By the time Ver, Tonya, and Augen emerged from over the top of the dune where Wu and Lera were waiting, the pair had already set up a small camp by digging into the ground and holding back the sand with a void domain shield layer.

Though the natural tendency for the Necrovian soil was to drain away the Wave from everything on it slowly through osmosis, this slow movement of the Wave can be easily mitigated by the Void domain. If the power source that powered the Void domain are placed within the bounds shield, then this closed loop of casts could be run for as long as the source could supply it with the Wave.

A long time, that is.

“Hey~” Ver took a small hop forward before sliding down along the slope of the dune with Tonya and Augen trotting down after her, each of their doorsteps sending puddles of sand outward, “Who knew what would have happened if you hadn’t called when you have.”

“Guess we will see~” Wu shrugged before dipping his face back through the opening of the Void domain shield layer before welcoming Tonya and Augen in.

“This…a new trick?” Augen asked, pressing his hand against the stiff outer surface of the shield layer as it closed up behind him, “Oh…that’s…neat.”

“Right?” Lera smiled before patting Wu on the back, “Back then, when we had to do some investigation on the country level defensive Casts, we needed something that will isolate the Cast itself to the outside world…”

Lera stoped, and she glanced at Tonya with a look of inquisition, “where are those Casts?!”

“Those casts are supposed to resemble defensive castle towers…” Wu added, and Tonya looked as perplexed as anything, “Did you see those activated in the places you have been? Augen?”

“To be honest…I wasn’t paying too much attention to those since getting here…” Augen scratched his head awkwardly, “But I wouldn’t be surprised if anything Wave related just deteriorates over time here.”

“That’s more than likely.” Lera added, “If the lands had been like this since after the Third War, then…”

“Finally, one less thing to worry about.” Wu leaned back, “So…what happened back there?”

All of the pieces was quickly put together when both sides fully retold their adventures by a small lighting Cast, and the very next conclusion that they came to was that they needed somewhere else to lie low.

“However, before we get out of here…we must stop what Mila’s planning, or at the very least…hinder their progress.” Tonya said, “Seeing that they know that we are aware of their plans, the land of stones will become very dangerous.”

“Not that we would have any trouble getting down to the levels of the underground rivers.” Ver said, swirling her hands around, “Wu, have you figured out what that bomb Cast does?”

“Nothing but an explosive Cast with a special triggering unit.” Lera said, tilting her face up as she held the void domain scalpel in her hands and gestures towards the spherical Cast that had its shells undone, and rolls of Casts exposed themselves from within, “There’s…nothing crazy about any of this, and if we want, we can easily disable any of this…”

“Then it would have been a matter of quantity.” Wu said, “Place enough of these along the river branches, heck…let it naturally spread following the flow of the river, and a simultaneous detonation would have been too much to handle just from all the good that we could do.”

“We…should gather as much of these as we can, at least remove it from right underneath the population centers.” Ver suggested, “With the Kraken, traversal shouldn’t be a problem.”

“The thing is…as much as we can remove these, it would be far easier to just make and spread much more of these…especially if they don’t care if a handful blew in the process.” Lera murmured, “In fact, anyone who’s trained in the Wave with all of the materials provided can put this together…”

“What are you saying…?” Tonya asked, her face darkening when Augen pressed his fingers around his chin before clicking his teeth with annoyance.

“That anything we do to remove these things will be a futile effort.” Augen said, turning to where Wu’s voice was last at, “But we have to try…something…”

“Then let’s get down there and see what we have.”

The closest path to the underground river was about 10 minutes of submersion and 5 more minute of horizontal traversal away, and Lera had only gotten better at sensing the minute shifts in the local Wave field thanks to a few tips from Augen, the sensory master.

Piercing his hands through the soft shell of the river tunnel, Wu then poked his head in to ensure that they were alone before landing in the waist-deep river water. As ripples pulsed out from him, he opened the cap to his small bottle before filling it up with the glowing river water.

“The nearest cast may be a few hundred meters to the right…” Lera murmured before the rest of them started to get going, with Wu returning to them now that the sample had been collected. From the moment he sat down on their structure Cast, his eyes were glued to the bottle of water before he toggled on his void domain.

If the fuel rocks could be made inert through his void domain, then what would happen with the water…

Turning his wrist inward, he then bathed the dark shadow of the Void Domain over the water when suddenly, dark lines suddenly began forming and spreading within the layers of the river fluids before the entire bottle was turned obsidian.

“What the fuck…” Wu curses as the fluids started to feel hot from within the bottle, and he placed it down on the surface that they were standing on and pulled his hand away. Ver poked her head over Wu’s shoulder while leaving the navigation duties to the Kraken. Then, she picked it up with a tentacle before giving the bottle a small shake.

“Is this supposed to be black…?”

“No…but yeah…” Wu shook his head when Ver dipped the tip of the Kraken’s tendril into the bottle, and it visible shivered before nearly dropping the container, “I…may have a crazy idea…But we need to first prove that what Mila’s planning is far worse than whatever we’re planning to do…”

“What can be crazier than blowing up the underground river?” Augen asked.

