A Demigod may not meddle in the matters of mortals, but the working of the weather is in the realm of the divine.

~ The Treaty of Demigods

Isabella was angry. Something which was quite the rare occurrence as it took a lot to rile her up. But losing fifty of the soldiers under her command, minutes into the war, had been enough to stoke her fire.

The target of her anger wasn’t the Shogunate. Not really. They were at war; she couldn't really fault the bastards for wanting to kill her soldiers.

No, it was her fault for giving them the chance to do so.

Those men and women had entrusted her with their lives. Their families back home had entrusted her with their lives. They had trusted her to bring them back alive. And failing that, to ensure that each one of their sacrifices meant something. That their deaths cost the enemy dearly.

She had failed them. Their loss hadn’t harmed the enemy in the slightest. Their lives hadn’t been exchanged for a single one of their opponents’ or for some sort of strategic advantage. Glorious tales would never be told of their sacrifice and their children would not grow up hearing songs of their deeds.

She had failed them, but now, the Felidae scion had given her a chance to make amends.

A Demigod might not be able to meddle in the war of mortals, but the weather was hers to manipulate as she pleased.

Isabella unleashed the full might of her soul and the entire world seemed to change colour. Using her soul sense, she could sense the overabundance of water mana in the atmosphere. They were at sea; water was the most common element around. And even the massive twister that connected sky and sea was bloated with moisture from the clouds it had swallowed, and upon touching the surface, the water it had sucked upwards.

Reaching out with her soul, she bent this water to her will.

For a short moment, the hurricane seemed to stagnate as though frozen in time, then with a shrill whistle, it revolved with renewed vigour. The twister expanded as it drew in even more of the moisture from its surroundings. Then, reaching a critical point, it split into two, smaller storms.

The two new storms grew in much the same way as their parent under the influence of her Aspect of Absorbance, until swelling beyond a limit, they split. Two to four to eight to sixteen, they multiplied exponentially until the entirety of her Domain was seething with gigantic columns of whirling wind that extended even below the surface of the water, having merged with the vortices she had already created.

Suddenly, the Shogunate forces who had been advancing steadily towards the walls of the marine palace found themselves suddenly having to deal with a natural disaster. The tide of battle that had been flowing against Regiis, turned.

Aboard a Shogunate warship in the depths of the fog covering their fleet, alone in her cabin, a woman lounged on a pile of cushions with her eyes closed. She was petite – barely five feet tall and her midnight black tresses, that would extend to her feet if she stood, cascaded down the piled pillows like a dark waterfall. Two jet-black wings stretched out on either side from her shoulders. She lay there, leisurely smoking a pipe she held in one hand. Tendrils of bluish grey smoke curled up from its bowl towards the ceiling in lazy spirals.

Suddenly, her eyes shot open and she jerked upright. Her loose kimono slipped off one of her shoulders revealing the strip of white cloth she had used to bind her chest.

“Oh, now that has to be cheating!” she exclaimed.

Even though she spoke to an empty room, a deep, rumbling voice responded to her. “Unfortunately, it is not.”

“But…” protested the Tengu Demigod, “just look at her Domain. It’s nearly twice as strong as it was moments ago. We had her on the ropes and now she’s pushing back.”

“Be that as it may… she hasn’t violated the treaty. That typhoon was created by her soldiers… she just amplified what was already there.” The Ryu-o Demigod paused. “No, it isn’t her that is the problem, it’s that boy.”

The Tengu Demigod leaned back in her pile of cushions and took a long drag from her pipe. Blowing out a stream of smoke, she nodded. “That woman was shielding him with her Domain so I couldn't get a proper read on his soul, but seeing what he did, it is pretty clear that the message Kirin passed on about an infant Demigod wasn’t all nonsense.”

“He’s dangerous,” agreed Tenzin Ryu in his rumbling voice. “With the help of a couple of mind crystals and the coordination of a number of low-level mages, he managed to pull off something only a Tier 5 peak mage could accomplish.”

“He was synchronizing their spells,” Itsumi Tengu analysed. “He used his soul to merge them all together with the minimal amount of loss possible. If they’d just tried to stack their spells, the interference would waste the majority of the mana.” She took another agitated drag on her pipe and breathed out smoke with words, “I might be able to do that, you might be able to do that, that Regiis woman might be able to do that… but I didn’t expect this from a twenty-year-old brat. You’re right. He is dangerous.”

“Give him a few more years and he’ll be a thorn in our side. He needs to go,” said Tenzin. “Have your aerial troops focus on taking him out. I’ll monitor the battle on the sea.”

“Good.”