The towering peaks loomed against the night sky, split from the center as if sliced perfectly in half by an unknown force.
The base of the mountain range was encircled by a vast clearing, a stark contrast to the dense jungle that cloaked the surrounding landscape in shadows and mystery.
Under the silvery light of the moon, the air, which had been eerily calm, suddenly began to grow faster. Gentle breezes turned into powerful winds, and within moments, the calm night transformed into a growing tempest.
The walls of the two peaks and the surrounding ground pulsed with a dense, vibrant wind law, and the very earth trembled as if the island itself were shuddering in anticipation.
A circular cyclone of green and cyan wind began to form, its power tearing the ground apart with relentless force.
It grew rapidly, stretching into a massive storm, a supermassive cyclone unlike any seen before by the vast majority of the spectators. With it came rapidly generating clouds that pulsed with crackles of lightning, covering the surrounding sky in a blanket of pitch darkness.
After mere minutes, the main vortex reached kilometers in both length and height, its swirling form seemingly touching the dark night sky.
The entire island resonated with the fury of the storm, the air filled with the roar of the wind, the occasional crackle of lightning illuminating the dark land below, and the pouring of rain drowning any other sound besides the wrath of nature.
Giant trees were uprooted and hurled through the air like spears launched by unseen giants, their massive trunks crashing into the ground with thunderous impact, causing the landscape to tremble with minor earthquakes.
The intensity of the storm's cyclonic winds was such that it seemed poised to engulf the entire island or tear it into pieces, while the rain had become so heavy that one would believe it could drown the island in a matter of days.
Yet, as the storm expanded, its chaotic growth halted once it had enveloped the entire mountain range that stretched for close to fifty kilometers from the center, not including the raining clouds that stretched for hundreds of kilometers.
Despite its unrestrained elemental fury, the cyclone achieved a strange beauty, painting the sky in waves of cyan and green, the colors blending and shimmering in the supermassive cyclone's heart.
The storm's edges glowed with an otherworldly light that illuminated the island cloaked in perpetual night in a dance of shadows and luminance.
"Nouvry, I don't think we can visit the middle circle any time soon," The elven boy said, having seen the cyclone take birth.
"The rain will stop in a few days, and that is when we leave on our quest. But for now, let's go and have a look at this beauty from up close," The boy replied, and the duo left the area like many others eager to see the grand phenomenon from up close.
Alex stayed near the projector mirror, knowing it would be the best way for the clan elders to communicate with him if they successfully captured Zahra.
But he was also planning not to wait for more than a day because each day was worth ten on the other side, and the longer he took to enter the realm, the longer the others would have to adjust and grow.
However, Alex did not need to wait long before the confirmation of their battle came, as Zahra, adorned in black and white loose robes, appeared above the city, her appearance quickly noticed by the citizens.
"It's Lady Zahra."
"What is she doing?" An elf questioned, seeing a large number of mirrors manifesting in the empty sky.
The mirrors stood a few meters in height and width, and once they were completed, color began to fill them before the image became clear.
It was a video of a dark chamber, with there being no audio, but none was needed as the context of the video was clear enough to even an outsider like Alex, let alone the elves.
In the video, a handsome dark elf could be seen lying on the wooden floor, in a pool of his own blood, and by his side stood the two men who were very familiar to Alex and every elf present.
"It's Patriarch Lahokse," A female elf said, her voice trembling with tears covering her face as if she had seen her beloved die.
"Elder Salarth and Elder Kavoc would not do this, right?"
"This must be fake."
"You idiot, why would Lady Zahra fake the death of her father?"
In an instant, intense chatter erupted among the gathered crowd, with some defending the elders while others expressing their opinions, with both sides offering their speculations.
Many just began to weep, mostly women, and others expressed their questions at Zahra, creating somewhat chaos throughout the city. But it did not last long as mere moments later, the two elders emerged in the sky.
There was not a moment of delay before a dome of two elemental waves of aquatic blue and ashy gray cloaked the sky, coalescing into a sphere of revolving elements.
'I don't expect her to walk in without a plan, even if she possesses a scroll capable of killing the two of them at the same time because she should know that the moment they sense her real self, they would use their domain to counter any advantage she holds,' Alex thought, as he observed the elemental domain.
While the scroll Zahra could deal great damage even inside an overlapped elemental Domain because it was a mid-stage Eight Rank spell, it had little chance of killing even one of the elders in their own domain.
Alex believed that Zahra should be aware of this, but perhaps she didn't fully understand the true extent of an elemental's power, especially within their own domain, and it appears this lack of awareness would be her downfall.
"Looks like I thought too highly of her," Alex thought, seeing pitch darkness momentarily engulf the suspended sphere of blue and gray before cracks appeared on it and it shattered into pieces, releasing a wave of energy.
The chaotic energies dissipated enough to reveal the three individuals, with Zahra having a face full of surprise, while the two elders stood unscathed in the distance.
Alex watched as the elf with a scar running across his face appeared before Zahra and caught her by the neck, his face carrying real anger before it switched to a sheepish smile.
"Did you really believe we did not know about your item mirroring ability?" The scarred elder said loudly enough to be heard by Alex, who stood a few hundred meters away.
At the same time, Alex saw the oceanic blue domain come to life in the sky, and before he could question the reason behind it, it was engulfed in pitch darkness.
The massive elemental sphere turned pitch dark, and unlike the last time, it did not break into a chaotic mess of uncontrolled energies.
Instead, the darkness began to seep out of the sphere before there was nothing but a patch of expanding darkness that even erased the surrounding space.
The scarred-faced elder disappeared, but not before binding Zahra in bone-white chains. Even though she gazed at the expanding darkness with hope, deep down, she understood that she had failed.
The scarred elder also used his domain, and the rapidly expanding darkness was engulfed into his domain.
As seconds passed, the elemental sphere that was mostly dark began to take on the colors of ash gray and dim blue before there was nothing but the latter two colors.
The domain dissolved into thin air, leaving behind the two elders. The handsome one with the high-pitched voice, named Kavoc, had a face as dull as a dead man, with his entire body covered in an aquatic aura, healing from the erosion that was eating away at his body.
The scarred face gazed unharmed, but it was clear he was dead tired after having used his domain twice in short intervals to struggle against two very strong attacks.
Zahra had been restrained, and her seemingly flawless plan was halted with minimal loss to the other side.
After witnessing all she could do and knowing her story, Alex was prepared to act and intervene, as he believed that letting her be killed would be a massive waste and a burden on his conscience.
Even if he wanted to stay away, he did not assume the two elders would let him do so.
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