Slayers: Alive

Alive 81

"I pledge myself to conquer all the foes who stand, before the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hands..." Shabranigdu's energy which the Stillness tried to call towards itself was responding to Lina more and more with each word she spoke. It was as if the piece of Shabranigdu would rather lend its power to this chaotic girl than be used by the being of nothingness that stood against chaos. "Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed..." Lina was expecting the spell to be difficult and drawn out all the way, as it was when she started it, but now it was turning out to be one of the most powerful Dragon Slaves she had casted. "By the power you and I possess..."

Finally ready, Lina released the spell she was so well known for, full force, aiming for the crack left by the fusion magic attack on the seed. "Dragon Slave!" The massive blast of energy collided with the seed, turning it into a ball of glowing fire. The roots connected to the seed and the cave walls around them were ablaze with Shabranigdu's energy reducing them to ashes. The aftershock of energy made the group drop to the ground and cast shielding magic to protect themselves from the massive blast that was entrapped in the chamber.

When the blindingly bright light cleared out, everything was left in darkness. The pulsations of energy in the cave walls were no longer there. Zelgadis and Amelia flooded the area with orbs of light, restoring the chamber back to its previous level of brightness, like daylight. The Seed was still there, floating, but its colors looked gray, dried up and dull with numerous cracks around it. The seed's shell fell away to reveal a silvery mist in the middle of it. "Give up, insignificant mortals, the Stillness cannot be defeated!" The Stillness echoing voice was heard.

Lina was left exhausted with the massive amount of power Shabranigdu allowed her to call. Everyone's capabilities were reduced due to the atmosphere they were in and they were pushing themselves past their limits. At least the zombies had stopped emerging from the ground, at least for now. "We'll win and we'll have another triple banquet in Seyruun!"

"Insignificant creatures," the Stillness' growling voice echoed. "There will be nothing left for anyone to feast on. Not even the monsters can enjoy the world's misery, because only I shall feast on even them."

Glaring fiercely at the silvery mist that was the Stillness, Lina voiced her conclusions. "When I called Shabranigdu's power, I realized that you weren't just draining power from the fragment that is frozen in the northern mountains, there was more power than that. That power was from discarded fragments that were thrown into the Sea of Chaos. For a second when Shabranigdu's energy was coursing through me, I could see it. I saw the true Sea of Chaos beyond the space that separates it and the world," Lina revealed. "You have no intentions of allowing the world to start anew."

"That is the purpose of the End," Lina continued. "It exists to not allow a new world to be reborn from the remains of the old one. I see now how important it was to fuse the End with the other pieces and destroy it. If the End remained, the world could still be erased if the situation got bad enough, even if the roles of Lamentation and the Void were incomplete. You intend to make it so that what's left of the world can't even be absorbed by the Sea of Chaos, so that it's completely gone. Then you intend to attack the Sea of Chaos itself and erase the remains of all things that once belonged to the world, everything and everyone."

"Returning to chaos leaves behind the hope of rising from chaos, because chaos is life. But life is imperfection and I cannot allow that imperfection to go on existing," the Stillness replied. "What you say is true, I intend to erase it all, not simply end it, but make it as if nothing ever started, as if the world never existed. Don't you know? The Sea of Chaos is the source of power of the Lord of Nightmares, if I can weaken the Sea of Chaos, my ultimate enemy, the Mother of All Things, who dared to set this chaotic world in motion, will be weakened too." The Stillness revealed in its echoing ominous voice. "This insignificant world is only a stepping stone; it is the Mother of All Things that I wish to challenge."