“Poisoning it’s source. Ok, maybe not worse, but I doubt it’s better…” Wu said, putting his hands up and showing the tattoos of his void domain, “I…feel like a terrorist right now…but if the damage is reversible, I am only a temporary terrorist!”

“Then, we’d better be damn sure of what we are doing.” Tonya said, “Wu, you are the one with ideas, what you got?”

“Well…I guess we will have to ask Ver to do more work than what she’s already doing…” Wu slouched over apologetically when Ver puffed her chest out proudly before she stuck her tongue out at Lera and stepped forward, “We pick out a small portion of the underground river branches and take it with us through a set of Whirlpool Purple, however far you can handle it. Then, we…go for it. Transform it all with the void domain.”

“Sounds like something only a capable girl like me can do~”

Reaching both hands out, the Kraken’s power swelled within Ver before it suddenly went away. Ver blinked a few times with confusion before chuckling awkwardly when suddenly, the voice of the Kraken spoke within her. She made an intrigued sound before glancing at Wu with a smirk on her face.

“What now…” Wu asked, and he instinctually took half a step back.

“The Kraken won’t lend me its power without a price.” Ver said, crossing her arms.

“But I thought you have made that power your own as part of your character development!” Wu threw his hands up with confusion, and Ver’s right eye twitched before she tossed the eye patch back on and maintained a professional smile.

Wu looked at Lera who’s holding her forehead, and she gave him the go-ahead.

“Fine…What do you want…”

“Well…the Kraken wanted you to…give me a massage tonight…” Ver said, rolling her hair around a small Kraken’s tendril playfully and add lol of a sudden becoming shy, “The Kraken’s request, of course, not mine.”

“Right…” Wu looked at Lera once again, and she reluctantly gave him the go-ahead once again.

“Deal.”

In the next instance, they found themselves stranded in between two sets of swirling purple fluids as the glowing river water flowed from right underneath their feet. Wu dipped his finger straight down as the pressure of the fluids brushed up against the individual pieces of his gauntlet.

Then, he asked Ver to split the segment of the river into two halves, one he fully transformed and blackened using his Void Domain, and the second half untouched as the control.

“This is perfect.” Wu said, when Ver snapped her finger as the purple fluids continued to circulate in two closed circuits. With a single hand gesture of two fingers straight and three coiled in front of him, Wu opened his mouth and whispered, “Lera, give me the bomb Cast. Let’s start with the Void Domain group.”

“Nah uh.” Lera shook her head while hugging onto the big sphere, though she had already done all of the necessary prep work for anyone to simply activate the Cast while minimizing chance for accidental activation, “We do this together.”

“Very well, darling.” Wu smiled brightly when Lera jogged across the water and placed the spherical Cast in front of them as the black river water moved around the sphere, and with her hands looped around Wu’s, “How many explosions would we have been in so far?”

“Too many…” Lera murmured before looking back at Tonya, Augen, and Ver who’s watching from their small space just outside of the soft shells, “You ready?”

“Yes.” Wu swiped his hand out, activating his Void domain shield layer around them when Lera twitched her hand and activated the spherical Cast before the influence of the Void Domain cut everything off.

A single light pulsed from the center of the spherical Cast before layers of glowing light spread through the intricately woven Wave lines, then, a single orb of light lit up from within Wu’s bubble, and…the bomb sank straight through the dark fluid before a couple of bubble rose up and popped at the surface.

The five watched anxiously before Wu swiped his visor down and glanced through the fluid, when he could only make out the outline of the spherical Cast through the inert water.

“Well…that’s about expected…” Wu murmured, “By exposing natural water to the high gradient of Void Domain, some chemical reactions must have happened to deactivate the individual components that conducted the Wave… Now…let’s try the control group.”

And so they did the same, as everything around them went white the moment they released the spherical Cast into the water.

The initial impact rocked against Wu’s Void Domain shield layer bubble hard. Riding that impact, Wu and Lera were sent flying straight up when Ver fetched them before they were sent into orbit once again.

Then, as Ver completely shielded all five of them with her purple fluid, the earth around them were blown up by the explosion with columns of sand surging up through the air before the loose sand from all around rushed in to fill the void just as quickly.

“All…all of this…” The Kraken’s voice of astonishment struck Ver in the head as she grunted and sent them ascending through the sand as fast as she could until all five of them burst out onto the surface, “This…this is ridiculous…So much Wave…beyond what I can imagine…”

“Then…let’s see if we can calm it down with Void Domain.” Wu said, pushing through an opening in the bubble of Ver’s purple fluid when they walked outside and stepped onto solid surface before their feet started to sink in.

They were surrounded by smoke and a smell of carbon, when Wu looked down and saw the melted sand slowly solidifying, though the heat all around was unmistakable and unbearable.

“Huh.” Tonya poked her head out from the bubble as she reached her hand out into the air, and for the first time in her life, the air felt fresh and nourishing.

It’s true, in that explosion, the Wave stored within the river water was returned to the atmosphere. With a simple intent, Tonya created an orb the size of a basketball before she fired it off at the slope in front of her as a small crater formed from the impact before the explosion jetted sand in all directions.

“Yeah…” Tonya swallowed nervously, “Let’s…poison the blood of Necrovia…”