dreams that haunted him for so long."Give me your crystal," Erebus said to Dusk. He placed his hand onto Dusk's Angel Crystal and repaired it just by a touch. "Go." Dusk vanished through the portal, leaving only Erebus.
"So the nameless Supreme Cardinal finally shows himself," Yuan said.
"What's the Supreme Cardinal?" asked Martel.
"The man who orchestrated the course of the war. The man who made Lady Enigma suffer by creating the Angel Crystal for a weapon of war. The man who is responsible for Mithos being bound to his own crystal. Supreme Cardinal Erebus," Yuan said.
"You are right about two things. I did have Mithos' crystal forged and ordered Cornelius to implant the same crystal into Enigma. However, the war was not of my creation. I merely took advantage of it to wipe out all the humans and elves on Aselia so that our kind will never have to face their injustice again," Erebus replied.
"Injustice? Where do you go off talking about justice when you killed so many people? You even saved that Procyon!" Mithos said.
"Casualties of a necessary evil. With the leadership of Delthis and Macerdon on the brink of collapse, I will be the only force on Aselia," Erebus declared. Beams rained down from the sky, fired by a fleet of hidden black armored airships. They destroyed entire blocks of the city with each explosion. "Cornelius' new elemental fusion designs will prove to be a very powerful weapon as will the successor to the Midgard Serpent, Thor's Hammer."
"Come back, Erebus!" Mithos said.
"Farewell. You are about to perish in dark flame," Erebus replied, vanishing through his blue portal.
"You'll have to get to the flagship if you want to stop Erebus's Mana Cannon," Kepler said.
"Evacuation is a higher priority. It doesn't seem like Erebus cares anymore about the lives of his own kind, especially since he saved the leader of Black Phoenix," Solstice said.
"All right. I'll get Kepler and whatever people I can find out of the city," Martel said.
"It was Alice's last wish that I accompany you. Besides, I'm the only one here now that can pilot the Zephyr," Yuan replied. Kepler was still bleeding badly, but Martel's healing powers stemmed the flow of blood.
"Lord Antares. You should come with us," Martel said.
"All right. I'll rally my own knights," Antares responded. "Heh, to think that we were saved by the same half-elves we've been trying to destroy. How strange indeed."
"Okay, Mithos. Three elemental fusion reactors power the Thor's Hammer weapon. Disable them and it should no longer function," Kepler instructed.
"Dragon form!" Solstice cried, returning to his full-fledged dragon shape for the first time in a long while. "It feels good to be a dragon again." Mithos and Kratos mounted him as he took flight into the sky over Meltokio. Streaks of light shot past them from Erebus' airships.
"Solstice, are you sure you can dodge those things?" Mithos asked.
"Be quiet and let me concentrate," Solstice replied, breathing a tongue of flame into an airship in their path.
"Why hasn't he fired yet? Erebus has had more than enough time," Kratos said. Solstice rolled a few times to dodge the airships' attacks and passed through a cloud. There, they set their eyes upon a massive airship as big as the city of Meltokio. Three bulges of steel stuck out on the upper armor. Solstice dug his claws into the side of the ship and bore a hole with his fire breath. Then, he lowered his head into the hole to let Mithos and Kratos off before changing to his human form.
"I don't like this place," commented Mithos. They were in a metal corridor at the outer rim of the airship's hull. Light came in the form of fluorescent lanterns and the occasional siren light.
"I think our destination lies in this direction," Kratos said. Strangely they met no crewmembers on their way deep into the ship's heart. The entire flagship seemed to be running on its own. They proceeded until they came to a room where large conveyer belts moved metal cylinders into another room.
"It seems that Erebus has written everything into the oldest Elvish dialect," Solstice said, reading the instructions at a panel near the belt.
"Can we find where we need to go from here?" asked Mithos. Solstice scrolled through pages and pages of schematics on the panel. At last he located the map of the airship Tiamat.
"It should be right through that door," Solstice said. Embedded in the wall was a massive iron door that seemed too thick to break through.
"The trouble is how we are to get through," said Kratos.
"Access to the mana reactors is allowed only to me," a voice said. The door behind them slammed shut and sealed itself off.
"Cornelius, I presume," Kratos said. The giant doors pulled open to allow Lord Cornelius to step in. He wore both an eccentric monocle, while an Angel Crystal hung from a chain around his neck. Drawing the three to an open area in the room, Cornelius turned off all the machinery by throwing a switch near the large gate.