The pound of Urru's wings came just in time. Thick geysers exploded upward from the ocean, one after another. Each blast of water moved ahead of the previous location in an attempt to knock Urru out of the sky.

In addition to flying forward as fast as he could, Urru alternated his movement from side to side. He dodged the geysers erratically, always trying to stay one step ahead of the next eruption of water.

"What do we do?" Urru asked.

Arius leaned over and looked down. "Let's just outlast him! I'll keep gathering energy. On my cue, we'll wipe him out!"

Beneath the surface, the small but quick shadow of Tavras chased after them with ease.

Though Urru tried flying higher, the geysers that Tavras unleashed could still reach him. The greater distance gave him more time to dodge though, so it became clear that this tactic was ineffective against them.

Tavras surfaced from the water and began gathering water with him all the while. A dragon might fly fast, but a god of water could move faster across the ocean. Circling in a wide arch, water rose up all around the region in which Urru flew.

In a hurry, Arius put the majority of his energy into a cloak around Urru's wings to make him gather in strength and speed. "Don't let him trap us again!"

The curved wall of water was folding over as if to complete a sphere. A patch of dark grey sky could be seen through the center where the waves met.

Ruby eyes flashed towards the sky, and Urru directed himself straight up to that weak spot. The initial wave had only been broken down because Arius had taken hours to charge up that much energy. With hardly a minute's worth of build-up, they would not be able to escape unless Urru went for this one weak spot.

All around them, the ocean sphere flowed against the laws of physics. Water rushed upward and curled over at the top. It started with a salty rainfall dripping onto Urru's scales. Then, a waterfall started to gush down overtop of them.

While the water pounded against them, both Urru and Arius squinted up against the downpour. "Dive down," Arius said. His voice was impeccably calm for an order.

At once, Urru curled his body backward and folded in his wings. The two of them were going down.

Soon afterwards, the mouth of the waterfall opened with the jagged jaws of a monster made of sheer water. One of Tavras's sea serpent mirages

"Tongueless, where to?" Urru shouted out of panic.

"Fly anywhere there is dry air!" Arius hunkered himself onto Urru's back and prepared himself for all of the evasive movements.

For some long, painful minutes, Urru flew with the craze of a dragonfly during feeding—or more accurately—he was the intended prey.

The crucial difference between Tavras's watery sea serpents and the real deals: he could make them as big or small as he wanted. When one of those had pummeled into Val, Tavras had sent a small one after her. In the case of Arius, massive water serpents had jaws wide enough to close around Urru in a single snap.

Large, draconic heads flung out from the sphere of water to bite at Urru whenever he flew too close to the edges. Only by Arius's enhancement was he able to stay airborne and escape from assault after assault. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before Urru went plummeting out of the sky with a glancing strike.

Despite the fact that he could win this, the watery attacks from Tavras's end seemed to slow up.

"His timer is running out," Arius announced in almost a sing-song voice. Leaning backward from his seat on Urru, he pointed down to the ocean. "There."

Immediately below where he pointed, Tavras had rehidden himself beneath the water. By the look of a dim blue light reawakening within the water, he was coming to the surface with an incredible speed.

"There. You're on your own from here, Urru. See you on the flipside." Every cloud of energy snapped away from Urru's wings and swirled around Arius instead. Part of this haze elongated into the physical form of a spear. The rest stayed around Arius, glowing red, as he leaped into the air.

A spray burst out followed by some tons of water in the immediate vicinity. Tavras exploded from the ocean with his arms spread wide, as if he brought all of that water with him in fistfuls. The geysers split open into one sea serpent on either side and rushed

The gaseous energy around Arius glowed brighter than it ever had. More than a bright red, the hue shifted into a blinding orange. The following explosion sent out a deafening bang. Sheets of water shattered outward like glass. A brief slice of gold could be seen amidst the roaring flames and hissing steam.

Then, the red tail of a comment was left behind from where Arius zoomed through the air. Tavras's limp form was in both of his hands, as he had let go of the spear that was impaled through the top of his chest.

In that moment, the obvious dawned on her. This was not a fight that Tavras had won, but one that he had overwhelmingly lost. Even with all of the added information that Insights of the Past provided her, it had taken her this long to realize the truth. Arius, the second strongest god in the world, was stronger than Tavras, the fifth strongest god. A century ago, this fact held even despite the millennia of experience that Tavras had over Arius.

Val did not know what to feel except shocked into anger. This was simply wrong. An upset of this proportion should not even be possible. Tavras should have been able to send Arius to the Nether if he so pleased. He was not the one who should have lost.

With her own spirit broken, Val followed the glowing trail that Arius had left in his wake to find where they had gone.