If Only

The Council of Aenandria

They went onward further and further, deeper into the pitch depths to the unwilling relatives that remained below. As leagues passed clarity fled with sense and perception yet they continued on with time, all relentless as ever. The seas were dark as the star's energy lost the supreme influence it holds over the surface. Those who find themselves this far beneath the waters soon realize that other powers reign here; powers far more immediate and influential to the common man.

When the Cyphons long ago held the dark forces at bay from their home in the Trenarian depths and earned peace for a time, they learned the everlasting and undeniable truth concerning their enemies. They would remain forever in the depths and nothing would ever stop them from attempting to take the sea. They would continue ceaselessly forever until the damage was incalculable. And there were far more than there were Cyphons so it was decided that the only way to escape impending doom and find peace would be to retreat to the surface in which the darkness could not withstand. Such light and air were unbearable to those black and breathless, without heart. Ophilius insisted this was the way. The way to a far more promising future, but if they did not succeed now, this would all be for naught.

There were those who disagreed. Those who are rarely spoken of. The dark Cyphons of the Night, who remained in the sea despite the threats. Their leader Grelorius spoke of blaspheming the Cyphon race by fleeing their promised lands in the seas laid unto them by the gods themselves, he said. They were no land dwellers. The sea was theirs he said and he would never give it up to any. And so he and his many followers stayed whilst Ophilius and the majority left never to return until necessity demanded it.

So here they were back in the sea. Perhaps the land had failed them and the waters were where they always may return. For now, land-dwellers came from afar to end their reign. He thought of the times leading up and weeks earlier, or what time allowed. It had seemed mere instants before as indeed it was in his memory.

The defense of Aenandria was to be sung of for ages to come. When the Leviathans flew overhead effortlessly through the heavens besmirching their sanctity, they met something far from what they could have fathomed. As the landing pods birthed from the motherships tridents the size of trees came to meet them in the midst of the air flung from ballistae. The Cyphons thought prayed and held their power to the heavens and seas as waters struck shore from the coast and above and lightning struck the human ships. The mist held and salt swirled among it. In the haze, Maxus gazed and fought as the Cypnons stood as great as of yore. As a final stroke of a miracle, the Laicetus, thousands of tons in magnitude, strode forth striking unparalleled horror into the invaders and trampled and ripped apart those that fled. Yet the humans held on for hours ceaselessly striking until they could have only have been depleted, for their bodies littered the streets beside a Cyphons for every ten of them. Yet together they lay, both bleeding red.

That night he would sleep deeper than ever as relief and moreover, faith, had returned, consuming him, grasping him tight and pulling down or up.

The glimpses came then so clear yet fleeting, distant, and away. He recalled an old war now past, and malevolent forces tearing his family from his life; seemingly lifeless, dead, black hands upon his mother's and father's faces whilst he cried for an end, for the despair to cease. He dove deeper yet the rising beasts and his own fear of mortality thwarted him, before he fled, preserving his own life.

He remembered emerging from the sea a final time days later, Ophilius beside him, the only one who could come close to filling the void torn open by those of the depths, for Maxus and countless others. He saw Cyhons today, inspired, rising up all across the realms to fight with unwavering courage before the invaders as word spread of their deeds. A great fire was fanned and advanced further on and on. He saw more blood spill and fly, all of it crimson. He saw Cyphon ships whip through the horizons like swift knives in a never-ending night cutting through the Leviathans once so fearsome.